Unbelievable

by Cindy Blackburn

  Joe’s mouth dropped open.

  I looked at Charlie. “Let’s just say, I was flustered.”

  ***

  Let’s just say, that’s an understatement.

  About ten minutes after my mother passed away, I asked my father if I could go for a bike ride. Poor Bobby was well aware of my nervous-energy problem and told me to go ahead. “Dad assumed I’d peddle over to the local park for a spin around the bike path. Instead, I got on the New Jersey Turnpike.”

  “That’s nuts!” Joe said.

  “Wacko and Looney Tunes,” I agreed.

  “No one noticed you?”

  “Oh, all kinds of people noticed me,” I said. “I was ten. And I had the silliest, girliest, bike on Planet Earth. Bright pink with purple and silver streamers on the handle bars.” I smiled. “We Baxters have always liked bright colors.”

  While Joe continued laughing, I reminded him those were the days before cell phones. Somehow I managed to bike all the way down to Exit 1 without anyone reporting me.

  “You made it to Delaware alone?” Joe was incredulous.

  “Not exactly.” I explained that my totally and completely distressed father had literally called out the National Guard to find me. It wasn’t that hard. I may have known the way to my grandmother’s house, but I forgot to take my allowance with me. When I reached the last exit on the Turnpike, the toll booth attendant wouldn’t let me pass without paying. I threw my bike onto the roadside and paced back and forth on the curb and cried.

  “That’s where they found me,” I said.

  “But she refused to go home, even then,” Dad said, and the three of us on the dock jumped.

  “Da-aad!” I turned to see him waving from his balcony. “You’ve been spying on us!”

  “Nooo. I just came out to, umm, to check on your progress, girl.” He pointed to the banister. “You missed some yellow trim when you were scraping.”

  I’m guessing he could see the withering look I threw at him from two floors down and in the dark. “You drive me nuts, old man.”

  “Whatever.” Joe waved to get my attention. “Did you, or did you not, make it to Grammie Maloney’s house?”

  “Did,” Dad told him and shook his head.

  I reminded everyone that my intention had never been to run away from home, or from my father. “But I had to keep moving,” I said. “I was flustered.”

  “Three National Guardsmen couldn’t get her into their vehicle.” My father kept shaking his head.

  “I guess I was kicking and screaming a little,” I told Joe, and Bobby muttered a colorful word.

  I smirked upward. “Grammie says I showed some spunk.”

  “Your Grammie Maloney is loonier than you, girl.”

  “An understatement,” I told Joe.

  “Sooo?” he asked. “What did the Guardsmen do?”

  They got on their bikes and escorted me to Wilmington, of course. And then they biked with me back to Hoboken.

  “She made the national news,” Dad added. He denies it, but trust me, he always smiles at this part of the story.

  My mother’s death, and the photos and film of me on my ridiculous pink bike captured the imaginations of thousands. To this day, the cancer center that treated my mother has never surpassed the donations that poured in that week.

  Joe stared at me, aghast.

  I shrugged. “Let’s just say, I was cute as a button.”

  ***

  I waited until my nosey father finally, finally went inside. “So?” I asked Joe. “We straight now?”

  “Nope, I have one more question.” He grinned. “More current.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes.” He kept grinning. “Did you really tell the people at Cars! Cars! Cars! I’m your boyfriend?”

  I groaned and blamed Bambi for that stupid, stupid, idea. “Lucky me,” I said. “Now the salesman keeps calling to pester me into buying the biggest, brightest, red pickup truck on Planet Earth.”

  “He called while you were kayaking.”

  “During the Red Sox game?” I asked.

  “Bobby had me talk to him.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes. Larry described the truck for me. It sounds real nice.”

  “Go home, Joe.”

  “I could use a truck.”

  “Go home, Joe.”

  “And I like red.”

  “Go home, Joe.”

  Chapter 34

  “I like this new routine,” I said as my father and Charlie walked into the kitchen.

