Murder, Take Two

by Carol J. Perry

  “Certainly. Right away.”

  Things were going well. Kit-Cat said seven-forty-five. I’ve got this. I texted our third man, Harrison—not sure if he was an early riser—and asked if he had a photo he could send for the cast program, which didn’t exist yet, but I assumed it would at some point.

  He responded immediately with a professional model’s comp card with four studio-quality headshots and a couple of beach poses. This man was serious about an acting career—and was a gray-haired, tanned, well-muscled senior citizen hottie. Naturally Betsy had plenty of photos on her webpage, Louisa had an excellent recent studio portrait on hers, and I already had Aunt Ibby’s newest.

  I called Captain Billy and asked if he’d send the costume components along with Scott. I knew that the Angels would come up with much more creative outfits, but the premade ones would do for the immediate future. I already had a Clue game and the toy weapons. So far, so good.

  By eight-forty-five I’d printed out the script, headshots, and scenery backgrounds. I’d collect the costume stuff from Scott, and along with a Clue game and the fake weapons, I’d be ready to do a quickie live standup for Doan as soon as I got to the station. I could even do a PowerPoint presentation for the sales staff before the day was out. Pleased with myself—and a bit surprised at the speed with which it’d all been accomplished—dressed, combed, and made up, I started downstairs, accompanied by my faithful cat companion.

  When O’Ryan and I entered the warm, good-smelling kitchen, the twins were already seated at the table, clearly enjoying cinnamon rolls, coffee, and the company of my very attractive aunt. The men stood to greet me with handshakes and even a hesitant hug from Ray.

  “So good to see you again, Ms. Barrett—Lee,” Roger said. “We’ve been following up on the helpful leads you all gave us earlier, and we’re moving ahead. We’re encouraged.”

  “Very encouraged,” Ray echoed. “Big help.”

  “I hope we can help more,” I said, sitting beside Roger at the round table. “I felt so sad for Lucy and Cody when I saw them at the courthouse.”

  “We’ll talk about that when the others get here,” Roger promised. “There’ve been some new developments, and yes, we can use your help.”

  “It turns out that private citizens like you and Ibby and Betsy and Louisa can sometimes learn things that professional investigators might miss,” Ray said.

  “Now that you both are private citizens too,” Aunt Ibby offered, “I’ll bet you’re finding things you couldn’t have found when you were policemen. Am I right about that?”

  “Maybe,” was the guarded answer, spoken in unison. I smiled, remembering how often they’d done that in my class, much to the delight and amusement of the other students. They’re still cops at heart. O’Ryan suddenly left the kitchen—and my side—via the cat door.

  “The girls must be here,” Aunt Ibby said. I assumed the cat must have felt comfortable leaving me in the care of the twins for the moment as he went outside to greet the arriving Angels.

  Aunt Ibby was right. She opened the unlocked door, and catching my disapproving look, whispered, “I knew they were on the way.” Louisa and Betsy entered the kitchen in a pastel panorama of orchid silk (Betsy) and pink linen (Louisa) accompanied by a whiff of Flower-bomb (Betsy). The gentlemen stood, greetings were exchanged, coffee poured, and the meeting was—more or less—called to order.

  “Pete will be along when he can get away,” Aunt Ibby said, “but we may as well get started. I know Ray and Roger have progress to report, Betsy has some news, and I’ve made a new discovery myself. Lee, will you take notes?”

  “Is it all right if I do?” I looked from one twin to the other. “I already understand that it’s all off the record.”

  “Off the record,” Ray said, and Roger bobbed his head in agreement.

  I pulled my notebook from my purse and prepared to listen, learn, and take notes.

  Chapter 33

  Aunt Ibby tapped on a coffee cup with a spoon, halting all conversation. “Roger, why don’t you get us started.”

  Roger pulled his chair a little closer to the table, leaning forward as he spoke. I recognized the motion. Announcers and newspeople, accustomed to camera and sound equipment, often assume that posture, even in informal settings.

