Trick or Treachery (15 page)

She lived on the Marshall estate. That meant she’d probably come into contact with those living there more frequently than others in Cabot Cove, but they all seemed to deny knowing her. Paul Marshall? He’d said he was about to evict her. Jeremy Scott? No motive as far as I knew, which applied to Erica Marshall, too. Warren Wilson wasn’t a resident of the estate, but was always around as Marshall’s proverbial righthand man. But again, no motive, unless he shared his boss’s dislike of the victim.

Artie Sack? He was hard to fathom because of his mental impairment, but a sweeter-natured man I’d never met. Had Matilda Swift angered him to such an extent that he would strike her with . . . ? I was now convinced the weapon was the shovel I’d found in the barn that morning.

And what about Robert Wandowski? His anger at Matilda the day of his daughter’s late arrival from school was palpable, the temper he was capable of demonstrating unmistakable.

Such thoughts occupied me all the way to the Marshall property, and I was surprised when I found myself already pedaling up the main driveway to the front of the house.

I leaned my bike against a tree and had started for the front door when angry voices stopped me. A leaded glass window to the right of the door was open; the sounds emanated from the room on the other side of it.

I stepped closer and cocked my head in the window’s direction.

“We should have gone with him,” I heard a man say. He sounded like Warren Wilson, although I couldn’t be sure.

“Paul didn’t want us to.” I knew that was Jeremy Scott, no question about it.

Wilson: “Damn it, we’ve got to be together in this. You’re so pathetic, Jeremy. You do anything he says and—”

“Will the two of you shut up!” Erica Marshall speaking.

“Maybe if your father had come up with a formula that worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” said Wilson.

“Don’t you start about my father,” Jeremy growled. “One more bad word about him and I’ll—”

“You’ll what, Jeremy, kill me, too?”

“You bastard!”

“Stop it!” Erica shouted; I sensed she’d had to step between them to head off a fight.

I debated whether to knock on the door. This obviously wasn’t the right time to be visiting. As I pondered what to do, the sound of a car coming up the drive diverted my attention. It was Mort Metzger in his marked sheriff’s car. With him was deputy Wendell Watson.

“Howdy, Mrs. F.,” Mort said as he exited the vehicle. “Coming or going?”

“I was, uh, just leaving.”

Those inside the house had evidently heard the car, too, because the door opened and Erica Marshall stepped out onto the front brick patio. Behind her was Mrs. Sack, Artie’s sister-in-law and the Marshalls housekeeper. Mort tipped his Stetson and approached them. “Mrs. Sack, might Artie be inside with you?”

“No, he’s not here. I think he’s down working on one of the cottages, or in the barn.”

“Much obliged,” Mort said. He turned to Wendell: “Let’s go on down and find him.”

“Is Artie in some sort of trouble?” Mrs. Sack asked, her quivering voice mirroring her fear.

“Just got to ask him a few questions, ma’am,” Mort said over his shoulder as he and Wendell walked in the direction of the cemetery, Rose Cottage and the barn.

“Why does he want to talk to Artie?” Mrs. Sack asked me.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” I said, forcing lightness into my tone. “Probably just routine.”

Erica disappeared inside, but Mrs. Sack remained in the open doorway until Mort and Wendell returned with Artie. “I don’t want to go to the police station,” Artie said. “Oh, no, I don’t want to go there.”

“Just want to get your fingerprints, Artie, and ask you a couple ’a questions,” Mort said. “Have you back here for supper.”

“No, no, I don’t want to go to the police station,” Artie repeated. “Don’t know nothing, don’t know nothing, didn’t do anything, didn’t do anything.” The words came from him rapid-fire, like rounds from a machine gun.

“Now, don’t make me have to force you,” Mort said, placing his hand reassuringly on Artie’s shoulder. “Get in the car with me and Wendell and let’s get this over with.”

Foolishly, Artie turned to run, which necessitated Wendell grabbing him and pulling his arms behind his back. Artie whimpered and looked with wide, pleading eyes at his sister-in-law as Wendell guided him into the squad car’s rear seat, holding a hand above Artie’s head to keep it from bumping on his way in.

My heart went out to Artie and Mrs. Sack as Mort got behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled away, Artie’s face a mask of fright as he looked back at us through the rear window.

