Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow

by Cynthia Baxter

  It was a good plan, and I turned on my laptop to find the number of someone local. But there was also something else I wanted to research online.

  “I think it’s time for me to get to know the murder victim’s baby brother a little better,” I told Nick as my computer booted up. “Seems to me it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Lieutenant Falcone to do the same. In fact, I think I’ll suggest it to him when I call him to tell him that somebody broke into my house, clearly to scare me. Maybe this will convince him that Suzanne had nothing to do with Cassandra’s murder—and that he’d be better off focusing on finding the person who did.”

  A startled look crossed his face. “Don’t tell me you’re going to ask this Ethan character over for dinner.”

  “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’m much more creative than that.”

  While I waited for the police, I logged on to Newsday’s Web site to check the day’s headlines. It was a good thing I braced myself, since a wave of dizziness swept over me as I read the words splashed across the screen: Ex-Wife Questioned in Thorndike Murder. The article’s byline, Forrester Sloan, didn’t make me feel any better.

  As I started reading, things quickly went from bad to worse.

  A new suspect has emerged in the murder of Cassandra Thorndike, a sales representative for her family’s winery, Thorndike Vineyards in Cuttituck.

  On Friday, Norfolk County police questioned Suzanne Fox, the ex-wife of Thorndike’s fiancé, after investigators discovered a bloody sweater in Fox’s car during a search of her home and vehicle.

  “Fox is someone we are looking at closely, along with several other individuals,” Lieutenant Anthony Falcone, Norfolk County chief of homicide, said at a news conference yesterday. Falcone indicated that police are close to making an arrest in the case. According to police, several witnesses described a person fitting Fox’s description leaving the murder scene shortly before Thorndike’s body was discovered on October 3.

  When questioned by authorities, Fox, a veterinarian in Poxabogue, first denied being at the home at 254 Cliffside Lane, but later reversed her story when detectives discovered her fingerprints at the residence, police said.

  Thorndike, 29, was found stabbed in her Cuttituck home office. Police discovered the body while following up on a telephone call from her next-door neighbor, Virginia Krupinski.

  The victim’s fiancé, Robert Reese, owner of the restaurant Granite in East Brompton, told police that his ex-wife was “upset” when she learned that he intended to remarry.

  “Oh, boy,” I breathed. I had to admit that Forrester had written the article very objectively, stating the facts and only the facts. Still, seeing Suzanne’s name in print, along with Falcone’s claim that the police were looking at her closely, was chilling.

  The clock I could hear ticking in my head suddenly seemed very loud.

  I was actually relieved when a pulsing red light flashed through the front windows. I dashed over in time to see a uniformed police officer climb out of a blue-and-white car with the Norfolk County Police Department insignia on the side.

  Nick joined me at the window. “Anyone you know from your P.I. days?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “Unfortunately. We’d probably get better service if it was.”

  We opened the door to a large, beefy man with light brown hair and a ruddy complexion. I instructed Lou to “stay” in no uncertain terms, then picked up Max and held him under one arm like a furry white football. “I’m Officer Malloy,” he greeted us. “I understand there was a break-in.”

  “That’s right.”

  After taking down our names, the time frame in which we believed the incident occurred, and other basic information, he asked, “What was taken?” He stood with his pen poised above his pad expectantly.

  I glanced at Nick before answering, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing was taken?” he repeated, as if he wanted to make sure he was getting this right.

  “Well, no.”

  The corners of his mouth drooped downward. “In that case, what was damaged? Any broken furniture, computers, other personal items? Any spray paint or other types of vandalism?”

  “Just the lock,” I replied, pointing to the front door. “That’s the only thing that got broken.”

  He cast me a strange look before he went over and studied it. “Not much of a lock,” he observed. “Any other signs of forced entry? Broken windows? Scratches on the door?”

  “No,” I said.

  He glanced at Nick, who shook his head in agreement. “Okay, then anybody hurt?” Gesturing toward Max, he added, “Your animals, for example?”

