Read Birthday Party Murder Online

Authors: Leslie Meier

Birthday Party Murder (21 page)

“I guess the birthday party's out of the question?” inquired Sue.
Lucy's eyes met Rachel's.
“Yeah,” said Pam, speaking for them. “The guest of honor's unavailable. No Miss T, no party.”
“And I guess that means no
Norah!
TV show, either,” added Lucy.
“Why not?” Sue raised a delicately arched eyebrow and lifted her cup of black coffee. “Sidra told me everyone on the show is very pleased with the material Lucy sent, especially the photos. They're going to use them, like in that Civil War documentary. They've almost finished the segment, but they need one more thing.”
Lucy shook her head, like a two-year-old in the throes of a tantrum. “I can't. I can't. I absolutely can't do another thing and I won't.”
“Mature, Lucy. Very mature,” observed Sue, sarcastically.
Reaching into her bag, she took out a narrow cylinder and withdrew a pair of tiny reading glasses, propping them on her nose. Then she leaned a little closer, studying Lucy's face.
“Did you get Countess Irene? Your skin looks fabulous.”
“It's the cortisone. Countess Irene gave me hives.”
The news didn't faze Sue in the least. “Cortisone. I'll have to try that,” she said, removing the glasses and tapping the table with them. “Now, back to business. All Sidra wants is some old newspaper stories to use as graphic elements.” She turned a wide-eyed gaze on Lucy. “Now, that's not too hard, is it?”
In spite of herself, Lucy was intrigued. “You mean her birth announcement, stuff like that?”
“Sure. Anything involving Miss T or her family. Or local history. Blizzards, hurricanes. Anything noteworthy.”
“We can use
The Pennysaver
archives,” said Pam. “They go back over a hundred years and pretty much cover everything that happened in town.”
“The Pennysaver
is a hundred years old?” Rachel looked doubtful.
“It wasn't called
The Pennysaver.
It was
The Courier,
and then
The Advertiser.”
“Okay,” said Lucy. “I'm stuck home anyway with Bill. I might as well have a project.”
“Better yet,” suggested Rachel, with a wily smile, “have Bill do the research. Give him something to do that will keep his mind off his boo-boo.”
“I'll toast to that,” said Lucy, raising her coffee cup.
Chapter Twenty-two
W
hen Pam cruised up to the old farmhouse on Red Top Hill in her aged boat of an Oldsmobile later that day, Lucy ran out to meet her. She stopped in her tracks, however, when she noticed the car was filled to the gunwales with old newspapers, all neatly bound in oversize volumes.
“Golly, I had no idea there'd be so many,” she exclaimed.
“Me, either. It took forever to load the car. So, where do you want them?”
“In the family room, I guess. That's where Bill is holding court.”
Bill wasn't exactly thrilled when the two women marched into his sickroom with their arms full of books.
“What are those?” he demanded.
“Old newspapers.” Lucy nodded toward a corner. “I guess we can just stack them here.”
They dropped the books on the floor, creating a cloud of dust.
“I don't want those dusty things in here,” complained Bill.
“I think we should line them up against the wall under the windows,” said Pam. “That way it will be easier to get at the volume you need.”
“What am I? Invisible? Can't you hear me? I don't want them in here.” Bill was on his feet, leaning on a crutch.
“You mean stack them as if this end of the room is a shelf?” asked Lucy, ignoring him.
“Exactly,” said Pam.
“Let's get started,” said Lucy. “I don't imagine there's any way we could get them in chronological order?”
“Hey!” Bill was tapping Lucy on the shoulder. “This is not a good idea. What about allergies?”
“I did put the most recent ones in the car last, so they're on top,” offered Pam. “And I only brought the ones from 1910 to 1985.”
“You don't have any allergies,” said Lucy, waving away his objections. “Let's start at this end and work our way back.”
Unable to refute this, Bill stumped back to his chair and clicked on the TV.
“Okay,” said Pam, picking up one of the volumes and checking the date stamped on the spine. “July to August 1980; I'll put it here for the time being. We can move it over when we find later ones.”
“I've got January to February here, I'll put it next to it.”
“You keep stacking 'em and I'll go out and bring in another load,” suggested Pam.
“Okay.”
“What about my lunch?” whined Bill. “I haven't had lunch yet.”
“Neither have we,” said Lucy, who was on her knees. “I'll fix something for all of us when we're done.”
“I'm starving,” said Bill, hollowing his stomach. “I'll probably be dead of hunger by then.”
“Here comes 1976,” said Pam, staggering in under the weight of six books.
“Ah, the Bicentennial. There's probably good stuff in there. Oops, this is 1913.”
