This Old Murder (11 page)

“The what?”

“We have a beautiful new Victorian gazebo in the town square. Bands play there on summer evenings. The elementary-school children hold their graduation ceremony there in the spring. Brides for miles around have their pictures taken there.”

“Sounds nice.” Josie was wondering where the town square was located.

“It seems to me that you people are always around when Courtney comes home,” Dr. Van Ripper was continuing.

“My people?” Josie had a moment of wondering about her parents before she realized the librarian was speaking of her imaginary position as a member of the press.

“Yes. You sure love everything Courtney does, don’t you?”

“She does appear to have a very interesting life,” Josie admitted.

“And she’s such fun to be around. I can’t wait until tomorrow to see her.” The librarian was now gushing.

“To see her? Where is she? I mean, where are you going to meet her?” Josie asked.

“Why, on the island. She invited me to the house her company is filming. I cannot wait! So fascinating, don’t you think?”

Josie, in fact, didn’t know what to think.

FOURTEEN

THERE ARE PEOPLE who feel that sleeping on a problem will help to solve it, that the subconscious will take over and answer questions. But it wasn’t true for Josie. When she went to bed with a problem, she found neither solution nor sleep.

The next morning Josie was exhausted and she was asking herself the same questions she had asked the night before. Where was Courtney Castle? And what was she going to do when Naomi Van Ripper appeared at the work site today? How would she feel when she saw someone from what she thought of as her past life for the first time in seventeen years?

Well, houses don’t get remodeled by lying in bed and worrying, Josie thought, stretching her arms over her head and swinging her legs to the floor. If she dressed quickly, there would be time for a bowl of cereal before she left. Grabbing clean but old overalls and a T-shirt from her closet shelf, she headed for the bathroom, running her fingers through her hair as she went.

But she had forgotten one of the realities of a home with a teenage boy living in it: cereal vanishes. Sighing, she considered the other possibilities. A dirty plate in the sink and an empty grease-stained box in the garbage indicated that her son had finished off the calzone as a midnight (or later) snack. A can of Slim-Fast on a shelf remained untouched, as did a package of Rye Krisp, but she was going to have a hard day. She deserved a good breakfast. Dumping a packet of cat food in her son’s cat, Urchin’s, empty bowl, she grabbed her key chain and wallet and headed out the door. Tyler knew where to find her if he needed her. And she knew where to find the best greasy breakfast on the island.

A few minutes later she walked through the door of an institution: Sullivan’s (as the sign she had just strolled under informed anyone who cared to read the small print) had been established in 1927 right after the hurricane the year before had damaged or destroyed most of the buildings on the island. It was the only general store on the island and a lunch counter had been added the next summer. In the early fifties, an addition had been tacked on with room for a row of plastic upholstered booths and a dozen small tables. Not too much had changed since then. In fact, there were rumors that the grease in the deep-fat fryer qualified as original equipment. Few tourists ventured into this part of the store, satisfied to fill their needs for sunscreen on good days and playing cards and gizmos to keep the kids happy when it rained at the front. Glancing at a display of garish beach towels, Josie followed her nose to the source of one of her favorite meals.

“A number four. Over easy,” she said to the young waitress in a turquoise uniform almost before her bottom touched the chair.

“Coffee?” The woman took Josie’s abrupt order in stride.

Jose nodded. “Please. With cream and sugar.”

“Gotcha.”

Josie had barely finished her first mug of coffee when a massive oval plate was put on the paper placemat in front of her. Two fried eggs, yellow with butter, sat in the middle encircled by strips of crispy bacon, links of sausage, and rectangles of golden French toast. A large pitcher of sweet syrup whose antecedents had nothing to do with any tree was plunked down on the table, then the waitress left to satisfy the needs of another noncholesterol-fearing customer. Josie dug in.

She was halfway through the platter when she was joined by a friend.

“Mind if I sit with you?” Basil Tilby stood by her side. A fixture on the island, he was a notorious clotheshorse. Today his lanky frame was decked out as a sailor—not the type actually to travel over the water, more like someone from a Broadway production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

“Sure. Why are you here?”

“To eat. Of course.”

Josie was surprised. Basil was a gourmet; this was about the last place she would have expected him to be eating. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Kristina makes one of my favorite breakfasts. I stop by every few weeks.”

