Tippy Toe Murder (9 page)

No reserved
seating.

It was only minutes
later when Lucy came to, flat on her back on the floor. She struggled to sit
up, but overcome by dizziness and nausea, she collapsed again.

The next thing she was aware of was the
booming voice of Barney Culpepper.

“Don’t touch anything except Mrs. Stone,”
he ordered a pair of uniformed EMTs. “You guys contaminate this crime scene and
I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Don’t raise your head, Mrs. Stone,” said
one of the EMTs. “We’re just going to slide you onto this stretcher and take
you for a little ride to the next room. Oopsy-daisy, there we go.” The sudden
movement made her head whirl and she groaned.

“Be careful with her,” she heard Barney
bellow.

“I’m okay,” she reassured him once they had
her settled in the store. “I must’ve fainted.”

“Do you have any chest pains?” asked the
EMT, slipping a blood pressure cuff around her arm and inflating it. “Any pain
at all?”

“No. Yes. My head hurts.”

“Good. Your pressure’s okay. I’m going to
give you this lollipop to suck on. When you feel like it, you can sit up.”

Lucy concentrated on sucking the pop and
tried not to think about the gory scene in the next room. “Is he dead?” she
asked Barney.

“Afraid so, Lucy. Just try to relax,” he
answered.

Lucy let out a quivery little sigh and took
stock of her situation. Nothing hurt, except for her head, and nothing was
broken. A flurry of activity inside told her the baby was fine. Her hand was
still blood-smeared, and she wanted to wash it.

“Is there any place I can clean up? I have
to get the girls to the dress rehearsal. And I need that camera.”

“There’s no hurry, Lucy. Number one, the
dress rehearsal’s been canceled until further notice. There’s a sign on the
auditorium door. And number two, you’re not going to have that camera for a
long time. It looks like it’s the murder weapon and it’s gotta go to the state
crime lab. If there’s a trial and it’s submitted as evidence, it could be years
‘fore you get it back. If I was you, Lucy, I’d just get another one. They’ve
come down in price quite a lot.”

“Yeah. And they’re a lot lighter now, too,”
agreed one of the EMTs. “Yours musta been pretty heavy to do all that damage.” “Nah,”
said the other EMT, shaking his head. “Did you see how thin his skull was?
Cracked just like an egg.”

“Do I have to stay here?” asked Lucy,
suddenly desperate to leave. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the
stretcher.

“ ‘Fraid so,” Barney said. “The
investigating officer will want to ask you some questions. You can’t go till he
says so.” “What about Toby and Elizabeth? I was going to pick them up at
school.”

“I’ll call Marge,” said Culpepper,
referring to his wife. Lucy caught the nod he gave the EMTs before strolling
out to his cruiser, and felt suddenly uneasy.

“Am I a suspect?” she demanded as soon as
he returned. “It must look pretty suspicious, being found in the same room with
a dead man. And it is my camera.”

“Aw, Lucy, ‘course you’re not a suspect.
All I know is we’re supposed to sit tight until the staties get here. Looks
like that’s them now.”

A steady stream of official vehicles began
arriving outside, and soon the store was filled with investigators. Lucy sat
quietly, watching their comings and goings, until Barney told her an officer
would take her fingerprints.

“You can’t be serious,” she protested
feebly as an officer noted the condition of her hands and proceeded to scrape
off a sample of the blood. After that her fingers were inked and rolled one by
one against a card. Only then was she given a towelette to clean her hands.
Lucy was using it when she heard a familiar voice.

“Mrs. Stone, I see you’re in the thick of
things once again,” observed a slight man in a tan raincoat.

Looking up and seeing Detective Sergeant
Horowitz’s familiar face, his long upper lip reminding her of a rabbit, she
attempted to smile.

“I didn’t do it,” she said.

“That’s what they all say, at first,” he
replied, shaking his head. His hair had thinned since last December, when he’d
been in charge of investigating Sam Miller’s death. That episode had left them
each with a grudging admiration for the other’s abilities at detection.

