15 Minutes of Flame

by Christin Brecher

  “Nobody speak,” Andy commanded us. “Even you, Stella.”

  Sitting in silence, I tried to remember who had suggested we head into the brush to find Leigh. I put my head into my hands when I realized it had been me. I had handed a murderer the opportunity to kill.

  “Hello?” Leigh said again, now with a whimper.

  “Are you OK?” I said before I remembered I wasn’t allowed to speak.

  “I heard yelling and a fall,” she said. “Is everyone OK?”

  “We won’t be able to get you out from this direction,” said Andy, ignoring her question, “but the firemen are making headway to you.”

  “OK,” she said.

  We listened as the firemen slowly reopened the path my cousins had made. I hoped they would reach Leigh quickly. It was only a matter of time until she asked for Solder. If he were alive and healthy at the bottom of the well, he’d have surely climbed up by now.

  While we waited, I decided to disobey Andy’s orders the tiniest bit. I gathered my courage to look at the body. Not easy. I hate looking at dead bodies.

  Robert Solder was lying on his back, as straight as a log. His left arm was outstretched above his head, and the fingers on that hand were open. His right arm, in contrast, was over his chest, and his hand was clenched in a fist. It was a funny combination, both defensive and submissive.

  My eyes were drawn to Solder’s skinny neck and the rope around it. I thought that it wouldn’t have been hard to squeeze the life from him, especially if he were attacked from behind. A bruise was beginning to form in a ring around his neck, which made me feel a little sick, so I looked at his clothes. They were somewhat dirtier than when he had dropped down into the well, but the damage could have been from his climb as much as from a struggle with his killer.

  I could hear Andy taking photos of the crime scene, in anticipation of the firemen arriving and the activity that would ensue. Unfortunately, I didn’t think his photos would reveal much. The ground was already covered in footprints from all of us. Both Bellows and I had fallen, so the area beside the body had been contaminated as well.

  It wasn’t until the firemen had extracted Leigh that they made the final cut through the foliage to the well. At that point, Andy made each of us exit, single file. We were marched straight up to Old Holly’s house as the medical examiner passed us and headed toward the well.

  Ahead, I saw Leigh, who was sitting on the edge of an open ambulance in Old Holly’s driveway. She had a silver Mylar blanket around her, and she was crying hysterically. An EMT was standing beside her with a vial and needle, but she pushed him away.

  “The chief tried to talk to Leigh,” Andy said, coming up next to me, “but she can’t put two words together. I think they’re going to give her a tranquilizer and try again later.”

  “Don’t,” I said to Andy, my hand instinctively finding his arm. “Let me try to talk to her. Right now, I feel certain she’d rather talk woman-to-woman than to a man in blue.”

  Andy looked across the field at Leigh’s sobbing figure.

  “Alright,” he said. “But go strictly for comfort.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  Andy rubbed his hand over his short hair. He looked at the chief, who was now headed to the well.

  “And don’t get me in trouble,” he said. “If you can, see if she heard Solder climb up the well. Or if she spoke to him.”

  “Or if she pushed over the tree so she could kill Solder without us seeing?” I said.

  He nodded in agreement.

  “That too,” he said. “Anything you can get on a possible motive, but tread lightly.”

  “I’ll need my phone back.”

  “Why?” said Andy.

  “Girl things?” I said.

  “You’ll have to do better than that, Wright,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll have to google something with her,” I said. “Like Solder’s family or something.”

  “Not your best,” he said, “but here.”

  I took my phone and headed toward Leigh. As I walked to the ambulance, I made one quick call to my cousin, Kate, who works at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

  “Hi,” said Kate when she picked up. “I’m starting such a long shift, and I’m trying to cut down on coffee. Can you hold some of those pumpkin-spiced latte candles for me? I’m thinking the aroma might trick me into thinking I’ve had some coffee.”

  “I don’t think it will work, but it’s worth a try,” I said. “Meanwhile, I need your help. I found a dead body.”

  Kate is a woman with a serious demeanor. Her greeting about the coffee was as close to stand-up comedy as she got. I could imagine her pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “What happened this time?” she said.

  “I don’t know yet,” I said. “His name is Robert Solder. The body is still here, but when it gets to you guys, let me know if there’s something interesting I should know. There’s free pumpkin-spiced latte candles with a custom espresso shot aroma in it for you.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” she said.

  I hung up as I reached the driveway. Ted and Docker’s truck was parked there too. Once again, I considered how my proposal to excavate the well had gone so wrong.

  Ted lowered his window.

  “We heard the news. The police called us back to check out the work we did,” Ted said. “They seem very distracted by how the tree fell.”

  “Why?” I said, confused.

  “You got me,” said Ted. “I swear none of the trees was in any sort of precarious state when we left. And there’s no way anyone could time the falling of a tree to hit the lady.”

  “All that means is that no one was trying to kill Leigh,” I said.

  “Still don’t know what that has to do with us,” said Ted.

  “Because if someone planned to fell the tree to block our access to the well in order to kill Solder, it would suggest premeditated murder.”

