Cancelled by Murder (3 page)

Erin's face took on a somber look and I noticed a discreet gulp and a soft clearing of her throat. “What do we know for sure, Rick?”

Probably nothing, ever,
I thought, but a negative outlook was the last thing we needed today.

“Emergency workers arrived on the scene in downtown North Ashcot just moments ago, and have confirmed that the storm has claimed one life in that town,” Rick said.

Erin took over, facing the camera. “This might be a good time for a break while we seek out the details. We'll be back shortly with more news on this devastating storm.”

In a minute, the storm had gone from “dud” to “devastating.” And my attention went from a dull interest to full alert.

One life lost will do that.

*   *   *

I kept myself busy with paperwork I'd brought home from my PO desk and sat facing the muted television set, ready to tune in again when Rick and Erin or their counterparts returned with news. My mind kept drifting to the question: Who was the casualty of the storm?

I couldn't put a number to how many of the three thousand townsfolk I knew. Certainly the dozens of my high
school classmates who had never moved away. Now I handled their mail and knew a lot more about their lives than I did twenty years ago. I knew who had relatives out of town (in important jobs, unemployed, in prison), where and how often they took vacations, which catalogue companies they bought from, which magazines they read, what kinds of puzzles they were hooked on. Such was the life of a postal worker in any city, but especially so in a small town.

When Terry Thornton, another quilter, walked up to my counter last week with a stack of “Save the Date” postcards, I became one of the first to know that she and Justin had set a wedding date. I made a private bet with myself that Terry would begin subscribing to a brides' magazine, and, sure enough, I'd been right, though I would never have revealed her pseudoprivate business. I also knew the length and birth weight of former resident Mabel Foster's new granddaughter. The more than two dozen postcard announcements, addressed to select people on her mailing list, passed through my hands and into the homes or PO boxes of her chosen recipients.

Day after day, I learned things about North Ashcot citizens that perhaps only their closest friends were aware of—late payments, a high- or low-end shopping spree, a returned item, a prescription drug.

Now one of those citizens was dead as a result of the wind and rain outside my door. Did I know the person, more than as his or her mail handler? Was he or she an old friend? A new friend? A customer? Selfishly, I hoped not. I wanted it to be a stranger, a drifter perhaps, realizing full well that any “stranger” to me would still have family and friends
who would grieve. But I'd been back only a year and had already experienced the loss of my aunt and a friend from high school. That should have been enough for a while.

Rick and Erin never showed up again. Eventually, two beefy men took over the screen and treated us to a sports roundup—not even a storm could stop the tide of sports information. Impatient for more local details, I called Ben.

“Wouldn't your friend know who was killed?” he asked. “Isn't she the chief of police?” Ben wisecracked.

“I thought she might be a little busy right now,” I said.

“And I'm not?”

“No, you're not.”

“Dang right,” he said, chuckling. “I heard it was branches.”

“Excuse me?”

“Branches of a big old maple got lopped off by the wind and hit someone. Don't know who.”

From my television, which had finally caught up, I heard similar words. Branches. A tree in the backyard. A visual showed the flashing lights of the ambulance, fire truck, and patrol cars on Main Street from a couple of hours ago. It was impossible to tell exactly which address was the scene of the accident, but it was surely on the route I'd driven only an hour ago, between the post office and my home. The police department building was in that same stretch of properties. How sad that someone had died within the shadow of those who might have been able to protect him. But as old Harvey's daddy had said, one way or another, the storm was going to win.

I called a few people and left messages or not, deciding on the spot. I'd run out of options for getting information on
who the storm victim was and thought I should do something productive. I wasn't usually home in the daytime, and though I'd often claimed the opposite, I had no intention of giving my house a thorough cleaning, sorting through old photos, or organizing my files. Maybe in retirement.

I tried Quinn to see if a Skype session was possible but then remembered today was a big travel day for him, up to Bangor, Maine. I knew the storm was still rattling around the East Coast in various stages of severity, and hoped he was not in its path.

I'd finished my office work, gone through all my magazines, worked on my quilt until the point where I needed Daisy's advice on color matching, and almost given in to a vacuuming session when my doorbell rang. Though the wind had died down significantly, the rain was still pretty heavy and I suspected some of our streets were flooded. Who could be ignoring the warnings to stay off the roads? Whoever it was rang again, more insistent.

I peeked through the blinds in the living room, then opened the door to the chief of police. She brushed by me carrying a large covered plastic container. “Chicken soup. I knew you wouldn't have anything good.”