  “No, they’re all fine.”

  The police officer narrowed his eyes. “So exactly what did you find?”

  “Just look at this mess!” I exclaimed, throwing out my arms to indicate the entire room. “Clothes were pulled out of drawers—and the drawers were left open. Cushions were thrown off the couch, and—and the stuffing was pulled out of one of my pillows.”

  “That’s it?”

  This time, I let Nick answer. “Pretty much.”

  Officer Malloy flipped his pad closed. I had a feeling that wasn’t the only thing that was closed. “Know what I suggest? That you get a better lock.”

  “Look, someone broke in here,” Nick insisted. “Maybe they didn’t actually steal anything or break anything, but there was a break-in.”

  “And I think I know who did it,” I added. “I also think I know why.”

  I explained the whole scenario to him as briefly as I could—Cassandra’s murder, Suzanne becoming a suspect, my attempts to find out who the real killer was, Ethan’s odd behavior, and the red bow tie I found after the break-in.

  He listened patiently. But I could see the skepticism in his eyes.

  “Look,” he finally said. “You could be right that this friend of yours with the dummy is responsible. But frankly, there’s not much we can do aside from filing a report, since nothing was taken and nothing was destroyed. You should be glad. Compared to a lot of people, you got off easy.”

  “That was a waste of time,” I grumbled as soon as he left.

  “At least there’s a police report on file,” Nick said, sounding as dejected as I felt. “For what it’s worth.”

  As I turned back to my computer, it occurred to me that Lieutenant Falcone’s reaction wasn’t likely to be much different from Officer Malloy’s. With no real damage done aside from a traumatized throw pillow, he might even think I’d fabricated the whole incident to try to convince him that somebody other than Suzanne was guilty. And after our trial run with this cop, I had to admit that my version of what had happened came off sounding pretty weak.

  I was back to my original position: trying to find out for myself who had killed Cassandra Thorndike. But my suspicions about who that was were stronger than ever.

  And I had a plan: learning more about Ethan Thorndike by talking to other people who had known him. And thanks to Theo Simcox, I knew the perfect place to start.

  I scooped up Tinkerbell and dropped her into my lap, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to have the company of someone warm and fuzzy. And then my fingers began flying across the keyboard, supercharged by the adrenaline surging through my veins.

  “S-E-W-A...” As I typed the most likely spelling of Sewanhacky School into my favorite search engine, I said each letter aloud, as if somehow that would help me get it right. Of course, that possibility went out the window when Tinkerbell added xxxxxxxxcccccaaa with her tiny soft paws. Even Google wasn’t clever enough to figure that one out.

  “Arrgh!” I cried in frustration. Nuzzling her sweet, fuzzy little head, I said, “You think everybody should be online, huh, Tink? Even kitty cats?”

  I tried again, this time managing to accomplish my goal without any feline editorializing. I held my breath as I waited for my computer to do its thing. I was afraid Ethan Thorndike’s alma mater would turn out to be located in some distant state—or worse yet, that it would have go
ne out of business.

  “Bingo!” I cried as I saw from the first listing that this “highly regarded school for children who may be facing exceptional challenges” was located in Laurel Bay, less than half an hour’s drive from Joshua’s Hollow. And as I began reading its mission statement, I knew in my gut that I’d found the right place.

  Some students follow the same path that thousands of young people before them have followed. Others need to make their own way, struggling through the dense foliage of childhood without a compass or a map. At the Sewanhacky School, we provide such individuals with the tools they need to forge their own personal pathway.

  I just hope those tools don’t include machetes, I thought. At least, not with kids like Ethan.

  I read on.

  Our mission includes much more than teaching the 3 Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic. More importantly, we also teach the 3 Ss—self-determination, self-confidence, and satisfaction. At Sewanhacky, students aged 10 to 18 are invited to explore both the Outer World and their own private and personal Inner World. With a flexible curriculum and few daily demands, our young wayfarers evolve into independent young adults. Maintaining open communication among students, parents, faculty, and staff furthers our goal of helping each member of the Sewanhacky community fully achieve his or her potential. Meanwhile, the creative environment that surrounds each and every one of our students nurtures both the intellect and the spirit, making the journey to adulthood an exciting and unique adventure.