Jeremy Scott suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t know you were here. Come on in, have some tea or a drink.”

“Thanks, Jeremy, but I have an appointment I have to get to.”

He frowned; I assumed he found it strange seeing me standing outside the house, having neither come from it nor having announced my arrival.

“But thanks for the invitation,” I said pleasantly, getting on my bike and rolling down the driveway to the street. I rode home as fast as I could, put the bike away in the garage, made myself a pot of tea and sat at the desk in my library.

The conversation among Erica, Jeremy and Warren kept coming back to me. I turned it over in my mind and made some notes on a pad. I wondered whether Mort had learned anything yet from the state police lab about the stains on Artie Sack’s shovel and rag. The luminol had indicated it was blood. I had the uncomfortable feeling I was missing something.

Suddenly, I felt very tired. There had been so little sleep the night before. Added to that was the emotional trauma of being where someone had been brutally murdered, and spending my every waking moment since then thinking about that murder and who might have committed it.

I needed a day off. But I knew that wasn’t in the cards until I’d gotten some answers as to why Matilda Swift had been murdered and, more important, who’d done it. This wasn’t the first time I’d been gripped by such a compulsion, and probably wouldn’t be the last. I could have, and probably should have, put it out of my mind and been content with getting updates from Mort Metzger and other investigators on the case.

But that wouldn’t have been me, and if there’s anything I’ve learned during my lifetime, it’s the need to go with who you are, not who you’d prefer to be.

Richard Koser had taken multiple photographs at the party.

Not a bad place to start.

“Richard, are you in?” I called, rapping my knuckles on the door that stood ajar. The faint smell of darkroom chemicals drifted into my nostrils.

“C’mon in, I’m just finishing up,” came a disembodied voice. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

I left the door as I’d found it and wandered through Richard Koser’s Craftsman-style bungalow to the kitchen in the back. My nose twitched. Here the chemical smell was augmented by something more exotic, spicy. Must be cumin, I thought, and onions, definitely onions. A man of many talents, Richard was not only a fine photographer, but also a masterful chef. He loved nothing more than poring through cookbooks and turning out exotic—and delicious—meals.

“Hi, Jessica,” Richard said, pulling aside a heavy curtain from the doorway to his darkroom. “Can you stay for lunch? I’m trying out a new curry recipe for kooftah, and MaryJane went over to Bangor for the day.”

“I wish I could, Richard, but I’m supposed to meet Mort at his office, and I have a few errands to run before then. A rain check?”

“You’ve always got that,” he said, lifting the cover on a large pot and releasing a cloud of aromatic steam into the room. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I wondered if you’d had time to develop the photos you took at Paul Marshall’s party.”

“You’re in luck,” he said, replacing the pot cover after stirring the meatball stew. “I just put them in the dryer—the photo dryer, that is—and they should be ready in a few minutes. If I can’t talk you into kooftah, how about a cup of tea?”

“Tea would be lovely, thanks.”

“Green? Black? Herbal?”

“Whatever you’re having will be fine.”

Richard took a white porcelain teapot from the shelf and put a kettle onto the stove after filling it with cold water. He was a purist, and I tried not to fidget as I seated myself at the kitchen table and waited impatiently for the tea and photos to be ready.

As he fussed with cups and saucers and tea strainers, he questioned me about the murder investigation, which was, not surprisingly, now a topic of great speculation in Cabot Cove. “Real shame about that lady. Mort’s deputy—Harold, is it?—came to interview us yesterday, but we weren’t any help. MaryJane and I were just having a good time at the party, not looking for murderers. Paul Marshall puts on quite a spread. Did they nail down when the murder took place?”

“The body was discovered after most of the guests had gone home, but I’m not sure what the time of death was.”

“The Lerners told us they were there when the body was found. Must have been pretty shocking, seeing the bloody victim and all. I suppose every party-goer will be getting a visit from the local constabulary.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“Peculiar, isn’t it, having a murder on Halloween, exactly a year after Tony Scott died in that fire? Paul Marshall’s having a run of bad luck.”

“Seems to me Matilda Swift was the one with the bad luck,” I said, “but, yes, the timing is ironic.”

