Murder With Puffins (23 page)

"I'm so sorry about the poor little dog," Mrs. Peabody said. She sounded genuinely sympathetic, probably because she hadn't known Spike very well. And probably never would now.

"Oh damn," I said. I was astonished and embarrassed to find tears welling up in my eyes.

Of all the stupid things, I told myself as I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of a sleeve that was already sopping wet. I take everything in stride--a dead body, a murder, my own aunt confessing to the crime, both parents nearly managing to get themselves killed in a storm. And now I break down over Spike, of all things.

"Don't worry; he'll probably turn up," Michael said, putting his arms around me. "And if he doesn't, we'll figure out some cover story to tell Mom."

"No, we'll tell her the true," I said, standing up straight and bracing my shoulders. "That I carelessly took him out in a hurricane and callously ignored him while the surf carried him away and it's all my fault"

"It's not your fault," Michael began.

"No, it's all my fault, and I'll never forgive myself," I said. "Please, let him turn up somewhere. If we could just find him safe and sound, I promise I'll--"

Just then, a familiar yapping broke out somewhere behind us.

"Spike!"

We all whirled, and I was relieved to see Spike running toward us.

"What was it you were about to promise if Spike turned up safe and sound?" Michael asked.

"Not to feed him to the sharks on the trip home," I said.

Michael chuckled.

"Good dog!" I added, rather pointlessly, as Spike arrived at my feet, panting and still yapping.

His normally sleek black-and-white fur was now a uniform muddy grayish brown, and I didn't envy whoever had to wash him before Michael's mother saw him again. Not me, I vowed, no matter how glad I was to see him un-drowned.

I quickly noticed that he wasn't just barking. He was running back and forth between my feet and a pile of rocks at the edge of the cliff, yapping all the way.

"Are you trying to tell us something?" Michael asked, leaning down toward Spike the next time he arrived at my feet. Spike growled at him and turned back to me.

"You're both watching far too many
Lassie
reruns," I said as Spike ran off again. "The bit where Lassie finds the lost child is an overdone cliche; and besides, we've already found all our lost relatives."

"Oh, you're no fun," Michael said, pretending to sulk. "Can't we just go see what he's found?"

"Dead fish washed up from the storm, I expect," Jeb put in.

"Never mind, then," Michael said.

"Let's head down and see how Dad's doing," I said. "And then--"

I heard a low rumble down by my ankles.

"Cool it, Spike," I said.

Spike growled again, then butted my ankle with his head. I glanced down and started.

"What the hell has that fool dog got there?" Jeb asked.

"Aunt Phoebe's walking stick," I said.

Noticing we were paying attention to him, Spike began wagging his tail and trying to bark, his efforts a little muffled by the walking stick in his mouth. He held it at one end--the lower, narrower end. The stick had been pretty battered and gnarled to begin with, but I could see several obviously new chips and scratches. And was I imagining the telltale dark stain on the top third?

"Is that blood on one end of it?" Jeb Barnes asked.

"Could just as easily be mud," Michael said.

"Careful!" I said as Jeb reached down toward the stick. "He bites!"

"Well, not with that stick in his mouth," Michael said. "But he could choke himself trying."

"We don't want him to run off with it," Jeb said.

"How fast can he run?" Michael said. "The thing's so heavy, he can barely drag it"

"Someone give me a handkerchief," I said. "I'll try to get it away from him."

Holding Michael's handkerchief behind my back with my right hand--fluttering cloth sometimes spooked Spike--I knelt in the mud and extended my left hand.

"Here, Spike," I called, fixing an insincere smile on my face. "Here, boy. Come here, boy."

Spike paused six feet away and looked at me, then at the others.

"Back away some more," I said, not taking my eyes off Spike.

"If we back any farther away, we'll fall off the cliff," Jeb said.

"Here boy," I called to Spike. "Come and give me the stick, you miserable little fur ball."

"You're not going to get him to come to you, calling him names like that," Jeb said.

"He doesn't care what names I call him," I said in my most coaxing voice, eyes still locked on Spike's. "It's the tone he's listening for. I could call him a mangy little cur, and as long as I smile when I say it, he won't care. Will you, Spike?"