Sunni was the quintessential small-town woman. She did it all—cooked (not just your everyday chicken soup), quilted, baked from scratch, and held down one of the most responsible jobs in the county. Maybe that was why I'd left town after high school. I knew I couldn't measure up to images like hers. Living in the Fenway District of Boston, where all supplies and services and all the major food groups were a phone call away, had made me even more lazy.

A typical conversation between Linda and me would bear that out.

Scene: a living room, hers or mine, on a weekday evening after work.

“I wish I had something good to go with coffee.” (Her or me.)

“We could whip up a coffee cake. They're not hard to make.” (Me or her.)

“Do you have any flour?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Or we could go to Dunkin' Donuts and have one of their banana chocolate chip muffins.”

“And take back a few extra for the rest of the week.”

In the next scene, we'd be at the nearest coffee shop, having called a couple of buddies to join us.

“Next time, we should bake ourselves,” one of us would say, pulling a muffin apart. “How hard can it be?” And the others would laugh.

Now I watched the slight-framed Sunni, her auburn hair dripping from the rain, standing over my stove. I loved that she knew its idiosyncrasies better than I did. She poured servings of hearty soup into two bowls, carried them to my kitchen table, took a seat, and indicated that I should do the same.

I motioned toward my clock. Five fifteen. “Is this a late lunch or an early dinner?” I asked.

“I don't know about you, but for me, it's the rest of my breakfast.”

Her first words since she took over my stove. She looked as though she'd been out in the storm, from its beginning to its near end, which was promised to be within the hour.

She retreated to silence for a few spoonfuls of hot soup. “I have something to tell you,” she said.

I looked at her bedraggled body, her face that had been somber since her arrival. I should have known. I wasn't just a convenient place to prepare her meal, though that happened before and would have been enough for me to welcome her. She could have stopped a few blocks from here and used the microwave in her own break room at the police station.

I felt my stomach clutch, every muscle tense. “It's about the casualty.”

She nodded.

I ran through the possibilities, grateful to be able to eliminate a few key people—Ben, Sunni herself, and my traveling boyfriend—as potential victims.

“Daisy,” she said in a near whisper, her head bent over her bowl.

I let my spoon bounce into my bowl, splattering the table with globs of soup. “Daisy Harmon?” I asked, as if there were another Daisy in our circle. “I just saw her. I waved to her on my way home.”

That ought to do it. That should clear things up. Daisy couldn't be dead.

I
t wasn't the first time I'd tried to bring someone back to life simply by willing it to be so. The first time was at the news of my parents' death in a car crash. This time it was a friend who, like my parents, I'd assumed would be around for a long time. How wrong could I be? How often?

“Daisy Harmon died in the storm,” Sunni said, from another world. “I just talked to Cliff. He's been at some kind of training program for private security forces in Springfield.”

Daisy's husband. “He's supposed to be across the street.” He was supposed to be on hand to help her, was what I meant.

Sunni gave me a strange look, perhaps the first eye contact she'd made. I saw her gaze wander toward my living room and out the door. I realized she was trying to focus on my reference to “across the street.”

“I mean when I saw her on my way home, once I closed up. I figured Cliff must be at the school across from her shop.”

She shook her head. “He's been out of town since Wednesday. He drove back after I called him, and got here a couple of hours ago. Her parents are in Florida, and except for some cousins in the Midwest, she has no other relatives.”

“Cliff must be devastated.”

“No one's prepared for something like this.”

I couldn't get my last image of Daisy out of my mind. I wished she'd waved back at me. Foolish thought. She'd been in front of her shop, alive, not long after noon when I drove by. Then she was dead. How could that be?

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“Around one thirty. Tony found her.”

“Bike shop Tony?”

“Yeah, the young guy, going to school at night. He went out back to drag the trash barrels into the little covered area and he saw a branch of the tree on Daisy's property was down. He thought he heard activity, so he yelled over, and”—Sunni picked at a twig of grapes from a bowl on my table—“when she didn't answer, he hoisted himself on the fence and saw her under the branch, and ran down the alley to the street and then up the other alley into her backyard. When he got there she was dead. Tony thinks if he could have climbed the fence, he might have saved her. But there's no telling when the branch had fallen.”

Cliff, Tony, and I—how many other people were now second-guessing their decisions, thinking they could have prevented Daisy's death somehow? I thought how this must be a regular occurrence for Sunni, trying to go back and
figure out how she, the chief cop, could have done better in a disaster, even prevented a death.

The wind and rain had stopped. They had done their damage. I wished there were someone to be angry with. I gestured to the living room where the chairs were more comfortable. “Can you stay awhile?” I asked Sunni.

“I shouldn't. I need to give Ross a break.”

Not that I would remind her, but Officer Ross Little was about twenty years younger than Sunni, and well able to handle an extra shift or two.

