Holiday Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “What is this?”

  “Scottish shortbread. Elizabeth made it!”

  “What a clever girl.”

  “Not that clever, I’m afraid,” said Lucy, seating herself on the camelback sofa. “She’s been suspended from school.”

  “I can’t believe it,” said Rachel.

  “It’s true,” said Lucy, telling them the whole story. When she had finished, Miss Tilley clucked her tongue.

  “Zero tolerance sounds like a good policy for people who have zero common sense and zero intelligence. You tell Elizabeth she did the right thing, and she shouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Goodness sakes, rules are made to be broken.”

  Lucy chuckled. “It’s nice to hear you say that. I was beginning to have doubts myself.”

  “But what about school?” asked Rachel. “Two weeks is a long time. Won’t she miss a lot of classwork?”

  “Toby gets her assignments for her and she’s been keeping up at home. It’s kind of nice having her around the house, actually. She’s been doing a lot of baking and has started making herself a dress to wear on Christmas.”

  Rachel shook her head. “It seems like she got a rum deal to me. I’ll ask Bob to give Mr. Humphreys a call. He’s been known to become a bit more tolerant when he’s faced with legal action. The school committee hates to pay legal bills.” She stood up. “How about some tea to go with that shortbread?”

  When Rachel had gone into the kitchen, Miss Tilley leaned forward and tapped Lucy’s knee with her bony hand.

  “Elizabeth’s not the only one who’s being treated unfairly—what do you think about poor Dr. Cummings?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Lee asked me to see if I could find out anything, and I talked to Barney—he says it’s pretty much an open-and-shut case. They’re certain he did it.”

  “Nonsense. Steve Cummings has been taking care of my teeth for years. . . .” She pulled back her lips and tapped her yellowed incisors. “I still have all my own teeth, I’ll have you know, and that’s thanks to Dr. Cummings. I ask you, do you really think a man who has the patience to put up with an old horror like me would even think of committing murder? It’s just not in him. He’s a kind, good man.”

  “You only know him professionally,” argued Lucy. “He’s no saint. He left Lee and the girls and he was dating Tucker, who was only half his age. Isn’t it possible the situation got out of hand, and he lost control and killed her?”

  “This doesn’t much sound like the Lucy Stone I know,” observed Miss Tilley, taking a cup and saucer from Rachel. “What’s happened to that inquisitive mind of yours? Since when did you start swallowing the official line?”

  Stung, Lucy took a consoling sip of tea. Miss Tilley sure had a way of getting right to the heart of the matter. Wishing she knew the answer, she delayed by taking a bite of shortbread.

  “When it seems the only logical conclusion,” she finally said, but she had the uneasy feeling that Miss Tilley was right. Lately, it seemed to her, she’d been spending a lot of energy avoiding facts that didn’t fit rather than trying to work out the truth for herself.

  “Actually,” she found herself saying, “I do have another theory about Tucker’s murder—-but it’s so awful I haven’t even been able to think about it.”

  “What is it?” asked Rachel. Both she and Miss Tilley were leaning forward in their chairs, eager to hear.

  “Well, I found Tucker’s agenda—it had been missing. It turned out it was jammed behind a drawer in her desk at the day-care center. There wasn’t much in it, but there was a notation the Sunday before she died. Apparently she’d had a meeting with Lee.”

  “You think Lee killed her?” Rachel’s hand flew to her mouth. “I can’t believe it. Besides, that was Sunday. Tucker wasn’t killed until Wednesday morning.”

  “What if Lee met with Tucker on Sunday and begged her to give up Steve and Tucker refused,” argued Lucy. “That would give Lee a strong motive to kill her, wouldn’t it? She was desperate to get back with Steve. You saw how she treated Tucker at the cookie exchange.”

  Rachel bit her lip.

  “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” Miss Tilley nodded with satisfaction. “I knew it couldn’t be Dr. Cummings.”

  “It can’t be Lee, either.” Rachel shook her head. “Think of those two little girls. What would happen to them?”

  “I know,” agreed Lucy. “Hillary and Gloria. That’s why I don’t even want to think about it.”

