A Minor Case of Murder Read online

  Madame Alexina was growing uncomfortable. "It was an accident, Donna."

  Donna didn't feel as if it was an accident. "Maybe…I don't know…" Donna was puzzled. "It must have been an accident. Who would want to hurt Heather?"

  Madame Alexina saw the event unfolding in front of her. "If someone did this deliberately, then Heather wasn't the target." Madame Alexina waited for her meaning to become clear to Donna.

  "Omigod." Donna could hardly believe it. "You've got to get me out of here."

  In the midst of the confusion surrounding the tragedy on the field, no one paid any attention to Madame Alexina and Donna as they walked out of Sand Skeeter Stadium, marching through the parking lot and up onto the boardwalk.

  "We need to find a safe place for you to spend the night."

  Sitting on a bench on the boardwalk, looking at the full moon reflecting in the surf, Donna wondered if she could trust Madame Alexina. She wondered if she really had a choice.

  Madame Alexina called for backup and, within minutes, a familiar yellow cab pulled to a stop alongside the boardwalk. Donna allowed Madame Alexina to put her in the back of the cab.

  "Thank you, Spit. You're sure it's safe?"

  "Even I don't know where we're going," Spit said, laughing nervously, "and I live there."

  Donna looked at Madame Alexina, alone in the night, standing outside the cab. "Aren't you coming, too?"

  Madame Alexina shook her head no. "It's okay. You'll be safe with Spit." Leaning in through the driver's side window, Madame Alexina kissed Spit lightly on the cheek. "Don't forget to turn on your headlights."

  Donna didn't feel safe with Spit. They had, from time to time, seen one another in the salt marsh, but midnight birding was all she really knew about him. That, and his Desert Storm disability claim and his questionable reputation. Spit believed himself to be a victim of exposure to toxic chemicals, which had resulted in memory loss, confusion and irritability. In his written claim, Spit alleged that the Iraqis were engaged in chemical and biological warfare—sarin, soman, tabun, cyanide, phosgene—but Spit told anyone who would listen that his exposure had been to the American stockpile.

  They rode in silence, Spit navigating the narrow local roads, heading north, leaving WhiteSandsBeach. Donna trusted Madame Alexina and she wanted to trust Spit, but she did not find it reassuring to be alone in the cab with this trained killer with a bona fide mental condition. "Spit … you can let me out here."

  Spit looked around. "Here? It's not safe here." Spit paused, deep in thought, determined to puzzle out Donna's intentions. His face brightened. "I get it. You don't think it's safe with me. Am I right?"

  Donna stammered, admitting that yes, Spit was right.

  "Truth is, Donna, maybe I don't feel safe with you."

  This time, it was Donna who was perplexed. "Me?"

  Spit explained. "Yeah, you. Look at this from my perspective. From what I understand, you're worried that maybe it wasn't an accident at the ballpark. Am I right so far?"

  Donna nodded.

  "And if it wasn't an accident, you're worried that it was supposed to be you dead down on the infield. Right?"

  Donna looked into the mirror and nodded again.

  "And if you were the target, you figure, you're still in danger." Spit was pleased with himself. "Am I right?"

  Donna nodded a third time.

  "But I see it different. Probably it was just a horrible accident. But maybe not. Maybe someone wanted to hurt Heather. Maybe Heather was the target all along."

  Donna was confused by Spit's explanation. "But no one knew about Heather and me switching places tonight."

  Spit watched Donna in the rearview mirror.

  The Obstacle to Good Government

  There were six weeks remaining until Election Day. Across the country, as races tightened, campaigns grew vicious and personal. DoahTownship was no exception. As Cheyenne's campaign gained momentum, the mayor's attacks grew more direct, challenging her competence and questioning her motives.

  The second debate promised to sharpen the political dialogue in Doah. The MunicipalBuilding began filling at seven, an hour before the debate was scheduled to begin. By eight, the hall was filled to overflowing. In the early rounds, the candidates circled, jabbing at their opponent, looking for an opening. Ninety minutes into the debate, the audience was growing impatient. Joe Caputo, serving once again as moderator, struggled to quiet the audience at Doah's second mayoral debate.

