A Killer Halloween: A Mt. Abrams Mystery (The Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 3)

by Dee Ernst

  She reached over and took Viv’s glass off the table, took a sip, then made a face. “How do you drink that?”

  Viv smiled. “Very carefully. What about me?”

  “Do you know who bought the house behind Aggie?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t handle it, but someone from my office did. The Giancomos. He, she, and two grade school kids. They both work, I think. I helped them with the inspection, so they know me. I’ll call them tomorrow and ask them…what?”

  “If they saw or heard anything in Aggie’s yard. I doubt it. Emma’s noise machine was really loud, and that hedge is super thick, but we might get lucky.” I looked at Cait and Kyle. “You realize that getting Steve off the hook might turn the heat on under Doug again?”

  Kyle shook his head. “Doug did not do it. In fact, I’ll ask Doug if I can take a look in that garage, see if anything looks odd.”

  “Or maybe we can ask a few of Steve’s neighbors if they saw anything. Or anyone.” Cait finished her martini and waggled her glass. Viv graciously refilled it.

  “What are you going to do?” Shelly asked.

  I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want the divide between Sam and I to get any wider. But… “I’m going to talk to Steve. I need to hear his version of things, not Mary Rose’s.”

  “Sam won’t like that,” Shelly said.

  “Sam really won’t like that,” Cait said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I know.” I stared into my water glass, wishing it was something stronger. Then I looked wistfully at Viv’s shaker.

  “Come on, girl,” Viv said, grinning. “It cures what ails you.”

  I was looking at the shaker, trying to remember. “Viv, when you and James were sitting in front of the library Halloween night, how long did you stay there?”

  “Until we heard the sirens. We were talking.” She glanced at Shelly, who turned red.

  “The most logical route to Emma’s garden from Mary Rose’s house was right up Blackburn. Did you notice Steve come up that way?” I asked.

  Viv put her drink on the table and leaned forward, palms on her knees, frowning. “I’m not sure. I don’t know him that well. I might not have even recognized him. But Lou Lombardi was right at the corner, wasn’t she?”

  Right. Lou had one of my scavenger hunt stations, a booth in Upper Main Park, where kids had to stick their hands in all sorts of slimy, scary goop to capture plastic spiders. “You’re brilliant, Viv. I’ll call her. Lou notices everything.”

  Shelly snickered. “Everything male.”

  I kicked her. “Be nice. And Viv,” I drained the water out of my glass and held it out. “I think I’ll try a bit of that after all.”

  I texted Lou the next morning, and she called me back right away.

  Louise Lombardi worked on Wall Street, and could have probably lived in Manhattan if she wanted, but she’d been born in Mt. Abrams, and moved back after her divorce. She also had a place in Cape Cod where she spent most of June and July. She worked hard for her money and spent it freely. She also had no interest in men as far as relationships went. But as far as men in general, she was an unabashed supporter of the One Night Stand. She liked men. A lot.

  “So, what do you want to know? Did I see who?”

  I moved the phone to my other ear and settled into the cozy chair in my office. “Halloween night. Did you see Steve, Mary Rose’s brother?”

  “Yes. He and his wife, what’s-her-name, Kim, stopped and we chatted for a few minutes.”

  “Can you give me a time?”

  “Five-thirty-ish? Maybe? Kim got bored pretty quick and left him with me for a few extra minutes.”

  “How about later in the night? Like, after the hunt was over?”

  “Hold on.” I could hear her speaking to someone in her office, margins were mentioned. I was completely ignorant of most of what she did for a living, but I imagined she was very good at her job. “Okay. I’m back. Sorry. So, after? Yeah. I saw Steve. He was alone, wandering up Davis. We didn’t speak.”

  “When?”

  “About an hour later.”

  “Did you see him come back down?”

  “Nope. But I was packed up and gone in, like, ten minutes.”

