A Wee Dose of Death (13 page)

Birthday Party #1

S
ergeant Marti Fairing looked around the cramped space of Hamelin's police headquarters. Balloons dangled from Murphy's chair and floated over his desk. Moira, the dispatcher, pushed the microphone on her headset back out of the way and called out something to Joe, one of the other junior officers. Harper sat hunched over at his desk, like a broody hen on an egg-filled nest, moving bright yellow sticky notes from one position to another. From where Fairing stood, it looked like there was a word or two on each note.

She began a circuitous stroll around the room, dodging desks and out-of-position chairs, as the hilarity quotient of the spontaneous birthday party built. She managed to peer over his shoulder for about three seconds before he jerked his head around.

“You spying on me?”

“Just wondering what's going on. You're not exactly joining in the fun.”

Harper went still. Fairing had seen him do that before a couple of times.
Maybe he's laying another egg
, she thought. But then he shrugged and began stripping the sticky notes off, one at a time, and sticking them onto a leather notebook, kind of like one of those blank books people used for diaries. Fairing saw enough words to pique her curiosity even more.
Wantstring
, one of them said
. Financing?
Fairing wondered about that question mark.
Dad. Poughkeepsie.

Poughkeepsie? What did the dead guy have to do with where Harper used to work?

“Harper!” Moira's voice boomed from across the room. “You gonna join us anytime soon or do we have to put you on traffic duty?” Moira, the transplanted Southerner whose accent hadn't faded a bit in the three decades she'd served as Hamelin's police dispatcher, beckoned, and Fairing poked Harper's shoulder. “Better do what she says.”

“Murph already threatened me with traffic,” he muttered.

Fairing made an elaborate fake curtsy—hard to do with a duty belt on her hips. “You can have it anytime you want. We've got us a doozy. Woman calling two or three times every day.”

Harper twirled a pencil around on his desk, as if he weren't up to repartee. “Why's she calling so much?”

“Wants us to find out who backed into her car last Sunday.”

“Any leads?”

Fairing snorted. “If you can call them that. The woman whipped out her iPhone and caught a picture of the car leaving the lot—gray Ford. I ran the potential combinations from what I could see of the license plate. I've got three possibles, but nobody around here.”

“So?”

“Silly to pursue it when we have a murder on our hands. There was hardly any damage to her car other than some scraped paint. Other car broke its taillight.”

Moira held up a candle-bedecked birthday cake, and her long fingernails glittered in the light of her desk lamp. “All right, you two; hush up so we can get this party started. You get over here, too, Murphy. Did you think we were going to let you turn two dozen years old without us singing to you?”

Usually by this time of the evening, the place would be almost deserted, but with a murder on deck—and a birthday cake—everybody seemed to have congregated. Fairing waved a hand in acknowledgment and stepped away from Harper's desk. Something was going on to make him so pensive, and Fairing thought maybe she ought to find out what it was. One of those sticky notes had the murdered guy's name on it.

She heard Harper's footsteps pause behind her, and she turned in time to see him step back and slide the leather notebook into his top desk drawer.

“Harper!” Moira sounded like she was getting irritated. “We're havin' cake and ice cream over here, and you're the party pooper.”

“You're the boss,” Fairing called. “Hurry up, Harper, before the ice cream melts.”

*   *   *

Mac took a
peek and then slammed the metal lid back down on whatever this was—a poor excuse for food, especially for a man who needed all his strength just to heal. He looked around the hospital room that was, for the moment, the closest thing he had to a home. Not that he was planning on staying long. Nope. He'd be out of here in no time, once he was out of traction. Once he'd gained back a little weight. He was healthy as a horse. And he sure didn't want anybody like that Peggy Winn coming in again and seeing him in this hospital johnny.

He'd handled himself pretty well on that mountain, all
things considered. Getting his leg splinted like that—he deserved a medal or something. Crawling up that slope and down into the clearing, up those steps and . . . His thoughts veered away. Mac wasn't squeamish—he didn't know the meaning of the word—but the way the back of that skull was caved in wasn't something he wanted to think about before he had to eat a lousy hospital meal.

He'd told Murphy to get the investigation started. Somebody killed that guy, and by golly Mac wanted whoever it was under lock and key before he got out of the hospital. No reason they couldn't catch the perp sooner rather than later. Mac tried to shift his weight, but his hip hurt like the dickens. His leg felt like a red-hot poker was rammed up from his toes to his knee. He needed out of here. Soon. Anyway, tomorrow was his birthday. Maybe somebody would bring him a cake.