“Don't mix it in with the others,” said Pam. “We ought to keep it separate.”
“Yoo-hoo! I'm here. I'm sick and I'm hungry.”
“Just put it on top of Bill,” suggested Lucy. “Maybe it will shut him up.”
“You mean kind of wall him off, like in that Poe story?”
“That's the idea,” said Lucy.
“Not very funny at all,” snarled Bill.
“Instead of carrying on like a big baby, why don't you take a look inside? See if you can find any stories that mention Miss Tilley.”
“In your dreams,” said Bill, changing the channel.
Pam and Lucy looked at each other.
“I bet he'll change his mind,” whispered Pam.
Lucy glanced at Bill, who had let the volume slide off his lap and onto the floor, and back to Pam.
“I hope so.”
An hour later, the books were neatly lined up in close-to-chronological order along the wall. Pam was shifting them around, trying to get the order straightened out, and Lucy was in the kitchen mixing up tuna salad. Bill had given up on daytime TV and was idly turning the yellowed pages of the 1913 issues of the Tinker's Cove
Advertiser.
“Ho-ho,” he said, suddenly becoming interested. “You'll never guess what I've found.”
“What?” inquired Pam, panting as she switched the first half of 1954 and the second.
“The old witch's birth announcement. ‘Born to Judge William T. Tilley and his wife, Sarah, a daughter, seven pounds and two ounces.' ”
 
 
So this is what it's like to die,
mused Miss Tilley, blinking at the bright light that surrounded her. Everything was so white and she had the strange sensation of floating in a white cloud. This was what she'd always imagined death would be like. She waited expectantly for the clouds to part revealing Saint Peter and the Heavenly Host.
Oddly enough, she wasn't afraid. Of course, she had committed no sins that Saint Peter could reproach her for. She had been a dutiful and obedient daughter; she had willingly taken on the responsibilities of the post of librarian at Broadbrooks Free Library; she had worked hard, observed moderation in all things and followed the Golden Rule. All that was well and good, she told herself, but her trump card for admission through the Pearly Gates was the fact that she had remained a maiden lady throughout her long life.
She smiled with satisfaction and opened her eyes wide in anticipation of the marvels that would soon be revealed to her. Instead, she saw the ceiling light fixture.
She blinked in disbelief. Was she not aboard the express to heaven? Was she in fact lying in her bed, in her room, under a bright ceiling light? This couldn't be true. And what was that light doing on anyway? She hated ceiling fixtures and much preferred the natural light of day or the soft light of lamps.
She turned to her left. The Sandwich glass lamp was still on her nightstand, but it was off. She squinted, focusing on the wall beyond. The window shade was down. Now that was wrong. She never pulled the window shades. She would have to get up and open it, and while she was at it, she would switch off the ceiling light. She tried to rise from her bed but found she couldn't do it. She couldn't move.
She was tired, she realized. So tired. The room was growing fuzzy again. The window and the walls receded into the bright whiteness that surrounded her. Once again she felt as if she were floating. It was like being in a pool of warm water. She felt so light, so weightless. All her aches and pains were gone. She felt entirely relaxed. She didn't have any worries, either. Not a care in the world. Just this blissful sense that she was complete unto herself and utterly at peace. She felt divine.
From the distance, she heard chimes. The music of the spheres. Or perhaps the grandfather clock. How many times did it chime? She'd lost count.
“Just lift your head, dear.”
She felt a hand slide under her neck, pulling her out of her cloud. She squinted and saw Shirley, dear Shirley, looming over her. She thought it was Shirley, but what had happened to her hair? When had it turned red?
“Open wide, now. Just a little bit of medicine.”
It wasn't Shirley. What a silly mistake. It was Mother. She was sick with rheumatic fever and she had to take the badtasting medicine. Obediently, she opened her mouth, but instead of the vile liquid she felt a tablet of some kind followed by a splash of water. She swallowed and soon the warm, fuzzy feeling returned. She was back in the clouds.
Chapter Twenty-three
F
riday was rainy. It wasn't supposed to rain in May, thought Lucy, as she belatedly turned the kitchen calendar to a new page. April showers were supposed to bring May flowers, but the flowers were few and far between in her yard. The forsythia had dropped their petals and were putting out green leaves. The daffodils had also gone by and were yielding to the aggressive daylilies, whose spiky green leaves asserted their right to the flower bed they shared.
Apart from those few patches of green, however, the yard presented a dismal sight. The trees hadn't leafed out yet, so they were still gray, which also happened to be the color of the garden shed and the gravel driveway. The grass wasn't gray, it was a dull, flat brown, and Lucy knew from experience that the soil beneath it would be squishy and slippery underfoot.