Spike wagged his tail.

"Here, you ornery little mutt," I said, smiling harder and beckoning. "Come to Aunt Meg. Don't make me wring your wretched little neck."

Spike wagged harder, then staggered over to me, dragging the stick behind him.

"That's a good little monster," I said, patting him. Spike had to drop the stick to begin his usual pastime of licking me obsessively, which gave me the chance I needed to grab the walking stick with the handkerchief and hand it over to Jeb Barnes. I reattached Spike's leash while Jeb juggled the puffin and the stick.

"Yes, that's Phoebe's cane," Jeb said.

"Stick, not cane," I corrected. "Don't let Aunt Phoebe hear you calling it a cane; she'd kill you. Not literally," I added, seeing the startled expression on Jeb's face. "That was a figure of speech."

"Right," he said. I wasn't sure he believed me. "I thought she said she'd lost the… stick when she fell."

"No," I said, starting down the trail toward the village. "She told us she lost it before she fell."

"It could be evidence," Jeb said, falling into step beside me. "After all, she did confess to the murder this morning."

"She did?" Mrs. Peabody said with a gasp. "Well, I never!"

"Yes, but you'll remember I pointed out exactly why her confession didn't hold water."

"Good," Mrs. Peabody said. "I can hardly imagine a dedicated environmentalist like Phoebe committing murder."

"Not even of someone like Victor Resnick?" Michael asked.

Mrs. Peabody didn't answer. I glanced back. She had paused at a fork in the trail and seemed to be seriously thinking over the question. Much too seriously.

"That dark stuff on the stick really looks like mud to me," Michael said.

"We'll let the police decide that," Jeb said.

"Exactly," I said. "Let's just get the stick safely locked up until the police can do a forensic examination."

"Locked up where?" Jeb asked.

"In the locker with the body, I suppose," I said. "Bodies, if you include the puffin. After all, the damned stick's survived a hurricane; a little cold won't hurt it."

"Yes, that would work," Jeb said.

We watched as Jeb trudged off toward the Anchor Inn with the puffin and the walking stick in hand. Mrs. Peabody trailed after him, presumably to keep her eye on the puffin.

"Let's go get a rope and do our burgling," I said. Michael nodded and fell into step beside me as we headed back to Aunt Phoebe's cottage.

"Aunt Phoebe did say she lost her stick before she fell into the gully," I said. "She just didn't say how long before."

"Still, it doesn't look good, her walking stick turning up so near the scene of the crime. And with blood on it."

"You're the one who keeps saying it's mud."

"Could be mud," he said. "Could be blood, too."

"True," I agreed. "And that makes two possible murder weapons that have some association with Aunt Phoebe."

I brooded on that a while longer.

"Of course," Michael put in, "The sheer improbability of the story she told goes in her favor."

"Yes, except that if she were guilty and knew all the details of the crime, she could make up an improbable story better than anyone."

"Is she that devious?"

I had to think about that one.

"I don't think so," I said finally. "Normally, I tend to think of Aunt Phoebe as abrupt and straightforward. But if she'd brooded a lot about the crimes she thought Resnick had committed against the birds… who knows?"

"Or if she's particularly good at thinking on her feet."

"Exactly. And then again, there's the question of why she would tell such a howler in the first place."

"Because she's covering up for someone else?"

"Yes," I said. "And people would naturally assume that someone is Dad. Which isn't an idea we want to encourage."

Just then, I saw Jim Dickerman shambling along the path toward us.

"Afternoon," I said as he drew near.

"Yeah, I know," he snapped. "Give me a break."

"Pardon?"

"Look, I'll get it running as soon as I can, damn it. I stayed up all night trying to fix the damned thing. I'm going back up now, but I had to get a couple hours of sleep."

"Hey, calm down," I said. "Aunt Phoebe isn't even hooked up to your generator, remember? I wasn't asking when you'll have the thing fixed or giving you a hard time; I just said good afternoon."

"Sorry," he said, fighting a yawn. "Bad night."

