Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow

by Cynthia Baxter

  Welcome...

  To Long Island

  WINE COUNTRY

  Tour

  The Vineyards

  If the sign wasn’t enough to tip people off that they were about to enter a special place, the countryside immediately went through a dramatic transformation. I felt as if I’d passed through a time warp and was suddenly driving through the Long Island of the 1950s—or even the 1930s. As I meandered along the two-lane road, relieved that the rain had finally let up and I could actually see where I was going, I took in one quaint country town after another. Each one consisted of a block or two of rustic wooden buildings that housed antiques shops, luncheonettes, and small grocery stores. In between were white-shingled farmhouses with large, friendly porches, often with weathered barns set even farther back from the road.

  Farm stands were as abundant as telephone poles. The larger ones were already stocked with piles of pumpkins and huge terra-cotta pots of chrysanthemums, a clear indication that autumn was upon us. Others were tiny family operations consisting of a single cart at the edge of the road, offering bouquets of wildflowers, ripe red tomatoes, and bushels of apples. Most of them were unmanned, and customers were expected to pay by leaving the correct amount of money in the large jar that had been left for that purpose.

  Beyond the houses and farm stands stretched the flat fields of rich soil that had attracted farmers to the North Fork in the first place. While housing developments were going up on some of them—a sign of modern times, and one that I didn’t find particularly pleasing—most were still being used as farmland.

  After I’d driven another mile, however, even that changed. The trees along the road, their leaves barely tinted with the fiery colors of fall, began to disappear. Here, the fields were covered with grapevines planted in perfectly even rows. Every mile or so, a sign with the name of a vineyard jutted up along the side of the road: Costello Cellars, Martin Creek Vineyards, Cuttituck Winery, Sophia Family Vineyards and Winery. There was almost always a visitors’ center, and most advertised tours and tastings.

  I finally trundled into the village of Cuttituck, periodically checking my trusty Hagstrom map to make sure I didn’t miss the turnoff to Cassandra Thorndike’s house. I’d never actually had a client in Cuttituck, but I’d driven through it a number of times. Like many of the towns on Long Island’s North Fork, it was a charming little hamlet that looked as if it were stuck in time. A few of the businesses were geared to the locals, like the video store and the delicatessen housed in a tiny clapboard house. Some establishments clearly catered to the tourist trade, like Annie’s Antiques and the Wine-Tasting Room, a tiny shop that featured the wines of several of the local vineyards.

  One of my favorite roadside attractions was the ironically named Modern Café. The sign outside featured a woman with a 1950s-style pageboy, holding a tray of steaming hot biscuits. The Modern was frequented by both visitors and members of the community. In fact, on the few occasions I’d stopped in to chow down on some good old-fashioned comfort food, I’d been amused to find well-heeled Manhattanites dressed in Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan alongside farmers and winery owners. It was always fun to watch them wolf down house specialties like the meat loaf platter and the liver and onion special, as ecstatic as if they’d just discovered the new sushi.

  I turned left onto the Northway Turnpike and headed north. The road remained straight and well-paved for a mile or two. But suddenly it branched off into a maze of narrow, unpaved streets that meandered toward the coast.

  I braked heavily, not only for safety but also to allow myself a closer look at the residential enclave I’d just entered. Most of the houses had clearly been built decades earlier as summer bungalows. But interspersed among the boxy, one-story buildings were larger, more modern houses. These were at least two stories high, and many were perched atop hills that afforded them a view of the Long Island Sound, only a few hundred yards away.

  I hadn’t ventured far along Seashore Lane before I spotted a weather-worn sign that read CAPTAIN KIDD COVE. I had to smile. As most Long Islanders know, in the late 1600s the infamous pirate William Kidd buried booty that was reportedly worth a small fortune on nearby Gardiner’s Island, marking the spot with a pile of rocks that still stood. Shortly afterward, he was arrested. He was eventually hanged, but not until the governor of New York had seized his treasure.

  Yet the notorious pillager and plunderer was said to have buried some additional loot in this area, hidden treasure that had never been recovered. There was even a rocky spot known as “Kidd’s Ledge” that garnered some coverage in the local media every now and then. The legend of Captain Kidd and his missing treasure had never been proven—nor had it ever been forgotten.

  I checked my map one more time before turning onto Cliffside Lane. My poor little VW bumped along the gutted, muddy road, which ran parallel to the coast. On the sea side, the terrain dropped sharply. Forty or fifty feet below stretched a narrow strip of sand, edged with the calm, lapping waves of Long Island Sound. Most of the houses on that side of the street, particularly the newer, larger ones, had long wooden staircases leading down to the beach.

  I focused on the six or eight houses that dotted both sides of the street, figuring their inhabitants were the witnesses who had noticed Suzanne in the neighborhood the same afternoon Cassandra had been murdered. On a quiet back street like this one, I could understand that a visit from an outsider was something they would have noticed.

  At the same time, if Cassandra’s killer had been someone she knew, her neighbors wouldn’t have thought twice about the appearance of a vehicle and driver they recognized. It may not even have registered in their minds—which would have explained why they hadn’t mentioned it to the cops.

