by Lee Harris
“The question is, did she shoot Ken? And if she did, what’s the connection between her and Dodie?”
“I may be the connection. I told Dodie I’d seen Tina outside the Buckley house on Labor Day. Dodie asked me for Tina’s name and where she lived. She may have wanted to ask Tina what her interest in Ken Buckley was. But I find it hard to believe she killed her.”
“So do I. For a lot of reasons. Springer told me Tina’s neck was broken. That’s not an easy thing to do. Of course, nowadays New York women take courses in self-protection, and maybe Dodie’s went one step further.”
I smiled but said nothing.
“Another thing is, she’s a young professional with her whole career ahead of her. She walked into that house last night and people saw her. She said her name aloud and people heard it. Killers don’t announce their arrival and ask if the victim is available. I mean, not if they have a brain in their head.”
“Maybe she just wanted to check out for herself what I told her, that Tina was around the Buckley house and then denied it.”
“So what did she find out from Tina that made her leave early this morning?”
“As usual, the question I can’t answer. She’s probably home by now. We’ll have to try to call her there.”
“Give Springer a crack at her first. She’s a suspect in a homicide, even if she’s an unlikely one. I’m going to give the Kleins a call and find out who their realtor is. And we gotta think about that missing earring.”
I was glad he’d volunteered to make the call. I’d never make a very good telemarketer; I hate calling strangers, and you have to do that a lot when you look into a homicide.
He came back with notes. “Here’s the Kleins’ phone number. Here’s their realtor, Bea Rice. I talked to her, but she’s not the one who actually showed the house to the renters. She was the listing agent. The one the groupers called was this one, Honey Quinn.”
“Honey as in honey pot?”
“Sounds like it. You want to give her a ring?”
“Why not?” I took the notes and went to the kitchen.
The voice that answered, “Island Homes, Honey Quinn speaking,” was deep with tobacco and perhaps something stronger.
“Ms. Quinn, my name is Chris Bennett and I’m spending a couple of weeks at a friend’s house in Blue Harbor.”
“Whose house, may I ask?”
“Max Margulies.”
“Oh. That’s a great house. You must be loving it.”
“We are. Ms. Quinn—”
“Honey, Chris. I’m Honey to everybody.”
I was “honey” only to my husband and it made me feel a little uncomfortable, but business is business. “Honey, I have some questions about the Klein house. It’s just across the street and down the—”
“I know where it is.” I could hear her exhale what was probably smoke. “What’s your question?”
“Do you remember which of those people called you looking for a place to rent for the summer?”
“Sure, I remember. Tina Frisch. Nice gal. Said it had to be Blue Harbor and big was better than small. Some reason you’re asking?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. I just wanted to know if she had any other requirements, you know, that it should be near this or that or any particular family.”
“Well, they’d all like to be on the water but that’s impossible most of the time.”
“How many houses did she look at?”
“Let’s see. She came out one weekend—I’d have to check my files to remind myself when—and looked at about five houses. She put a deposit down before she left.”
“Do you know why she picked this one?”
“It was the best house she looked at. The others were smaller or didn’t have as many bathrooms. The usual complaints.”
“How long did she want to rent for?”
“Hold on.” Small noises indicated a quick search. Smoke. “The Kleins wanted to rent from water on to water off—”
“What?”
“From last frost to first frost, you know, when you turn on the water in the spring and when you turn it off in the fall, but the group didn’t want it that long and they didn’t want to pay that much. So they negotiated it down to Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day and then they dickered and got this extra week. Till Friday. That’s tomorrow.”
“Do you remember her asking anything at all about the people who lived in Blue Harbor?”
More smoke. “Yeah. She asked the names of the neighbors.”
“Do you know why?”
“I think she wanted to see if she knew any of them.”
“Did she?”
“Sounded like she didn’t. So why all the questions?”
“Tina died, Honey.”
“What?”
“I think it happened last night. The police are investigating it right now. I got to know her a little, and some of the things she said made me curious.”
“Do the Kleins know?”
“I believe they’ve been informed. I’m asking you these questions because there seem to be strange circumstances associated with her death.” I tried to be as oblique as possible. I didn’t want to use the word murder.
“My God. This has never happened to me before.”
I didn’t bother mentioning that it hadn’t happened to Tina either, and what had happened to her was more serious and more permanent. “If there’s anything you can remember about Tina or the rental transaction, I’d be interested to know.”
“There was something,” the voice grated out. “I told you she asked about the neighbors? Well, when I gave her the names, she said something a little weird. She seemed pleased that she didn’t know any of them.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Something about wanting to keep to herself, being private. You know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“In fact—you know, it’s coming back to me. I think I remember what she said. It was something like, ‘Good. They’re all strangers.’ ”
—
“Sounds like we’re getting somewhere,” Jack said, after I’d told him what Honey Quinn said. “Finally. I was starting to think we had a million pieces that all fitted into different puzzles.”