Josie couldn’t wait to see what Basil ordered. “Really? How’s the summer going for you?” As another businessperson dependent on the vagaries of seasonal profits, he would understand that her question translated as “How’s business?”

“Great. But not as interesting as yours. What’s going on with Courtney Castle?”

“She’s disappeared.”

“So I hear. Any idea why?”

“No. What have you heard?” While hosting in any of his restaurants, Basil chatted with the clientele and picked up a lot of information.

Basil leaned across the small table and whispered his answer. “That the police believe you killed her.”

“What garbage! No one even knows if she’s dead!” Josie was outraged enough to stop eating for a moment. “Her producer says she does this all the time.” She was aware of the exaggeration, but she was upset and tired.

“All the time? Makes you wonder how they manage to film all those television shows, doesn’t it?”

Josie recognized sarcasm when she heard it, but the arrival of Basil’s meal distracted her. “What is that?”

He looked down at his own large platter with a smile and picked up his fork. “Fried scrapple. Kristina makes her own. Wonderful.” A small pitcher with light amber liquid was placed by his plate. “Real maple syrup,” he explained. “Wouldn’t touch that stuff,” he added, glancing over at Josie’s pitcher.

She ignored his criticism of her taste buds. “What’s scrapple?”

“One of those foods it’s better not to ask about and just enjoy. Want to try some?” Knife raised, he offered a piece to her.

“No, thanks. What did you hear about Courtney?”

“That the Rodney clan believes you killed her and dumped her in the bay, but they’re too cheap to have the water dredged for the body.”

“So what does that mean? They’re going to wait for it to float to the surface?”

“Well, there’s a gruesome thought for this early in the morning.” However, it didn’t seem to stop him from enjoying his breakfast. “What do you think?” he asked, when he stopped to pick up his mug of tea.

Josie noticed that he had brought his own tea bag. Her bitchier self wondered if he had also insisted on using bottled water. “If you mean do I know what happened to Courtney, the answer is no.”

“There’s a rumor going around that you knew her before you came to the island.”

“Sam told you that?” She felt betrayed.

“Sam? No, I haven’t seen Sam since I placed a wine order with him late last week.” Basil stopped eating for a moment and looked up at Josie. “So it’s true, is it?”

“No . . .” She stopped. What was the point in lying? Basil, like everyone else on the island, would find out sooner or later. Sam knew. Risa knew. The island’s grapevine was working. Soon everyone would have heard the news. She looked at Basil and saw sympathy in his eyes.

“Yes, it’s true, but I don’t want anyone to know, Basil! My past is my past. It’s private and it doesn’t have anything to do with . . . whatever is going on here. We . . . we knew each other when we were kids. We weren’t really friends. We didn’t even like each other.” She pushed her platter away even though there was a piece of French toast left on it. “What did you hear? And who told you?”

“Nothing really specific. There was a young man at Café Portofino last night trying to impress his date. I think he might be one of those horrible young police officers Chief Rodney hires—good-looking, of course, but with less brains than your average turnip. Anyway, throughout most of their meal he was bragging loudly about being on the crime scene. Discussing clues and evidence like some sort of Columbo wanna-be. Among the things he said was that the police thought Courtney had been a victim of foul play. And that you and the members of your crew were possible suspects—”

“Members of my crew? Why the hell would any of them kill Courtney? They didn’t know her well enough to hate her!”

“From what this young kid was saying, the police think that you did,” Basil said.

“Well, it’s not true. I didn’t. Kill her, that is.”

“But you admit to knowing her before she came here?”

Basil had lowered his voice and was leaning across the table. Josie glanced around. It didn’t look to her as though anyone was paying undue attention to their conversation. Three men at the closest table were arguing about a recent fishing trip. A young mother was correcting her small son’s table manners. Another mother was criticizing her teenage daughter’s choice of beach attire. An elderly couple was sharing the local newspaper as they ate breakfast. No one seemed particularly interested in anything the two of them were saying. “Yes. But that was a long time ago. Before Tyler was born. It can’t have anything to do with her . . . disappearance the other day.”

“I don’t see how you can know that.”

“I haven’t seen her in years and years! I haven’t seen anyone she knows. I didn’t even know that she was doing that damn television show! How could I have anything to do with whatever has happened?”

“Josie, I’m just telling you what I overheard. And I would have even if you hadn’t asked me. Josie, you know what idiots the Rodneys are. It’s almost as though they are genetically programmed to arrest the wrong person. And, in this case, it sounds like the wrong person is you!”