  "Mr. Mayor, the hot issue in Trenton this year is pay-to-play. Until recently, you have not shown any great interest in campaign finance reform. In fact, your party has a long history of accepting questionable campaign funds. However, you are now proposing that Doah adopt a stringent pay-to-play ordinance. Cynics have suggested that your position on pay-to-play is a not-so-subtle attack on your opponent, Ms. Harbrough. Would you like to comment?" The boy barrister sat back in his seat, pleased with his question.

  Mayor Big Jim Donovan cleared his throat and looked directly into the camera, speaking to the audience of voters, watching at home on cable channel eight.

  "My friends, you all know that I am not a career politician. Four years ago, when I first ran for mayor, I did not realize the enormous influence of money in local politics. Perhaps I was naïve. Perhaps I wanted to believe that here in Doah we were somehow immune to these influences. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that money is even more dangerous in local campaigns than it is in national contests. Perhaps I have come to this issue late, but I am proud to support meaningful pay-to-play legislation. With all due respect to Ms. Harbrough, we can no longer allow developers to buy influence here in Doah and in Trenton." The mayor smiled into the camera, struggling in the heat to maintain his polished look, his suit creased, sweat pooling along the edges of his toupee.

  Joe Caputo turned to Cheyenne Harbrough. An hour and a half into the debate, on a hot night in the crowded council room, and Cheyenne still radiated charm. The perspiration at her throat was reason enough for the men watching at home not to change the channel.

  "The mayor wants you to believe that the obstacle to good government is dishonest contractors and developers buying influence with naïve politicians. The truth is…" Cheyenne paused for effect, leaning in to the TV camera, "there are too many politicians lining up to be bought!"

  Joe Caputo had three more questions on the debate agenda, but he recognized a closing line when he heard one. "I'd like to thank our candidates for meeting tonight in the second of three scheduled debates, and I'd like to thank the voters, those of you here in the audience tonight and those of you watching at home. As citizens, the choice is ours. I hope to see you all here again in two weeks for the last of our mayoral debates. Thank you and good night."

  The debate having concluded, Big Jim and Mrs. Donovan retreated to the mayor's office. Rocki Donovan tried to pump up her husband's waning confidence.

  "You were good tonight, Jim, poised, confident, mayoral."

  Big Jim's own assessment was less positive. "The race is tight, Rocki. Face it, she may beat me."

  "Listen to me, Jim. You've been a good mayor. The voters know that. It's late. Let's go home."

  Big Jim kissed his wife. "I need to go through a couple of briefing reports before morning. Go on home. I won't be but an hour or so."

  Busy with the campaign, Rocki missed her husband. She hardly recognized the man sitting behind the mayor's desk. Big Jim was not the man she married. Rocki missed Jim. "Don't stay late."

  Big Jim promised to get his work done and come straight home.

  When Rocki said good night, Big Jim flipped on the TV in the corner of his office, one eye on "NJN News" and one eye on the briefing report.

  "Do you mind if I come in?" It had been a very long time since Cheyenne Harbrough had invited herself into the mayor's office.

  Unsure what to say, Big Jim waved her into the office. Little Jim did too.

  "You've become a very accomplished campaigner, Cheyenne, in a ve
ry short time."

  Cheyenne smiled and batted her eyes, unsure whether she was teasing the mayor or herself. "Why, Mr. Mayor, you say the sweetest things."

  But the mayor was distracted by the news report. NJN was showing tape of a minor league baseball game. The mayor wondered whether he could attract a team to Doah, whether he should campaign on the idea. Watching the dizzy bat race, the mayor suddenly realized that he knew the woman on the tape. "Cheyenne, isn't that your friend Cassie?"

  Cheyenne looked up at the television in time to see Skeeter collapse on the pitcher's mound.

