Dead Canaries Don't Sing (27 page)

One of them, I reminded myself early the next morning, was the successful recovery of the Athertons’ stallion. I’d been monitoring Stormy Weather’s progress regularly, checking in with Skip every couple of days. While he’d been the Athertons’ manager for more than five years, Skip had spent nearly four decades in the company of horses, and I figured he knew as much about them as anyone I’d ever worked with. He’d certainly encountered just about every common horse disease in the book. But I still needed to examine Stormy Weather to determine if he was ready to be taken off penicillin.

As I drove along Green Fields Road, I felt a fluttering of nervousness. Without thinking, I’d taken the back road to Atherton Farm. I’d be driving past the spot that loomed large in my mind as The Scene of the Crime.

I expected that the entire area would be cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Maybe a patrol car would be posted there around the clock.

Even so, I had a perfectly legitimate reason for being on the Athertons’ property. And if worse came to worst, I was prepared to mention names. In particular, the name Officer James Nolan.

I was prepared for anything except what I found.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not a scrap of yellow plastic tape, not a single police officer, not even a Do Not Disturb sign.

I pulled my van over, this time carefully avoiding the pothole that had started all this trouble in the first place. I jumped out and headed toward the edge of the woods.

I stepped carefully so I wouldn’t disturb anything. But all too soon, I saw there was no need to bother.

Not only was there no sign that only thirteen days earlier, a corpse and a dead canary had been lying in that very spot. The leaves, crusted with a few lingering patches of snow, looked as if they’d been raked over, so that not a trace of what the murderer might have left behind could be retrieved.

I was hardly an expert on murder investigations. But from what I’d learned from Nick, not to mention from the movies, I’d been certain that someone being murdered and half-buried in the woods deserved a little more attention.

The fact that the someone in question wasn’t just anybody made me even more suspicious. Tommee Frack had been well-respected, widely known, a pillar of the community. He was also highly connected— and, if Wade Moscowitz were to be believed, a major player.

My hands were shaking as I pulled up to the Athertons’ house. But by this point, it was anger, not shock, that made them tremble. I pulled out my cell phone.

“Homicide,” a deep male voice answered.

“I’m trying to reach Lieutenant Harned.”

“Harned’s on another call.”

“Tell him it’s Dr. Jessica Popper. From the Tommee Frack case.”

“Lieutenant Harned,” I heard a few seconds later. There was an edge to his voice I didn’t remember hearing before.

“Lieutenant, this is Dr. Popper. I was making a house call at Atherton Farm this morning, and I happened to drive by the crime scene. I noticed the site isn’t marked off. Is that usual procedure? It’s only been a couple of weeks . . .”

“Yes, young lady, it is usual procedure. Once all the evidence has been gathered, we open up a crime scene as quickly as possible. That doesn’t mean we’re not still doing everything possible to find the killer.”

“So your investigation’s still ongoing?”

“An investigation is never closed until the case has been solved.”

“But shouldn’t the crime scene be more . . . protected? Shouldn’t the investigation be more active? You could have missed something. Some clue, some piece of evidence—”

“A detective has been assigned to the case. But you’ve got to understand that he’s got other cases to deal with.” I heard him talking to someone else in a low voice. And then, he said something like, “Let me get rid of this.”

“Look,” the lieutenant said, not bothering to hide his impatience as he got back on the line, “this is not like TV, where everything gets wrapped up in sixty minutes. It’s different in real life.”

I wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. “Lieutenant, did you know that Tommee and his ex-wife, Merrilee, kept canaries, and that she never let go of the idea that one day he was going to come back to her? And did you know that he met his fiancée back when she was an exotic dancer who used canaries in her act?”

There was icy silence at the other end of the line. “Besides,” I pressed, “no one’s ever gotten back to me. I’m the one who found his body, for goodness’ sake! No one ever contacted me again!”

“We already have your statement.”

“But it’s true of everyone I’ve spoken to! Not one of them has been approached by the police. It’s made me wonder if you cops are doing anything about this investigation at all!”

