Shooting Star (21 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Riggs

BOOK: Shooting Star
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“Mrs. Hill got hurt,” said Junior. “They’re flying her to Boston.”
Ruth felt a surge of relief. “What happened?”
“She got hurt,” Junior repeated, and Ruth could imagine him half-closing his eyes, not able to give out information. “Mr. Hill is with her.”
“Becca is my sister. Why didn’t someone notify me?”
“Sorry, Mrs. Byron. The Tisbury police tried to reach you, but your phone’s been busy.”
At the theater, the three law enforcement officers systematically questioned every one of the one hundred fifty members of the audience, cast, and crew. No one had seen anything. The bride of Frankenstein had sat up in her nuptial bed when the monster crashed through the window, screamed once, and fell back onto the bed. The audience had been delighted.
The monster had shouted, “I didn’t do it this time!” which caused more laughter, catcalls, and whistles.
Several minutes had gone by before Frankenstein or Dearborn Hill or whoever he was, realized that his bride wasn’t acting, that she really was lying there bleeding for real. Several more minutes went by as the audience segued from hilarity into sobriety. Still more minutes went by before the ambulance arrived, then the police. The police had shut the doors.
From what Alison, Junior Norton, and Tim Eldredge could determine, close to fifteen minutes had passed before the theater had been closed down and people prevented from leaving.
Had anyone seen people leaving? No, they were too interested in what was happening on stage. No one had been down in the café. No one had been in the ticket booth. No one had been watching the doors.
“Didn’t you think someone would sneak in without paying?” Alison had asked the crew and cast members who were not actually on stage.
The answer had been, “It was a full house. No one could have squeezed in. Even standing room was sold out.”
And no one had seen anyone sneak out of the theater.
 
 
Teddy had fallen asleep again, under the weight of a fluffy, clean, warm dog. His very own.
Doc Atkins, Victoria, and Teddy’s father finished off the Australian wine, and the vet, seeing the boy and the dog settled in, left, with a satisfied smile. Jefferson Vanderhoop went off to Cumberland Farms to get some ice cream for his kid and his kid’s dog. Not chocolate, the vet had warned. Bad for dogs.
Victoria settled an exhausted Dawn Haines in the West Room, where the breeze whispered through the screen, gently lifting the sheer curtains. How had Dawn imagined she could stay up all night playing poker with those two policemen?
Then Victoria realized that she, too, would rise to an occasion such as having two attractive men competing for her attention, and she smiled. How ridiculous to think she needed a police guard. Totally unnecessary. Nice, though.
Karen and Tracy, her two lodgers, would be home by midnight, after they finished their shift at the motel. Elizabeth would probably get home from the harbor around the same time. Only a couple of hours from now. Teddy’s father would be back soon. Fifteen minutes to Cumberland Farms, five minutes to purchase the ice cream, fifteen minutes back again.
Victoria tiptoed into the library to see her patient. Sound asleep. Sandy looked up at her, and laid his head back on Teddy’s chest, eyes closed. Teddy must be hot with that dog enveloping him like that, but she left them alone and softly shut the door.
She looked at her watch. Jefferson had been gone for only ten minutes. He’d be back in a half-hour, maybe less.
A vehicle turned off the Edgartown Road into her drive, and she went to the door. A man she’d never seen before, a tall slender man with slicked-back hair who she could just make out in the light from the entry, got out of a battered pickup truck he’d parked right in front of the steps.
“Please park under the maple tree,” she called out to him and added, “People need to get past.”
“Okay.” The man got back into the truck, drove around the circle, parked, and sauntered back to where she was still waiting on the steps.
“And who are you?” Victoria asked, blocking his way.
“Name’s Vincent,” he replied. “Leonard Vincent.”
“Peg Storm’s husband?” Victoria still blocked his way.
“Ex-husband,” he said.
“I believe the police are looking for you.”
“So I hear. You going to ask me in?”
“Would you mind telling me why you’re here? At my house?”
“Sure. You can ask.” He grinned. His teeth were badly stained.
She cleared her throat. “Well?”
“I figured the boy is staying here.”
“The boy?” said Victoria.
“You know,
the boy.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Figured it out from the police scanner, lady.”
“May I ask what your business is with the boy?”
He chortled. “Sure. You can ask.”