  I left my cousins and walked over to the ambulance, wondering who would have planned to kill Solder.

  Leigh was seated at the edge of the truck with a box of tissues, which was doing little to mop up the flood of her tears. When she saw me, she looked as if she wanted to say something, but the words could not come out. Instead, she lifted a shaky hand and crumpled tissue to her nose.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  Leigh pulled her blanket around her.

  After a moment of silence, I ventured a question.

  “How did you meet Solder?” I said.

  She smiled, and I felt I had started in the right place.

  “I was his teaching assistant,” she said. “It wasn’t a creepy power-play thing on his end. We were not that far apart in age. Compared to the men who were knocking on my door, he was a solid guy. He took his work seriously, and the passion he had for his craft took my breath away. And it spilled over. I mean, he was not your usual let’s have a glass of wine and get to know each other kind of first date. We went to a restaurant in Boston where we were like the youngest people by decades. I think he must have looked up how to impress a lady. He barely spoke the whole evening, but then when he dropped me home, he gave me the most passionate kiss. And the next day, a dozen roses without a note arrived at my door.”

  She wiped her eyes, but she was calmer now.

  “We’ll have to contact his family,” I said. “Are you close to them?”

  She shook her head.

  “His father passed away. They were close. His mother has dementia. She’s in a nursing home. It’ll be a strange blessing that she won’t be able to connect the dots. He has one older sister, but she’s married and lives in Australia. It was mostly just the two of us.”

  “What about work people?” I said.

  “Of course,” she said. “But I wouldn’t call them friends so much as colleagues. I dealt with our social lives. Solder didn’t care much about people. He didn’t care much about fame or fortune. Just the work. The mystery. The
puzzle.”

  I nodded. We sat for a few moments, once again in silence, before I continued with my questions.

  “I know this is hard,” I said. “But can you tell me what happened down in the well?”

  I wasn’t sure if Leigh would answer, but after struggling with her emotions for a bit, she looked at me.

  “When the walkie-talkie died,” she said, her voice catching on the last word, “Robbie was much more interested in the body than in talking to you guys. He got on his knees and started examining the girl, so I decided to switch out the walkie-talkie. I just can’t remember what happened after I got out of the well.”

  “If you close your eyes,” I said, “maybe you could remember.”

  Her chin quivered.

  “I can try,” she said.

  She wiped her eyes once more and then closed them. She looked scared, but brave.

  “When you climbed out of the well, did you see anyone?” I said. “Maybe by the tree that fell?”

  “I thought I might have seen a deer run away,” she said.

  “Before the tree fell, did everything look like it did when you’d descended?”

  Leigh shrugged.

  “I guess,” she said. “But then the tree fell over, and I was trapped.”

  “What happened after that?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  I wondered if she was blocking out the events, since they were so painful to recall. If she was telling the truth and had nothing to do with the crime, I realized that the more time that passed, the easier it would be for her to bury the memory.

  “Can you describe what you saw after you were trapped?” I said.

  “There were leaves and branches all around me,” she said. “One big one pressed against my arm. I wasn’t sure what happened, then I heard you calling my name.”

  I was still interested in why she’d stayed put.

  “Did you try to break free?” I said.

  “I was afraid to move at all,” she said. “I tried to stand up, but immediately I knew I couldn’t, so I just sat there. You all told me that you’d come to get me, so I tried to stay very still. My knees began to ache a little from the position I was in. And I felt sleepy.”

  “Did you hear anything?” I said, accepting her explanation for now. “Any signs of struggle?”

  She opened her eyes, her breathing becoming sharp and labored.

  “No,” she said. “Did I pass out when Robbie was murdered?”

  The EMT looked around the truck, and I saw he still had the vial in his hand. I waved him away. The last thing we needed right now was for Leigh to take a tranquilizer. She was upset, to be sure, but she seemed to remember the events better than she thought she did.

  “I think you might have fainted,” I said, rubbing her arm until she composed herself again. “Solder probably climbed up the well when he heard us calling for you. We were making a lot of noise.”

  Leigh closed her eyes again. I could see that anger now replaced her fear.

  “I heard you all walking through the forest,” she said. “Everyone was shouting. At one point, I heard the museum guy, Bellows, call my name. He asked if I could see anything from where I was sitting.”

  I did not remember hearing Bellows say this to Leigh, but his question might have come when I’d left the path and headed in the wrong direction. I wondered if Bellows, in asking the question, had been trying to make sure no one could see him attack Solder. Of course, Fontbutter might have heard her answer too.

  “I did hear a lot of noise,” she said. “A lot of rustling about. A lot of noises as you all tried to find me. Then I heard a few heavy falls.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at me.

  “The chief told me you fell beside Robbie,” she said. “It must have been horrible.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” I said. “You said you heard a few falls. Can you think how many?”

  Leigh shook her head.

  “The sounds were confusing,” she said. “Sometimes I couldn’t tell where they were coming from. I felt trapped. As if I were in a box.”

  I remembered my own confusion over the direction of sounds and nodded to her, reassuringly.

