Midsummer Murder (24 page)

It was sitting alone on a white Styrofoam plate; a red ribbon lay next to it. To its right, another tomato, smaller but perfectly shaped, had taken the blue ribbon.

“Why do you think the smaller tomato won?” asked Glen. “What is the criteria for a prize-winning vegetable?”

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“Fruit,” said Lindy. “Tomatoes are fruits.”

Glen shrugged. “They may be fruits, but they’re vegetables to me.”

Next came the pies, wedges cut out, filling oozing onto the plates.

Then cakes, breads, and plates of cookies. Almost all had ribbons by them: blue, red, white, yellow. A contest where everyone won, even if it was only an honorable mention.

Down the next aisle were crocheted baby booties, hand-knitted afghans, and colorful patchwork quilts.

“Are you done yet?” asked Glen. “I want to see the tractor pull at four.”

“What do they pull?”

“I’m not sure, but I want to see it.”

She followed him out of the building and through the parking lot, dodging exiting cars and others waiting to take their places. Glen helped her jump across a brackish ditch. In front of them, a meadow had been leveled by a bulldozer. To one side was a stand of bleachers.

In the clearing, a yellow-and-green tractor chugged toward the trees.

A rope was attached to the back and a team of men strained to keep it in place.

“Tug of war,” said Lindy.

The cheers of the crowd mixed with the groans of the men as their muscles bulged with exertion. Glen was already climbing onto the bleachers, groping his way over spectators until he found an empty spot. A cheer erupted from the crowd and another team of men replaced the first.

“Who won?” asked Lindy.

Glen shrugged without taking his eyes off the arena.

“The tractor,” said a man in front of them.

“Oh.” She sighed, shifted her weight on the aluminum bench, and thought wistfully of the delicately stitched quilts they had just left.

* * *

It was a long day. Lindy had seen the dancers from the retreat spending their money freely on the rides and games. Rose’s head occasionally appeared above the crowd. Biddy had joined the company girls, having brushed aside Lindy’s invitation to join Glen and her, saying they should spend the time together. The 158

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few times Lindy had seen her in the crowd, she appeared to be having fun.

She caught a glimpse of Peter more than once. But she hadn’t seen Bill. She should have invited him to come along. Did he feel left out?

Not Bill. He never had trouble fitting in.

By eight o’clock, they were tired, dusty, and stuffed with junk food.

They followed the line of people, strollers, and the occasional dog to the high school where the fireworks were being held. Flares were positioned down one side of the road to light the way and to warn approaching traffic. Police stood on the asphalt, their flashlights dancing crazily in the darkness as they moved people to the side.

Behind them, the carnival noises and lights receded and the chirrup of crickets and the throaty croaks of frogs took their place.

In the dark, the playing field looked just like any other patch of meadow, except for the outlines of the goal posts at each end.

Telephone poles topped by floodlights prevented total darkness, and a halo of yellow emanated from the band shell at the back of the field.

The high school band, in gold and burgundy uniforms, tooted patriotic songs and marches. The clarity of the tunes ebbed and flowed as the sound shifted on the breeze. Glen and Lindy stopped at the edge of the field. The one stand of bleachers was packed with spectators. Others had brought blankets or folding chairs, and were claiming their territory. Children whirled glow-in-the-dark necklaces. The smell of bug spray permeated the air.

The band oompahed into a new song. On cue, the people on the bleachers rose and faced the bandstand. Those on the grass around Lindy and Glen stood up. It must be a ritual they all knew, because only when their hands were placed on their hearts and they began to sing, did Lindy recognize the distorted notes of
The Star-Spangled
Banner
. She was not alone; other confused outsiders got to their feet and stood in respectful silence.

“ . . . and the home of the braaave.” Cheers and a smattering of applause, and Lindy saw Marguerite step to the front of the stage. She was accompanied by the band director and another man who introduced himself as the mayor over the squeal of feedback from the microphone. This was met with several catcalls and whistles. He thanked the band director whose name was 159

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lost in another squeal of feedback. The mayor looked over to the side of the band shell. When he began again, the amplification had been sorted out.