A nurse opened the door. “Feeling any better?”

Mac saw her name tag. Amy something-or-other. He told her exactly what he felt like, but she pretty much ignored him. She just looked him over and walked away, toward the computer on a little cart beside his bed. She didn't even wish him an early happy birthday, and it must have said it right there in the computer.

*   *   *

The whole time
I sat there holding the rolled-up shawl, I kept wondering how my life would be different if I hadn't found this shawl in that mysterious store. Dirk and I had had a lot of fun together. On the other hand, he put a crimp in my love life. No. That wasn't fair. I didn't have a love life, but I knew darn well he'd be jealous as all get-out if I did. Not jealous. Just . . . protective.

Shorty meowed at me again.

“Oh, all right.”

I unrolled the shawl and slowly lifted it to my shoulders.

Shorty jumped down and meowed at the figure that appeared in front of us. Dirk said, “This isna the same day, for ye are wearing different . . .” He waved his hand, apparently not knowing the word for “sweatpants.”

He'd missed 653 years; he had no way of telling what day this was. Even though I'd dismissed him only this morning, I didn't have to say so. “It's Thursday,” was all I said and went back to my hot chocolate, knowing he might think he'd been in there a whole week.

I patted my lap, but Shorty ignored me and wandered over to the couch to lick up a spiderweb, his new favorite snack.

Wooden Box

E
mily had to go out and get the mail even though it was already dark. She couldn't just sit and rot, although that was precisely what she felt like doing. Sit and rot. Or sit and cry. She wound a heavy scarf around her neck twice and shrugged into her heaviest parka. Her good boots had slouched onto their sides, and she didn't feel like bending down to work them over her heavy socks. So she eased her left foot into a pair she almost never wore. She should have dropped them off at the Goodwill store years ago. Why had she even brought them here, to Hamelin? They'd been sitting in the mudroom for such a long time, they shimmered with a faint coating of gray dust.

The first boot went on just fine. When she tried to put on the second boot, though, her right big toe jammed into something hard. The mail could wait. Emily pulled out a small square wooden box. She recognized it as one her husband had brought back home from one of his visits to the Amazon.
It had a lid with a tricky way of opening it. She'd seen Mark open it with a simple push, pull, twist, but she'd never bothered to ask him how it worked. Was there anything in it? She thought maybe he'd put a paper or something in it, but she hadn't been curious enough to pay attention. It always used to sit on the coffee table, but she couldn't recall when it had gone missing. And now here it was in an old boot. She shook it gently. Nothing rattled inside, but then, it wouldn't, would it, if it were just a piece of paper he'd put in there? She took it into the kitchen where the light was better.

Mark always liked to hide little things in odd crannies. He stuffed treasures—some not so valuable, like ballpoint pens—wherever he happened to be standing, the way a squirrel puts nuts into any available hole. But this particular acorn didn't make sense.

He'd never hidden anything in shoes before. Not that she knew of. The mail forgotten, Emily took off her coat and played with the box, twisting it this way and that. She always complained about the way he scattered things everywhere, all around the house, not that the complaining did any good. He probably did it at his office, too, although she'd been there only two or three times, and it had looked tidy enough. Why had she ever complained about such a stupid thing? She should have found his habit of squirreling things away endearing, rather than irritating.

All her married life with him—and the two years before the wedding—she'd found keys and coins and pens stowed here and there around the house. He even hid Tootsie Rolls, tucking them under couch cushions, between books, in the medicine cabinet. More frequently than she wanted to admit, she'd eat them as soon as she came across them. She liked Tootsie Rolls just as much as he did, but where he wanted to save them, she felt she'd better take her pleasure where
she could find it, because you never knew when life was going to . . .

She leaned against the bright orange chair. Life had taken Mark just the same way it had taken her voice. Here she was worrying about finding all her husband's little doodads, when what she really wanted to collect was Mark himself. She wanted her arms around him. She wanted his arms around her.

She unwound her purple scarf. No wonder she'd been so warm. She used the end of it to wipe her eyes and then draped it over the back of Mark's blue chair. His favorite scarf had been cashmere in a soft brown, the color of beach sand. He always left it hanging over his kitchen chair whether they were in Burlington or here, so he never had to go looking for it. She'd given him that scarf when she got her first paycheck from the Met. She couldn't remember having seen it lately. He wouldn't have taken it skiing.