“Just a few minutes,” I said. “You've had a rough day already.”

If I were being honest, I'd have admitted to her that I didn't want to be alone just yet. Thus my relief when she let out a heavy sigh, followed my directions, and sat on one of my rockers.

“It wasn't that bad a storm,” I said, sitting across from her. “We've had so many that were worse, not just the past year, but also my first years here as a kid. Nor'easters. Hurricanes. Blizzards.” I ticked them off on my fingers, almost mentioning earthquakes in my distress. “There wasn't even widespread power loss with this storm. And Daisy was killed by it?”

“Maybe,” Sunni said. Maybe? Was this my fantasy speaking? Was Daisy in the ICU, with a chance of recovering? Had I misunderstood from the beginning? “I'm waiting for a call from Barry.”

The medical examiner. North Ashcot was one of the few small towns with its own ME, a local doctor who performed double duty in cases of suspicious death. What was
suspicious about Daisy's death, other than it was a senseless loss from a storm that probably wouldn't even require government assistance?

“You mentioned you saw Daisy during the storm?” Sunni asked me.

I nodded and described my ride home. “The visibility was so poor, I'm not sure now. The person I saw was the right size, with that yellow anorak Daisy always wore in the rain, but I suppose anyone could have thrown it on for a minute to grab the banners.”

“One of her employees,” Sunni suggested.

I thought for a minute. As far as I knew, Daisy's helpers were all part-time students. “Mia is way too tall. Barb is much heavier. Katie is visiting a friend in Philadelphia for two weeks. But no, she's back already.” I threw up my hands. “I guess I just assumed it was Daisy.”

“But you're sure whoever it was, they were handling the merchandise, taking it inside?”

“Yes,” I said, glad to be firm on one thing at least. “I'm sorry I can't be certain of much more. Is this important?”

“Could be.”

“Now I wish I'd pulled over and offered to help her.”

“Maybe it's just as well you didn't.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Sunni's phone rang. I wanted to quash the call. I doubted I'd be able to survive a long wait for clarification on her questions to me.

I heard her side of the conversation only.

“Yeah, Barry.”

A long, never-ending pause.

“That's final?”

A shorter pause. A few “Okays.” Another pause. And finally, “Then I guess we have a lot of work to do.”

Sunni clicked off her cell and looked past me. “Daisy was murdered.”

Not the clarification I'd hoped for.

Sunni was out the door before I could ask how or who or any of the growing list of questions about Barry's message.

When she popped her head back in a moment later, I thought she was going to take it all back. Instead, she said, “Not a word, okay?” and left again without waiting for an answer.

All I could do was climb into bed, fully clothed, and hope for sleep.

*   *   *

I woke on Tuesday morning with none of the restful feeling that should start a day. Not wanting to wake Quinn, I texted him
sad news. call when u r up
and got ready for work. Not that he knew Daisy as well as I did, but I needed to share my grief with someone other than the chief of police.

Thanks to an efficient town government and committed business owners, there were hardly any signs of storm debris along my commute path only one day later. Even faster than a twenty-four-hour flu bug, the storm had come and gone. I sent a silent thank-you to the men and women in orange vests who'd worked through the night to clear the way for business as usual.

All the more striking, then, was the yellow-and-black
CAUTION
tape strung in front of Daisy's Fabrics. The cheerful yellow-and-white
CLOSED
sign quilted by Daisy herself
still hung on the door and made a mockery of the last twenty-four hours.

I thought of security guard Cliff Harmon, Daisy's husband, and how awful it must have been for him to be notified of her death. I wanted to call and offer my sympathy but decided to wait until the final ME report was in. I wasn't sure whether Cliff had been made aware of the suspicious nature of Daisy's death; glad I didn't have Sunni's job making decisions like that.

I wondered what Cliff had been doing at the time he learned of his wife's death. Listening to a boring lecture on advances in surveillance techniques? Engaged in a high-impact practice drill? Enjoying a relaxing break in his hotel room?

I knew too well how life could change in a moment, with one phone call. Like the one I received while I was at my best friend Crystal's surprise sixteenth birthday party. My surprise trumped hers when a call came from Aunt Tess, tearfully informing me that there had been a car accident, a very bad accident. I remembered everything from that one still frame of my life—the taste of coconut from Crystal's favorite German chocolate cake; the striped sweater vest my mother had helped me knit and wrap for my friend; a crowd of teenagers' bodies moving to the music of the Macarena; how the sunflower clip I wore in my long, thick hair fell to the floor as I pushed the phone against my head in anguish. It seemed a lifetime ago. Or one minute ago.