  “I know the police will ask you this,” I said, “but it might be easier to tell me. Do you know if Solder was involved in any criminal activities? Or if he had any enemies?”

  Unexpectedly, Leigh laughed.

  “Solder was a genius,” she said, “and he was quickly able to solve the riddles that stumped many of our colleagues. Our peers might have begrudged his talents, but often they benefited from them. And the last time we spoke, we were quibbling over batteries.”

  They had been quibbling over more than batteries, but I did not let on that I knew that.

  “Who would want to kill him?” she said.

  I was wondering the same thing.

  “This might sound strange,” she said, “but I want to finish the job here. I want to go back down the well, to where Solder and I were last together. There’s still work to be done. I’d like this excavation, and Fontbutter’s film, to be in his honor.”

  “Stella?” said Andy.

  He was standing at the doorway to Old Holly’s house, but he motioned slightly toward the well, where I saw both the chief and the ME heading up the field. My time was up.

  “One more question,” I said, slipping off the edge of the ambulance. “Do you have photos of Nancy Holland’s body or any of the items you found?”

  Specifically, I was thinking about the map.

  “No. Normally that would have been my job,” she said, “but after I set up the lights, I headed up the well. I assumed I’d have time for photos when I returned. As for Robbie, he didn’t stop to document anything when he was working. He thought it broke his flow. Should I have taken photos? Would it have helped find his murderer?”

  Leigh began to cry again, and this time her emotions got the best of her. The EMT came around the truck again with his syringe, and Leigh stuck out her arm without having to be asked.

  I headed to the house.

  Everything Leigh had said seemed honest and logical enough, except for one thing. I thought about her interest in getting back to work so quickly in light of the argument I’d heard between her and Solder on the way down the well. From what I’d learned, he certainly did not appreciate Fontbutter’s arrival. I doubted he’d have considered a posthumous connection to the producer as an honor. I also realized that with Solder gone, Leigh might now have her opportunity to move into the limelight. Especially if she could star in a Netflix special.

  Chapter 10

  “I told you to leave well enough alone,” Old Holly was saying to Agnes when I entered the living room of his house a few minutes later. Before I could say hello to him, he stormed out of the room and into his kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him.

  The Candleers were seated on Old Holly’s sagging sofa, under a bay window at the far side of the room. They clucked among themselves over Old Holly’s rude behavior. Fontbutter was staring out of the window at the other end of the living room, looking at the police and firemen scouring the area for clues. Bellows was pacing in the dining room, looking nervous. Very nervous.

  I stepped forward into the living room, but Andy interceded, cramping my style.

  “How’s Leigh?” he said.

  “I don’t know how much help she’ll be to you,” I said to him. Nobody was looking at us, but I spoke quietly. “If she’s telling the truth, she says she heard noises, but could not tell who made them or what they represented. Could have been any one of us, or the killer. You’ll need to contact his sister in Australia about the death, but otherwise Robert Solder kept to himself. His world was Leigh and forensic anthropology. No enemies she could think of. In fact, I have a feeling that a few of the trickier cases in the forensics anthropology world might not get solved now that he’s gone. From Leigh’s perspective, his colleagues considered him a genius. The only thing I don’t
like is her eagerness to get back to work.”

  “People have a lot of different ways to deal with grief,” said Andy as he pulled his ringing phone from his pocket.

  “Hi, sweetie,” he said into the phone. “Hold on a sec?”

  I assumed he was speaking to his girlfriend, Georgianna. He put his phone on his shoulder to muffle the sound and looked back at me.

  “I’ve got to take this,” he said. “Can I trust you to lay low? The chief has a lot of questions for everyone.”

  “I was going to chat with Fontbutter and Bellows,” I said.

  There had been no arrests, but at this moment Old Holly’s house was as good as a detention cell for all of us. As a fellow suspect in what was now the Old Holly jailhouse, I hoped a sense of camaraderie would enable me to learn something from my fellow inmates.

  “I don’t like the idea of you talking to them before the chief joins us from the murder scene,” he said. “Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble. I’ve got my own problems to deal with.”

  I knew we had different ideas about what my getting into trouble might look like, so I wasn’t going to pick a fight. Instead, I gave him a wink and then crossed my arms. He looked confused by my two opposing actions.

  “I’m not talking to you about anything without my lawyer,” I said, a decibel higher than necessary. My goal was to give the impression to the others assembled that Andy had been hassling me about the case, especially since I had been seen speaking to Leigh. There was no need for anyone to know that Andy and I were trading information. I didn’t want to risk losing anyone’s confidence.

  He matched my glare with a respectable one of his own and then stepped away.

  “I told you I’d call you back.” I heard him say to Georgianna. For the second time that day, I realized I was in the uncomfortable position of overhearing strained words between lovers. Listening to Solder and Leigh quarrel had been awkward, but also, frankly, interesting. Especially given how events unfolded. I did not, however, want to hear any details between Andy and Georgianna. We live in a small town, and sometimes you need to maintain boundaries in order to keep the balance between everyone. Like a good family might. Fortunately, I saw Cherry looking at me.