  “First, let me tell you all that we are more sure than ever that our nephew Cody is not guilty of killing Samuel Bond. His young lady, Lucy, is innocent too of course.” His voice was cop-like, his stare, as he looked around the table at each of us, was intense. Roger, and Ray as well, I realized, had learned a lot about stage presence since they’d left my television production class a few years earlier. “Some of you may have heard that the two had originally claimed they’d been at a play in Boston on the evening in question,” he continued. Heads around the table dipped in agreement. “That was not a true statement. They were, in fact, together. They were, in fact, each other’s alibi. But unfortunately, they were not in a crowded theater where others would surely see them. No. Unfortunately, they were not.”

  Ray sighed. “So unfortunate.”

  “Tsk-tsk,” Aunt Ibby said. “Too bad.”

  A gentle “Oh dear” came from Louisa.

  “Then where the hell were they?” Betsy demanded. “In bed together?”

  Roger held out both hands, palms up. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly where they were.”

  “Tsk-tsk,” Aunt Ibby said again.

  A more forceful “Oh dear” from Louisa.

  “Oh boy,” Betsy said. “That could be a problem. Now what?”

  “On so many levels,” I agreed, putting down my pen.

  O’Ryan chose that moment to dart through the cat exit, announcing Pete’s imminent arrival. “I’ll get it,” I said, unlocking the door and following him outside. I stood on the back steps for a moment, waiting for Pete to park the Crown Vic, enjoying a cool morning breeze and trying to digest what Roger had shared with us. As Betsy had put it so succinctly, “Now what?”

  Pete bounded up the flagstone path with O’Ryan a few steps ahead of him. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Apparently Cody and Lucy were definitely not in the orchestra seats at the Charles Playhouse,” I said.

  “Yeah. I know. They were alone at Lucy’s parent’s house all night.” We hurried into the house, and Pete took a seat next to me. “Sorry I’m late,” he said again. “Chief’s getting anxious about this case. City Hall is after him.”

  “It’s okay,” Roger said. “Nothing’s come up you didn’t already know about.”

  I picked up my pen and waited for what might come up next.

  It was Betsy’s turn. “I did a little checking on your Professor Dreamy,” she said, looking straight at me.

  “He’s not my Professor Dreamy,” I insisted.

  “Right,” she went on. “Anyway, when you and he were having drinks at the Hawthorne lounge the other night, a few of my sorority sisters were there taking it all in.”

  “All what?” I said. “Besides, it was Diet Coke.”

  Betsy pointed to my aunt. “Ibby, make her stop interrupting my story.”

  Aunt Ibby put a finger to her lips. Properly chastised, I looked down at my notebook and listened to Betsy’s story.

  “Well, as I was saying, they got to talking about Alan Armstrong. They recognized you, Lee, and figured out that he was probably trying to get on TV somehow. They all know how conceited he is, even if he is gorgeous. One of them said that he’d invited her daughter to go with him to a party at Sam Bond’s house and, wouldn’t you know it, it was for the night old Sam got himself killed.” Betsy looked around the table. “The daughter was glad she hadn’t gone with him, naturally. But get this! She would have if he hadn’t cancelled on her.” Betsy dropped her voice. “Now this is a girl nobody cancels on! She was ticked. And know what his excuse was? He told her something was going down at Sam’s that she wouldn’t want to see. Something bad was going to happen there, and he didn
’t want her to be involved.” Big smile. “Now what do you all think about that?”

  “Interesting,” Roger declared.

  “Very interesting,” Ray agreed.

  “Could I have your friend’s name, Betsy?” Pete asked. “I’d like to talk to her daughter.”

  “Sure.” Betsy scribbled on the back of a card and handed it to him. “But I already talked to her. It was exactly what her mother said. Something bad was going to happen.”

  “That sounds pretty suspicious, doesn’t it?” my aunt asked. “I guess you boys will be talking to Professor Armstrong too.”

  “We will,” Ray said. “Thank you, Mrs. Leavitt—uh—Betsy. Ibby? You said you have some news.”