Then he introduced Marguerite, though he said she needed no introduction. Marguerite stepped to the microphone. She was wearing a red suit dress; its cut buttons caught the light and flashed iridescent beams into the darkness. She began by welcoming everyone, but instead of listening to her speech as she had planned, Lindy found herself studying the surrounding faces as she often did the audience in search of their reactions. A woman stood next to her, a brood of children hanging on her flowered shirtwaist and a baby asleep at her feet.

Catching Lindy’s eye, she leaned over. “That’s Marguerite Easton, one of our finest citizens.”

“Is she?” Lindy moved closer to the woman. She felt a sticky hand grab her knee. “What does she do?”

“Just about everything. She owns most of the property around here. Has a camp for artists and such. She’s also responsible for most of the jobs for our young folks. It ain’t easy for young people to find jobs around here these days.” She looked down at her hovering brood. “I expect all these young’uns will be working for Ms. Marguerite before they go off to school. Couldn’t ask anything better, could we, Toby?” The boy released Lindy’s leg and nuzzled into the woman’s skirt. “All my children have worked for her, and my Billy does most of his hardware business with her groundskeeper.”

The lights on the band shell began to dim until the night was lit only by the stars and a sliver of moon.

“Don’t know what this town would do without her.” It was now too dark to see the woman’s face, but Lindy could imagine her expression just from the heartfelt gratitude in which the words were spoken.

The first loud boom brought her attention back to the fireworks.

The air was lit with a circle of blue stars. Then a whistling sound and a spray of orange erupted from each star. Lindy leaned into Glen. He put his arm around her.

“Isn’t it romantic?” she sang quietly as the air was split with another thundering explosion.

The sky continued its display of pyrotechnics, followed by smoke and the fallout of ripped cardboard wafting down on the heads of the 160

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observers. A boom and a spray of white fountain that filled the sky; a chorus of oohs and ahs from the crowd, then an answering boom, but in the distance.

“Somebody from Thorton Township gettin’ in on the act,” said a voice nearby. Appreciative laughter.

A multiple set of booms and the sky was filled with green, white, and orange.

“Isn’t that Annie?” Glen pointed in front of them. Lindy followed the direction of his hand as the outline of Annie and Donald, arm in arm, faded into the night.

“Who’s she with?” asked Glen not waiting for Lindy’s answer.

Before she could reply to his second question, the air lit up again. They had a perfect view of Annie and Donald wrapped in a lengthy kiss.

“Damn it,” said Glen as he moved toward the unsuspecting couple.

Lindy grabbed his arm. “Don’t embarrass her. She’s eighteen. He’s a nice boy.”

Glen pulled away. The sky lit up. Annie and Donald were gone.

“Wait till I get my hands on her.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say. Glen and Lindy had never even spanked their children. They were both adherents of the then current philosophy of “time outs.”

“I’m sure we can trust her to be intelligent,” said Lindy.

“I’m not worried about her intelligence; I’m worried about her hormones.”

“Don’t worry.”
But,
thought Lindy,
I’m definitely having a little
mother-daughter talk with her tomorrow.

“I’m her father. I’m supposed to worry.”

Lindy smiled in the darkness and gave him a kiss.

* * *

It took forever to get out of the parking lot, dodging tree stumps, holes, and other vehicles anxious to get home. They followed the line of cars along the winding road, while the police force waved their flashlights to keep them moving. The search for Connie Phillips had been halted because of the extra staff needed for the fair. Only one dispatcher had been left at the station to answer emergency calls. Lindy had learned this 161

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from Stu that morning. The man was a storehouse of information. She wondered briefly if he had any ideas about Larry Cleveland’s death.

It was almost midnight when the BMW drove through the gates of the Easton retreat. Sandiman came rushing down the steps before they could drive around the back to the annex parking. He must have been watching for them. Glen slammed on the brakes. The passenger-side window lowered and Sandiman stuck his head in, his face a ghoulish mask. “They’re all at the archaeologist camp. There was a landslide.