His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he hadn't shaved, combed his hair, or changed his clothes in several days.

"You look as if you could use a lot more sleep," I said. "Let the generator wait a few more hours."

"Too many people complaining," he said, stifling another yawn.

"One less than there used to be at least," I said.

"Yeah," he said with a startled laugh. "I guess so. And the bastard was the biggest complainer of all. Course, he was our biggest customer, too. Pity."

"I don't suppose you saw anything useful," I asked. "Any possible clues or anything?"

"I wasn't down by Resnick's yesterday," Jim said, shrugging. "Too busy with the generator."

"What about your windows?" I asked. "I should think you have a pretty good view from there."

"When they're not shuttered up," he said. "Got 'em nailed shut for the storm right now."

"That's true," I said. "When did you do that?"

He thought for a few seconds.

"Day before they stopped the ferry," he said. "That'd be Thursday afternoon."

"So I don't suppose you saw much of what went on around the island yesterday and today, then?"

He shrugged.

"Only when I went outside," he said. "Damn birders all over everywhere."

"You don't like the birders?"

"Can't see what the big deal is, but I've got nothing against them. Mess up the island less than most damn tourists."

What a relief to see that Resnick's death wouldn't completely deprive the island of curmudgeons. I wondered if Jim and Victor Resnick had actually gotten along in their own gruff way. And then a thought hit me--Jim…

James--what if Jim Dickerman was the phantom biographer?

"Tell me," I said. "Do you know anything about the
Unheralded Genius of the Down East Coast
?"

"The what?" Jim asked.

" 'Who could have predicted this event, at once so joyous and so tragic?'" I quoted.

" 'Who can calculate the import this occurrence would present upon his life and art?'" Michael added.

"If that's one of those word games, I don't get it," Jim said in a voice that suggested he didn't much care, either. If he wasn't the biographer, he was a phenomenal actor. Ah, well. I tried another angle.

"Before the storm. You could see what went on at Resnick's, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Was he really electrocuting birds?"

"Yeah, but he wasn't killing them."

"Then what was he doing?"

"Running a low-voltage current through some of the metal struts in his roof. Give 'em a hotfoot, scare 'em away so they'd stop crapping on his glass. Town made him stop, though."

"You mean he actually did what they asked?"

Jim snorted.

"Yeah. Well, he wouldn't have, except that it didn't really work anyway. Gulls just sat on the glass. Funniest thing you ever saw, watching him jump up and down in his yard, yelling at the gulls. Couldn't throw anything without breaking the glass."

"When did he stop?"

"May, maybe June. Before the tourist season anyway."

That made sense; the puffin could have still been in breeding plumage in May or June, as far as I could tell from the bird books. Maybe puffins were more sensitive to a hotfoot than gulls. Or maybe Resnick had experimented with higher voltages before the town pulled the plug on his bird-control program.

"Have you seen your brother recently?" I asked finally.

"Fred? Yeah, he's down in the village somewhere, I guess."

From the tone of voice, I got the feeling there was no love lost between the brothers.

"No, I actually meant Will."

Jim frowned but said nothing.

"Monhegan's own candidate for America's most wanted," I went on. "You haven't seen him around recently, have you?"

"No, not since--" Jim began, then stopped.

"Not since when?" I asked.

"Not since before they got arrested," he said slowly. "What does he have to do with anything? Will wasn't even on the island when…"

His voiced trailed off, as if something had just occurred to him.

"Well, if you find out he's on the island, tell him to see his lawyer," I said.

"Even if he didn't do it," Michael said.

"Especially if he didn't do it," I added. "Do you think the police will look far for another suspect if they find someone right under their noses with a prior history of whacking people over the head?"

At least I hoped that's what the police would do. I must have sounded pretty convincing. Jim frowned.

"I have to get back to the generator," he said, and strode off.

"Okay, I'll bite," Michael said. "What was last bit all about?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "I'm hoping if Will Dickerman is on the island, Jim will go and see him."

"To warn him, or to give him hell for jumping bail and jeopardizing the power plant?"

"Either one will do," I said.

"Shouldn't we do something? Like maybe follow him?"