  It was six weeks until Morris planned to release the special Cold War edition of the magazine. His readers were mostly true believers, but for Morris, the magazine was just a job. It had been a long time since he felt passionate about a story, but Morris found himself growing excited about a Soviet–New Jersey story line. An old girlfriend introduced him to an importer-exporter who specialized in Soviet memorabilia. Morris had spent the day in Manhattan, buying Soviet artifacts and government documents. He felt as if he'd smashed a Soviet piñata, unleashing a shower of Cold War secrets. He bought KGB badges and booklets, oxygen masks and navigation instruments. There were maps and helmets and an array of military pins and medals. He found carrier pigeon cages, Kremlin flatware. He found blueprints and language texts and surveillance plans. There were travel plans for the ballet and the hockey team and for Khrushchev's visit to Glassboro.

  Morris needed his best writer to organize the Russian treasures and turn them into a story. Dialing Cassie's phone number, the editor left a message on her machine.

  "Where are you, baby? Call me."

  Morris put aside the memorabilia and flipped on the television, just in time to see his favorite writer, dizzy and disoriented, standing on first, while the mascot laid motionless, dead of heat stroke according to the report, on the pitcher's mound.

  After the Hunt

  Spit turned off the highway, onto an unmarked, unpaved road that led down to the inlet. No other cars were evident in the dark, in the night, on the old abandoned roadway. Spit parked the ancient Rambler taxicab at the barrier where the road dead-ended at the waterline.

  Donna peered into the darkness. "Where are we?"

  Spit turned toward the back seat of the cab and smiled. "Home."

  Donna tried without success to identify evidence of Spit's domicile. "You live here?"

  But Spit didn't answer. He exited the cab, heading on foot along the rotting wooden walkway that reached out over the saltwater and marsh grass.

  Donna hurried to catch up, nearly tripping on the uneven wooden planks. "Wait," she implored, her voice suddenly higher by two octaves.

  Peering into the night, Donna realized that there were several ramshackle cottages built on stilts, tilting out over the water. As they approached, it was apparent that each cottage was empty. Donna felt a knot tighten in her stomach. "How many people live here?"

  Spit waited for Donna to catch up before answering. "This time of year? I'm not sure. There's me and let's see…well, I guess it's just me." Spit was suddenly embarrassed. "But you should see this place in the summertime."

  Donna tried to imagine the place in the middle of summer. "How many people live here in season?"

  Spit was not good at mental math. "Counting me?"

  Donna was already counting the hours until morning. "Yes, Spit, counting you."

  Spit grinned. "One."

  Spit followed the wooden walkway to another, smaller path, which led to a cottage hidden among the marsh grass. The front door was unlocked. Spit held the door for Donna, inviting her to enter his cozy four-room house. "Make yourself comfortable."

  Donna looked around at the cluttered living room, an explosion of magazines in piles on the floor and on the sofa—Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, High Times, Natural History, the New Republic and Juggs—magazines and jigsaw puzzles, boxes and boxes of puzzles, and one enormous puzzle, easily six feet in length, half-finished and sitting out on a plywood board perched on two unpainted sawhorses, magazines, and jigsaws, and pizza—empty pizza boxes stacked high along the wall, a leaning tower of pizza tilting toward the ocean—magazines and jigsaws and pizza, and cigarette butts, hundreds of butts, in dozens of ashtrays, and Donna didn't know what to say. "It's…" and she searched for the right word, "…nice."

  "I don't get many visitors." Spit stared at his shoes. "Let me show you the guest room."

  Donna was relieved to see that her room was habitable: a sleep sofa, old but clean, a seventeen-inch TV, an Indian throw rug on the floor, and another hanging from the wall, a room that she could call home for the night. "Thank you, Spit… I'm pretty tired. I think I'd like to get some sleep."

  But Donna was unable to sleep, lying awake in Spit's guest room, thinking about Heather. She pictured Heather lying motionless on the pitcher's mound dressed as Skeeter. Was she going to be okay? And thinking about Madame Alexina's warning. Did someone want her dead? Donna pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, huddling against the sudden chill in the room. The weather was changing. Donna lay awake in bed, listening to the quiet patter of rain drops overhead, finally allowing herself to fall asleep on the sleep sofa, in the guest room, in Spit's isolated cabin, a long walk off a short pier, an unmarked outpost somewhere on the New Jersey coastline.