Your daughter is there, too. I thought you would want to know.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Lindy tried to ask. The image of Dr. Van Zandt buried in rubble took her voice away. Not Annie. They had just seen her at the fireworks. “Was anyone—” She began again, but Glen overrode her. “How do we get there?” The panic in his voice only increased the panic Lindy couldn’t express.

“Back down the main road, a quarter of a mile, big boulder on your left, follow the dirt road.” Glen put the car in drive, Sandiman hung to the window and ran along as Glen turned the car around. “It isn’t paved—bumps—be careful.”

Glen accelerated the BMW back onto the driveway, leaving Sandiman staring after them, a solitary, black silhouette against the lights of the porch.

The car screeched as Glen sped past the boulder that marked the turnoff. He had to back up to make the turn onto the dirt road. They careened through the darkness, the headlights producing bizarre forms as Glen raced toward the archeologist camp. Even the BMW’s shocks couldn’t contend with the twists and bumps that rushed toward them. Lindy grabbed the armrest to steady herself; her seat belt prevented her from knocking her head on the ceiling.

“Slow down,” she said in as even a voice as she could muster. “I’m sure she’s all right. She probably got back just before we did.”

Glen ignored her. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he hunched forward in concentration.

“Slow down, you won’t help anybody if you wreck the car.”

“I’ll never forgive you if you’ve let anything happen to Annie,” he said. It was said softly, almost to himself. Lindy felt all the panic, all the worry, all the warmth drain out of her. Was he blaming himself or was he blaming her?

“What?”

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“I knew I shouldn’t have left her here. Couldn’t you just have taken care of her?”

Lindy waited for her heart to start up again and her brain to clear.

He was blaming her. Which was absurd—he was here, too—how could he think she was responsible for a landslide? It was just his fear talking. She felt the side of her mouth quiver, ordered it to stop. She wouldn’t cry. Annie was fine. He’d see.

At last, the dim shadows of cars and Jeeps parked haphazardly on the side of the road warned them they were near the site. Glen pulled off the road, threw open the door and began to run toward the eerie fingers of light that shone through the trees. Lindy followed right behind. Stumbling on rocks and branches, she finally skidded down the last few feet of the path and into a scene from a disaster movie.

Where the tents and worktables had been, a hill of boulders, mud, and brush now covered shafts of wood and torn canvas. The Jeep had been pushed off its ledge and lay on its back in the stream, right where the young archaeologists had been digging two days before.

Lindy shook her head to clear the whirring in her ears, only to realize the sound had come from the emergency generators that were running three makeshift floodlights, attached to tree trunks around the camp.

And then she saw Annie running toward them. “Oh, Mom, they’ve lost everything!” Her face was streaked with mud.

Glen grabbed her as she passed. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Daddy. Let go.” She wriggled free. “Sandiman told us when we got back, so Donald and I caught a ride down. It’s awful. All their work—” The rumble of shifting rocks cut off her words.

There was a scrambling on the pile of sludge that covered the tents.

Someone was pulling a gesticulating figure away. Another person joined them and escorted a protesting Dr. Van Zandt to the clearing where Lindy stood with Glen and Annie.

Van Zandt was limping. His trouser leg was torn from the knee down. Bill supported him under one arm, Dr. Addison held the other.

Only a smear of mud across the shoulder of her blouse marred her otherwise immaculate appearance.

Bill stepped away from the two doctors and moved toward Lindy.

“No one was at the camp when it happened.” His voice was grim. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt that had once been white, but was now 163

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torn and covered in dirt and grime. “Dr. Van Zandt returned to . . .” He paused, then gestured behind him. “This.” He wiped his forearm with his hand, then wiped his hand on his shirt. “He was pretty upset; one of the students came looking for help. We found him digging in the rubble.

That’s how he hurt his leg.”

Dr. Van Zandt pulled away from Adele. Suddenly mute, he stood looking at the destruction, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

“Everything, everything, everything,” he whispered. Adele motioned to one of his assistants and turned to Bill.