Josie glanced down at her wrist and then up at the clock hanging on the wall.

“You know, doctors do all sorts of implants these days. Maybe you could have something done with a watch.” Josie’s inability to keep watches with her was well known among her friends.

“I’m going to be late for work.”

“You’d better get going. Unless I miss my guess, the Rodneys and their minions are going to be hanging around with questions. And you know how they never believe the answers anyone gives them. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“If the reason they believe everyone is dishonest is that they’re basing their judgments on themselves.”

“Yeah.” Josie tossed all the change from one of her overall pockets on the table and waved to the woman behind the counter. “Thanks. That was great—as usual.”

“Bye, Josie. Don’t get yourself arrested!” the woman called out cheerfully.

“Hard to keep a secret on this island,” Basil said knowingly.

“So it seems,” Josie answered, thinking about how, in this case, many secrets were being kept quite successfully—so far. She said good-bye to Basil and hurried out to her truck. Now that she had two visitors to worry about, it seemed even more urgent that she get to work. The drive took less than five minutes and she had not decided who she wanted to see less—the police or Naomi Van Ripper—when she turned onto the street by the bay. And realized she had been wasting time and mental effort. On the front lawn of her work site the chief of police stood talking to the librarian.

Josie parked the truck, took a deep breath, and got out with what she hoped was a welcoming smile on her face.

As she approached, toolbox in hand, the two people stopped talking and turned to look at her. Their expressions did not match her own.

“Is this the woman you knew as Josephine Pigeon?” the chief of police asked without preliminaries.

“I’d know that hair anywhere,” Naomi Van Ripper said. “Josephine, you never returned
The Best Guide to Northeastern Colleges
to the library!”

“Uh . . . wouldn’t it be a little out of date by now?”

“How many years has that book been out?” Mike Rodney Senior had a huge grin on his face.

“Since I last saw Josephine. It must have been the early 1980s. Let me think for a second. It was 1983! That book has been overdue for seventeen years, Josephine!”

“Everyone calls me Josie now,” she told her. “And I think you’d better just make out a bill for that book.”

“Saving it for Tyler to use in a few years, Josie?”

Naomi Van Ripper picked up on the name right away. “Tyler? Who’s Tyler?”

“Why, Josie’s son. Smartest kid on the island, I’ll admit that. Guess the apple fell pretty far from the tree that time.”

“You’re married, Josephine?” Dr. Van Ripper sounded as though she didn’t believe it could possibly be true.

Which, of course, it wasn’t. “No. I’m not.”

“Divorced?” She made it sound as though such a thing were unheard of.

“No.” The two of them could tie her up and torture her, but she wasn’t going to say more.

“How unfortunate. I guess the rumors I heard about you were true.”

“Our Miss Pigeon is what you call a thoroughly modern young woman.” Chief Rodney sneered. “An unwed mother.”

The questions stopped while the librarian caught her breath. “Did you say an unwed mother? Josie . . . how . . . who . . . when . . .”

“I have a wonderful son. He’s sixteen years old.” And that was all she was going to say.

Apparently, it was enough. “I did hear that you had been involved with various men while you were in college. I hoped, of course, that you wouldn’t be so foolish. And I gather you’ve been busy since you disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“You left college and vanished. According to your mother, no one had any idea where you had ended up. There were even rumors that you had been killed or hurt in some way, but then your family got that message from you . . .”

So they had received her announcement of Tyler’s birth!

“. . . from some sort of hippie commune in California. At least that was what everyone in town was saying.”

Josie opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. She had no idea what to say. She had imagined a lot of scenarios, but none of them had included gossip and lies being told about her. She realized Chief Rodney was enjoying her discomfort. “I guess we have a lot of catching up to do. But I should get to work.”

“Yes, your crew seems anxious to see you.” Chief Rodney was looking over her shoulder.

“You’re a carpenter?”

“I own Island Contracting,” Josie answered proudly. “And we’d better get down to work. When Courtney decides to show up, we want to be ready for her.” She managed a slight smile, grabbed her toolbox, and headed into the house.

Her crew really did appear anxious to know what was going on. Jill was perched on a tall ladder. Dottie and Annette stood at the bottom. All three had concerned expressions on their faces. “Nothing to worry about,” Josie assured them. “She’s an old acquaintance. Someone I knew when I was a kid. She’s here to see Courtney Castle.”