  Dad dropped the newspaper on the table. “What’s that?”

  “You and Charlie go to the Lake Store for the paper and let me sleep in.” I glanced at the headlines about Ross’s press conference. “For two days in a row, I’ve actually slept until seven. Very civilized.”

  “We’re losing our touch,” Dad told Charlie. He refilled my coffee, poured some for himself, and sat down. And the two of them stared at me while I skimmed the article about Ross.

  I looked up. “What?”

  “Charlie and I have been discussing you and Joe.”

  “There is no me and Joe. And would you stop worrying about my love life?” I pointed to the stove and told him to think about breakfast, instead. “I’d like omelets, please. I have a full day of scraping paint ahead of me. I’m tackling the turret today.”

  “What!? You’re not getting up that high on a ladder, Cassie. I forbid it.”

  “I have an alternative plan. No ladders involved.”

  “How? You can’t fly, girl.”

  “You’ll see,” I said. “No worries.”

  “Yes, worries.” Bobby shook his head and got up to crack some eggs. “But back to you and Joe. It sounds like he’s very interested in that truck.”

  I slammed down my coffee cup. “You drive me nuts, old man! You kept spying on us? Is there anything you didn’t overhear?”

  “A little.” He concentrated on beating the eggs and not looking at me. “But Charlie filled me in on those details.”

  Insert colorful words … Here.

  ***

  The sirens started at nine.

  I twisted myself around on the window ledge I was sitting on and squinted to see what was happening across the lake. I couldn’t see much, but flashing lights were racing down Elizabeth Circle, headed toward Mallard Cove.

  Oh, no.

  “What in the world?” Dad said and I glanced down at his balcony two stories below.

  “They’re headed to Mallard Cove,” I said.

  “I meant you, girl. What are you doing?”

  I was scraping the outside of my turret, of course. And I pointed out that no ladders were involved. Given enough sleep, I had come up with what can only be considered an ingenious plan. I could reach virtually every corner of my turret from the windowsills. The turret is an octagon, with the coinciding eight windows. Balancing my bottom on the window ledges wasn’t exactly comfortable, but not nearly as precarious as it probably looked.

  “Simple,” I said, and tried smiling.

  “Not simple,” Dad argued. “Dangerous. And it’s not exactly a flattering pose.”

  “Looks pretty good from my angle,” Joe said, and I maneuvered myself around to see his head popped out of the FN451z’s room. He pointed toward Mallard Cove. “But that can’t be good.”

  The three of us, from our various spots at various levels, discussed what we could and could not see in Mallard Cove. From four stories up and literally hanging out of the Jolly Green Giant, I definitely had the best view. I told the guys to come join me. “Bring binoculars.”

  The guys, including Charlie, joined me in the turret about the same time the sirens were silenced.

  “Wow.” Joe looked around my space. “It’s noisy up here.”

  “No kidding.” I pointed toward his house—FN451z-ward to be specific.

  I took the binoculars from my father and got myself back in position on the windowsill. And the guys poked their heads out the nex
t best window and took turns using Joe’s binoculars.

  Even with three sets of human eyes, one set of canine, and two sets of binoculars, we couldn’t see much, other than all the other Elizabethans, out on their docks with binoculars aimed at Mallard Cove. From all the shaking heads, we concluded no one could see anything.

  I gave up on Mallard Cove and redirected my binoculars closer to home. “Where’s Maxine?” I asked. “I can’t believe she’s missing this.”

  “She’s at work,” Joe said and reminded me of the library’s weekend hours. I assumed Maxine still knew more about what was happening than the rest of us. Knowing her, she was probably, right then, on the phone with her editor at the Herald.

  I squirmed through the window and back into the turret. “Why do I know something’s happened to Travis?” I asked as I dusted myself off.

  “But those ambulances could be for Fanny,” Dad said. “Let’s call.” He left Joe and me in the turret and descended the circular stairwell to my bedroom to find my phone.

