Breaking Ground (3 page)

“As far as I know. But it might be a good idea for you to go over and check things out. They use so many young people now and you can't really depend on them to do things right. If you know what I mean.”

While Julie wasn't sure she
did
know what Mrs. Detweiller meant, the opportunity to walk across the Common and inspect the room where the lunch would be held represented another way to use some of her nervous energy. “That's an excellent idea, Mrs. Detweiller. I'll walk over there now. I should be back in half an hour and still have some time before the groundbreaking in case anything comes up.”

As it turned out, checking the room had been a good idea, because the staff at the Ryland Inn had ignored the plan for placing the tables that Julie had provided last week. Instead of setting a head table—for the Swanson family, Julie and Rich, and trustee chair Howard Townsend and his wife—and other tables of seven and eight for the rest, the staff had put a long table for twelve at the front of the room facing tables for four. The catering manager
assured Julie he would correct the problem, but she lingered to make sure, and it was ten-thirty before she returned to her office. Without providing all the details that she knew Mrs. Detweiller would have welcomed, Julie thanked her secretary again for the suggestion and said the inn had, indeed, made a mistake.

“Always good to keep an eye on them,” Mrs. Detweiller said with deep satisfaction.

“I'll just finish up in my office,” Julie said. “If I lose track of time, could you call me at eleven? I'd like to be sure I'm over at the site in case anyone comes early.”

But it was not Mrs. Detweiller who interrupted Julie at work, and it wasn't at eleven. Ten minutes after she entered her office, Julie heard Howard Townsend in the outer office. If she didn't know Howard as a quiet, dignified, and entirely self-composed man, she would have sworn he was shouting. And when she walked out to see what was happening, she realized he was.

“Horrible, just horrible,” he was saying, as much to the air as to Mrs. Detweiller. “We have to call the police. Oh, Julie,” Townsend continued when he saw her, “Mary Ellen is dead.”

“Howard, what do you mean—when did Mary Ellen die? Are you okay?” Julie added when she saw his ashen face. “Maybe you should sit down.”

Howard Townsend didn't so much sit down as melt down, letting his old, lanky body slip onto the small couch directly across from Mrs. Detweiller's desk. “Do you need water?” she asked.

“Please,” Townsend said. “But first we have to call the police.”

“Mrs. Detweiller, would you get some water,” Julie asked as crisply as she could, presenting an artificial calmness. “Now, tell me, what's happened?”

“Mary Ellen's dead,” Townsend said in such a low voice Julie found herself bending to hear him. “I found her … her body. At the construction site.”

Now Julie felt the need to sit; before responding she lowered herself to the couch. “I don't understand,” she said.

“At the groundbreaking site,” he continued. “I came early. Just to be sure things were in order. And I found her there. Dead. Oh, thank you, Mrs. Detweiller,” he said as he reached for the paper cup of water. “We should call the police, the ambulance, but I think it's too late. I'm sure she's dead. She couldn't have lost all that blood and survived.”

“Blood?” Julie practically screamed. “What did you see?”

“First the police and the ambulance. Mrs. Detweiller, please ring them.”

Julie felt slightly relieved to hear Howard's naturally authoritative tone returning. “Now tell me what happened,” she said.

“What happened? I don't know. All I know is that Mary Ellen was lying beside the table, under that tent, facedown, and the
blood was everywhere. It was terrible!” Howard rose from the couch, but Julie put her arm on his shoulder and gently pushed him back. Except for crisp handshakes, this was the first time she had ever touched him.

“They're all on their way,” Mrs. Detweiller said as she put the phone down. “Then I'll go meet them,” Howard said, and again stood, but this time steadily enough that Julie didn't feel the need to restrain him.

“I'll go with you, Howard.”

“You shouldn't see Mary Ellen like that. You stay here.”

“Of course I'll come,” she said. “You can explain on the way.”

“There's not much more to explain,” Howard said as they walked from her office and turned toward the construction site. A man in a khaki uniform, in his mid-thirties and fit enough to run but panting as he reached them, sprinted from the street.

