Shooting Star (5 page)
Authors: Cynthia Riggs
Eldredge lifted one side of the mattress. Underneath was a two-by-three-foot piece of plywood with a ring for a handle. He tugged it up and looked down into a storage locker. The locker seemed to be full of rope. An anchor. Chain.
No boy. Definitely no boy.
Eldredge retraced his steps to the stern.
“Satisfied?” Vanderhoop grumbled.
Tim looked down at his notes. “When was the last time you saw your son?”
At that, Vanderhoop clenched his large hands into fists. “That bitch take my kid? I’ll wring her neck.”
Tim repeated his question. “When did you last see Teddy?”
“A week ago, maybe.”
“Where was that, sir?”
“Right here.” He pointed to the deck. “I motored over to the point.
She
dropped Teddy off, and we went out in the boat.”
She
dropped Teddy off, and we went out in the boat.”
“Where is your son now, sir?”
“With his goddamned fucking bitch mother.”
“Where, sir?”
“How am I supposed to know, goddamn it? She wanted to take the kid to California. I wanted the kid to stay right here.” And again he stabbed his finger at the deck of his boat. “My kid wanted to stay right here, too.”
Tim switched direction. “Can you tell me anything about Peg Storm, sir?”
“Peg?” Vanderhoop looked surprised. “Sure. Quiet. Next-door neighbor. Family lived on the point, three, four generations. No kids. Divorced. A small mutt named Sandy.” He shrugged.
“Do you know her former husband, sir? You were neighbors, weren’t you?”
Vanderhoop shook his head. “Lennie Vincent. Didn’t have much to do with him. Nothing social. Never cared much for him.”
“Why was that, sir?”
“Why I didn’t care for him? He’s a sleaze.”
“Was he argumentative? Rude?”
“Nothing like that. Just didn’t like the guy.”
“Did you know anything about the play your son and Ms. Storm were in?”
Vanderhoop’s face reddened. “I don’t know where this is leading, Eldredge, but I’ll tell you this. My kid was a nice, normal kid. Liked the water. Teddy and me, we got along good. Until my wife took it into her head the kid should be an actor. What she wanted. Be a movie star. She didn’t make it, so she’s going to turn my kid …” He pounded his chest.” … into some freaking actor.”
Domingo finished a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the water. He lifted his cap and scratched his head.
Vanderhoop’s expression went from angry to surly. “She take my kid? Did she?” he repeated, stepping toward Eldredge.
Tim Eldredge lowered his notebook. “Your son is missing.”
Vanderhoop pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. “She does whatever she goddamned wants. Teddy’s my kid, too. I got rights. She better not snatch my kid. I’ll kill her first.”
Domingo cleared his throat.
Vanderhoop turned on him. “You can quote me on that, goddamn it, Domingo. She takes my kid, I’ll kill the bitch.”
It was still early when Casey and her deputy, Victoria, Howland, and Dr. McAlistair left the jail, but the temperature was already in the seventies. Main Street’s sidewalks were crowded with shoppers. People strolled across the street between cars that were inching toward the harbor parking lot. An in-line skater whizzed past, almost slamming into a woman in shorts and sandals getting out of the passenger side of a parked car.
“What’s the best way around this mess, Victoria?” Casey asked before they got into the Bronco. “You know the back streets of Edgartown better than I ever will.”
Victoria had been born in a house on Main Street, a block from the jail. The buildings in Edgartown that had been ramshackle in her childhood were spruced up now, and the street was paved with asphalt and lined with brick sidewalks. Victoria had trouble believing the rents summer people were willing to pay to vacation in houses that had been derelict in her youth.
The slow flow of traffic had stopped. “Turn left, away from Main Street,” Victoria said. “I’ll show you the way as we go.”
Casey negotiated the narrow one-way streets in the center of town, past white clapboard houses until they reached the straight road to West Tisbury.
Raggedy blue chicory and bright tawny lilies grew wild by the side of the road. The scent of sweet fern and pine drifted in through the open windows of the vehicle.
Casey yawned. “My day off. Look at that gorgeous sky. Perfect beach day.” She yawned again. “I’ve gotta grab a nap before I take Patrick and his buddies to the beach.”
“Patrick is the chief’s son,” Howland explained to Alison. “He’s about Teddy’s age.”
“Ah,” said Alison. Victoria, watching her from the front seat, saw her turn from Howland to stare out the window.
“Patrick is nine, a year older than Teddy,” said Casey. “Teddy’s mother must be worried sick.”
“Yes,” Alison murmured.
