Stranger on the Shore

by Josh Lanyon

  Mrs. Truscott, the one-woman welcome committee, opened the mud porch door to his tentative knock. Her lips parted but then she folded them tightly. He understood her dilemma. As irritating as it was to be rushing to answer doors, she would find it more aggravating were he to waltz in as though he was a member of the family. And in fact, it was for Mrs. Truscott’s benefit that he was still knocking and requesting admission even after Jarrett had given him the run of the place.

  “They’re still at breakfast,” she said grudgingly.

  “Okay. Actually I was hoping to have a look at the nursery. If it is still the nursery?”

  Her dark eyes got a strange, faraway look as though she was looking inward at something troubling. She said, “It’s still the nursery. But no child has slept there since.”

  “I thought it might be less...I thought maybe it would be simpler if I asked you to show it to me.”

  Mrs. Truscott’s eyes narrowed, but maybe she realized that he was up to nothing more sinister than trying to spare Jarrett the pain of walking into that room.

  “All right then,” she said. “Come with me.”

  He followed her into a kitchen that was roughly the size of his entire apartment. The room was very warm after the cold spring air and it smelled wonderfully of baked bread and coffee and bacon. Maybe he was making a mistake forgoing breakfast at the main house in favor of cornflakes.

  Mrs. Truscott was moving briskly so Griff only had a quick impression of towering shelves laden with old china and gleaming pots and pans, stacked stainless steel ovens like you might see in a restaurant, an industrial-sized freezer, and sinks large enough to bathe in. A young, very round and very short woman in what looked like army boots and an apron stood at a table twice the size of most kitchen islands. She was flattening dough with a rolling pin, but she looked up and spared Griff a brief smile.

  “This way,” Mrs. Truscott said as though she expected him to try and snitch a cookie.

  Mrs. Truscott was moving fast for a woman of her age—granted, it was difficult to pinpoint what that exact age might be, but she was not young. Clearly she wanted to get this trek up marble staircases and down walnut paneled halls over as quickly as possible. In a weird way, so did Griff. In fact, he had put off seeing the nursery for this very reason. He wasn’t sentimental, but he wasn’t insensitive either. Something about seeing this room, the actual crime scene, made him uncomfortable.

  He puzzled over it as they hurried along. He was missing a good opportunity to ask Mrs. Truscott some questions about the household staff back then, but he couldn’t seem to think of anything. All he could concentrate on was his own growing unease.

  For God’s sake, he wasn’t going to have another anxiety attack over this, was he? He’d seen a photograph of the room—the same photograph over and over in all the magazines and newspaper articles—so he knew full well there was nothing disturbing to see. Certainly no blood spatter patterns, no crime scene outline, no...nothing. Those things didn’t unduly upset him anyway.

  It was just a room. A room no longer in use.

  They stopped before a closed panel door. The surface was dark glossy wood. The glass knob looked like very pale sea glass. Mrs. Truscott glanced at Griff and then away.

  “They left everything just as it was,” she said. Her voice sounded strained. She opened the door.

  His first impression was of sunlight. Bright spring sunlight cascading through large windows and glinting off the brass mobile of tiny galleons cresting the sudden disturbance in the air. Warm sunshine bounced off the wooden floorboards and fluffy sheep-shaped rugs. The furniture was heavy and old-fashioned, but it had been repainted in cheerful white and pale yellows and greens—all but the walnut crib, which was clearly an heirloom. In fact, every piece in the room was probably an heirloom, but only the crib had been left untouched.

  “Chloe slept in the crib,” Mrs. Truscott said. “Brian’s bed was over here.”

  Griff turned to the small bed with its pseudo-pirate ship frame, but he barely registered more than the amiable Jolly Roger over a headboard that looked like the miniature stern of a galleon.

  He was still absorbing Mrs. Truscott’s words. “Chloe was in the room that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “She was in the room, lying in her crib when Brian was taken?”

  “Yes.”

  Griff stared at Mrs. Truscott. “But that was never in any news report or article.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “But the police had to know?”

  “I have no way of telling what the police did or didn’t know,” Mrs. Truscott said tartly. “Chloe was in her crib and Brian was in his bed.”

  This was surely a vital piece of information, and yet Griff couldn’t seem to see its relevance. The kidnapper had the choice of two children and had taken Brian. Was that because an infant was more trouble? But trouble was relative. From one perspective an infant was less trouble than a small, active boy. And if the original intent had never been to return the victim, then which child was more trouble was irrelevant.

  Why Brian and not Chloe?

  Surely the answer to that would go a long way to identifying the kidnapper?

  Griff slowly circled the room. There was a fireplace and a rocker in one corner. A toy box shaped like a treasure chest sat at the foot of Brian’s bed. A gigantic hutch was filled with picture books and stuffed animals and other old-fashioned toys like tops and jack-in-the-boxes. A sailboat the size of a small chair rested beside the window seat. One wall at the end of the room was covered in old-fashioned white-and-yellow stripes. The other walls were painted white—with the exception of a full-sized mural of the ocean. Colorful fish and dolphins swam and frolicked on the painted turquoise waves.