  Joe looked around, literally, at the blue and lilac rocking chairs. “It’s nice up here.”

  “I know.”

  He pointed to the coffee table stacked with novels and a few books on ancient Rome I’d been reviewing that summer. “This must be a great place to read.”

  I agreed with that, too, and told him I’d even gotten used to the FN serenading me. “Once school starts again, I’ll grade essays and papers up here.”

  Joe was asking about my fall semester schedule when Bobby returned. From the look on his face, the news wasn’t good.

  “She wants to talk to you,” he said. “She wants to tell you herself.”

  I took a deep breath, braced myself, and took the phone.

  “He’s dead, Cassie.” Fanny sobbed. “Travis La Barge is dead.”

  Chapter 35

  “I’m going over there,” I told the guys when I could speak again.

  “No.” That was my father, of course. “Stay home,” he told me. “You’ll be in the way.”

  “Not at Fanny’s, I won’t. She’s all alone, and she asked me to come sit with her.”

  “What about Lindsey?” Dad asked as I started shooing everyone out of the turret and down the stairs.

  “I guess she’s not there yet.”

  “Where’s Evert?” Joe asked over his shoulder. “He should be with her. He and Fanny are good friends.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” I said impatiently. I continued shooing and finally got them through my bedroom and out the door.

  I took a quick shower to free myself of lime green paint dust and yanked on a clean pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Uncharacteristic, but I actually thought a split second about my outfit, and switched to a gray polo shirt instead. I finger-combed my hair as I ran down the stairs and toward the door.

  “Cassie, wait,” Dad said.

  “For what?”

  “You’re missing something.” He held up my car keys and jiggled them, and I shook my head.

  “Fanny told me to walk,” I said. “Every emergency vehicle in the county is parked behind her house right now.”

  “You’ll be in the way,” Dad said, but I was already outside and racing up Leftside Lane.

  ***

  I slipped past about three dozen emergency vehicles unnoticed, but of course Fanny heard me. She was on her downstairs patio and was talking to me before I rounded the corner of Mama Bear. We barely had time to share a good hug before Gabe Cleghorn joined us.

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped at me. But he caught himself and apologized. “It’s been a rough morning.”

  No one argued there, and the three of us took seats on the patio.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Gabe reached out a hand to Fanny. “I’m sorry, to have to tell you this,” he began, but she stopped him.

  “Travis is dead,” she said quietly. “I heard.”

  Gabe stiffened. “Heard what?”

  “I heard Janet, didn’t I?” She closed her eyes and a tear rolled down her cheek. “And Ross.” More tears. “I must go over there.”

  “Talk to me first?” Gabe said gently, and her head dropped even further.

  “Did Travis have an overdose?” she asked.

  A siren started up again so Gabe had to speak above the racket. “No,” he shouted. “I confiscated all his drugs yesterday. I’m sorry, but Travis was murdered. He was stabbed.”

  Unfortunately, the siren stopped a second before Gabe, and the word stabbed probably echoed around the entire lake.

  I got up to find some tissues, gave Fanny a handful, and kept an ample supply for myself. Meanwhile Gabe explained that an anonymous phone call had reported an accident at the La Barges.

  “I didn’t like the sound of that,” he said. “So I called Janet and Ross, and Jason Sterling at the State Police. And then I got over here.” He shook his head. “I feel terrible. I promised Janet I’d check in on Travis last night. He was fine. At least he was fine right after Ross’s press conference.”

  “Was Travis alone?” I asked.

  Gabe scowled at the La Barge house. “I assumed so.” He looked at me. “You know something about this?”

  I shook my head and kept what I knew, or didn’t know, about Travis and Arlene to myself.

  Gabe turned to Fanny and asked if she had heard anything unusual.

  She sighed. “I usually go to the Hilleville Senior Center on Friday evenings for Senior Supper Club.”

  “Usually?” Gabe asked.

  “I missed it for the first time in years.” She stopped and tilted her head. “Make yourself comfortable, Captain,” she called in Sterling’s direction. “Have a seat anywhere.”