Victoria took in a deep breath and let it out. “This conversation is unsatisfactory. I was hoping to meet you, and now I have.” She continued to block the doorway. “Thank you for dropping by, Mr. Vincent …”
“Name’s Lennie. How about asking me in?”
“I don’t think so.”
Lennie grinned again, set one hand on the door frame and leaned against it. “Okay, lady, you win. Kid was my neighbor. Heard he was here and wanted to see how’s he doing.”
Victoria, torn between wanting to guard her patient and curiosity about Peg’s ex-husband, finally stepped aside and led him into the kitchen.
“Won’t you sit down?” She nodded to one of the gray-painted kitchen chairs.
“Don’t mind if I do.” He swung the chair around and straddled it, arms crossed over the back. He looked around. “You alone here?”
“No.” Victoria decided she’d better take control of the conversation. “I’ve wanted to meet you, Mr. Vincent.”
“Lennie.”
“I understand you’re a sailor.”
“Who says?”
“Have I seen you sailing a catboat on Lagoon Pond?” She hadn’t, but Peg had talked to her about the catboat. “And you have an outboard motor boat, I believe.”
“Yeah, I do.”
 
Howland’s old white station wagon coughed, shuddered, and coasted to a stop. He turned the key in the ignition. The engine started briefly, sputtered, and died. He checked the gas gauge. The needle rested below empty.
“Damnation!”
Tiasquam Repairs would be closed at this time of night. He’d have to hitchhike to Victoria’s. Fortunately, her house was only about two miles away. Howland gathered up papers he thought he might need, tucked the car key under the floor mat, and was about to step out of the driver’s side when Bruce Duncan’s van went past. He caught sight of the “GOODDOG” license plate and the bumper stickers plastered on the van that read “VETA”. If only he’d been a few seconds earlier, he could have hitched a ride with Duncan.
He decided it would make sense to stay with his car rather than start walking, so passing motorists would see that he was having car troubles. He stood where he was visible, saw the headlights of an approaching car, and stuck out his thumb. The car slowed and stopped.
Howland opened the passenger-side door, the dome light
went on, and Roderick, still in some of his costume, leaned over his cousin, George Byron, who sat in the passenger seat. “Where are you heading?” asked Roderick.
“Victoria Trumbull’s,” said Howland, feeling a sense of déjà vu.
“So are we. Hop in the back seat,” said Roderick. “You can shove that stuff to one side.”
The stuff consisted of the rest of Roderick’s blood-soaked costume, a clear plastic bag containing fangs and hairy fingers, and a gun.
Howland pulled a pen out of his pocket and picked up the gun by its trigger guard. “What are you doing with this?”
Roderick looked over his shoulder. “That? It’s the stage gun.”
“What are you doing with it?”
“Cousin George was supposed to shoot me in the last act, but he never got a chance.”
Howland hefted the gun on his pen. “Loaded?”
“With blanks,” said Roderick.
Howland took a handkerchief out of his pocket and opened the chamber. Not blanks, real bullets. He shook the fangs and fingers out of the plastic bag and put the gun in the bag instead, then tucked the plastic bag containing the loaded gun into his jacket pocket.
“What are you doing?” asked Roderick
“Evidence,” replied Howland. “Precautionary.”
“Where are you staying?” George asked Roderick.
“In my car,” answered Roderick.
Howland said, “I thought you were living with Dearborn?”
“They locked me out. You’re staying with Aunt Ruth, aren’t you, George?”
“My mother’s redecorating my room. I’m sleeping in the costume barn.”
The car swerved and Howland grasped the seat in front of him. “The costume barn?” asked Roderick. “You mean, behind your house?”
“Yeah, my mother’s house,” said George. “Where we used to play when we were kids. Why?”
“Oh my God,” said Roderick.
“Were you thinking of staying there?” said George, and Howland saw him sit up straight. “You were the one who fixed up the place in the barn, weren’t you? Why didn’t you say something to my mother?”
Roderick made puffing sounds, his lips going in and out like his Uncle Dearborn’s sometimes did. Howland watched with fascination from the back seat.
George laughed. “That explains everything. I didn’t know you were into comic books.
Batman
?
Daredevil
?
Tomb Raider
? Jeez, Roderick.” He laughed some more.
Roderick continued to make puffing sounds, and Howland realized the guy was hyperventilating and just possibly might black out.
“Watch him, George,” Howland warned.
Victoria watched Leonard Vincent, who continued to watch her in return. He’d said he wanted to see Teddy, but did he have something else in mind?