  “Sounds good to me,” I told Tinkerbell. She, however, had lost interest in technology, having decided the piece of fuzz clinging to my sweater was much more fascinating. I clicked around the Sewanhacky School’s Web site, trying to get a handle on what the place was all about. On the Academics page, I learned that the institution did, indeed, teach the 3 Rs. It also taught Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Rakku Pottery, and The Films of Keanu Reeves. In addition to nurturing the intellect and the spirit, it appeared to have a pretty solid physical-education program. With classes in sailing, polo, and crew, this fine educational institution clearly didn’t cater to the hoi polloi.

  I just hoped its open-communication policy included busybodies like me who had absolutely no good reason to be there, poking around the creative environment and asking a lot of questions about one young wayfarer in particular.

  First thing Monday morning, as soon as I’d worked out my story, I put a call in to the headmaster’s office. The woman who answered the phone seemed to accept my claim that I was looking for just the right school for my daughter. I guess I managed to sound pretty desperate, because she squeezed me in at three o’clock that afternoon, a time that meshed pretty well with my schedule.

  I packed up my best outfit to bring along with me on the day’s calls. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look authoritative, or at least like a grown-up, during my visit to the Sewanhacky School. If my tasteful wool blazer and real leather shoes that actually had heels didn’t fool them, nothing would.

  Thanks to my trusty Hagstrom map, I maneuvered my way through the winding back roads of the North Shore with ease. Still, when I reached what was supposed to be the right spot, I wasn’t completely certain I hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere.

  It was the tall iron fence surrounding the property that threw me off. Or, to be more precise, the fact that at the top of each rail was what looked like a scalloped arrowhead. Or a barbed arrowhead, depending on how you looked at it. But a small, discreet sign reading Sewanhacky School stood next to the gate, assuring me I’d reached my destination.

  “The fence is probably just to keep the riffraff out,” I muttered, hoping that didn’t mean me.

  It wasn’t until I passed through the gate and caught sight of the school itself that I wondered if maybe that scary-looking fence had been built to keep the riffraff in. It was a cloudy day, and the huge, Gothic gray stone structure looming up ahead looked like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It even had a tower, with a single row of tiny windows encircling the top. I wondered if the kids who forgot to do their Keanu Reeves homework ended up locked in there.

  I parked my van in the Visitors’ Parking area, noticing how out of place its shiny, bright white surface looked amid all the doom and gloom of the Sewanhacky School campus. I slipped on my blazer and my dressy shoes, glad I’d thought to bring them. As I hobbled up the uneven cobblestone walkway that led to the door marked Main Entrance, I half-expected to hear bats screeching overhead. Or vultures.

  Inside, the décor pretty much matched the building’s exterior. A marble table just inside the entryway held a huge bouquet of flowers, but they were dried flowers. Even though the lighting was dim, I could see that this had once been a gracious mansion. The floors were marble, the chandeliers were ornate, and the heavy-looking couches and chairs looked as if giving them a hard swat would cause a cloud of dust to rise over them. While I supposed it might have been fun to attend a masked ball here, it didn’t impress me as being all that well suited to nurturing young people’s creative spirits, or whatever it was that the school’s mission statement promised.

  I was startled to discover that the receptionist I encountered just inside the building was actually pleasant.

  “You must be Dr. Popper,” she greeted me, glancing up from her computer and smiling at me warmly. She wore a pale gray sweater set with a string of pearls. I wondered if the outfit was her own or if it had been supplied to her, like a school uniform.

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Jessica Popper.”

  “I’ll tell Mr. Stickley you’re here. Why don’t you have a seat?”