I had had a similar feeling myself. “Tina had a reason for spending weekends in Blue Harbor. Somehow Ken Buckley was part of that reason. I keep remembering that hug that Eve gave her when they talked yesterday morning. Could they have been in something together?” I wasn’t really asking Jack for answers; I was thinking of questions that had to be answered, and we were both making notes in our idiosyncratic ways, Jack with his folded sheets of paper, I in my steno-type notebook.
“We talked about this before,” I said, “that Eve and Tina could have murdered Ken together. But who is Tina to Ken Buckley?”
“Or to Eve.”
“Or to Eve, yes. And it would be pretty hard to prove that Eve killed Tina. There have to be dozens of witnesses who’ll place her at Ken’s wake. And the last ferry is about when Dodie dropped in to see Tina last night.”
“So we could be dealing with two killers.”
I considered this. “Tina kills Ken and someone kills Tina for killing Ken.”
“At least that theory gives a motive for the second murder.”
“I suppose one motive is better than none.” I looked at my watch. Eddie would be getting up soon and I really wanted a swim in the freshwater pool. Getting to the bottom of a homicide was satisfying, but swimming in freshwater on a hot afternoon was a taste of heaven. “Jack, we need to talk to Dodie. Even if Springer has to talk to her first, she’s the only person who knows why she went to see Tina last night. I bet the Goodwins have her home number.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
“I’m going to call Jean Hill, the next-door neighbor, and see if she’ll give it to me.”
She gave it readily, having heard through the Blue Harbor grapevine about Tina’s murder. The Goodwins, she assured me,
already knew about it. I didn’t have to ask who had told them.
Mrs. Goodwin was talkative and inquisitive, and a short phone call stretched into a longer one, but I came away with Dodie’s phone number. Eddie had begun making sounds while Mrs. Goodwin was talking, and Jack had gone upstairs. I dialed Dodie’s number—it was a Manhattan one—and let it ring. An answering machine picked up and a man’s voice invited me to leave a message. I declined.
—
The three of us went to the pool and had a refreshing swim. It was almost empty, with no one there of school age, which made it easy to swim laps without running into a child. I could see there were advantages to visiting a resort when school was in session.
When I’d swum enough to make me feel ready to conquer the world, I took Eddie and let Jack have his chance. Jack is one of those natural strong swimmers who does two laps for every one that I do and he’s really a pleasure to watch as he cuts through the water, but I gave Eddie all my attention as he tried to propel himself with hands and legs moving furiously and no coordination at all. What was clear to me was that he loved the water as much as I did, and I knew my future held many summers at the Oakwood pool.
—
We had to walk past the Kleins’ house to get to ours. It was now about six hours since Tina’s body had been discovered. A crime scene investigation generally takes at least that and often much longer. In this case, the county people first had to come out to the island. I could see they had cordoned off the whole area along the side and back of the house. The yellow plastic tape read POLICE—CRIME SCENE endlessly, like the tape around the Buckley house. Danielle saw us and waved, turning her hand into a thumbs-down. I guessed she’d had to rehash her terrible story for Curt Springer.
Springer himself walked down the ramp just at that moment and called to Jack to wait. “Well, how are you folks?”
We said something innocuous and he went on. “Sorry I tore out of there this morning, Mrs. Brooks. All I heard on the phone was that there was a body.”
“I understand.”
“I guess you know Miss Murchison came to see Miss Frisch last night.”
“We heard,” Jack said. “Have you talked to her yet?”
“She doesn’t answer her phone and the neighbors haven’t seen her. Not that New Yorkers ever notice what their neighbors are doing anyway. I called her precinct in Manhattan to check it out.” He seemed impressed that he was dealing with a New York City precinct. “We’ve got the crime scene guys over at her Blue Harbor house right now picking up latents. There are plenty of prints on the gate back here and on the bike. I want to see if anything matches up with the prints in the house she’s been living in.”
“You figure her for a suspect?” Jack asked.
“She’s the last person who saw Tina Frisch alive. I’m coming around to consider her a suspect. What do you think?”
“Unless you find someone who saw her later, I’d say Murchison’s a possible. Any idea when the victim died?”
“Last night is the best anyone’ll say right now. They’ll do an autopsy tomorrow and then we’ll know for sure.”
“So it’s possible the body wasn’t found for nine or ten hours.”
“That’s what they’re telling me.” He looked at his watch. “The neighbor next door to Murchison saw her pulling a wagon to the ferry about seven this morning. You’d think she could get back to Manhattan in eight hours.”
“Maybe she had plans for the weekend,” I suggested.
“You never can tell, but if we don’t locate her pretty soon, I’ll have to put out an alarm for her car.”
I didn’t say it, but I had to agree that even six hours was more than twice as long as she needed to get from the ferry to Manhattan, especially after rush hour.
“What’s the story on the missing earring?” Jack asked.
“That’s something, isn’t it? One earring gone. They went over the whole area with a metal detector. No sign of it. Find that earring, you’ll find her killer.”
“Will you keep me posted on the prints, Curt?”
“Sure will. The crime scene boys’ll be taking all that with them when they leave tonight. Shouldn’t take too long to find a match.”