  “I do,” she said. “Tyler Dickson, my assistant at the library, called last night to tell me that another person on my list had returned a book. It’s one of the university press academic history journals from the stacks—a fall 2003 issue. Edwin Symonds returned it a few minutes before closing. She sent it over with the night watchman this morning.” My aunt held up the blue-covered publication for all of us to see. I recognized it. “That’s not all,” she said. “This is one that Cody, Lucy, and Alan have all checked out, and some years back Sam Bond borrowed it too.”

  “May I see it?” I asked, reaching for the book. “I’m pretty sure it’s the one Eddie was reading when I interviewed him in the coffee shop.” She handed it to me. I was right. The part that had begun with “Mid-Century” turned out to be “Mid-Century Arts and Humanities.” I opened the cover and looked at the index. One name popped out at me right away. Professor Samuel Bond. He’d written about mid-century New England architecture. I opened the book to Bond’s article and passed it to Pete. “This must be what all four of them were looking at.”

  Pete studied the open pages for a moment. “Mid-century architecture? I wonder what the fascination with that is all about.”

  “Eddie has a degree in architecture.” We all turned to look at Louisa. “He told me so when we were in Alaska. He was especially interested in photographing Alaskan postmodernist buildings. Our hotel was one of them, which was why he happened to mention it.”

  I took notes as fast as I could. This was getting more interesting by the minute. Alan thought something bad was going to happen at the Bond house, dance teacher Eddie has a degree in architecture we didn’t know about in addition to his journalism degree, and lovebirds Cody and Lucy had made up an elaborate but easily disproven alibi for the night in question.

  “Cody and Lucy are both interested in New England history,” Aunt Ibby offered. “Cody as a teacher and Lucy as a student. I expect architecture is part of the Salem history course. That would explain their interest in Bond’s article.”

  “It’s possible that Lucy didn’t want to go to Bond’s house anymore, after that shot glass–throwing incident,” I suggested. “Did she say anything about that, Roger?”

  “She seemed to still be embarrassed about it,” Roger said. “She told us that she’d had a little too much to drink and Bond began teasing her about her looks. You know, the blue hair and the little diamond thing on the side of her nose and the tattoo and all.”

  “She has a tattoo?” Betsy asked.

  “It’s a fairly discreet one as tattoos go,” Ray said. “It’s on her—um—her upper thigh.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a picture of that statue of Samantha Stevens over on Washington Street. Bewitched, you know? Some of the college kids have been getting them. The kids love the statue. Most of their parents hate it.” He shrugged. “A little generational rebellion, I guess.”

  “She was angry with Professor Bond, then, because of the teasing?” Louisa asked.

  “She was,” Roger said. “But she didn’t throw the shot glass at him. She smashed it in the fireplace.” He smiled briefly. “She says she saw it done at a Jewish wedding and thought it was cool.”

  “It is,” Betsy said. “Mr. Leavitt and I did it at ours. But was Sam Bond angry about it?”

  “According to the others, he wasn’t. He said he was sorry if he’d hurt her feelings, and instructed her to clean it up. Which she did.”

  “Yes,” I recalled. “Eddie told me she’d cleaned it up. That’s how her bloodstains got in the professor’s room, right, Pete?”

  “It seems to be entirely possible,” Pete admitted. “She’d cut herself on the broken glass. The housekeeper vouches for all that.”

  “Speaking of the housekeeper,” Louisa said, “she occasionally does some sewing work for me. Pete, did you know that the professor had a safe in his closet?”

  “Yes. We have it. Roger and Ray know all about it.”

  “Can you tell us what’s in it?” my aunt asked.

  “Nothing much of interest. Papers. Manuscripts. Some of those journals like that one.” He pointed to the blue-covered book on the table. “It seems to be where he put his writings for safekeeping.”

  “I always thought he was kind of stuck on himself,” Betsy said. “Probably believed every word he ever wrote should be preserved for posterity.”

  “Cody did a lot of polishing on the professor’s writings,” Ray said. “He told us he thought the main reason his own full professorship was held up was because Bond didn’t want to lose his copyediting talent.”

  Roger agreed. “That’s true. Cody says he often had to rewrite the first paragraphs and change the titles on practically everything Bond gave him to work on, in addition to making sure all of the footnotes were correct.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t ask Eddie to do it,” Aunt Ibby said, “since Eddie was working on the book they co-wrote.”

