All Hallows Evil

by Valerie Wolzien

  “I don’t know his name. It was some homeless man …”

  “What?” Susan sat down hard.

  “Yeah. Evidently he’s been hanging around the library for weeks, ever since it got cold, I guess. Anyway, he confessed to the crime.”

  Susan remembered the words the man had spoken, the “everyone else belongs here.” It couldn’t be the same person, could it? But her son was still talking.

  “… I guess he went over to the Armstrongs’ house and killed him, and then he went to the library and killed that man there.…”

  “You guess? Chad, where did you hear about all this?”

  “One of the kids on my soccer team called. His mother was down at the police station complaining about a parking ticket, and she heard the whole thing.”

  “What precisely did she hear?”

  “She said he turned himself in.”

  “He what?”

  “She was standing at the window talking to the police receptionist when he walked in and said that he was the murderer.”

  “That doesn’t strike me as likely, Chad.”

  “Why not?” His adolescent voice squeaked.

  “Because the Armstrongs just moved into Hancock last month.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “That has everything to do with it,” she said obscurely, reaching for the phone on the coffee table behind the couch. She dialed the number of the police station and sat back to wait for the answer. “Hello? Yes, I wondered if I could speak to … to Chief Fortesque. Well, when he comes in, would you tell him that Mrs. Henshaw called?” She hung up and looked at her son. “What’s wrong?”

  “I do not understand why you think every murder that happens in town is your own property. This one is solved. Why can’t you just leave it alone?” And he turned and marched from the room.

  Well, at least her family was unified, if only against her, Susan thought.

  “Don’t you just love adolescence? My husband says it’s like living with your enemy.”

  Susan didn’t have to turn around to know that her next-door neighbor was speaking. Amy Ellsworth had a distinctive voice, a cross between a chain saw and a dentist’s drill was how Susan had come to think of it in the four months since she moved in. Of course, that was exaggerated, but the woman did whine. And since Amy believed that it was neighborly to just walk into the house without knocking, Susan was getting plenty of opportunity to decide just what obnoxious machine it sounded the most like on any given day. She bent her lips into a smile.

  “Amy … hi.”

  “Don’t think it gets any better. It only gets worse. When my youngest went off to college, he discovered that he could drive me crazy long-distance. He used to call when no one was home and leave plaintive messages on the answering machine—then when I called back, he was never there. And he never returned my calls. But the worst was the summer that my oldest went to Russia. He didn’t write, he didn’t call, for all we knew he could have been dead. I was suffering with my ulcer and didn’t sleep the entire month of August.”

  Susan only half listened to this. She had worried and commiserated through each and every one of Amy’s stories until she met the three boys she had been hearing so much about. The oldest was a Harvard-educated lawyer married to a Yale-educated lawyer with a brand-new baby who had slept through the night at one week and gave every appearance of continuing such exceptional behavior. The youngest was a junior at Dartmouth, in the top tenth of his class, destined for a full grant for graduate work in international affairs at Georgetown University. The middle child, the “problem child” as he was known, had gone off to UCLA determined to break into a career in acting. His second job was a stint in England with the Royal Shakespearean; the first had been the lead in the most popular sitcom of the season. Susan thought it a miracle that this woman sitting across from her had anything to do with raising these paragons.

  “You heard about the murders.” Amy rarely asked questions, and when she did, she didn’t listen to the answers. She was most interested in her own opinions, her own life, her own words. She talked constantly. When she first moved in, Susan assumed she was lonely and hadn’t discouraged the daily visits and phone calls, but as time went by, Amy didn’t call her less; she just added her to the burgeoning list of people she contacted daily to keep them up-to-date on the state of her affairs.

  “I had a horrible anxiety attack last night, and I didn’t know why. Now I’m wondering if it could have had something to do with these murders.”

  Susan didn’t bother to ask how the two could be related: she was sure to hear about it, so she had learned to save her breath.

  “In fact, I’m sure it had something to do with it. It’s frightening to think that some of us have been stalked by this homeless man and we didn’t even know about it. We went about our business like always, never thinking about him lurking there in the background, ready to spring at the slightest opportunity.”

  “I don’t think he did it.”

  “I was at the library a few weeks ago, and I’m sure he was watching me. I remember feeling funny when I was in the stacks. At the time, I thought I was just hungry from the diet I was on (have you noticed that I lost two pounds?), but now I think that it must have been him watching me. I was wearing my new plum-colored short skirt, I remember that. It was the same day the teenage boy at the gas station flirted with me while he filled my car. I guess I do look a little younger these …”

  Susan had learned not to listen, but she couldn’t help wondering about how ready … almost happy … everyone was to accept the guilt of that poor homeless man. That poor homeless man who could not possibly have done it, she reminded herself. “He couldn’t have done it,” she interrupted her neighbor.

  “… And, of course, you can always tell … what do you mean, he couldn’t have done it?” Amy took a few seconds to adjust to the interruption of her flow. “Of course he did it.”

  “No, you see, the Armstrongs weren’t here when those knives were sold. No one in their right mind would buy a set unless it was for a good cause, so I think we can rule out that they went to the store and bought them, so how did the homeless man get those knives? Even if he went to the Armstrongs’ first, he wouldn’t have gotten knives like that there.”