“What do you mean,
everyone
you’ve spoken to?”

Something in his tone warned me to be very careful of what I said next.

“I’ve had a few conversations with people who knew Tommee Frack. That’s all.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been talking to the right people.”

Now it was my turn to be silent. It wasn’t that I agreed with him, and it wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anything to say.

It was that something about the way this conversation was going was setting off alarms in my head.

“Listen, Dr. Popper.” Harned’s voice was brittle. “Interfering with police business is a serious offense, one you could be prosecuted for. I strongly suggest you stop bothering people and leave this investigation to us.”

His tone told me that, at least for now, I’d better let him believe I was doing exactly that.

I sat in the van for a minute or two, trying to digest what I’d just heard.

From the way the newspapers presented it, Tommee Frack’s murder was one of the biggest things that had happened on Long Island in anyone’s memory. It was up there with Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, not to mention both the trial and the funeral of John Gotti.

Yet Lieutenant Harned practically made it sound as if it had been dumped on a back burner.

It made absolutely no sense.

I stared at my cell phone. I was dying to call Nick. I wanted to repeat the conversation I’d had with Harned. I wanted Nick’s opinion on whether the lieutenant had been telling the truth about this being the way all murder investigations were handled.

Of course, I couldn’t call Nick. I had to start getting used to not thinking about Nick at all.

Ruminating in my van would accomplish nothing. I climbed out, figuring I’d make a quick social call before heading over to the barn to check on Stormy Weather. With all the suspicions and questions that were running through my brain, taking the time to make small talk was bound to do me good.

I peered through the window as I knocked on the back door. I could see the Athertons sitting at their kitchen table, sipping coffee over a blue-and-white checked tablecloth. They looked like they were posing for Norman Rockwell: Violet with her delicate wisps of white hair and her withered, fragile hands; Oliver with his tall, spindly frame folded into his chair, his face gaunt yet still heroic.

Violet came to the door, her mug in her hand. “Jessie! What a nice surprise!”

“Actually, Skip’s expecting me. I’m following up on Stormy Weather’s throat infection. I thought I’d stop off to say hello before heading over to the stable.”

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

The aroma was seductive. “A quick one.”

As Violet set a mug down in front of me, she studied me more closely. “You look shaken, dear. Is everything all right?”

“It’s just being back here again, I guess. After what happened last time.”

Violet shuddered. “I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it? I haven’t been able to think about anything else ever since it happened. Imagine, a murder victim, right here on our property. And I’m sure it was even more traumatic for you, since you’re the one who found him.” She placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “Don’t you think that must have been upsetting for Jessie, dear?”

“What’s that?” Ollie asked. He looked surprised, as if he’d only just realized that a conversation was going on around him.

“He refuses to wear his hearing aid,” Violet confided. “He’s afraid it’ll make him look old. I keep telling him he
is
old.

“Jessie found that dead man on our property two weeks ago, remember?” she shouted at Ollie.

“Terrible, terrible.” Ollie shook his head. “Is there more coffee, Vi?”

Violet cast me a conspiratorial look as she brought his cup to the counter for a refill. “Thank goodness we have Skip to run the farm.”

“Have the police been here?” I asked Violet.

“The police?” She frowned. “Why, you saw them yourself, didn’t you? The day you found the body?”

“No, I mean have they come around to question you since that day?”

She looked confused for a few seconds. “No. Unless they came when Ollie was here by himself. Of course, I hardly ever leave him alone these days. I’m just not sure he can manage. In fact, I don’t think he’s been on his own since then.”

“Atherton Farm has been in our family for generations,” Ollie began, speaking slowly. From what I could tell, he didn’t appear to be talking to anyone in particular. “My great-great grandfather bought this land right after the Civil War. . . .”

“Oh, Ollie, I’m sure Jessie’s already heard all this.”

He scowled. “How do you know that?”

“Because you tell the same story to everybody who walks in here!”

“I bet she hasn’t seen the pictures.”