  I immediately knew which house had belonged to Cassandra Thorndike: the one with Forrester Sloan’s dark-green SUV parked in front of it. I pulled up behind it. Before getting out, I took a minute to study the house with the faded 254 stenciled onto the mailbox and the red Miata with the CASSLASS plates parked in the driveway. It was one of the small houses that had originally been built as a summer place. It probably consisted of no more than a living room, kitchen, and a couple of bedrooms, all nestled together on the main floor. From the outside, its most distinctive features were its weather-beaten unpainted cedar shingles and the broken step leading up to the front porch. There were few signs that it was lived in, and even fewer that it was loved. No cheerful curtains in the windows, no flowerpots on the porch, no brightly painted birdhouses in the few scraggly trees that somehow managed to grow so close to the cliffs. While I had yet to learn a single fact about its owner, I already knew she hadn’t possessed the Martha Stewart gene.

  Of course, the yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the front didn’t exactly scream Home Sweet Home.

  I climbed out of my car, wondering if I’d get the chance to see if any more of Cassandra’s personality was reflected on the inside, when I heard someone cry, “Hey, Popper!”

  I whipped my head around and saw my host for the afternoon striding toward me.

  “Thought you might turn up,” Forrester said, grinning. “I guess I’m as irresistible as always.”

  I cast him the dirtiest look I could muster. “Hardly. I’m just trying to help Suzanne.”

  He laughed. “Seriously, Popper, it’s good to see you. Really good.”

  He just stood there for a few seconds, staring at me and grinning. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d gotten especially spiffed up for me. He smelled suspiciously like soap and men’s cologne, as if he’d somehow managed to sneak a shower into the middle of his busy day. The fact that his thick blond hair looked slightly damp, especially the mass of tiny curls at the back of his neck, added weight to my theory.

  Like me, Forrester was in his mid-thirties. He was tall with a sturdy build, his broad shoulders giving him the look of someone who’d played football in college. As usual, he was dressed as if he were posing for the cover of The Preppy Handbook. He wore a
pink cotton button-down shirt, khaki pants with nary a wrinkle, tan loafers, and a sporty brown jacket made of a tweed fabric that probably had an English-sounding name like Harrington or Tatterbumper.

  But it was the look in his gray-blue eyes that really got me. I was pretty sure that what I saw in them was real concern, coupled with something that looked dangerously like fondness.

  I looked away.

  “You know I hate being called Popper,” I reminded him.

  “Precisely why I enjoy doing it so much,” he returned breezily. “There’s just something about you that makes me want to get under your skin.”

  Probably a few other places as well, I thought. I’d be lying if I said that Forrester Sloan didn’t have some appeal, at least on an intellectual level. He possessed something that wasn’t quite charm, but close enough that he deserved at least some credit for it. But given the situation, I had absolutely no patience for him—and no interest in fending off his flirtatiousness. The fact that we were both standing outside Cassandra Thorndike’s house was a harsh reminder of the reason I was here in the first place. A young woman had been murdered—and another young woman was being unjustly accused.

  “I talked to Falcone earlier today,” I said, anxious to bring the conversation back to the investigation. “He wasn’t exactly thrilled over my interest in this case.”

  “Even though you and Suzanne Fox are friends? I’d have thought that would make him more willing to indulge your interest in the investigation.”

  “Except that he’s trying to prove that she did it and I’m trying to prove that she didn’t. That kind of puts us at cross-purposes, don’t you think?”

  “I see your point.” Forrester only hesitated for a moment before saying, in that newspaper-reporterly way of his, “So tell me more about your relationship with Suzanne Fox.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” I replied with a shrug. “We’ve been good friends for over fifteen years. We met in college, at Bryn Mawr. We both wanted to be vets. She went to Purdue and I went to Cornell, and we lost touch for a few years. But this past June, I discovered that she’d moved out to West Brompton Beach. She has a practice in Poxabogue.” I shrugged again. “That’s it in a nut-shell.”

  “I see.” I braced myself for a smart-ass comment. Thankfully, it didn’t come. Instead, Forrester said, “So, Popper, what can I tell you about the case?”

  “I already know the basics,” I replied. “Cassandra was alone in her house on Tuesday when somebody came to visit. Somebody she knew. Or maybe that person sneaked inside without her realizing it. At some point things got ugly, and the visitor grabbed something sharp and stabbed her with it. Somewhere in there— probably after she’d been stabbed at least once—there was a struggle that left the entire room in disarray. Lots of blood everywhere, stuff knocked over... Cassandra tried to fight off her attacker but her attacker prevailed, and she fell to the floor, dead.” As I outlined the scene, it played through my head with disturbing clarity.

  “Give the girl a gold star!” Forrester replied. I was ready to slug him—with words, since they’re much more stinging than fists—when he added, “It’s probably worth mentioning that the police didn’t find any signs of a forced entry—through the windows, for example—so they figure the killer came through the front door. Either it was open or Cassandra let the person in. There’s a back door, too, but the only fingerprints and footprints that were found in the kitchen were Cassandra’s, so that pretty much lets that out as a point of entry. Anyway, the police think the person who killed her was somebody she knew.”