  “Thanks.” I hung up. So, Steve had gone back up to see Todd, just as he said. How long would it have taken him to get to Emma’s house, realize Todd wasn’t there, and come back down? Surely, not ten minutes.

  I walked down to the Upper Park.

  I stood in the cold in the exact spot that Lou had set up her station on Halloween night. I checked my watch and began walking, across Blackburn to where Davis turned off to the left. I then walked down towards Emma’s house, trying to imagine Steve doing the same thing. Would he have been hurrying? If he had every intention of murdering Todd, that might have put some extra speed in his step. If not, he would have been taking a nice, leisurely stroll.

  I opted for leisure. I went past Emma’s porch, stopped in front of her closed garden gate, counted slowly to ten, then walked back.

  Twelve minutes. So Lou might have just missed him.

  I walked back to Emma’s house and stood in the middle of the street.

  Mt. Abrams has a lot of hills, but all the streets running east to west are relatively flat, and from where I stood on Davis Road, I could see all the way across to where Lou had set up her station, and all the way in the other direction to where Maggie’s house stood at the crook in the road. Steve would have been able to see as well, and he could have seen Todd walking away, towards the parking lot, using the easiest and most logical route. Did he see him? Did he follow him? And did anyone see him?

  I trudged back home, got in my car, and drove to the police station.

  Steve was surprised to see me. I was surprised they let me see him. He was also, understandably, confused as to what exactly I was doing there.

  “I need to hear from you exactly what happened that night,” I said to him. We were in a tiny room, across from each other sitting at a bare metal table with a very nice-looking officer standing silently in the corner.

  He sighed. “God, Ellie, it seems like I’ve told this story a hundred times in the past twenty-four hours.”

  That wasn’t good. I didn’t want him to just recite back whatever he told the police. “Okay, then, let me sort of guide you. Don’t answer automatically, Steve. Think about what you’re saying. So, whose idea was it to go to Mary Rose’s in the first place.”

  “Kim. She wanted to see Todd as a clown.”

  “She’d never seen him before?”

  He shrugged. “Yes. Lots of times. But she was insistent.”

  “Okay. What time did you get there?”

  “A little after four.”

  And what did you do?”

  “We sat on the front porch. I had a beer with Joe. Mary Rose was explaining the scavenger hunt.”

  “Did you see Doug or Todd?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Did they know you’d be there?”

  “Of course. We had talked about giving Todd a lift so Doug wouldn’t have to worry about his gig later that night, but Doug said it was fine.”

  “Good. Now, who decided it was time to get up and walk around?”

  “Kim.”

  “So tell me where you went. Think about it. Where did you stop first?”

  It was excruciating. First of all, I always thought that Steve was a perfectly nice man, but he had struck me as a little boring. Now, I realized he was very boring. His voice was a monotone; when he spoke, he looked down at his hands, and he sighed. A lot. Granted, we weren’t having a conversation under ideal circumstances, but…it was all I could do to keep from putting my head down and taking a quick nap.

  We finally got to the part of the narrative I’d been waiting for. “So, Steve, when you went up to see if Todd was done, you didn’t see him anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “Not even walking down the street? Towards the parking lot?”

  For
the first time, there was a crack in his composure. “ I told you, I never saw him.”

  “No, you didn’t tell me. You may have told the police, but not me.“ I leaned forward. “I walked from Mary Roses’ house, up Blackburn, and then to Emma’s. I know how long it should have taken you. But you were gone a long time, Steve.”

  “I told you, I stopped to talk to somebody.”

  “A man.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gray hair, with little kids.”

  “No. I mean, yes, he was.”

  I sat back. “What were they dressed as? The kids?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was the man wearing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Steve,” I said carefully, “this man is your alibi. You stopped and talked to him. Surely you noticed the kids.”

  He was quiet.

  “They would have been impatient, right? Wanting to go to the next house. Or wanting to go home and look at their candy.”

  He looked around. Everywhere but at me.

  “Steve?”

  “There was no man,” he whispered.