“Anything more on the Buckley homicide?”
“Well, I’ve got to believe this is related, don’t you think?”
“Looks that way,” Jack said.
“And I guess I owe you an apology, Mrs. Brooks. When you told me that Tina Frisch was at the Buckley fire with a fireman’s coat over her, I thought you might be on to something until I talked to Miss Frisch. She was adamant she hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen you, never saw a fireman’s coat in her life. Now it seems you may have been right.”
“Well,” I said, trying to be generous, “when you hear conflicting stories, you can’t believe them both.”
“Sorry I picked the wrong one in this case. What do you suppose she did with that coat?”
I had no desire to bring Chief La Coste into this mess, so I said I didn’t know. For all I knew, the chief had his own coat, as he had his own somewhat out-of-date uniform. Had he lent it to Tina? I couldn’t say. Had she taken a coat from somewhere else and dropped it off at his house? Impossible to answer.
We thanked Springer and walked home.
15
We played with Eddie on the living room floor until it was time for his bath and dinner. He babbled almost without stopping, as though he had something very important to tell us and we just weren’t getting it. He looked very intense, his face a small, very young version of his father’s. It gave me warm feelings to see how one generation inherited what was most important from the preceding one.
When we were able to talk, I said to Jack, “What would you think of my calling Sister Joseph and inviting her out for tomorrow and the day after?”
“Interesting idea. You thinking of her well-being or you want to see what she makes of this case?”
“Both. I know it’s a long drive from St. Stephen’s, but I bet she’s never been here and I think seeing a magnificent sunset is almost a religious experience.”
“You making up her excuses?”
“She’s clever enough to make up her own, and besides, she doesn’t need any. And the truth is, at this point what we know doesn’t make much sense, and except for interviewing Dodie, I don’t know where to look for new information.”
“Springer’s prints may give us some.”
“It won’t be conclusive, whichever way it goes. If Dodie’s prints aren’t anywhere around the Klein house, what does it tell us? That she didn’t touch anything there. We know she was there. That’s been confirmed by two witnesses. And suppose her prints are there. She could have helped Tina pull the bike out of the crawl space. It doesn’t mean she put Tina’s body inside.”
“So Murchison opens the gate and then says toodle-ooh?”
“Why not? They’re talking about something, Tina says she wants to take a ride somewhere, they walk back to the crawl space and say good-bye.”
“You should be a defense attorney.”
I smiled. “I have a busy schedule right now. I’ll leave that to you.”
“You’re right that it won’t be conclusive, but every little bit of evidence placing Murchison at the crime scene is bad for her.”
“Which she knows, Jack. She may specialize in writing wills and organizing estates but she knows the law. If she kills Tina and stuffs her body in the crawl space, she knows eventually someone will match her prints with the ones she’s leaving behind.”
“So there won’t be any to find.”
“So it means nothing. How do you feel about my giving Sister Joseph a ring?”
“Go to it. We’ve got an extra bedroom. She can have as much privacy as she wants, and if I remember correctly, she eats anything.”
“You remember right. Keep an eye on Eddie and I’ll make the call. I think I can catch her before evening prayers.”
—
“You’r
e not going to tell me you’ve stumbled on a body on Fire Island,” Joseph said, when she picked up the phone.
“Two bodies. How are you?”
We exchanged enough conversation to bring each other up to date on health and family. Then Joseph said, “Does that mean I can expect a visit?”
“Actually, no. It means I’m inviting you to come here tomorrow and stay over one night at least.” I thought I’d give her the option of longer or shorter. There was a Catholic church in a nearby town if she wanted to try it. “We have a comfortable extra bedroom with two beds and you’re welcome to bring one of the nuns along.”
“This is very tempting.”
“I’m glad. You can leave St. Stephen’s whatever time you want tomorrow, the earlier the better, and call me from the ferry. I’ll be there with a wagon to carry your luggage.”
“A wagon for my luggage! Chris, how much luggage do I need for an overnight stay?”
“As much as you want to take. Will you come?”
“I will be delighted.”
—
I had offered an invitation to a second nun in case she felt more comfortable not traveling and staying overnight alone. In the old days, sisters were not allowed to visit anyone in their homes. Visits were generally made only to family members, and the nun would spend the night in a nearby convent. During the years that I had visited my aunt on a regular basis, I had done so with the permission of the Superior. My aunt was family and also widowed, so she lived alone, and I had stayed with her in a room she considered mine.
Also, in times gone by, nuns traveled in pairs. Things are very different today but I wanted Joseph to have the option of doing what made her most comfortable. I would reimburse her for her travel expenses, as her allowance was very small, and I wouldn’t dream of asking her to pay for this trip.
I was thrilled she was coming. I told Eddie all about her as I bathed him. He had met her a couple of times, but not for a few months. As I soaped him up and rinsed him off, I tried to get him to say “Joseph” or at least “Joe.” He looked at me as though I were nuts and I got nowhere. But we would have time to work on it the next morning.