  “Not surprising,” I commented. “Especially since the North Fork isn’t exactly a hot spot for random killings.”

  “There’s one more really intriguing aspect to this case,” Forrester went on. “Something that wasn’t in the paper.”

  “ ‘Intriguing’?” I repeated. Usually, that was one of my favorite words. But given the situation, just hearing it made me feel like someone had grabbed hold of my heart and was clenching it in his fist.

  “That’s the word I’d use,” he said. “Apparently our murderer left behind a few clues.”

  I hope none of them have Suzanne’s fingerprints on them, I thought.

  Aloud, I asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “Now, listen up, Popper.” Forrester glanced from side to side, as if wanting to make sure no one was listening. “I’m sworn to secrecy on this. I’m about to tell you information the police aren’t releasing to the public. I’ve got a friend in the department who told me this in the strictest confidence, and he made me swear on my BlackBerry that I wouldn’t print anything about it.”

  My heart had begun to pound. Maybe, just maybe, whatever Forrester was about to reveal would get me closer to proving Suzanne innocent by finding the real murderer. “I promise I won’t breathe a word to anyone.”

  “Aha!” He folded his arms across his chest triumphantly. “So I’ve finally got something that Popper wants. Maybe this would be a good time for me to do a little negotiating. I give you what you want, you give me what I want...”

  “Just tell me,” I insisted. “Look, we’re talking about murder—and the fact that one of my closest friends is the primary suspect. If I wanted to flirt, I’d go home to my boyfriend. So let’s hear it.”

  “Whoa.” Forrester actually looked impressed. Which was fine, if it would get me what I wanted. “Okay, then. Here it is. The cops found three objects next to Cassandra’s body. They think it might be the killer’s signature. Or that maybe he or she was leaving some kind of message.”

  “What were they?” I demanded.

  “A paperback novel, a small stuffed bunny rabbit, and a running shoe.”

  I just stared at him, too startled to speak.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I finally managed to say.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not. Neither the investigators nor the members of Cassandra’s family have been able to figure out what it means either—that is, assuming it means anything at all. There could be several explanations for why those things ended up lying on the floor.”

  “Like...?”

  “Like maybe Cassandra was cleaning up when she was attacked and she was about to put those particular items away. Another theory is that her cat dragged them over.”

  “Yes, I heard she had a cat.”

  “His name is Beau,” Forrester noted. “As in Beaujolais.”

  “Cute. Naming him after a type of wine, I mean.” Frowning, I added, “I suppose the cat could have brought over the stuffed animal, if it was small enough. Especially if it was one of his toys. But a running shoe would be too heavy for most cats. Besides, why would he drag over a sneaker? The same goes for the paperback book. It doesn’t make sense that a cat would be interested in something like that.”

  “One theory is that the cat knocked them off a shelf. You know, with his paw. Or maybe his tail.” He shrugged. “Hey, you’re the animal expert.”

  “Maybe he knocked off the book,” I mused. “But who keeps sneakers on a shelf?”

  “I’m just telling you what I heard. Doesn’t make sense to me either.”

  “What was the title of the book?”

  “The Scarlet Letter.”

  “The Nathaniel Hawthorne classic?” I asked, confused. “That’s not exactly beach reading. I can’t imagine why someone like Cassandra would even have a book like that in her house—unless it was one she’d saved from her college days. Or maybe the murderer brought it along...?”

  “Nope. Her copy. The cops found her name inside. Her handwriting.”

  “Which makes it even more likely it was a book she’d gotten for a class. Not many people take the trouble to write their name in their books once they’re out of school.”

  Forrester shrugged. “Like I said, the whole thing is a complete mystery. But why don’t you wrap that pretty little head of yours around this puzzle, and maybe you can come up with the answer.”

  I opened my mouth to lambaste
him for using a phrase that I hadn’t heard since the last time TNT ran a Dean Martin movie. Then I noticed the twinkle in his eyes and realized that, once again, the man was playing with me.

  “Maybe I’ll do just that,” I returned loftily. “Especially since the cops haven’t managed to wrap their ugly little heads around it and come up with anything at all.”

  He laughed. “You’re fast, Popper; I’ll give you that. And you know, I’ve always liked fast women—”

  “What else did the police find at the crime scene?” I interrupted. “Were there any hairs, fibers, fingerprints, footprints...anything at all?”

  “All of the above, actually. Over the next few days they’ll be analyzing the forensic evidence and putting together a list of all the people who were recently in that room.”

  I nodded. “Have the police determined what the murder weapon was yet? Was it a knife or some other sharp object—a letter opener, maybe? Have the cops found it? Does it have fingerprints—”

  “The police still haven’t located the weapon.”

  My mind raced as I tried to consider every possible angle and every possible detail. I could picture driving away from Cassandra’s house and slapping myself on the head for forgetting to ask Forrester for some key piece of information. “Was the phone in her home office off the hook?” I asked. “A sign that she’d tried to call for help?”

  “There was no phone in the room. In fact, the only land line in the house is in the kitchen. A leftover from the old days, before cell phones.”

  “Speaking of cell phones...”

  “The police found Cassandra’s cell in her purse, in the living room.”