“According to Smalley, she’s on a flight back to the Island now,” Howland explained.
“I can’t even imagine how she feels. If anything ever happened to Patrick I’d go crazy.”
“Yes,” said Alison again.
Victoria examined the sky. “Better go to the beach soon. We’re likely to have thunderstorms later.” She indicated a row of low clouds, faint on the horizon to the northwest, mostly hidden by low scrub oak and pine.
Alison leaned over the front seat. “Is there a beach within walking distance of your house, Mrs. Trumbull?”
Victoria nodded. “About three miles from me.”
“Maybe for you, Victoria.” Howland grinned. “I’ll stop by in an hour or so, Alison, and take you to my beach. How much time do you need to spend on Island?”
“I’m not sure. Ordinarily, in the case of a death under unusual circumstances, the undertaker transports the body to Boston for autopsy. But since I’m already here, and Ms. Storm’s body is still here, and Teddy is still missing, the state police probably will want me to stay.”
They passed a farm, where rows of sweet corn, beans, and tomatoes ripened in the July sun, and entered the state forest. Silvery snags of red pine towered above dusky green scrub oak.
“I expected the Island to be more built up,” Alison said.
Howland grunted. “It’s built up, all right. Our population swells from thirteen thousand in winter to a hundred fifty thousand now.”
“What do you do with them all?”
“Shopping,” said Victoria.
They dipped down into a swale and up the other side, and there, on the left, was Victoria’s gray-shingled house, set back from the road and almost hidden by trees. Casey pulled into the drive and stopped. Howland, still barefoot and still in his stained costume, walked gingerly around the larger sharp chunks of crushed oyster shell that paved the driveway and held out his hand for Alison, who stepped down from the high vehicle.
Victoria slid out of her seat. Her dressy plaid suit was wrinkled, the once-perky bow at the neck of her blouse drooped, her stockings bagged around her knees and ankles. Even with the hole cut out of her shoe, her sore toe throbbed.
Her granddaughter, Elizabeth, burst out of the door. “Gram, where have you been?”
“At the jail.”
“What were you doing there?”
Victoria didn’t answer directly. “This is Dr. McAlistair, Elizabeth. She’ll be staying with us tonight, possibly longer.”
Elizabeth, who was as tall as Alison, almost as lean, and about twenty years her junior, held out her hand.
“I didn’t expect to be away this long,” Victoria explained. “Dr. McAlistair is a forensic scientist from Falmouth.”
“Why the jail? Forensic scientist? What’s happening?”
“I’ll let you guys explain,” said Casey. “I’m taking Howland back to his car.”
Elizabeth examined Howland’s costume, from the stained black shirt and trousers to his feet. “Blood? Barefoot?”
“Don’t ask.” Howland got into the front seat of the police vehicle and Casey drove off.
“I hope someone’s going to tell me what’s happening.”
“Before I do any explaining, I want a bath,” said Victoria.
Elizabeth threw up her hands in frustration.
After Alison was settled in her room, after Victoria emerged from her bath in her worn corduroy trousers and turtleneck,
Elizabeth finally learned about Peg’s death and Teddy’s disappearance.
Elizabeth finally learned about Peg’s death and Teddy’s disappearance.
“Peg had a dog, didn’t she?” asked Elizabeth, as they ate their lunch.
Victoria set down her sandwich. “No one found the dog.”
A half-hour later, a state police car pulled up in front of Victoria’s, and Sergeant Smalley knocked on the kitchen door. Alison answered. She had changed into a bathing suit and long-sleeved cotton shirt that gave the impression she was wearing nothing under it. Both bathing suit and shirt were borrowed from Elizabeth. Smalley glanced quickly at her long legs, which she had deliberately not covered for Howland’s benefit, and when Smalley looked up guiltily, she smiled. After her legs, her smile was her best feature.
Smalley cleared his throat. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, Dr. McAlistair. As you know, we found Ms. Stone at the foot of her cellar stairs. But I’m not comfortable with the idea of a fall killing her. I’d like you to examine the body.”
“She’s at the mortuary now?”
“Yes, ma’am. Rose Haven, the funeral home. Since you’re on Island, we’d like you to do a preliminary exam.”
“Quite right. Give me a few minutes to change.”
While Alison was upstairs, Victoria worked on her weekly column for
The Island Enquirer.
She stopped, her fingers poised above the typewriter keys. Smalley was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth.
The Island Enquirer.
She stopped, her fingers poised above the typewriter keys. Smalley was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth.