  I lowered myself onto one of the burgundy velvet chairs that lined one wall, hoping I hadn’t tracked any dirt onto the Oriental carpet. It was that kind of place.

  I’d barely had a chance to glance through the glossy Sewanhacky School booklets neatly stacked up on the table beside me, filled with photographs of teenagers peering into test tubes and strolling across green lawns with piles of books in their arms, when the receptionist said, “Mr. Stickley will see you now.”

  I immediately got a sinking feeling in my stomach, as if being called into the headmaster’s office had to mean trouble. I quickly reminded myself that I was pretending to be a paying customer—or at least a potential paying customer—and was suddenly my usual self again.

  At least, until I came face-to-face with the headmaster of this fine institution.

  “Mr. Stickley?” I said, boldly sticking out my hand.

  I imagined the man standing in the doorway was doing his best to look welcoming, but he wasn’t doing that great a job. Part of the problem was his appearance, which I knew he couldn’t help. He was well over six feet tall, yet so thin I could probably have taken him in a wrestling match. He wore a dark suit and a thin tie that might have looked just fine on somebody else but somehow managed to give him the look of a funeral director. Of course, his pallid skin didn’t help—even though that tended to be a characteristic of such an establishment’s clients, rather than its owner.

  But superficialities aside, he was one of those people who simply didn’t seem comfortable with himself. He didn’t know where to put his hands, at least if the way he kept shoving them into his pockets and taking them out again was any indication, and his attempt at smiling looked so painful I was tempted to tell him not to bother on my account.

  “Thank—thank you for coming in today,” he said, stiffly walking back to his desk and sitting down. He gestured toward the chair opposite me, indicating that I should do the same.

  “So. What brings—what brings you in today?”

  “I’m trying to learn more about your school,” I replied, taking care not to repeat any of the words that came out of my mouth. “For my daughter. It certainly has an intriguing name. Sewanhacky—that’s a Native American word, isn’t it?”

  Mr. Stickley looked impressed. At least, if the little tic in his left cheek was any indication. “I see you know your Long Island history.”

&
nbsp; Actually, I didn’t. It was just a lucky guess.

  “Sewanhacky was the—the Algonquian name for Long Island,” he continued. “It’s used in the early Dutch settlers’ records of land purchases. Historians believe sewan means purple shell and hacky means place. The natives in this area were known for the fine quality of their wampum.”

  Gee, I thought, I’ve only been at the Sewanhacky School for ten minutes and I already learned something.

  Of course, unlike the young wayfarers, I’d pretty much got my path all cut and paved. Heck, I’d even put in a few handrails.

  “Tell me about your daughter.” Mr. Stickley was clearly ready to get down to business. “What did you say her name was?”

  I drew a blank. Desperately, I ran through the names of my pets, the closest thing to my children. Tinkerbell, Prometheus...“Max,” I blurted out. “Uh, Maxine. I call her Max.” I couldn’t resist adding, “I think giving a child an affectionate nickname helps build self-esteem, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely. And how old is Maxine?”

  “She’s, uh, ten. Just turned ten.”

  He nodded. “The Sewanhacky School may well be just the right place for her,” he told me solemnly. “You know, some students—some students have no trouble following a traditional path. But we specialize in children who need to make their own way, struggling through the dense foliage of childhood without a compass or a map.”

  The man didn’t seem to realize I happened to own a computer—and that I was one of those few million people who had access to the Internet. Either that, or he couldn’t help eating, sleeping, and breathing this stuff.

  “Max definitely falls into that category,” I told him, thinking about all the chair legs and bedroom slippers my fake daughter’s namesake had torn to shreds. “And you may be right about Sewanhacky being the best place for her. In fact, the school came highly recommended to me by friends of mine. The Thorndikes? Their son, Ethan, was a student here.”

  His eyes clouded. “The Thorndikes told you...good things about the Sewanhacky School?”

  “Yes. They were very enthusiastic.” I tried to sound brave, but the tight feeling in the pit of my stomach told me I’d just said the wrong thing.