“Thank you for responding so quickly,” Howard said to Ryland's police chief, Mike Barlow. “I told Julie not to come, but she insisted.”

The three of them picked up their pace. There was the backhoe, and there was the tent. And there was Mary Ellen Swanson's body, lying just as Howard had described. Mike gestured to the other two to stay back and bent down. He reached for Mary Ellen's right arm. Julie could see him searching her wrist to check for a pulse. How gentle he is, Julie thought, like he's comforting a child who fell off her bike. Then she saw the blood that covered Mary Ellen's body, beginning at her neck and continuing down both legs.

“Are you okay, Julie?” Howard asked, right before Julie abruptly turned away and began to heave. She was sure she was going to vomit, but all she could manage were dry heaves, accompanied now by tears, hot, salty tears pouring down her face and onto her blouse.

“No,” she answered between heaves. “I mean, yes, I'll be all right in a minute. It's just …” Another heave came, and then another, and then Julie knew she
was
going to vomit, and up came her breakfast, shooting out of her and onto the grassy area beside the tent. “I'm sorry, Howard,” she said as he put his arm around her shoulder.

Mike stood and walked backwards from Mary Ellen. He pulled the portable radio from his belt and spoke rapidly into it. “No sirens, Jerry” were the only words Julie caught. Barlow reattached the radio and came over to where Howard and Julie were standing.

“Okay, Julie?” he asked.

“I'll be fine in a minute. Don't step there.”

Mike pulled himself back from the pool of vomit. “You should sit down, but not here; you can't disturb the scene.” He gestured toward the rows of chairs at the back of the tent, chairs for the celebrants who would be coming shortly for the groundbreaking. That got Julie's attention.

“We've got fifty or sixty people coming here for the ceremony in about a half-hour,” she said. “We've got to stop them.”

“Yeah, I don't want anyone around here,” Mike said. “Can you get some of your folks to stand over there by the parking area and keep the guests out?”

“I'll see who's around to help—some volunteers should be here by now.”

“If I can help, Julie,” Howard offered in a tone that made her think he wasn't really prepared to take on such lowly work.

“Maybe you should just go back to my office and wait, Howard,” she replied, and he assented quickly and began to walk toward Swanson House.

Julie turned back to speak to the policeman again and then glanced at the table. “The shovels,” she said.

“What?”

“The shovels. I put four of them here earlier, but there are only three now.” She pointed to them, each still wearing its red bow. “One's missing.”

“You're thinking someone used a shovel to hit Mrs. Swanson?” Mike asked.

“I don't know, but just look at her.” Julie took one quick glance at the bloody body and quickly turned back to the policeman. “Something caused all that blood, and one of the shovels is missing.”

“I'll check around here as soon as I get some backup. Was it like these?”

“Exactly the same. Clif Holdsworth supplied them, and I tied the ribbons on them and brought them all over here this morning.”

“What time was that?”

Julie consulted her watch again. “It must have been around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty. Mrs. Detweiller came in at nine, and we talked a bit, and then I came over here.”

“And Mrs. Swanson wasn't here?”

“No. Well, at least I didn't see her, and if she was around you can be sure she would have made herself known.” Julie began to cry again.

“Hey, it's okay,” Mike said.

“Mary Ellen was so excited about this groundbreaking, and about the project. It's just so awful!”

“We're not used to violent deaths in Ryland,” Mike said. “But this is our second in a year.”

“Don't remind me,” she said as the memory of Worth Harding's body rose before her. Just when she thought she was getting free of it so she could live in his house.

“Damn, Jerry!” Mike said as the siren wailed behind them. The black-and-white Ryland Town Rescue vehicle stopped in the parking area beside Holder House, its blue lights flashing. “I
told
Jerry not to use the siren,” he added.

“Over here,” Mike shouted as he waved to Jerry and the second medic. “You better go organize your troops,” he added to Julie. “Don't explain anything; just tell them to keep folks away and say the ceremony is off.”