“I’ll take you to visit Teddy, if you’d like, Mr. Vincent.”
“Lennie,” he said again. “Why not?” He got to his feet and swung the chair around, then followed Victoria to the library. She opened the door gently. Teddy, face flushed and liberally spotted, slumbered peacefully under the weight of Sandy. He slept on. Sandy looked up, curled his lips back in a snarl, bared his teeth, and growled.
“Have you had chicken pox, Mr. Vincent?” Victoria asked.
Lennie backed out of the room. Sandy continued to growl. Teddy, in his sleep, wrapped an arm around his very own dog, who put his head down with his eyes still open and a low rumble of a growl directed at Lennie Vincent.
“What’s Peg’s dog doing here?” Lennie demanded.
“Guarding Teddy.”
“Never did like that mutt. The kid gonna keep him?”
“Yes.”
“Good riddance. One of her possessions I sure as hell don’t want.”
Victoria closed the library door and kept herself between Lennie and the closed door. As they walked back to the kitchen, Victoria wondered what to do with the information she now had: that Sandy didn’t like Peg’s husband. Had Lennie killed Peg? Possibly, but why kill Bob Scott? That didn’t seem likely.
She mused on the possibility of Lennie as a killer, when she
saw the lights of a vehicle turn into the drive. A light-colored van pulled up under the maple tree next to Lennie’s truck. The driver got out. In the light from the entry, she could see him limp toward the kitchen door. Bruce Duncan.
Her skin prickled. Teddy had recognized a van that drove away from Job’s Neck. She couldn’t see the license plate, which Teddy said spelled out something he couldn’t read. At the pet store, she’d asked Bruce about his limp, and he’d told her he’d barked his shin. Had the barked shin come from banging into Teddy’s Lego box? Bruce had insisted from the beginning that people were being killed in order of appearance. That was what he’d said, even though Peg had been the only victim at the time. Even before Bob Scott was killed.
She had two suspects in the house now. If one of them was the killer, would he go after Teddy with the other present? Before Duncan reached the kitchen door, Victoria slipped into the parlor and found her grandfather’s heavy, gold-headed, ebony cane leaning next to the bookcase. She propped herself on it as though she needed its support.
Lennie had turned the chair around and sat again. He watched her with an amused expression. “You gonna go after someone? Pretty lethal, that stick.”
His over-familiarity unnerved her, and she didn’t reply. She waited by the door until Bruce Duncan limped up the steps, and then ushered him into the kitchen.
“Bruce,” she said. “What brings you here?”
Lennie chuckled. “Hey, asshole. Having fun with your animals?”
Bruce flushed. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“Couldn’t make it with my wife, could you?”
Bruce stepped toward Lennie, fists clenched.
“Stop it,” said Victoria, and thumped her grandfather’s stick on the floor. “How can I help you, Bruce?”
Bruce turned away from Lennie. “I heard they found Teddy.”
Victoria did a quick calculation. Teddy’s father should be
back soon. She checked her watch. Perhaps fifteen more minutes. That seemed forever. Would she be able to stall for that long?
The two police officers, Tim Eldredge and Junior Norton, wouldn’t be able to help. They had responded to Sergeant Smalley’s call to get to the theater. Where was Howland? She could awaken Dawn, who was probably asleep by now, but that would put Dawn in danger, and what could Dawn do to help?
McCavity stalked in from some hideaway, paused at the door of the library and sniffed. His fur rose in a ridge along his back, his tail fluffed up.
“What’s your cat’s problem?” asked Duncan. He knelt and offered a hand to McCavity, who twitched his tail and glanced over his shoulder. Bruce pulled a catnip mouse out of his pocket and held it by its tail in front of McCavity. With great dignity, McCavity ignored the mouse, then, turned in a flash and pounced. “Works every time,” said Duncan. McCavity had rolled over on his back, and his hind claws tore at the mouse. “What’s behind the door?”
Victoria clutched the cane in both hands. “Teddy’s here.”
“I gathered as much.”
“He’s asleep. He came down with chicken pox.”
“Better to have it now than when he’s older,” said Duncan. “As I well know. Okay if I peek in at him?”
Victoria watched his hands. One had extracted the mouse, the other might reach into his pocket for a weapon of some kind. Lennie slouched in the kitchen chair, watching. Victoria opened the door a crack, and tensed.