  “Their father could take care of them if she went to jail.” Miss Tilley snapped off a piece of shortbread and popped it in her mouth. “I think you should go straight to the police with this information. Where’s the agenda now?”

  Lucy’s and Rachel’s eyes met. “It’s gone. Sue sent it to Tucker’s parents.”

  “That doesn’t matter. The police should consider all the evidence. You have a responsibility to tell them.”

  Lucy shook her head. “A minute ago you were telling me to think for myself. Well, I don’t think anything would be gained by making Lee the subject of an investigation. If Steve is really innocent, well, it will undoubtedly come out at the trial, and he’ll be acquitted.”

  “You’d leave the innocent little girls in the hands of a murderer?” Miss Tilley was shocked.

  “Well, if she did murder Tucker, it was only because she was desperate to save her family,” said Lucy. “Besides, I don’t have any real proof—just a theory. This time I’m going to mind my own business.”

  “Let the police earn their salaries, that’s what Bob always says,” advised Rachel.

  “Well,” snorted Miss Tilley. “I can only say how glad I am that I remained a single lady. Marriage apparently has a terrible effect on one’s morals.”

  “And it only gets worse when you become a parent,” added Lucy darkly.

  * * *

  As she drove home, Lucy listened again to the steady barrage of holiday commercials. She tried to change the station but it didn’t make any difference whether she listened to 102.9 or 107.5 or 98.8—it was all buy, buy, buy. Disgusted, she reached to turn it off, but paused when she heard the familiar strains of one of her favorite carols.

  As she sang along, she remembered that the community carol sing was that night. They’d go, she decided, the whole family. It was just what they needed to restore their Christmas spirit.

  Much to her surprise, everyone was agreeable when she presented her plan at the dinner table. Sara and Zoe loved any excuse to sing Christmas songs, Elizabeth was tired of being stuck at home, and Toby saw an opportunity to socialize with his friends. Even Bill agreed to give up an evening of channel surfing.

  “There’s nothing good on TV on Friday, anyway,” he said.

  Bill and Lucy took the Subaru, along with the younger girls, while Toby drove the truck, with Elizabeth for company. He hoped to hook up with his friends, in which case he would need his own transportation home.

  “Behave yourself,” Bill warned, as he handed over the keys.

  A light snow was falling when their two-car caravan arrived in town, and Christmas lights were twinkling on most of the houses. A Christmas tree had been placed on the porch roof of the general store, and a bonfire was burning brightly in the parking area out front. A crowd of people had already gathered and were singing, accompanied by Stan Pulaski, the fire chief, on the trumpet.

  “We three kings of Orient are . . .” was one of Lucy’s favorites and she joined in eagerly. She knew the words by heart, but the kids didn’t; somebody passed them a sheaf of paper with the lyrics.

  This was what Christmas was really all about, thought Lucy. Neighbors and friends gathered to enjoy old songs, raising their voices together to celebrate the season. She looked from face to face, familiar faces lighted by the glow of the bonfire, and felt a warm sense of fellowship. It was wonderful to be in this place at this moment, she thought, placing her hand in Bill’s.

  The general store faced the town green, an open space with grass and
a few trees that afforded the carolers a clear view of the little town: the main street lined with stores, all decorated with Christmas lights, and beyond, the harbor, where some of the fishing boats had also been trimmed with holiday lights. The restored Ropewalk stood next to the fish pier, its unique shape outlined with strings of twinkling white lights.

  Stan had played the first few notes of “Silent Night” when a sudden explosion rocked the ground they were standing on. Everyone looked up, there was a collective intake of breath. Flames were shooting from one of the narrow windows of the Ropewalk.

  Lucy saw Stan running toward the firehouse, clutching his trumpet to his chest. A few others, volunteer firemen, also ran to help. Moments later the scream of sirens filled the air as the fire engines roared out of the station and tore off down the street. The rest of the carolers stood rooted in place; watching in horror as the flames grew larger and smoke began to billow into the night sky.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Suddenly, they were all running down Main Street toward the fire. Everyone wanted to see the spectacle; it was the biggest thing that had happened since the sardine cannery fire some twenty years ago.