Julie nodded and walked past the arriving pair from Town Rescue, nodding but not speaking to them. She went into Holder House first and rounded up three volunteer guides. With the town rescue vehicle right outside the window and the police chief clearly visible by the tent, Julie found it impossible to pretend nothing significant had happened. “There's been an accident at the groundbreaking site,” she said, “and we have to postpone the ceremony. People will be coming soon, and we need to stop them from gathering there and explain.”

Julie wasn't sure what to make of the fact that no one asked for details. Maybe they already knew what happened. Or maybe, good Mainers that they were, they were just practicing avoidance, a trait Julie had noticed more than once in her time in Maine. Among themselves, they might gossip and speculate, but, around an outsider like her, they went on about their business. So they left the building and took up the places Julie had suggested, two by the parking area and the third at the corner of Ting House, to intercept those who would arrive on foot and go between the buildings toward the site. Realizing that others might come down Main Street and enter behind Swanson House, she decided to go there herself. The first person she encountered was Rich.

“God, I'm so glad to see you!” she said as she grabbed hold of him. “Mary Ellen Swanson was killed—at the construction site. We're stopping people from going back there. Can you help?”

“Jesus! What happened?”

“I don't know. Howard Townsend found her, and came to tell me, and Mike Barlow's there, and Town Rescue. I can't believe this is happening. Not after Worth. What is it with me? I come to town and Worth is killed. Now poor Mary Ellen. Am I a jinx or something?”

“I canceled the lunch,” Mrs. Detweiller informed her as Julie returned to her office.

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Detweiller. I didn't even think of that.”

“We'll have to pay for it because we canceled so late.”

“We'll work it out,” Julie said. “I'll be in my office for a while.”

Crying, she added to herself as she closed the door behind her. Julie wasn't a natural crier; she tended to keep her emotions both under control and to herself. But the enormity of Mary Ellen's brutal death simply had to be recognized. Her tears flowed.

“Anyone here?” Mike asked from the outer office several minutes into Julie's crying session.

“Yes, come in,” answered Julie, wiping her eyes.

Although Julie didn't consider Mike exactly a friend, she liked and respected him. Last year when items went missing from the historical society and then Worth had been murdered, Mike had discouraged Julie from trying to solve the cases. But when she persisted, he accepted the futility of his position, and Julie really considered that they had been partners. Not that she expected Mike to feel the same. Still, they had a good relationship, and Julie regarded him the way everyone else in Ryland seemed to: as a neighbor who wore a badge because he genuinely wanted to help.

“Just a few things I need to talk to you about,” Mike said when he was seated across from her. She nodded. “I just got back from telling Steven.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Always is, but telling someone his mother was a homicide victim sort of raises the ante. Anyway, he said he and his wife and
mother had breakfast and then Mary Ellen said she had to meet you at the tent at ten o'clock.”

“Me?”

“That's what he said. I didn't remember you saying anything about that, but maybe you forgot.”

“No, we didn't have plans to meet. I mean, I figured Mary Ellen would be around this morning, to make changes in the ceremony or something. But we didn't have an appointment. I told you that I took the shovels over around nine-fifteen or nine-thirty, and Mary Ellen wasn't around.”

“What did you do then?”

“I came back here, and Mrs. Detweiller suggested I go to the inn to check on the arrangements for lunch. So I was over there until about ten-thirty, and when I got back here, that's when Howard came in to tell me about Mary Ellen. You know the rest from there.”

Mike wrote some more notes on his pad. “Okay, between say nine-thirty and ten-thirty you were at the Ryland Inn. Who did you talk to?”

“You're checking my alibi!”

“I am, sorry, but Steven said his mother was meeting you at the tent, and I have to know where you were since you say you weren't there.”

“Brian is the catering manager,” Julie said. “I can't remember his last name.”

“Handley,” Mike offered.

“I think so. Anyway, he can tell you I was there—I'm sure he wasn't happy about it. But, I can't be absolutely sure of the time—I mean ‘from nine-thirty to ten-thirty,' like you said, doesn't sound right. I don't think I spent an hour with him, but I'm not sure of the exact time I got back here from the tent, or the exact time I left for the inn, or how long it took me to get there and back. Is it so important?”