  I took a long breath. “Then you lied?”

  He nodded.

  “So, where were you all that time?”

  “I got to the end of Davis, turned the corner, and sat on that bench there.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were huge. “I didn’t want to go back to Kim. I knew she’d just start on Todd again, how we need to help him. She’d be mad at me because I didn’t find him.”

  “Did anyone see you? Sitting?”

  “No.”

  “So, there is no alibi?”

  “No. But I didn’t kill Todd. I didn’t want him dead, just out of our lives.”

  “But Kim would never let that happen, would she?”

  The door banged open, and Sam stood there, his lips in a tight line. “Officer, you can take Mr. Wyzinski back to his cell. Please.”

  Steve stood, opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head and left. Sam closed the door, and we were alone.

  “What are you doing here, Ellie? I told you to stay away.”

  “The last person who got to tell me what to do was my father,” I said, looking at him steadily. “And you’re not my father.”

  “You have no business being here.”

  “I’m just trying to get something straight in my mind. I think you have the wrong person.”

  “He has motive and opportunity. The weapon was found on his property. His alibi is so thin you could blow it away.”

  “He just told me he has no alibi at all. But I still think there’s something off.”

  “Yes, well, what you think is not relevant to this case. You have gone past meddling. You are now interfering with an investigation. You have to go.” His face was white. I had never seen him angry, not at me, anyway, and it sent a chill through my backbone.

  “You’re wrong,” I told him.

  “No, I’m not,” he shot back.

  I stood up and left, closing the door quietly behind me.

  After dinner, I texted Shelly that there was no need for her to try to find two kids and their grandfather. Viv called. The Giancomos had not seen or heard a thing. Cait came home late. She had gone directly after school to Doug’s and had talked to a few of the neighbors. No one had seen or heard a thing. The garage, Cait said, faced the street, and anyone breaking in could have easily been seen.

  “Unless it was the middle of the night,” I said.

  She shook her head. “ Maybe. Doug let a few things slip. Steve really had it out for Todd. Wanted him out of the house.”

  “I know. Things aren’t looking too great for Steve right now.”

  “So, maybe he did it?”

  I didn’t want to think about that. Mary Rose would be devastated, and although there were plenty of times I’d have loved to see her brought up short, I wouldn’t wish something like this on anybody. I also didn’t want to think about Sam. Yes, I had promised him I would stay away from murder. But he was wrong. Surely, that was cause for some sort of exemption, right?

  I was brushing my teeth for bed when I got his text.

  R u asleep? Can we talk?

  Yes. Where r u?

  The doorbell rang.

  I ran downstairs and reached over to turn on a light as I opened the front door. Sam stood there, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, head down.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  I let him in.

  He stood by the fireplace, turned away from me. The silence was killing me.

  “Did you buy that directly from Columbo?” I finally asked.

  He turned, looking surprised, then looked down at his coat and laughed. “No. But it’s a good look, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And while we’re on the subject, that’s an interesting look you’ve got going on.”

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing SpongeBob SquarePants jammie pants that I had bought for Tessa, but they had been mislabeled and were way too big for her, so I kept them for myself. I also had on a faded XXX-sized black T-shirt with the words “All first drafts of anything are shit” printed on the front in lime green.

  “Yeah, well, this is my going to bed outfit,” I said. “Unless I’m going to bed with you.”

  His mouth twitched. “Is that your opinion of first drafts?”

  “Pretty much. And Hemingway’s. Sit.”

  He did. “You’re right. Everything about this stinks. It wasn’t my decision to arrest Wyzinski. It came from above, and the logic was sound. It just feels completely wrong.”

  I sat across from him. “As crazy as it sounds, I think Doug is the killer.”

  Sam nodded. “Me too. Unfortunately, there’s no way Doug could fit in the timeline. There was no time for him to kill Todd and make it to Hoboken when he did.”