  “This is history being made right here,” Lucy heard one man tell his son. “You look and don’t forget and you’ll have something to tell your grandkids.”

  All Lucy could think about, as she ran along with the crowd, were the people inside the mall. With less than a week left to Christmas it must have been packed with shoppers. She remembered the clutter of stalls and the narrow walkways, not to mention the aged wood. It had all looked most attractive, but Lucy wouldn’t have wanted to be inside it in a fire. It wouldn’t take much smoke to turn the old building into a death trap.

  Holding tight to Zoe’s hand, Lucy followed Bill, hurrying to keep up with him. Toby had run ahead with his friends, Elizabeth had also joined a group of high schoolers. Sara ran along with her father.

  No one had had time to set up barricades, but the crowd didn’t advance past the edge of the Ropewalk parking lot, where the fire trucks were parked and the volunteer firemen were laying hose. There, you could smell the smoke and feel the heat of the flames that had now spread from a single ground-floor window to several more, including some on the second floor. People were streaming from the exits, holding scarves and handkerchiefs to their soot-blackened faces. Lucy spotted Franny and ran up to her, first making sure that Bill had a firm hold on Zoe’s hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Franny coughed and nodded in reply.

  “Can everybody get out?”

  “I think so.” Franny dabbed at her eyes. “It’s dinnertime, so there weren’t too many people, yet. Frank Crowell, he’s the manager, raised the alarm and told people to go to the exits. Do you see him?”

  Lucy and Franny scanned the faces of the people in the crowd looking for Frank, who was instantly recognizable because of his flamboyant handlebar mustache.

  When they failed to see him, Franny began asking who had seen him last.

  “He was behind me,” said a woman Lucy recognized. She had a stall selling stained-glass suncatchers and lampshades that she made herself. “I heard his voice, telling everyone to keep moving.”

  “Did he get out?”

  “No. I saw him go back,” added a tiny woman with curly white hair, who was clutching her Ropewalk shopping bag as if it were a life preserver. “He got us to the exit and then he turned back.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why.”

  Hearing this, Franny ran up to Chief Pulaski, who was giving orders through his megaphone. Lucy followed, but couldn’t hear what Franny was saying over the din of the sirens and the throb of the pumper truck’s diesel engines. She saw Pulaski shake his head, mouthing something to two new arrivals, volunteer firemen who were pulling on their gear. Lucy caught a glimpse of a head of thick red hair just before one of the men put on his helmet.

  By now, huge flames were leaping from the Ropewalk windows, bathing everything and everyone in a flickering red light. Now and then there was a popping noise; someone said it was window glass exploding from the heat of the fire. The parking lot was filled with fire trucks, hoses snaked everywhere, and in the distance sirens could be heard as fire companies from the neighboring towns of Gilead, Smithfield, Hopkinton, and Perry answered the call for mutual aid.

  Lucy watched as the two firefighters lowered their face shields and vanished into the burning building. The last thing she saw was the reflective letters on the backs of their coats. They had the same name: Rousseau.

  “Why aren’t they pumping any water yet?” she asked Bill.

  “It takes time to lay hose,” he said, as water started streaming from two, then three hoses. “Here it comes.”

  “Finally.” Lucy was clutching herself, her arms across her chest. She was holding her breath, waiting for the two Rousseaus to emerge from the building.

  They finally did, holding an unconscious figure between them, just as flames began to erupt from the roof and everyone had given them up for lost.

  EMTs rushed up with oxygen and a stretcher, and police officers began setting up sawhorse barricades, pushing everyone back to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

  Moments after the street had been cleared, a ladder track began moving very slowly along it, stopping so hoses could be shifted to minimize the damage of the heavy truck rolling over them.

  “They’ll never be able to save it,” said Bill, and Lucy realized he was right. The firefighters were now spraying water on neighboring buildings, the harbormaster’s office, and a row of shops that included Jake’s Donut Shack, a real estate office and a T-shirt shop. “This street’s so narrow the buildings are awfully close together,” he said. “It’ll be a miracle if the whole block doesn’t go.”