“I heard that the nut over on the quarry road is one of the suspects. You heard that?”

“Lucas Tremaine? Mort hasn’t said who he considers a suspect, but Mr. Tremaine was at the party, and an uninvited guest to boot. I’m not sure crashing a party qualifies as grounds for arrest, but it would be interesting to know what he’s up to.”

“Well, if anyone can find out, Jessica, it would be you.”

“Thanks for your confidence, Richard, but I’m sure Mort and his people are doing a thorough job.”

“I just heard they hauled in Artie Sack. Don’t they know Artie wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a person?”

“You’ve heard that already? Mort just took him in this afternoon.”

I wasn’t sure how much of what I knew to share with Richard, or anyone else for that matter. But knowing the speed of Cabot Cove’s grapevine, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to preempt it, especially with a dear friend like Richard. After all, I was there seeking information from him—information possibly contained in photographs. But it wouldn’t hurt to fudge a little.

“Mort brought Artie to headquarters to get his fingerprints, Richard. Just routine. If they find the murder weapon, they’ll want everyone’s prints.”

“The shovel?”

I sighed. “Yes, the shovel. But it hasn’t been established yet whether it was used to kill Matilda Swift.”

“I heard they found blood on it.”

“Oh, I—”

“My money’s on Tremaine,” he said, sparing my having to respond to whether blood had been found on the shovel. “He’s an oddball to begin with.”

The tea kettle whistled, and a buzzer sounded from the darkroom. I looked at Richard expectantly. He rinsed the teapot with boiling water from the kettle before carefully spooning in tea from a metal tin, then pouring more boiling water over the crushed leaves.

“The tea needs to steep a bit. I’ll bring in the pictures for you to look at while we’re waiting.” He disappeared behind the heavy curtain used to keep light from entering the darkroom when he was developing his work. He emerged with a box filled with warm photos, and a magnifying glass.

He set stacks of five-by-seven-inch pictures beside me and went to pour the tea. I was already sifting through the photos when he set a cup and saucer at my elbow and took a chair opposite me.

“What are you looking for exactly?” he asked, picking up a few photos I’d cast aside. “I know it’s not just my wonderful photography that has you tapping your foot like that.”

I laughed and sat back in my seat, reaching for the tea. “You’re right. I need to relax a bit. This murder case has me up nights worrying if I’ve missed anything.”

“And have you?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’d love to see a picture of the murderer with a big sign saying ‘I did it.’ Failing that, I thought the photos might stimulate some ideas, or indicate . . . something.”

I sighed and sipped my tea. “Are these all the photos from that night?”

“You’ve got six rolls of film there, Jessica. Should keep you occupied for a bit.”

“Do you mind if I sit here and look through them?”

“Not at all,” he replied, getting up and turning off the flame under the kooftah, “as long as you don’t mind if I get on with my work. I’ve got more film to develop, but not from the party.”

“Don’t let me keep you. I’ll just study these a while and call out when I leave.”

Richard reentered his darkroom, and I arranged the photos into three piles—those I hadn’t looked at yet, those I’d seen and wanted to look at again and those I didn’t need to reexamine.

A half hour and 216 pictures later, I rubbed my tired eyes, strained from squinting through the magnifier and staring at the myriad images of masked and moose guests cavorting at the Marshall party. Richard was a wonderful photographer, and it was hard not to allow the overall impression of his pictures to interfere with my concentration on the details. But at last I’d gotten my look-at-again pile down to three photographs. One shot was of the moose couple dancing, with other guests observing them. Their grace, despite the awkward costumes, had drawn admiring attention.

Another picture showed Paul Marshall standing on the central staircase of his manor house, addressing the assembled multitude.

The third, taken on the patio, showed guests sitting on the brick wall overlooking the back lawn. I examined them again, searching the figures in the background. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck. There was something here. What was it? Raising the magnifying glass again, I pored over the photo of Paul Marshall. Though Richard had taken several shots of the scene, the angle of this particular photo was slightly to Marshall’s left, and caught the side of the staircase as well as a glimpse into the dining room. There, mostly hidden by pirates and witches and cheerleaders and soldiers and cowgirls, was someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. Her arms were raised as she was about to replace the moose head she’d taken off. It was Lauren Wandowski.