  “She painted that,” Mrs. Truscott said.

  And Griff had no doubt “she” was Gemma. It was interesting how everyone spoke Gemma’s name in a certain respectful tone of voice, as though she had been the victim, as though she had been the one who had never returned that night.

  But that was the truth, wasn’t it?

  Brian’s parents had been victims every bit as much as Brian. And yet no one really talked about Matthew. It was always “Gemma” or “she” in that hushed tone as though everyone was eternally attending Gemma’s funeral.

  The focus of the mural was a giant and genial-looking dark green sea monster. Its wide smile revealed many, many sharp white teeth, but his big purple eyes were kind and friendly. The pupils of his eyes were two stars...

  Griff reached out to steady himself on the hindquarters of a giant wooden giraffe. He felt as though a great wind were rushing through his head, the roar of a hundred howling voices growing louder and louder, coming closer and closer.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mrs. Truscott’s voice was sharp, jerking him back to the present.

  Griff opened his eyes. “Nothing.” He said again, more firmly, “Nothing’s wrong.”

  But just for a moment it had reminded him so strongly of his own...it had been so easy to picture...it seemed so real.

  What had seemed real? What did that even mean? He wasn’t sure. The feeling was fading as suddenly as it had swept over him. He was starting to identify too much with Brian. Empathy was one thing. He wouldn’t be able to do his job if he lost his ability to preserve a neutral distance.

  Mrs. Truscott was staring at him, her expression one of surprise and wariness.

  Griff managed, “I guess it’s just easy to imagine...”

  She made an impatient sound. “Imagination is what gets people into trouble.”

  Too much imagination, he could hear his mother’s voice as clearly as if she was standing there with them. He retorted, “Imagination is also what allowed men to walk on the moon.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Mrs. Truscott s
aid. She was still watching him like there was something wrong with him, as though she could see right inside his head.

  He made an effort to get back to business. “Was the household staff a lot bigger in the old days?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  She was always going to be a hostile witness. In fact, the only reason why she didn’t walk away now was because Jarrett had ordered everyone, family and servants alike, to cooperate with him. That, and having brought Griff up here, he was in a sense her responsibility.

  “How many people on staff now were working for the Arlingtons back when Brian was taken?”

  “Me and Newland. I’ve got a couple of girls who come in every day but they weren’t here back then. Cook—Molly Keane that is—has been working for the family about two years.”

  Griff gave the giraffe’s hindquarters an absent pat and walked over to the toy shelf. He could feel Mrs. Truscott’s gaze like a physical weight. Was there a Mr. Truscott? Was Mrs. Truscott a completely different person behind closed doors? You could never tell about people.

  He glanced at her. “What do you remember about that night?”

  She raised her chin as though he had challenged her. “Almost nothing. It’s the next day I remember. The police and the reporters and everything that followed.”

  “Did the Arlingtons have a nanny? I’ve never been able to tell from the news reports.”

  “No. Mrs. Arlington took care of Brian herself. She didn’t believe in handing her son off to another woman’s care. She said those exact words many times. She wanted Brian to have what she called a normal upbringing.”

  “Did Chloe have a nanny? Michaela couldn’t have been more than a kid herself.” Not to mention the fact that nothing he had seen or heard of Michaela so far led him to think she was the maternal kind.

  Mrs. Truscott hesitated. “No.” She pressed her lips together as though to keep from saying more.

  “Was Michaela a good mother?”

  “It’s not for me to judge.”

  “Was Gemma a good mother?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Truscott said at once. She seemed to struggle inwardly before saying, “Miss Michaela was young. It was natural for Mrs. Arlington to take care of both children. She loved children.”

  There were a number of possibilities here, but Griff focused on what he believed was the key question. “The night of the party. If there was no nanny, does that mean no one checked on Brian after he was put down for the night?”

  It wasn’t a criticism, but the housekeeper said defensively, “Mrs. Arlington checked on both children after midnight. That was when we learned Brian was missing.”

  In actuality, at least according to what Griff had read, Gemma hadn’t checked on Brian until one forty-five in the morning. That still wasn’t a criticism; he could see no reason why she should have been hovering over her child’s bed. Though he had no doubt she’d been eaten alive with guilt because of her failure to do so.

  Mrs. Truscott seemed to follow his thoughts because she pointed to the dresser next to the crib. “The baby monitor was right there. Mrs. Cameron—she was housekeeper back then—could hear if either of them cried. She had me look in on them early in the evening. They were sleeping.”

  “Early in the evening when?”

  “Ten o’clock or so.”

  “Is it true the former butler, Mr. Tuppalo, hired Odell Johnson?”

  “Yes.”

  “His daughter still lives locally, doesn’t she? Tuppalo’s daughter, I mean. May Chung?”

  “Yes.”

  “And her husband’s name is Bill?”

  Mrs. Truscott frowned. “Charles.”

  “Charles, right. What did you think of Johnson?”

  “I didn’t see much of him. Johnson lived over the garage. He had his meals there.”

  “Were you surprised when he was arrested?”