  As she watched, Lucy began to make out the faces of people she knew. Rachel’s husband, Bob, was one of the volunteer firefighters, so was Hank Orenstein, Juanita’s husband. When a ladder was extended from one of the fire trucks to the roof of the Ropewalk, Lucy gasped to see Hank begin climbing it.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked Bill.

  “Trying to vent the fire, I think. He’s going to try to break a hole in the roof.”

  “Oh my God. What if he falls?” Hank and Juanita’s daughter Sadie was Zoe’s best friend.

  “He’ll be careful.” Bill put an arm around her shoulder.

  “I hope so.” Lucy watched as Hank leaned from the ladder and swung his fire ax, she took a breath and choked on the smoke. What must it be like up on that ladder, so close to the fire? She could only imagine the heat.

  The street was now running with water, the red-and-yellow flames were reflected in the wet surface. The firefighters’ faces were gleaming with sweat; she saw one man lean against an engine, his chest heaving as he mopped his face. An EMT approached him, offering an oxygen mask, and he took it.

  All at once, it was too much for Lucy. She couldn’t watch anymore. It wasn’t just a spectacle, something to see. Real people’s lives were going up in smoke. She thought of all the individual craftsmen who had opened shops in the Ropewalk, all the labor they had put into making and marketing their wares. The Ropewalk was supposed to offer a new chance to people in the economically beleaguered town, now all those hopes and dreams were going up in smoke. Lucy turned away.

  “l can’t watch anymore,” she said to Bill.

  “Are you going home?” he asked.

  It was tempting. Their house was far from the fire. She could take a bath, make herself a snack, even go to bed with a book.

  “No.” She shook her head, watching as several more firefighters collapsed against the ambulance, waiting for their turn at the oxygen. Down the street, the clean, white light from the IGA’s plate-glass windows caught her eye.

  “I’m going to get some food and drink for the men—they need nourishment and fluids,” she said.

  Bill nodded and hoisted Zoe up onto his shoulders, where she perched like a litt
le monkey. Lucy hurried down the street relieved to get away from the overwhelming sights and sounds of the fire.

  When she approached the store, she saw the cashier, Dot Kirwan, standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, watching from a distance.

  “That’s a real shame, that is,” she said, nodding grimly.

  “All that work, all those high hopes,” agreed Lucy.

  “Don’t tell me you’re doing your Friday night grocery shopping,” said Dot. “I haven’t had a customer since the sirens went off.”

  “I thought I’d get some juice and stuff for the men—they’ve been at this for quite a while and they look like they need to refuel.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Dot grabbed a cart and pushed it over to the dairy case where she started filling it with gallon jugs of fruit punch and cartons of orange juice.

  Lucy took another cart and wheeled it to the bakery aisle, where she grabbed boxes of doughnuts and loaves of bread. A few aisles over she found big jars of peanut butter and jelly and added them.

  “Ring this all up—I’ll use my charge card, OK?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dot, raising her eyebrows. “Joe can take it off his taxes as a charitable donation.” Joe Marzetti was the owner, but Dot really ran the store. “I’ll just get a knife or two and we’ll be off.” She hurried over to the deli counter and grabbed some sandwich spreaders; as an afterthought she grabbed a package of paper cups.

  Pushing the cart back down the street toward the burning Ropewalk, Lucy felt better. At least she was making herself useful. The policeman at the barricade pushed the sawhorse aside when he saw them coming and they rolled their carts next to the ambulance. Dot passed out the juice while Lucy made sandwiches, using the child seat of the cart as a work surface.

  Up close, she saw the toll the fire was taking on the firefighters. One man’s helmet rolled onto the ground and she bent to pick it up, shocked to discover how heavy it was as she handed it back to him. Underneath their heavy slickers the men were sweating, and their faces were blackened with soot. Just walking in their heavy rubber boots and coats had to be an effort, and many of the men. were also burdened with tanks of air. Yet they scrambled up the ladders and hauled hoses around, never hesitating when they were given an order.