Spring in New England was the season that wasn't. Summer was hot and green, fall was crisp and gold, winter was cold and white. But spring was generally a cold and wet continuation of winter until the lilacs bloomed, when just like that, it turned to summer in an instant. Spring was over before it began.
Not that she was complaining. These clouds definitely had a silver lining. Today she had been assigned to cover Team Day at the middle school. Team Day was the new, politically correct version of the old-fashioned Field Day that was designed to foster cooperation rather than competition. Lucy hadn't been looking forward to spending the morning at the middle school and now she wouldn't have to. Thanks to the rain, Team Day would most certainly be postponed.
Which meant she could take her time this morning. She'd already started a load of wash, and while she waited for the machine to finish its cycle she'd called the police station, looking for Bob Wickes. He was out on assignment so she hadn't been able to talk to him, but she had paid the bills and called the disability insurance company and requested the necessary paperwork so Bill could file a claim. It was great not to feel rushed, she thought, as she loaded the wet wash into the dryer and prepared Bill's lunch.
She took the tray into the family room, setting it down on a little table beside Bill's recliner.
“I made you a sandwich and you've got a thermos of milk and another thermos with hot soup, plus some cookies and fruit. I guess that should hold you till the girls get home from school.”
“No problem,” said Bill, who was keeping himself busy with the old newspapers.
Whenever he found something pertaining to Miss Tilley, or anything particularly interesting, he marked the page with a Post-it note. The growing stack of volumes next to his chair was bristling with the little yellow bits of paper.
“You're sure it's okay if I go to work?” Lucy was hesitant to leave him alone.
“I'll be fine,” he said.
Lucy bent down and kissed him on his head.
“Stay out of trouble,” she said.
“Don't worry about me. The only place I'm going is down memory lane.” He tapped the papers. “And I can't get in trouble there.”
Lucy was still congratulating herself when she arrived at
The Pennysaver.
Giving Bill those papers to look through had been a stroke of genius; not only was it keeping him busy while his injuries healed, but he was finding plenty of interesting material that Sidra could use to put the final touches on the
Norah!
show about Miss Tilley.
“What are you doing here?” asked Ted, as Lucy walked through the door. “Aren't you supposed to be over at the middle school?”
“Uh, in case you didn't notice, it's raining,” said Lucy, shaking out her coat before hanging it up. “They can't have Team Day in the rain.”
“They are having it. Indoors, in the gym. The principal even called, wondering why you're not covering it.”
“Say no more.” Lucy put her coat back on and went back out into the rain.
 
 
Lucy could hear the din coming from the gymnasium as soon as she stepped inside the middle school. It grew louder as she walked down the vinyl-tile hall and exploded when she pulled open the door. No wonder. The gymnasium was packed with the entire eighth-grade class, divided into teams, and all the team members were yelling and screaming encouragement to each other. From what she could tell at a glance, the yellow team seemed to be winning a race that involved forming a human chain and passing along towels that were used as stepping-stones to cross the gym floor. The person at the front of the chain couldn't step forward until the person at the end cleared the last towel, which could then be passed forward, allowing everyone to advance one step.
As she surveyed the scene, it occurred to Lucy that each team looked like a different-colored worm, inching its way across the floor. The Parent-Teachers Organization had raised money for team T-shirts, after a presentation by the phys-ed teachers. They had explained that the teams would be chosen randomly, to discourage cliques, and that all the races would involve cooperation by team members. Furthermore, the competition would draw upon a wide variety of skills and attributes, so that all the team members would be able to contribute and not just the most athletic.
It had all sounded great, and Lucy remembered being quite convinced that Team Day would be a lot more fun than the traditional Field Day, which had been dominated by the class athletes. She clapped her hands and cheered when the yellow team did, in fact, win the caterpillar race, then watched in dismay as the caterpillars immediately dispersed when the various team members went in search of their friends.
Sara, she saw, had wasted no time leaving the orange team to which she'd been assigned and had hooked up with Katie Brown, in green, and Jennifer Walsh, in blue. The three had formed a tight little knot and were giggling about something.
Lucy suspected this failure to maintain team spirit wouldn't be tolerated for long, and it wasn't. A piercing electronic shriek gave notice that the public address system had been turned on and Ms. Boone, the assistant principal, took the microphone.
“Attention! Attention! All students must remain with their teams.”
This was met with a general groan. Lucy smiled at the students' reaction, and the woman standing next to her spoke up.
“Frankly,” she said, “I don't know why they bother with all this noncompetitive stuff. Competition is a fact of life. The SATs aren't a group effort, are they? And colleges certainly don't recruit the purple team—they give sports scholarships to the kids who score points and make the allstars.”