“What pictures?” I asked politely.

“What pictures? The pictures of the farm, of course!”

“Jessie doesn’t want to see those boring old pictures,” Violet insisted.

“I’ll go get ’em. I think I remember where they are.”

He shuffled off, leaving the coffee his wife had just put in front of him untouched.

Violet shook her head. “He’s getting worse. I can’t even trust him to go to the supermarket. I send him for milk and lettuce, and he comes home with heavy cream and a head of cabbage. And the way he goes on and on about this farm and his great-great grandfather.” She sighed. “To think that the old fool nearly lost it. If our daughter hadn’t been here that time. I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

“Nearly lost Atherton Farm?” I was sure I’d misunderstood.

“Nearly had it stolen out from under him, is more like it. ’Course, Ollie doesn’t see it that way. I still worry that that man will come back some time when neither me or Gwennie are here and trick Ollie into signing something.”

“Somebody is trying to trick you out of your land?”

“Oh, they’re offering a fair price. I’ll give them that. At least, it sounds like a lot of money to me. A crazy amount, in fact. Only where on earth would we go if we sold this place? Ollie and me, we’ve been on this land practically our whole lives. He grew up here, for heaven’s sake. Why he would even let somebody like that in the door is beyond me.”

She glanced around, as if checking to make sure her husband wasn’t listening. “ ’Course, he’s doing that kind of thing more and more these days. He doesn’t have the sense he used to have. His hearing’s going, but that’s just part of it. It’s his mind I worry about. And his judgment.”

“Who was this man, Violet?”

“Oh, I don’t remember his name. Some young fella in a suit. Looked important. At first, I figured he was selling something. I wasn’t even going to let him in, but Ollie got to the door before I did. Next thing I know, he’s sitting on the couch with these legal papers spread out all over the coffee table. Soon as Gwennie figured out what was going on, she threw that young man out on his ear!”

“When was this?”

“Let me think . . . It was just after Gwennie got here, and she came the weekend after we changed the clocks. I guess that makes it some time at the beginning of November.”

“Right before the body turned up in your woods. . . .”

“Now that you mention it, yes. A week or so earlier, I suppose. I hadn’t put the two things together in my mind, but I think you’re right. You don’t think they’re connected, do you?”

“I honestly don’t know.” It could have been a coincidence, of course. The Athertons owned one of the few remote wooded areas around, making it an obvious place to drop off a corpse.

Then again, when it came to trying to hide the body, the murderer hadn’t exactly knocked himself out.

“Violet, do you think you can remember the man’s name and where he was from? It’s really important.”

She waved her hand in the air. “Goodness, I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night!”

“Did he tell you the name of his company?”

“Like I say, I can’t—”

“Did he leave anything behind? A contract for you to look over? Or maybe a business card?”

“A card!” She brightened. “Yes, he did leave a card. I was so mad about the way he came barging in here that I was going to throw it away. But Ollie saves everything. That’s another thing he’s been doing lately. He won’t throw a thing out. Every plastic bag, every piece of mail—”

“Can I see the card?”

“Well, now.” Violet frowned. “I’d have to remember where he put it.”

“It’s
really
important.”

“Maybe in the junk drawer . . . That’s as good a place as any to look.”

“I’m sorry to put you through so much trouble,” I told her. “It’s just that I really need to know who’s interested in buying your land.”

Violet didn’t seem to hear me. “I’ll never find it,” she grumbled. “That old man’s got so much junk in there. The other day I went looking for a coupon I remembered seeing. Seventy-five cents off Clorox. I don’t think the store brand works nearly as good, even though Gwennie’s always telling me they’re the same. And do you know what I found in there? The cardboard from a ten-pack of triple-A batteries. Can you imagine? He was even saving that.”

I stood close by, watching as she rifled through what she referred to as her junk drawer. It was well named, and Ollie’s fondness for packaging was only part of the problem. I saw fliers from chimney-cleaning services, unopened credit card offers, and even an advertisement for Sears’ Back to School sale.