  Near morning, Donna was jolted from sleep by an extraordinary thunderclap. The sky was electrified and rain beat down in torrents on the roof. She was almost relieved to pull herself out of the sleep sofa. Walking into the living room, Donna was surprised to find that Spit had spent the night straightening the clutter: magazines now neatly sorted and stacked, ashtrays ash-free, and a large green trash can, in the corner, catching rainwater as it leaked in through the roof. Spit himself was seated at the jigsaw, staring intently, motionless, breathing lightly, and every so often adding another piece to the gradually developing puzzle. Without looking up, Spit greeted his houseguest, grunting, "Mornin'."

  Looking out the window at the wall of water, Donna had to ask, "Is it always this bad?"

  Spit laughed. "Only when we get a storm."

  Donna found it hard to imagine that anyone lived this way. "How do you manage?"

  Spit gestured at the jigsaw. "Pull up a chair and join me."

  The rain came down all day, depth charges, a full-out assault, and Donna and Spit spent the day underwater, rigged for silent running, slowly adding to the jigsaw as it spread out across the plywood.

  The following day, the rain stopped, but not before the wooden walkway connecting Spit's cabin to the rest of New Jersey, lay deeply, dangerously, submerged. Late in the afternoon, placing the final piece of the puzzle, Spit turned to Donna, smiling broadly, "Done!"

  Donna stood up and stretched, her body sore from two days in the metal folding chair. Looking down at the puzzle, Donna focused for the first time, not on the detail of single puzzle pieces, but on the finished panorama. Titled "After the hunt," Donna found the picture unsettling, some half-dozen pterodactyls flying in circles overhead, while down below on the prehistoric plain, hundreds of microceratops lay dead, and in the midst of the herd the most disturbing image of all…one dead microceratops clad in chili pepper boxer shorts.

  Clean Undies

  Dressed in Andy's thick terrycloth robe, sitting on the enclosed deck, looking out over the water, the tide coming in, Cassie could hardly believe she had stayed at Andy's oceanfront home for two days, listening to doo-wop and making whoopee. The dead woman at the ballpark had served as an accelerant, fanning the flames of their lust. It surprised Cassie to realize she was growing confident of the relationship, that she was worried only by the pace of love's progress.

  Andy stepped out on the deck, dressed for work. "I've got to spend a coupla hours at the ballpark today."

  "Don't be long, okay?" Cassie detected a note of resentment in her voice, jealous of the Sand Skeeters for laying claim on Andy's time.

  Andy explained. "I need to meet with my attorney, and then
briefly with my banker. You understand…the dead woman."

  Alone at Andy's home, Cassie seized the opportunity to do laundry. When she left Doah, heading for her date with Andy MacTavish, she had not packed for an extended stay. She had not packed at all. Andy's terry robe was comfortable and, according to Andy, sexy. Still, she longed for clean undies. With the rinse cycle underway, Cassie returned to the deck, with a cup of hot coffee and the morning paper. She read the paper out of habit, thoughts of Andy MacTavish crowding out the hard news and features. Cassie had to read the headline twice before it registered—"NJDEP Issues Dead Deer Findings."

  Suddenly Cassie understood how the Sand Skeeters could pull Andy from his home, even in the throes of their new love. Cassie felt the same tug when she read the news story. For Andy, it was his minor league baseball team. For Cassie it was the mysterious dead deer of DoahTownship that demanded her attention. Love could wait. Lust could wait. Even laundry, beeping in the hall, would have to wait. The dead deer were back in the news.

  Cassie had written a series of magazine articles about the dead deer of DoahTownship. She had documented the circumstances surrounding many of the largest sightings and, in some circles, was considered to be an expert on the phenomenon. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Fish and Wildlife, however, was not located within such a circle. The NJDEP did not believe the dead deer phenomenon to be mysterious or the cause of death to be paranormal. Cassie was yelling at the newspaper by the time she finished reading the account.

  She picked up the phone and dialed her editor's number.

  "Morris!" she yelled into the phone when she heard the answering machine. "Pick up, dammit."

  "I'm here, sweetie. What is it?" Morris sounded tired.

  "You know what it is?"

  Morris stifled a laugh. "Oh yeah, the DEP."

  Cassie was not amused. "You're damn right … the DEP. Get me the full damn report."