“I’m not comfortable, either, with the idea that Peg fell to her death,” Victoria said. “I can’t understand why she would shut the door at the top of the cellar stairs behind her.”
He turned. “You’re absolutely right, Mrs. Trumbull.”
“She had a dog. Perhaps she wanted to keep her dog from following her? But her cellar stairs are steep and shutting the door would be awkward.”
“Could be why she fell.” Smalley looked up and smiled as
Alison appeared, dressed in Elizabeth’s jeans and T-shirt. She carried the attaché case she’d brought with her.
Alison appeared, dressed in Elizabeth’s jeans and T-shirt. She carried the attaché case she’d brought with her.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be, Mrs. Trumbull,” Alison said. “Not more than two hours, I should think.”
“I’ll call Howland to cancel your beach date.”
“Thank you.”
There was no answer at Howland’s. He showed up at Victoria’s a few minutes later, and Victoria glanced up from her typewriter. “Alison’s gone to Rose Haven with Sergeant Smalley. You’ve been outranked.”
“By Sergeant Smalley? Not likely.”
“May I use something about the autopsy in my column? I have space I need to fill.”
“Afraid not, Victoria.” Howland started toward the door. “Anyway, she’s not performing an autopsy, she’s doing a cursory exam. The Island doesn’t have facilities for an autopsy.”
“Are you heading to Rose Haven now?” Victoria struggled to her feet.
“Yes.”
“Let me get my hat.”
“You don’t want to see this, Victoria. It won’t be pleasant. I’ll give you the scoop the minute I know anything that can be released to the press.”
“I’ll leave a note for Elizabeth, then I’ll be ready.”
Twenty minutes later, Howland pulled up to the rear entrance of the Rose Haven Funeral Parlor and parked in the lot next to the loading ramp. Victoria let herself out of the car.
“Victoria …” Howland started to say.
But she interrupted him. “I suppose we’ll be using the back door.”
Toby, the undertaker, greeted Victoria and Howland at the back door of the mortuary. “Are you here for a viewing?”
“We’re here for Peg Storm’s autopsy,” said Victoria.
“Ah!” said Toby. “Yes. Dr. McAlistair doesn’t perform autopsies here on Island. This is a preliminary cause-of-death assessment. The autopsy will be performed in Boston. Dr. McAlistair and Sergeant Smalley are still at lunch.”
Howland checked his watch. “It’s one-thirty, for God’s sake.”
“We’ll wait,” said Victoria, and returned to Howland’s car.
Smalley and Alison arrived a few minutes later. “What are you doing here, Mrs. Trumbull?” Smalley demanded.
“That’s all right, John,” said Alison, putting a hand on Smalley’s arm. “Mrs. Trumbull is welcome to observe.”
“‘John?’” said Howland.
Alison smiled.
They followed Alison up the concrete ramp and through the industrial steel doors where Toby waited. He was dressed in gray trousers, a black blazer with a red V-neck sweater showing underneath, white shirt, and black-and-white striped tie.
“Dr. McAlistair,” he gushed. “A pleasure to meet you.”
Alison nodded.
The room, chilly and immaculate, smelled of formalin. The cement-block walls were painted a shiny light gray, the concrete floor a dark gray. A sheet-draped form laid out on a stainless steel table occupied the center of the room.
Toby produced a clean, starched lab coat and held it for Alison, who slipped her arms into it. He turned to the others. “Stay
behind that line, if you will, please.” He pointed to a red stripe on the floor.
behind that line, if you will, please.” He pointed to a red stripe on the floor.
Alison donned a facemask and snapped on latex gloves. She pulled the sheet down gently, uncovering Peg’s face, neck, and shoulders.
Victoria shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
Alison studied Peg without touching her at first. Then she examined Peg’s throat, looked into her mouth, lifted Peg’s closed eyelids.
She turned to Victoria. “The fall down the steps didn’t kill her.”
Howland grunted.
Smalley stepped forward. “What have you found, Dr. McAlistair?”
“Strangled?” Victoria asked.
“Quite likely,” said Alison. “You may cross the red line, Mrs. Trumbull. Look here.” She pointed out what looked to Victoria like thumb marks on the front of Peg’s neck, then turned Peg’s head slightly, and Victoria saw, clearly, finger marks on the sides of her neck.
Smalley cleared his throat.