As with Cliff Harmon, I'd had no warning, no chance for one more “Good-bye” or a final, tender “I love you.”

I thought, Poor Cliff, and poor everyone who suffered great loss.

*   *   *

The mood at the post office on Tuesday morning was a strange mixture, hushed sadness over what was still thought to be Daisy's accidental death, and overreaction to the relatively minor wreckage the storm had left in its wake.

Sunni had sworn me to secrecy about the ruling that our friend had been murdered. She needed an official written report from ME Barry before the verdict could be made public.

“I'm glad you were there,” she said in a message left on my voice mail this morning. “And I also wish you weren't.”

I got her meaning and wanted to assure her she could trust me not to enter the gossip fray. She knew me well enough to trust that. If there was one thing a postal worker understood, it was the importance of confidentiality.

Everyone in the post office lobby today had a storm story to tell. I had a strong suspicion that some citizens had whipped up letters and packages for the sole purpose of coming into town and meeting their friends. You never knew what might help or hurt a particular business day. The North Ashcot Post Office had a lot going for it—it was larger than the coffee shop and cooler than the park behind the school, now baking again in the August sun, as if there hadn't been a big departure from the weather norm only yesterday. Another factor in the townspeople's choice of venue was that Mahican's fancy espresso equipment had suffered from a power surge during the storm, one of the few breakdowns in utilities in town, making the menu less desirable. I thought of installing a watercooler in my lobby, but it was hardly necessary to encourage gathering and chatting.

Stories worked their way down the line along the length of the lobby, overlapping and competing with one another for drama.

“Tore up every flower, but darned if the weeds aren't tall as ever.”

“Ashie's doghouse collapsed like it was made of feathers.”

“Our big waste container toppled over and smashed a basement window.” This speaker clapped his hands to make a sound that suggested shattering glass.

A little boy enjoyed the laughter following his report: His little sister's crib was in the same room as his bed, and the crib “shaked and shaked.”

“She slept right through it,” the boy said. “Prolly thought our mom was rocking her.”

It seemed Daisy's friends and customers hadn't yet come to grips with her death. Well into the morning retail hours, there was still no shortage of tsk-tsks and tales of frightened pets and flooded gutters, but talk of Daisy remained limited to mumbled expressions of dismay over the loss of “such a vibrant young woman,” “a gifted teacher,” and “a generous businesswoman.” I thought the toned-down nature was out of respect for Cliff, who might have walked through the door at any minute.

The intensity of remembrances took a turn when Gigi, the young woman who ran the florist shop down the street, came in with a large vase of daisies and sunflowers, accompanied by a memorial card.

“Okay if I put these on the counter in memory of Daisy?” she asked me. “Maybe people can sign the card for Cliff?”

I pushed aside what Ben, a stickler for rules, would think
of the departure from policy. “This is not a public meeting place,” he'd say.

“What a nice thought,” I said, and for convenience, added a post office logo pen to the display.

*   *   *

Tuesday night should have been quilt night in the back room of Daisy's Fabrics, where a group of six to ten women gathered weekly in our version of a quilting bee. A true “bee,” according to Daisy, involved women sitting around a homemade wooden frame with a single large quilt stretched across it. All the women would work on the same project. In our group, there was often sharing of blocks and patterns, but for the most part, we brought our own materials and enjoyed twenty-first-century treats from a sturdy crafts table, not a rickety frame supported by a rough sawhorse.

After a flurry of e-mails, texts, and phone messages during the day, the consensus among the group had been that we should get together tonight as usual, as a way of remembering Daisy. Eileen Jackson, a retired middle school teacher and longtime quilter, offered her home for the meeting. It turned out that her husband, Buddy, played cards on Tuesdays, so the timing was perfect and the house was ours. Not surprisingly, Eileen had already delivered a food basket to Cliff's home.

Eileen's home was more modern than I would have expected from a North Ashcot native of her generation. I saw none of the dark paneling and heavy furniture so common in the older houses in town. We brought our snack contributions into a kitchen that was bright and open, with white appliances and light maple floors and cabinets. Tonight's
offerings included a cheesecake, assorted crackers and cheeses, and brownies from me, via the freezer section of the market.

My incorrect expectations were driven by what my aunt Tess's home had looked like until I finally made it my own over the past few months. Although my aunt was modern in her thinking, the décor in her home remained in the style of her own mother's era, with thick carpets, heavy drapes, and elaborate furniture. Even Quinn had been astonished by the weight of a dark oak dresser that was almost immovable until he detached the mirror, ornate posts, and extra drawers that rested on the top surface. A rolled-arm love seat with delicately carved wooden trim also presented a physical challenge to Quinn and the crew he worked with at Ashcot's Attic.