  “Oh. But he confessed.”

  “He confessed because he … well, I don’t know why he confessed, but he didn’t do it.”

  “Susan, he could have broken into someone else’s house first and stolen the knives and then killed Jason Armstrong and … and that other man.”

  “I wonder if the police know who the other victim is,” Susan mused, ignoring the first logical thing she had known Amy to say.

  “I don’t think he was a local person.…”

  The phone rang before Amy had a chance to expound on this topic. Susan reached for the receiver. It was probably Brett.

  It wasn’t.

  “Can you drive? I promised Steve he could take the car to football practice, and I totally forgot that we were running.” The voice belonged to Linda Scott.

  “We were?”

  “Susan, don’t tell me you forgot, too. Well, I suppose I’m glad you’re as absentminded as I am. But I hope you’re ready to go, because I have to rush today. There’s no one here to greet the little monsters and fairies, and I don’t want to come back after dark to discover the windows covered with soap and my porch awash in broken eggs.”

  “I don’t …”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Amy broke in, misunderstanding Susan’s hesitation. “I have to leave now anyway. I can even let myself out.”

  “I …”

  “Now, you know what you say to me when I start to make excuses,” Linda nagged. “No pain, no gain. Let’s get going, kid.”

  Did she say that? “Okay, I’ll be over in ten minutes,” she agreed, waving good-bye to Amy and hanging up. After all, there was no reason to sit here and hope that Brett would call. Who did she think she was? A
policewoman? Brett had probably just been tolerating her presence years ago; certainly there was no reason for her to be involved in this particular murder. “Can you stay home and hand out candy while I run?” she asked her son, who would have been thrilled if he had known what she was thinking.

  “Sure. We’re not going out until after dark anyway. You said I could, remember?” he added quickly as Susan started to protest.

  “Just don’t leave until I get back,” she insisted, wondering just when she had promised him all this. Certainly it was before these murders. Well, they would have time to negotiate later, she thought, hurrying up to her bedroom to change into shorts and an old T-shirt.

  Running was new to Susan. She had put on her old aerobic shoes and tried out the local tracks in the middle of summer after spending the first six months of the year starting and stopping one diet after another. She was still waiting for a one-mile run to get easy. She was still looking forward to the day that she would travel around the track the twelve times that made three miles. She was still aching, sweating, panting. But she was still doing it. And she had decided that was all that mattered. Linda Scott had appeared to be a perfect partner for Susan. Linda was slightly more overweight and definitely shorter, so Susan had expected the run to be more difficult for her. But Linda was nothing if not determined, and she had been outrunning Susan for the last month and a half.

  “I’m thinking of signing up for the Franklin marathon next week,” she announced, getting into Susan’s Maserati. “It’s a ten K. I’m pretty sure I can do it. What do you think?”

  “Great idea,” Susan enthused. “When is it?” she asked, hoping she was busy.

  “Next Saturday.”

  She was! “That’s really wonderful. What time does it end? We’re going to a brunch for some people at Jed’s office, but I’d love to cheer you on at the finish line.”

  “I should be coming in around two in the afternoon if I run my normal nine-minute mile,” Linda answered, smacking her watch. “I hope this damn thing is working right. I don’t seem to be improving as quickly as I should be.”

  “Maybe it’s the weather,” Susan suggested, although they were in the middle of a beautiful autumn, and it was certainly easier to run now than it had been two months ago. But one of the purposes of a running partner is moral encouragement. “And I think your timing is getting a lot better. A whole lot better,” she insisted, turning her car into the parking lot near the track.

  “Not too busy,” Linda said approvingly, getting out of the car. “Guess most people decided to stay home and hand out candy today.”

  “Or eat it,” Susan said, joining her friend in some hamstring stretches.

  “I heard about the murderer,” Linda said, punching a tiny knob on her watch and nodding for Susan to start off. “It sounds to me like a serial killing. We were lucky he was caught so quickly.”

  “Serial killer?”

  “Sure. Two murders in one day—what else would you call it? If he hadn’t been caught so quickly, we might all be dead in our beds.”

  Susan knew she couldn’t respond to that. She had to conserve her breath if she was going to make it a full mile and a half without stopping. She could, however, do a little thinking. At least, she supposed she could. Most of her time on the track so far had been spent trying to keep her legs going.

  It had been just a few hours since the murders, and apparently everyone in town was ready to accept the confession of a stranger and be done with it. She rounded the second turn, thinking furiously. There was no reason to accept that poor, sad man as the murderer. Except, of course, that he had walked into the police station and confessed to the crime, she reminded herself as she started to breathe heavily. First lap complete. Five more to go.

  There had just been something about him.… That was no way to decide a person’s guilt or innocence, she reminded herself. But why would a person without a home, so far outside of this world, kill? Although, she had to admit, he could be homeless because of some sort of mental disability. Possibly he had killed Jason Armstrong because he was a famous face. Perhaps that murder was the incredibly sad result of a deranged mind. But the man in the library? Who was that man? She looked to see how far ahead Linda had gotten. Susan decided to slow down—just slightly.