“It’s not as obvious as you may think, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Alison, ignoring Smalley. “Some fabric object was first pressed against her face. A pillow or towel, something like that.” She moved a large magnifying lens that hung from an overhead armature to Peg’s face. “You can see fibers. I’ll collect and bag them, and the state police lab in Sudbury will identify them.” She moved the glass so Victoria could see the marks on Peg’s neck. “I don’t believe she was smothered to death, though. She may or may not have lost consciousness, and was then strangled.”
“Dr. McAlistair …” said Smalley.
Alison pulled the sheet back over Peg’s face, and then removed her gloves and facemask. She tossed them into the plastic-lined trash container, then slipped off the still-immaculate
lab coat. Victoria was about to protest about wasteful laundering, when Toby dropped it into a nearby hamper.
lab coat. Victoria was about to protest about wasteful laundering, when Toby dropped it into a nearby hamper.
“You saw me look at her eyes?” Alison asked.
Victoria nodded.
“I found small red dots or streaks on the whites of her eyes and her eyelids. Petechial hemorrhages. Typical of asphyxiation. Caused by blood leaking from ruptured capillaries. Most assuredly, she did not die by falling down the stairs.”
“You’re talking to a member of the press, you know,” Howland grumbled.
Smalley, who’d been pacing back and forth behind the red line, said, “This information is not to leave the room.”
“We’ll need to perform a complete autopsy on Ms. Storm,” said Alison, nodding to both Howland and Smalley. “We’ll take her to Boston for that. I’ll give you what little information I can, Mrs. Trumbull.”
Howland dropped Victoria at her house, leaving with a cryptic comment about girls and sororities. Victoria didn’t respond. She sat in her caned armchair at the cookroom window watching thunderclouds build up in the west and thought about Peg’s death. Who would have harmed her, and why? She’d been a pleasant, friendly young woman.
And she thought about Teddy. If she were an eight-year-old boy, where would she go? The phone rang, startling her.
“Victoria? Ruth Byron here. I’ve been trying to reach you for the past hour. I need to talk to you.” Her voice quavered with anger. “How can he consider opening the play tonight under the circumstances? Even Equity players have more sensitivity.”
Victoria listened to the Island Playhouse founder until she finally wound down, then remarked, “A professional troupe, according to Dearborn, doesn’t let mere death disrupt a performance.”
“An actress dead and a child gone missing?”
“Tonight’s performance is sold out.”
“How crass,” Ruth sputtered. “Any publicity is good, no matter how tasteless, according to him. I don’t know what possessed my sister to marry that man in the first place. Or me to hire him,” she added bitterly. “I suppose I was trying to get my sister off my back.”
Victoria traced the pattern of the red-checked tablecloth with her thumbnail. “He’s a good director. You recognized that. Your sister is an actress, too, isn’t she?”
Ruth snorted. “So she claims. You knew Dearborn had been fired from his two previous directing jobs, didn’t you?”
“No. Why?”
“Drinking. Rebecca has no talent and yet she behaves like a prima donna. No one wants to hire her. And Dearborn can’t hold down a director’s job because of his drinking.” Ruth paused. “Nine months ago I made him an offer. I hired him on the condition that he quit drinking and join AA.”
“The automobile association?”
Ruth ignored Victoria’s attempt at humor. “Every time Dearborn sobers up, Rebecca finds him just too, too boring, so they separate.”
“I understand that often happens when one spouse is a recovering alcoholic.”
“Those two have gone through the cycle—drinking, drying out, Becca leaving, Dearborn drinking again, reconciliation—I can’t tell you how many times. You’d think I’d have known better than to believe my offer would change things.”
“Where’s your sister now?”
“She’s still in touch with Dearborn, even though they’re living apart,” said Ruth. “Right now they’re concocting a scheme to get the theater away from me.”
“Equity?”
“Convincing my backers that the theater should go Equity, yes. I didn’t found the theater as a profit-making venture.”
“Why is your sister doing this to you?”
“Aunt Fifi left the building to me. With the stipulation that it be used as a community theater. Rebecca has always resented that. Not real theater, says Rebecca, as if she knows what real theater is. You’ll never make money, she says. Well, I don’t want to make money, Victoria. Ticket sales cover the utility bills, with enough left over to keep up the building.”
“Doesn’t she know, a community theater is supposed to be just that? Community members having a good time putting on plays for others’ enjoyment?”
“You don’t need to convince me, Victoria. But those two are pushing, pushing, pushing for Equity theater, Equity actors, Equity salaries …”
“And Equity ticket prices. I’m sorry I agreed to write that play. I’ve let you down by working with Dearborn, I’m afraid.”
“You wrote it at my request, Victoria. This Equity issue came up later, after we’d started rehearsals.”