  The idea that had been cowering in the corner of my brain finally broke free. “Sam, what if Todd was killed earlier?”

  He sat back and rested his head against the couch cushion. “What are you taking about, Ellie? Todd was alive at six-thirty.”

  “No. Mr. Scarecrow was alive at six-thirty.”

  He lifted his head.

  “Mr. Scarecrow was wearing a mask,” I said.

  He sat up. “And?”

  I swallowed. “What if Doug killed him? No one saw Doug after he dropped Todd off. And Cait says that Doug claimed to be sitting up at the lake while Todd was putting in his show, but she and Kyle never saw him up there. So what if Doug put on the mask and gloves and pretended to be his brother? They’re built exactly the same, and with the mask on, who would know?”

  Sam opened his mouth to say something, shut it, then swore. “Yes. Of course.”

  “Mr. Scarecrow got a phone call from Doug. He said he needed a break and was gone for twenty minutes. When he came back, he started singing songs. Prebreak Mr. Scarecrow was doing magic.”

  Sam leaned forward and clasped his hands. “So, he tells Todd to meet him behind Aggie’s house. Why?”

  I shrugged. “Could be anything. To apologize?”

  “How would he get the hammer?”

  “The hammer was in the duffle bag, and Emma said he used it to bang open a table leg that was stuck. Probably the same leg that you fixed, remember?”

  He nodded. “Who used it? Todd or Doug?”

  “We can ask Emma. But Doug had access to it. He could have easily slipped it under his shirt or something.”

  “Right.” Sam rubbed his hands together. “So, Todd meets him, and they argue. That sound machine, wouldn’t Emma have turned it off?”

  “Probably while Todd was performing, yes. But if Todd weren’t there…”

  “The noise of any arguing would have been drowned out. Doug hits Todd, takes the mask and hat and gloves, walks around the corner and plays at Mr. Scarecrow. When all the kids are through, he dodges around to Aggie’s yard, drags the body on the porch, walks down the street, and drives to his Hoboken gig. C
ould it really be that easy?”

  “Why wouldn’t he just leave Todd’s body where it was?”

  Sam sighed. “I interviewed Doug twice. He obviously loved his mother. He was really concerned about what Todd was doing to her and her marriage. I think he put the body on the porch so it would be found right away, rather than have his mother have to wait through a search once Todd was found to be missing.”

  I felt suddenly cold. “Emma was right. She said Doug knew who the killer was. Oh, Sam, this is awful.”

  “Yes, especially since it will be very difficult to prove.”

  “What do you mean? All the pieces fit.”

  He smiled gently. “Do you realize how far-fetched it sounds?”

  I hugged myself. “Can’t you do anything?”

  “Well, the easiest thing to do would be to test the inside of that duffle bag for DNA. Once it’s established that the hammer was in the bag, then it’s easier to tie it to Doug.”

  “So, do that.”

  He leaned back again. “I can’t get a warrant for something like that if there’s already a plausible suspect in custody.”

  I shivered. “Man, that sucks. What are you going to do?”

  He shifted on the couch and opened up the front of his coat. “Well, I could start by warming you up.”

  I got up, walked over, then carefully straddled him on the couch. He wrapped his coat, and his arms, around me.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I snuggled in a bit more. “Yes. So you agree it’s a viable theory?”

  He nodded. “Yes. It makes more sense than the drug connection.”

  “Which was Doug’s idea, by the way. As was Eve. But seriously, how did he think anyone would believe her to be a killer? I bet she’s not even pregnant. As skinny as she was, believe me, I’d notice.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Oh. You saw Eve?”

  I tugged at his tie. “It was Shelly’s idea. She had the day off, and Viv wanted pizza. I can show you the text.”

  “And you went to Montclair because there were no pizza places closer?” he was trying not to smile.

  I pulled the tie off. “We like the train ride. Now, what if we can prove it was Doug under that scarecrow mask?”

  “And how exactly would we do that?”

  “Someone must have seen something.”