CHAPTER 13
“I still ain’t heard who killed Muriel . . .”
“Somebody who thought she needed killing, somebody who had loved her and hated her . . .”
THE LESS SAID about the next half hour, the better. Suffice it to say that a corpse that has been strangled in summer and submerged in water for “only about ten or twelve hours” has pretty much lost all resemblance to anything human.
Black swollen tongue, blue-gray skin mottled with angry red-black patches, stringy, mud-soaked clothes and hair, and the incongruity of a bright sunflower-yellow rope embedded deep into the puffy flesh at the throat—the victim was not a pretty sight. And I’m not even bringing up the insects.
Through features like hair (long and copper), eye color (brown), and items like clothes the woman was wearing (that one-of-a-kind Betsy Johnson pink and green sundress with the lace-up corset and gauzy skirt), I became convinced the corpse belonged to Angel Stark, and told Chief Ciders and two officers from the Rhode Island State Police crime scene unit exactly that.
“From her fingerprints and dental records, the crime lab people should be able to positively confirm her identity within a few hours,” Ciders told me as we walked back to the Inn together.
“Sadie and I really have to get back to the bookstore,” I told the Chief. “We left poor Mina on her own for the last two and a half hours.”
A few minutes later, Ciders released us all, saying he’d be over to the bookstore soon to get a corroborating statement from Mina. Bud offered Sadie and me a lift back to the store. Seymour decided to tag along as far as the post office. Fiona returned to nurse her stricken husband, whom she’d “put to bed for a long nap.” It was a solemn, quiet group who trudged out to the Inn’s parking lot and piled into Bud’s Ford Explorer.
After we dropped Seymour at the local post office, Bud pulled up in front of Buy the Book. I was surprised when he cut the engine and followed Sadie and me into the store.
For a summertime Saturday afternoon, the place was fairly busy, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I spied a familiar face at the register alongside Mina. After bagging a bundle of paperbacks and passing them to the customer, Linda Cooper-Logan gave us one of her big, open smiles. In her late thirties, Linda still wore her short platinum hair in the spiky, punkish style she’d first worn in the eighties. These days, she usually favored long flowered skirts and a copious amount of silver bracelets, but on this warm afternoon she wore cut-off denim shorts and a chocolate-brown “Bakers Do It Early” T-shirt, which was dusted with flour.
“Boy am I glad to see you,” I gushed.
“Not half as glad as I was,” said Mina.
Linda dismissed my thanks with a wave of her hand. “I brought the pastry over for tonight’s meeting and saw a line of customers, so I volunteered to fill in until you guys got back.”
Linda and her husband, Milner Logan, operated the Cooper Family Bakery, a small but profitable bread and sweet shop down the street from Buy the Book. Linda handled the comfort foods, and Milner the fancy French stuff. (He and Linda had met when Milner was teaching a cooking school class in Boston on the art of French pastry.)
“Honestly, I can’t thank you enough,” I told her.
“So what’s going on? I’ve got to know,” Linda asked.
I was about to reply when I looked beyond Linda’s shoulder, to see the look of worry and apprehension on Mina Griffith’s face. Mina, in turn, was watching Bud Napp and Sadie head toward a set of comfortable chairs near the back of the store, speaking in hushed tones as they went.
I took a deep breath and broke the news to Linda and Mina about the discovery of Angel Stark’s body along the wildlife trail near Finch Inn. I also told them that Victoria Banks, Bethany’s sister, was also missing. Linda was intrigued, but as I expected, Mina took the news hard. Harder still was the next bombshell I dropped on the poor girl.
“Chief Ciders believes Angel was strangled, murdered—and he thinks Bud’s nephew Johnny had something to do with it.”
“My God,” Mina choked. The shock was too much and she broke down. Linda took over the register, and I brought Mina upstairs to privately comfort her with a cup of tea and a shoulder to cry on. I hated having to tell Mina the truth, but I knew it would be better for her to hear it from me than Chief Ciders, when he sought her statement.
Mina didn’t say much, just sipped her tea and said that she couldn’t believe this was happening—that Angel was dead and Johnny was being sought as a likely suspect.
“I admit he was really stupid to go off with Angel like that,” said Mina after blowing her nose, “and I was really angry with him . . . but, Mrs. McClure, I really like Johnny. Up until last night, he’s been the kindest, sweetest guy I’ve ever gone out with.”
I nodded. “I’m glad,” I said, “but I really don’t know Johnny.”
“He spent hours last weekend helping my little brother and his friends build a treehouse, which he knows how to do because for years he’s volunteered his time to Habitat for Humanity to help build low-income houses. He loves his uncle, and I know he cares about me . . . he told me so . . . he’s a good guy, Mrs. McClure, he . . .”
Mina began to cry again. Then she shook her head. “One minute with that
As I poured the last of the tea for Mina, I felt the slightest whisper of a cool breeze on my cheek.
“I want it to be,” I silently told the ghost. “But is it really? How can you be so sure Johnny isn’t guilty? Jack, I’m afraid Johnny just isn’t as ‘nice’ a guy as he wants Mina and his uncle to believe.”
After Mina dried her eyes and insisted on continuing her shift—she said it would help keep her mind off her worries for Johnny—we went back downstairs to the store.
Bud and Sadie were still deep in conversation, and things seemed fairly quiet. I thanked Linda for her help. She went on her way, and Mina took over the register.
“I think we need fresh stock on the new release table,” I told her. “If you cover the counter, I’ll take care of it.”
“No problem,” said Mina, blowing her nose one last time as I headed toward the archway leading to the Community Events space. I crossed the empty room, then strode quickly down the short corridor, past the restrooms. When I got to the storage area, I called to Jack, hoping to continue my communication with the gumshoe from beyond.
“You were saying that someone might be trying to frame Johnny . . . ?”
The storage room was nothing fancy: a plain white box with stacked cartons of books waiting their turn to be placed on the selling floor and an old wooden desk from the store’s early days against one wall—which we now used to hold office supplies. The room felt warm and a little bit stuffy when I’d walked into it, but Jack’s presence had dropped the temperature and the air around me felt comfortably cool. Too bad his ghostly presence couldn’t be constant and in every room, I mused to myself; the store would save a fortune in air-conditioning.
“Come on, Jack, don’t get testy.”