  None of us even bothered asking her how she knew it was Sterling. He paid his respects to her and spoke to Gabe. “They need you next door,” he said. “They’re about to remove the body.”

  Gabe seemed reluctant to leave, but duty called. He took his leave, and Sterling took the vacated chair.

  He frowned at me. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  It’s so nice to be appreciated.

  ***

  What a shocker, he ignored whatever answer I was mumbling and spoke to Fanny. “I know you’re upset, Mrs. Baumgarten,” he said gently. “But I need any information you can give me about last night. Can you do that?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could.”

  “She wasn’t here,” I said.

  Sterling shot me another impatient glance, and I shut up.

  “Cassie’s right,” Fanny said. “I was in Woodstock with Lindsey.” She perked up a little. “But you haven’t met Lindsey, have you, Captain? Lindsey Luke’s my assistant. She’s such a love.”

  Sterling made the mistake of asking what Fanny and her assistant had been doing in Woodstock, and learned more than he ever wanted to know about Lindsey’s pottery and the exciting art exhibit in Woodstock.

  “And it’s not just me who was excited,” Fanny said. “I overheard many people saying such nice things about Love’s work.” She smiled in Sterling’s direction. “No one paid the slightest attention to me. It’s as if the whole wide world is blind to old ladies.” She leaned toward me. “I confess I drank a little too much champagne,” she whispered.

  Sterling sighed audibly and asked Fanny what time she had gotten home, but by then she was talking to me. “Cross your fingers.” She held up both hands, fingers crossed, to demonstrate. “The owner of a very exclusive gallery in Boston is interested in Love’s work.”

  She must have noticed Sterling’s second audible sigh. “I’m sorry, Captain,” she said. “I’ve gotten off track, haven’t I? You’re more interested in what happened here, aren’t you?”

  “When did you get home, Mrs. Baumgarten?”

  “It had to be close to midnight when Love and I said our good-byes and thank yous down in Woodstock,” Fanny told me. “Love and I even debated going t
o a hotel for the night. But Woodstock can be quite expensive, and I like to wake up in my own bed. Don’t you agree, Captain Sterling?”

  “So you came home?”

  “That’s right. We got back in the wee hours of the morning, and Love put me straight to bed.”

  “But you didn’t see—excuse me—hear anything unusual?” Sterling asked.

  Fanny let out a sob. “You mean did I hear Travis? Did I hear someone kill Travis?”

  I popped out of my chair and knelt in front of her. She held onto my hand and kept going. “I didn’t hear anything,” she told Sterling. “But you might ask Lindsey. She helped me to bed, and she insisted I put in my earplugs to help me sleep. She knows how any little noise tends to wake me.”

  We heard the ambulance leave, and Gabe Cleghorn returned to the patio. Our sheriff looked very tired. “Travis is gone,” he said.

  Fanny asked about Janet and Ross. “Are they still there?”

  “For a few more minutes,” Gabe told her. “Janet’s brother is due here any minute. He’ll take them home—to Montpelier, I mean.”

  Fanny stood up. “Well then, I don’t like to be rude, but I should pay my respects. If you’ll excuse me.” I handed her the cane, but when she asked if I cared to join her, that bruise on my shin suddenly started throbbing again.

  Call me a coward, but I begged off. “I’m the last person the La Barges want to see right now.”

  Fanny considered that. “You’re probably right,” she said.

  Sterling jumped up and took her elbow. “Allow me.”

  “And I’ll stay here with Cassie,” Gabe said. “We’ll chat.” He shot me an ominous glance, and that bruise on my shin suddenly seemed the least of my problems.

  Chapter 36

  At least Gabe waited until Fanny was out of earshot. “Where were you last night?” he snapped at me, and I told him I had watched the Red Sox game.

  “At home,” I said. “And then we watched the press conference.”

  “We?”

  “My father and Joe Wy—”

  “After the press conference?”