Teddy slept on. Sandy lifted his head, opened his mouth in a sort of doggy grin, tongue out, and wagged his tail.
“The boy’s dog?” Duncan whispered.
“He is now.”
“Looks a lot like Peg Storm’s dog, Sandy.”
“Ummm,” said Victoria. She shut the door again, kept her back to it, and relaxed her grip on the cane.
“Someone ought to be here with you, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Duncan. “I mean, the boy’s life may be in danger.”
Victoria had been intent on watching Bruce Duncan and hadn’t kept her eyes on Leonard Vincent. He no longer sat in the gray-painted chair. He was prowling around the kitchen, opening cupboard doors. He’d found the bottle of rum that she and Elizabeth mixed with cranberry juice. He’d also found a glass and poured himself a generous drink. He leered at her and held up the glass.
Victoria was outraged. She started to say something, but stopped herself, and checked her watch instead. Where was Teddy’s father?
She heard the rattle of an out-of-shape car as it ground to a stop in front of the stone steps. She remained standing, halfway between the kitchen and the library.
Leonard Vincent leaned against the counter and guffawed. “Aren’t you going to order
them
to park under the maple tree?”
Bruce Duncan, with a look of disgust, turned his back on Lennie.
Footsteps approached, voices, then Howland entered. Victoria dropped the cane with a clatter. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been. Duncan picked up the stick and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” said Victoria.
Howland was followed by George Byron and Roderick, who was also limping.
“Company!” said Lennie. “Pour a drink for anyone?” He brandished the rum bottle.
“Who the hell are you?” said Howland.
Lennie grinned. “Don’t you wish you knew.”
“Leonard Vincent,” said Victoria.
“What’d you do to yourself, sonny?” Lennie pointed at Roderick’s leg.
“Tripped over a rock,” Roderick said. He turned to Victoria. “Howland was hitchhiking on Old County Road.”
“Ran out of gas,” said Howland.
Lennie hooted.
“So I picked him up …”
Victoria heard a low growl. She opened the library door, and a fluffy, tan beast, fangs bared, saliva dripping from its jaws, eyes red coals, flung itself on Roderick and sank its teeth into his good leg.
Roderick screamed.
“Sandy?” called a weak voice from the library.
Before anyone could react, there was a second screech. McCavity streaked into the room puffed up to twice his normal size, eyes narrow slits. He headed directly for the dog, but Roderick, attempting to detach Sandy, kicked out his leg with the dog still attached, and McCavity’s unsheathed claws sank, instead, into Roderick’s sore leg.
Victoria, not sure at first which animal to go after, finally seized Sandy around his middle and pulled him away from Roderick. A swatch of Roderick’s monster costume came away in Sandy’s clenched teeth. Victoria handed the still-growling dog to Howland.
Roderick dropped onto the floor, moaning, holding first one leg then the other.
McCavity went after the dog in Howland’s arms. Victoria plucked the cat off Howland’s trouser leg.
Roderick moaned, “I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t mean to kill Bob Scott, either.”
“Mr. Vincent, make yourself useful. Get the witch hazel from the bathroom,” Victoria ordered. “And a clean rag from the shelf above the washing machine.”
“I’m no use to anyone. Everything I do is a failure.” Roderick put his head down on his knees.
Lennie came back with the witch hazel and a rag. Victoria handed them to Bruce Duncan, who got down on his knees, rolled up Roderick’s pants legs, and swabbed the deep, angry scratches and barely healed scrape on one leg and the puncture wounds on the other.
“Animals understand people,” said Bruce Duncan, with some satisfaction.
Howland tucked Sandy against his shoulder. With one hand he opened up his cell phone and Victoria heard him ask for Smalley.
Jefferson Vanderhoop came in through the kitchen door and looked around with interest. Victoria hadn’t heard his truck drive up. “Butter pecan and vanilla. Excuse me.” He brushed his way past Howland, who was still talking on his cell phone, and unloaded two half-gallons of ice cream from a plastic bag into the freezer. “What’ve we got, a party?” Vanderhoop said, before he’d fully taken in the scene: Roderick sitting on the floor, moaning, Bruce Duncan kneeling next to him applying something to ugly-looking wounds on Roderick’s legs, Victoria holding a resentful cat still puffed up in fight mode. And then he saw Lennie.
“Hey, old buddy,” said Vanderhoop. “What are you doing here?”
Lennie smirked. “Looking for some peace and quiet.”

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