“I guess we’ll have to give you the benefit
of the doubt, at least until a jury decides otherwise,” he said, smiling as he
sat down beside her. This was his version of a joke, she decided. “Just start
at the beginning,” he told her.

Obediently, Lucy went over the events of
the afternoon as clearly as she could. When Horowitz asked why Franny had borrowed
the camera, she hesitated before answering. She didn’t want to incriminate
Franny by saying Slack suspected her of stealing.

“I don’t know why Franny wanted it,” she
lied. She knew from the drift of Horowitz’s questions that Franny was the
number-one suspect.

“Franny couldn’t have had anything to do
with this, any more than I did,” she insisted.

“You’ve been real helpful, Mrs. Stone.
Thank you. I’ll let Officer Culpepper take you home now,” said Horowitz,
concluding the interview. “Have a nice day.”

Lucy was furious when she climbed into
Barney’s cruiser. “What does he mean, have a nice day? I found a dead body, for
God’s sake. How am I supposed to have a nice day?”

“It’s just one of those things people say.
Doesn’t mean anything. Now calm down, Lucy. All this excitement can’t be good
for the baby.”

“I suppose you’re right,” admitted Lucy,
finally clicking the belt into place. “Am I going to have to answer more
questions? What about my car?”

“You’re in no shape to drive. We’ll figure
something out.” “Okay, Barney. I don’t mean to be unreasonable. I’m just upset.
They think Franny did it, don’t they?” she asked, turning to face him.

“Maybe the investigation will turn up
somebody else, but right now she’s the likeliest suspect.”

“Because of her husband?”

“That’s right. He had quite a knock on the
head, too.”

“I thought he fell down the stairs.”

“That’s what she said happened.”

“It could have happened that way.”

“Sure, but when the same thing happens
twice you can’t help being a little suspicious.”

“Was there a trial when her husband died?”

“No. There was no physical evidence that
she did it, and everybody felt sorry for her. He used to beat on her, you know.
She was always going to the emergency room saying she fell down the stairs or
accidentally bumped into a door. I questioned her myself, more than once.
Things were different then. We all knew what was going on, but we couldn’t do
anything unless she pressed charges. She was too ashamed to admit the truth, I
guess. Then when she called and said there’d been an accident and he’d fallen
down the stairs, well, nobody pushed too hard. There was an investigation, but
she stuck to her story and charges were never filed against her. Seemed like he
got what was coming. Too bad there were no stairs this time.” Culpepper turned
the cruiser smoothly into Lucy’s driveway and braked.

“I can understand her striking back in
self-defense,” argued Lucy. “But I can’t believe she would hit an old man, even
someone as awful as Slack. She worked for him for years.” “And he took
advantage of her for years. Kind of like that husband of hers, if you ask me.
Something snapped then, and it probably happened again. If she gets a good
lawyer, maybe she’ll get off. You take it easy, now, Lucy.”

Looking at the blank windows of the house,
Lucy felt reluctant to leave the safety of the cruiser. She was suddenly afraid
to be alone. Then the kitchen door opened, and Bill stood there, waiting for
her. Reassured, she climbed out of the car and rushed into his arms. For the
first time since she’d discovered Slack’s body, she allowed herself to remember
what she’d seen.

“Oh, Bill,” she wailed, bursting into
tears. “It was horrible.” “It’s okay,” he said, holding her close. “You’re
home.”

Be sure to label
all costumes with student’s name.

“It’s a simple system, crude but effective,”
explained Doc Ryder the next morning. “The brain doesn’t get enough oxygen for
one reason or another, so you black out and fall down. Once you’re down, the
brain gets plenty of oxygenated blood, thanks to gravity, and you revive. The
thing to do is to avoid these sudden shocks. If you insist on discovering dead
bodies, it’ll probably happen again.”

“Believe me, I’ll do my best to avoid them,”
promised Lucy. “Is the baby okay?”