“Do you mind if I quote you on that?” asked Lucy, pulling out her notebook and pen. “I'm Lucy Stone and I'm covering Team Day for
The Pennysaver.”
“You're Lucy Stone?” The woman's eyes widened. “I'm Donna Didrickson. My daughter Davia spent Saturday night at your house.”
“Davia! That's right,” exclaimed Lucy, taking a closer look at the woman.
She was blond and athletic looking, and she reminded Lucy of Video Debbie, with her well-proportioned and toned body. And considering the nylon warm-up suit she was wearing, she was on her way to, or from, a sports club.
“Davia's a lovely girl,” continued Lucy. “You must be very proud of her.”
“Of course I am,” asserted Donna, ticking off her daughter's accomplishments. “She's captain of the field hockey team and its leading scorer for the second straight season. She's ranked number two according to grade-point average and she played on the varsity basketball team this past winter. Not even in high school yet and she was on the starting team! But frankly, just between you and me, we're pinning our hopes on her balalaika lessons. That's what really impresses college admissions officers, you know—something different, something that makes your child stand out.”
Lucy watched as the teachers began sending kids back to their teams, getting them organized for the next competition—a three-legged race. Sara, she saw, had been paired with a boy who only came up to her chin and she didn't look very happy about it. Lucy wondered if she knew her class rank, and what it was.
“Isn't it a little early to start thinking about college?”
Donna's eyes widened in disbelief. “It's never too early, not if you want your child to go to a top-notch school!”
“Attention! Attention!” It was Ms. Boone again, attempting to get the students' attention. She was somewhat more successful this time, probably because a uniformed police officer was standing next to her.
“Students! We're going to have the three-legged race in just a moment, but first, I want to introduce you to Officer Wickes, who's going to announce the winners of the caterpillar race.”
Lucy couldn't believe her luck. She'd been trying to contact Bob Wickes for weeks, and here he was in the same room with her—and about a hundred excited eighth graders. No matter, she should certainly be able to have a word with him before the event was over.
Lucy joined in the applause for the red team, which placed third in the caterpillar race, and the blue team, which placed second, and put her hands over ears when cheers erupted for the winning yellow team. It occurred to her that the three-legged race would make a good photo, so she pulled her camera out of her bag, intending to snap a few pictures. She was just about to explain her intention to Donna when she was interrupted.
“You know, Lucy, I was very surprised when Davia told me Jennifer Walsh was at the party,” said Donna.
Lucy didn't understand. “What do you mean?” she asked, letting the camera dangle from the cord around her neck. “They've been in school together since kindergarten.”
“I know they're in school together, but heavens, that doesn't mean they have to socialize. I can assure you I'm very selective when it comes to choosing friends for my children.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy caught sight of Bob Wickes's navy blue uniform. It was moving toward the doorway.
“Jennifer's a very nice girl,” said Lucy, starting to follow him.
“Doesn't she live on Bumps River Road?” whispered Donna, referring to a rather run-down part of town.
“What if she does?” Wilkes was almost at the door and Lucy was afraid she would miss him.
“Have you been down there? Do you know the sort of people who live there?” demanded Donna, grabbing her arm.
“People like what?
Poor people?
Because I can assure you that Jennifer is a very sweet girl!”
Lucy was thinking back, trying to remember if there had been trouble at the party. She remembered finding Davia and Sean Penfield making out behind the couch. At first blush she'd blamed Sean, assuming he'd pressed himself on Davia, but now she wasn't so sure. Middle-school-aged girls could be quite aggressive. Things had gone pretty smoothly after she'd broken up the amorous couple, but she did remember that Jennifer had been upset. She'd thought at the time that one of the boys had tried something with her and had separated the kids by sexes, but maybe it had been one of the girls who had upset her. Maybe it had been Davia.
“Did Davia and Jennifer have some sort of fight?” asked Lucy, relieved to see that Wilkes had paused in the doorway, where he was talking with the president of the P.T.O.
“Are you accusing my Davia? Let me tell you, she is a young lady. She has been brought up very carefully and knows how to conduct herself properly at all times.”
Lucy suppressed the urge to laugh.
“I'm sure she does. Look, I'm here as part of my job and I have to do some interviews. I really can't talk to you any longer.”
“Well, I can see you're just not getting it,” said Donna, in a huffy tone. “I don't see any reason to continue this conversation. Good-bye!”
Finally free of Donna, Lucy sped across the gym, but when she got to the doorway Officer Wickes wasn't there.
“So, tell me,” said Lucy, smiling at the president of the P.T.O. “Why did your organization decide to donate the T-shirts for today's Team Day?”

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