  Mrs. Truscott hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She seemed to weigh and then discard a couple of replies before saying reluctantly, “He didn’t seem like the type.”

  No one ever did. That was something Griff had noticed working the crime beat. No matter how surly, unsocial, even openly hostile someone was, when they did finally snap it still usually came as a surprise to everyone else.

  “Did you ever think that maybe the police got the wrong man?”

  Her throat moved. “The money was under the tool shed in the place where he was living. He admitted to writing the ransom note.”

  Griff asked carefully, “This is completely theoretical. If Johnson wasn’t involved, did you ever have a suspicion—”

  “Of course not! What a thing to ask!” She sounded almost frightened.

  No, she was frightened, he realized. And that meant two things. She did suspect someone else of being involved in Brian’s kidnapping. And the person she suspected was a member of the family.

  Chapter Ten

  “I wanted to write a book,” Benjamin Copper said. “But not only did the Arlingtons not authorize it, their lawyer threatened to slap me with three different lawsuits.”

  He was laughing, so maybe it wasn’t too much of a sore spot. Copper, who had covered the kidnapping for the Oyster Bay Runner, was in his mid-fifties. A roly-poly man with silver hair cut in an early Beatles style. He wore a white collarless shirt and bell bottom jeans. He’d arrived for their lunch meeting in a beat-up Volkswagen. Even their meeting place, Copper’s suggestion, was a funky diner straight out of the sixties. The place was called Coffee Shop and it was located in a strip mall in Plainview.

  “Was that Pierce Mather?” Griff asked, reaching for his grilled cheese sandwich. One thing about the Coffee Shop, maybe they didn’t do French dip, but they knew how to make a mean grilled cheese. And the fries were great too.

  “Thomas Mather, his old man. The guy was a polar bear. Although the son isn’t much better, as I’m sure you’ve had opportunity to find out. Anyway, ask me whatever you want. Just spell my name right. Twice the AP credited Benjamin Cooper.”

  “You covered the story from the very beginning, right?”

  “Yep. I was listening to the police scanner that night. I do that the nights I can’t sleep. I showed up at Winden House with the police. Which is how I managed to get inside before anyone realized who I was.” He winked at Griff and speared a chunk of chicken in his chopped salad.

  “I’ve read all your articles. Would you just walk me through everything you remember from that night?”

  “Sure.” Copper put his fork down and sat back in the booth. “We got there about two-thirty in the morning. Believe it or not, the party was only just winding up. Nobody but the family knew the kid was missing. There were all these would-be flappers and swells in straw boaters staggering out of the sunken garden to find the place crawling with cops. It was pretty much the worst-possible-case scenario for finding Brian. No one could pinpoint when he’d disappeared, and the place was wall-to-wall strangers. There were over a hundred invited guests and half as many non-invited guests, and most of them in fancy costumes.”

  Griff glanced up from his notepad. “Party crashers?”

  “Always. In those days, everybody went to the parties the Arlingtons threw. So you had the guests, invited and otherwise, and then in addition to the household staff, you had the caterers, which just happened to be a company the Arlingtons hadn’t used before. You had the musicians.” Copper shook his head. “You had a hell of a lot of people inside and out of the house all night long.”

  “That clarifies a lot right there,” Griff said. “What I don’t understand is why there wasn’t any kind of security presence?”

  Copper laughed. “It would never have occurred to the Arlingtons they needed security. That wouldn’t be quite nice would it? All those nasty men with guns?�
� Copper shook his head. “They don’t have security now, as far as I know. They have security systems, I guess. Well, I know that for a fact. If someone had gone for one of the safes or one of the Monets that night, all hell would have broken loose. But the heir apparent could be tucked under someone’s arm and carried out like a football—and nobody was the wiser.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  Copper shrugged and picked up his fork. “The Arlingtons live in a different world from you and me. Hell, they don’t even live in the same world as most rich people.”

  The waitress came by and topped off Copper’s coffee. They flirted amiably for a minute or two, she replaced Griff’s empty glass with another vanilla Coke and moved to the next booth.

  Copper said, “The other issue, and I personally don’t think the cops can be blamed for this, is it took everyone a while to realize the kid hadn’t just wandered off. He apparently used to do that, so the initial fear was he’d fallen into the pool or a pond or a stream or was lost in the ornamental woods they have out there. The focus was on searching the grounds. Initially nobody was thinking kidnapping.”

  “Until the ransom note came?”

  “Yeah. The ransom note arrived around noon the following day. By then everyone was worked up into a frenzy. The mother was convinced the boy was dead, but then the note arrived and that put a more sinister light on the situation, but it also gave hope that maybe Brian was okay.”

  Griff said, “Am I wrong? It seemed to me that the tone of your articles was...”

  Copper said, “I was in the minority, but I was never convinced Johnson was lying. For one thing, if he did kidnap Brian, you’d think he’d come up with a better story.”

  “Criminals aren’t always the smartest guys in the room.”

  “You’re right about that, and Johnson is definitely no genius. Even so, I don’t know. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I believed him, but I didn’t disbelieve him. You see what I mean? If he was involved, he wasn’t the mastermind.”