  Why didn’t it get easier?

  Second lap complete. And Linda was catching up.

  “Who was the man in the library?” Susan managed to ask.

  “No one seems to know—not someone from Hancock. You’re not running very fast today.”

  “No. I missed lunch.” Susan took a breath between each word as Linda sped off, apparently breathing with ease.

  The third lap was usually easier. Possibly because its completion meant that she had gone halfway. Or because she was finally warmed up. Susan wasn’t fond of people who told her that running was all in the head. For her it was the lungs that mattered. And her thighs. And her calves.

  So who was this dead man? Was he connected with Jason Armstrong? Possibly employed by “This Morning, Every Morning?” Wouldn’t Brett know about these things by now? Had he called her yet? Would he call her? Was she ever again going to be able to breathe normally?

  “Looking good today.” The voice behind Susan was definitely male. Susan changed lanes to let the quicker runner have the inside of the track.

  “Hey, Dave, what are you doing here in the middle of the day?” She slowed down in order to get the words out.

  “That’s one of the perks of running your own business; you can take off anytime you want. Of course, it’s none too good for the cash-flow situation.” David Pratt had inherited a chain of drugstores. They were evidently prospering, as his main problem usually was choosing whether to drive the Range Rover, the Jaguar, or the Ferrari to his gigantic “cottage” on Shelter Island, or to save his energy and charter a jet to fly either to the condo in Palm Springs (golf) or the condo in Aspen (skiing, the music festival, or just lounging around). The cash was apparently flowing just fine. “I heard that you found the body in the library.”

  Susan nodded. Fourth lap. About now she usually thought she was going to collapse. This was no time for anyone to try to hold a conversation with her.

  “It must have been a shock.”

  Nod. Breathe.

  “I also heard that you’re friends with the new police chief. That you worked with him on a case some time ago.”

  Breathe. Nod.

  “Does he have any ideas about who did it?”

  “Arrest” was the only word Susan managed to get out.

  “There’s been an arrest? Already? Looks like we hired the right new police chief, doesn’t it?” He looked pleased.

  “Hi, Dave, are you going to run in the Franklin marathon?” Linda asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she passed them by. Dave was a rarity in Hancock: a single man. As such he got a certain amount of extra attention, and his presence required some extra primping.

  “Sure am!” he called out his answer. “She’s becoming quite a runner, isn’t she? And you’re doing better, too,” he added quickly, seeing the scowl on Susan’s face.

  Nod. Breathe. It was getting hard to listen now. And Dave had changed the subject, apparently finding Linda more interesting than the body in the library, although Susan seemed to remember that he was on the board that governed the library.

  “She’s certainly very attractive for her age,” he was saying.

  Why argue? Nod. Breathe. Was that a sharp pain in her left knee? The books all said to stop if it was a sharp pain, to continue in case of a dull ache. Breathe. Sweat.

  “I must admit to admiring her for a long time. Years, I guess.”

  Linda must have some appeal that women didn’t see. But Susan was too tired to be interested. Last lap. She knew she’d make it now.

  “I think a lot of men were disappointed when she got married. Not that she didn’t have a right to, it’s just that one of our favorite fantasies had ended. It’s all part of growin
g up, as my mother would say.”.

  Susan watched sweat drip onto her new running shoes. She could barely hear him over the sound of her own breathing. The last two hundred yards. She pushed herself and crossed the finish line, still running. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Linda wave, indicating that she had noted Susan’s time. Linda was going for two miles today. Susan slowed down to a walk, holding the cramped muscle in her left side and trying to catch her breath.

  “Look at her run. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Susan looked from Linda to Dave. Was he crazy? Or … she looked over in the direction he was looking. Rebecca Armstrong was running around the track in white shorts and a turquoise T-shirt. Her gazelle-like legs easily took long graceful strides, her thin arms pumped gently, and those auburn curls swirled behind. So this is who he’s in love with, not Linda. Susan was getting enough energy back to laugh at herself. “It’s kind of strange that she would be here, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. She runs every day, you know. She’s even talked about it on TV. I think she usually uses an indoor track at some athletic club in the city, but I’ve seen her here before—on weekends.”

  “I guess.” Susan stood up straight. “It just seems like a strange thing to do right after your husband’s death.”

  “Her … ?” Dave stopped walking and grabbed Susan’s arm. “What are you talking about? The man in the library …” He shook his head. “He wasn’t her husband.…” He stopped.

  “No, of course not. Apparently no one knows who the man in the library was—not even his name. But Jason Armstrong was killed, too. He was found stabbed this afternoon.”

  “My God! I had no idea. Quiet, here she comes.” Susan and Dave moved over to the grass in the middle of the track and watched Rebecca run by, flashing them her famous smile as she went.

  Dave was the first to speak. “She doesn’t look heartbroken.”

  “No, she looks wonderful,” Susan agreed, watching as the woman bounded around the macadam. She was passing Linda now, and the two women evidently had enough breath left to exchange words. Whatever was said, it startled Linda; it was the first time Susan had known her to stop during a run. She was further surprised when Linda detoured across the field and ran to them, waving her arms and calling out something.