It had to be around somewhere. Just like the mail, she forgot about the box and was now intent on finding the scarf. She went into the bedroom, but before she could begin the search, she had to sit for a minute on the edge of their bed. She reached out to the pillow, his pillow, and pulled it up to her face. She missed his smell when he was gone. Was this faint scent all she'd ever have left of him? That was nonsense. Standing, she placed the pillow back, straightened the bedspread, and began a methodical search of every drawer. She opened each jacket hanging in the closet, thinking he might have tucked the scarf around the hanger, but the light brown scarf might never have existed. She looked in the car. She went out to the living room and picked up the silver-framed photo of the two of them that cold day years ago when they'd driven down into the Berkshires, proof that she wasn't losing her mind. But where had the scarf gone?

She set down the photograph and her hands stilled.
Should she mention to the police that it appeared to be missing?

Mark had taken it with him, after all, even though he never wore it when he was skiing. That was the answer. She'd call Sergeant Murphy tomorrow and ask him to return it.

*   *   *

Fairing studied Harper
over her plastic bowl of ice cream. He'd been gone a lot lately, and she wondered what all that was about. He'd been pensive. Not the Harper she was used to. She tossed her empty bowl into the trash and looked at him until he glanced up at her. “Have you been to see the chief yet?”

“No. Why?”

Moira, who never missed a thing in the station, spoke up. “You've been gone long enough to forget what he looks like.” She glanced at the oversized clock on the wall. “Still a couple of hours left for visiting time.” She winked at Fairing. “Serves him right for leaving us for so long.”

Harper heaved an exaggerated sigh, but Fairing thought he'd gotten to his feet a little too quickly. Was he looking for an excuse to leave? “All right, you convinced me.”

As he left, he didn't look back, didn't thank Moira for the cake, didn't make eye contact with anyone. What was going on? Fairing wondered if it had anything to do with that leather-covered journal and the sticky notes.

*   *   *

Mac heard three
sharp taps on his door, but he ignored them. There was a pause, and then he heard a woman's voice. It sounded like that nurse, and the other voice was Harper. About time he came back from his vacation.
Undercover work.
Ha! Not a chance. He ought to fire the guy, but Archie
was on Harper's side. And Archie was the town moderator—the Vermont version of a mayor. Technically, he was Mac's boss, although Mac didn't like to think about it that way.

“If I had to guess,” he heard Harper say, “he's either on death's door or—more likely—just too grumpy to respond. But you're hospital personnel so you can't say that. Am I right on the second one?”

“Those are your words,” the stuck-up nurse said. “You didn't hear a thing from me.”

“I'll take my chances, then. Okay if I go on in?”

“If you're up to it, be my guest.” Mac could hear a grin in the nurse's voice. What the heck was so funny?

“I'll be on my guard.”

Mac closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. But he didn't want Harper sneaking up on him, so he snapped his eyes open and glared. “What're you doing here? When did you get back from that
emergency
of yours?” Mac sneered. “I should have fired you for taking off like that and not reporting in. Have you been to the station yet? What have you found out so far?”

“Just thought I'd check in with you, let you know what's happening.”

“So, how's the case going? What have you got to report?”

“Nothing much. We're still interviewing people. Nobody has anything against Wantstring.”

“Against who?”

“The victim. He's a microbiologist at UVM.”

“Micro-what? Who identified him?”

Harper explained, and Mac's mood went even further downhill from there. “You mean you've known who this guy was for the past four hours and nobody thought to tell me?”

“The whole department's been called in,” Harper said. “Everybody's been out interviewing. Murphy's leading the team, and doing a damn fine job of it.”

“But he hasn't caught the perp yet.”

Harper checked his watch. “It's been only a little more than ten and a half hours since we found out anybody was even dead. How many murders have you solved in that time?”

Mac's explosion brought Amy, three other nurses, and two interns on the run. By the time everything was sorted out, Mac—far from being embarrassed that he'd disrupted hospital routine so severely—felt pretty good about his own importance. He grinned at the nurse, but she just shooed everyone out and then left Mac alone.

It wasn't fair. It was all Harper's fault. And that Peggy person.