Victoria moved her chair so she could get a better view of the brewing storm. High up, the thunderheads were flattening into classic anvil shapes. “Howland has refused to go on stage tonight as the monster, so the understudy is taking his place.”
“Roderick?” Ruth groaned. “That ham. Who’s taking over Peg’s role now she’s dead?”
“The stage manager.”
“Nora? Oh dear. And Teddy’s role?”
“Dearborn had a friend’s daughter in reserve.” Victoria shifted the phone to her other ear. “He plans to round up actors to read the parts of Frankenstein’s bride and …”
“Dawn Haines dropped out? That’s a surprise. She’s a fine actress.”
“She’s not fond of Dearborn.”
“Who else?”
“Gerard Cohen, who plays the blind man.”
“I thought Gerard was a friend of Himself?”
“Gerard was a friend of Peg’s, too.”
“Yes. Of course.” Ruth was quiet.
“Bruce Duncan has bowed out.”
“Isn’t he on Dearborn’s team?”
“Bruce is convinced life is following art.”
“That’s stretching credulity.”
“Bruce is good at that,” said Victoria.
“Who’s taking over his role?”
“Robert Scott, who plays the Arctic explorer.”
Ruth paused for a long moment. “Dearborn was asking for trouble, casting Bob in that play. In any part.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure you want to hear this, Victoria. Bob and my sister, Rebecca, had, and probably are still having, a broiling hot affair, ever since Dearborn went on his latest wagon. That’s part of their cycle. When he’s on the wagon, she beds down some ape-man primitive. When Dearborn starts drinking again, Rebecca dumps her latest. Bob Scott thinks he’s IT with Rebecca, in capital letters. He’s not.” Ruth changed the subject abruptly.
“You did a superb job of adapting the book to the stage, Victoria. Kept to the story while avoiding the difficult parts.”
“Doesn’t this kind of behavior on Rebecca’s part bother Dearborn?”
“He’s so involved in himself, I’m not sure he notices.”
“Robert Scott seems utterly different from Dearborn, rather a natural being.”
“You mean unwashed and nonintellectual,” said Ruth.
“Robert Scott seems a logical substitute for Bruce Duncan,” Victoria added. “He’s not a bad actor, and the Arctic explorer appears only at the very beginning and end of the play. The two are never on stage at the same time.”
“I can’t get over how wrong Dearborn is for going ahead with opening night,” said Ruth. “The entire cast should be out searching for Teddy.”
“Peg was so thrilled when she got a part in the play,” Victoria mused.
“Such a freak accident.”
“Accident …” Victoria started to say more, but an image of Smalley made her stop.
“You don’t think it was an accident?”
Victoria was silent.
Ruth cleared her throat. “I don’t want to get into that, Victoria. Actually, I called you for another reason. My son.”
“George? He’s in graduate school now, isn’t he?”
“Yale Drama,” said Ruth. “His advisor called this morning to say George hasn’t shown up for classes for a couple of days, and she’s concerned.”
“Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Elizabeth tiptoed into the kitchen, filled the teakettle, and plugged it in. Victoria looked up and lifted a hand.
“I’m afraid so,” said Ruth. “When I told George about Uncle Dearborn and Aunt Rebecca and their latest move, he was as upset as I am, more so. He has my Irish blood. I suspect he’s on his way to the Island to do battle for me.”
“Good.”
“No, no, Victoria. He mustn’t tangle with Dearborn. He’ll only make things worse. This is why I wanted to talk to you. He’ll ruin his career before it starts. If you see George, please talk to him. He’ll listen to you.”
“I’ll gladly hold his coat for him,” said Victoria.
Dearborn Hill had been on the phone most of the morning trying to find actors willing to substitute for those who’d refused to go on stage tonight. Opening night. Amateurs, all of them. His hair was no longer artistically rumpled. He’d run his fingers through it so many times it was lank and disheveled. He’d had so many cups of coffee, his hands shook. He wanted a drink badly. Becca’s sanctimonious sister had offered him the artistic director’s job with too many strings attached, he thought with resentment. Twice he’d gotten up from his desk, ready to drive to the liquor store in Oak Bluffs. Then he realized how little time he had and went back to making his phone calls.
There’d be a sell-out crowd tonight, he told himself. Peg’s death and Teddy’s disappearance would guarantee ticket sales. The substitute actors would have to read their parts, but the audience would understand. Add to the enjoyment.
He’d found a new little William right away, the precocious seven-year-old daughter of a board member.
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