“Oh, sure,” said the doctor, waving his
stethoscope. “Nice strong heartbeat.”

“That’s a relief,” said Lucy, sliding off
the examining table. She had made the appointment at Bill’s insistence, but in
her heart she was grateful for his stubborn refusal to leave for work until she’d
seen the doctor.

“He says there’s nothing to worry about. We’re
both fine.

Really,” she told Bill. He’d been sitting
in the waiting room, reading to Sara.

“I wish I wasn’t working so far away,” he
complained. He’d been hired to oversee the repair of a two-hundred-year-old
church in Gilead, about fifteen miles away. “I still think you ought to take it
easy for a day or two.”

“I really need some groceries. If you take
me and Sara over to the hardware store, I can pick up the car. Barney locked it
up for me. He’s got the keys at the police station.”

“Okay,” sighed Bill, working the spare key
off his key ring. “I’ll call around lunchtime, just to make sure everything’s
okay.”

“What could happen at the IGA?”

“Something like what happened at Slack’s,”
muttered Bill, starting the truck engine with a roar.

Bill waited in the truck while Lucy
unlocked the Subaru, strapped Sara in her seat, and started the engine. It was
only after she smiled and waved to him that he drove off.

Glancing over her shoulder at the hardware
store, where a
closed
sign hung in the door, Lucy gave a small shudder. She shifted
into drive and went straight to the police station.

“Hi! Is Barney in?” she called to the
pretty young dispatcher who was perched behind the counter.

“Sorry, Mrs. Stone. He had to go out, but
he said to give you these if you came by.” She held up the car keys.

“Thanks,” said Lucy, taking them. “You don’t
happen to know where he is?”

“Sorry,” said the dispatcher, shaking her
perky blond ponytail. “Police business.”

Disappointed, Lucy led Sara back to the
car. She was once again buckling her in when she noticed the albums, still
sitting in the cargo area, where she’d stowed them yesterday. She’d look at
them as soon as she got home, she promised herself.

It was only a short drive to the IGA;
sometimes Lucy thought she spent more time strapping and unstrapping Sara than
she actually spent driving. Tempted as she was to skip the back-breaking
procedure, she never did. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Crossing the parking lot with Sara’s little
hand firmly in her own, Lucy was pleased to see Julia Ward Howe Tilley coming
out of the store.

“Up to your old tricks, I see,” said Miss
Tilley, positively beaming at her. Miss Tilley had been the librarian at the
Broadbrooks Free Library for many years. She had always encouraged Lucy’s
interest in crime and used to save the newest mysteries for her.

“I don’t go looking for bodies,” protested
Lucy. “In fact, Doc Ryder has warned me to avoid them and I plan to follow his
advice.”

“Was it very gruesome, dear?” she inquired,
smacking her lips.

“Rather.” Lucy didn’t want to think about
it.

“I’m glad,” declared Miss Tilley. “He
deserved it.”

“No one deserves that.”

“Morrill did. He was an absolute Tartar,
you know. Poor Kitty spent her life tiptoeing around him. Always afraid. That’s
no way to live.”

“She told me Morrill would never let her
retire,” said Lucy. “I guess she can retire now.”

“And in comfort. Morrill was quite wealthy.
He never liked to spend money, he just squirreled it away. There’s more than
the store, you know. He had land and timber interests he inherited from his
father. He never parted with anything.”

“Who do you think killed him?” asked Lucy,
ignoring Sara’s impatient tugs on her arm.

“Any number of people would gladly have
throttled the old goat. He had quarreled with almost everyone in town, even his
own son. Even me, for that matter.” The old woman seemed amazed at Slack’s
effrontery. “He tried to close the library, you know, when he was a selectman.
To save the town money, he said. He was going to fire me and sell off the
building, including the books. He was always penny wise and pound foolish.” She
clicked her tongue. “Look at that. Annemarie’s been shopping for the ‘funeral
baked meats.’ “