  “Cody had majored in history and Eddie hadn’t—that we know of,” Ray said. “Cody was more apt to find factual errors.”

  “But you believe Cody was resentful of the extra work Bond piled on him.” Aunt Ibby spoke gently but firmly. “In fact, he thinks it cost him the professorship he’d earned—along with the considerable financial benefits.”

  “Cody didn’t kill him,” Roger stated.

  “Cody wouldn’t kill anybody,” Ray agreed.

  “To be fair, we have to look at all the facts,” my aunt said. “Several people have said there was an argument between Cody and the professor.”

  “Most everybody called it ‘a disagreement between colleagues,’ ” I said. “At least that’s the way it was described to me.”

  “It was an argument.” Roger’s cop voice was back. “Cody admitted it.”

  Ray solemnly agreed with his brother. “A real argument. Yelling and everything. Cody admitted it.”

  “That’s not good for his case, then, is it, Pete?” Betsy asked.

  Pete sighed. I knew he wanted to stay out of this conversation as much as possible. “We try to collect facts, Betsy. Some of them are bound to reflect badly on the accused.”

  “Okay then,” Betsy continued. “I’d like to know more about how Professor Armstrong fits into all this. How did he know there’d be something bad going down at Bond’s house? Are we supposed to think he has some psychic ability?”

  “We hadn’t ever heard about that until this morning,” Roger pointed out. “You can bet we’ll be following up on it.” He waved the card Betsy had given him. “Today.”

  The very possibility of Alan Armstrong having psychic ability had never occurred to me. I thought about my own strange “gift.” Was it possible that Alan saw things in mirrors, or had a crystal ball? This is Salem, after all. Maybe he’s a witch. I shook the silly thought away. What if I went around babbling about the things I’d seen in mirrors lately? How about the blue book with a bloodred stain—then the same book with a bloody handprint on it? I’d seen both of those before the actual book showed up on the table right in front of me—stain-free.

  Pete’s hands were in his lap, and he’d begun peeking at his watch. “Do you have to leave?” I whispered. He nodded and shrugged his shoulders at the same time. Mixed signal. I decided to bail us both out.

&
nbsp; “Excuse me, folks,” I said, “but I have an appointment with Bruce Doan, so I’ll have to say goodbye for now.” I stood. Pete stood and added his apology to mine. O’Ryan had already headed for the cat door. Once in the back hall, I gave Pete a quick kiss and started up the twisty staircase while he headed for his car. I needed to gather my “show-and-tell” equipment for the morning’s presentation. O’Ryan preceded me on the stairs, but only by one step at a time. He was still staying close by. What’s up with that?

  We entered my living room side by side. “Are you planning to go to work with me too?” I asked, with the strong feeling that if he could, he most certainly would.

  Chapter 34

  I parked the Vette in my regular space and grabbed the Clue game and my briefcase from the passenger seat. It’s a nice one, smooth tan leather with my initials in gold. Aunt Ibby gave it to me a couple of Christmases ago. I don’t use it very often—WICH-TV isn’t a briefcase sort of place—but I figured it, along with my pinstriped business suit, added a bit of formality to my presentation for Mr. Doan.

  I rode Old Clunky up to the second floor, where Rhonda waited for me. “Wow. Looking good. Doan’s in his office. He says to send you right in.” She raised perfectly arched brows. “Scotty just dropped this off for you. Toys?” The bright pink bag was marked “Toy Trawler.”

  “Suggestions for party costumes,” I said, tucking the bag into the briefcase. “A feather boa, some different colored neckties, a fake mustache, stuff like that. Part of my presentation for the boss.”

  “Cool,” she said. “He seems anxious to see you. He’s all gung ho about your Clue party show, and he’s super happy about the Captain Billy deal.” She paused and glanced around the room. “Maybe you’ll get a big bonus,” she whispered. We both laughed at that one.

  “Wish me luck,” I said, and knocked on the station manager’s door.

  “Come right in, Ms. Barrett.” The voice sounded almost jovial. Is he too happy?