She smiled nervously. I got the idea that four people were almost more of an audience than she could handle. I felt a sudden surge of impatience and claustrophobia and decided not to waste time beating around the bush.
'You had a dead puffin you used as a model, right?' I asked. 'You kept it in your freezer.'
She stiffened but said nothing.
'Oh, come on, Rhapsody,' I said. 'We saw you down by Victor Resnick's house on the day of the murder and--'
Rhapsody shrieked, burst into tears, and threw herself on the sofa. Mamie Benton hurried over and began patting her back.
'There, there,' she said, glaring at me. 'That wasn't a very funny joke, but I'm sure Meg didn't mean anything by it.'
Mamie acted as if she'd caught me torturing a small child, which I suppose wasn't far from the truth. Dad had that 'I'm disappointed with you' look, and even Michael seemed rather uncomfortable.
'I didn't do it on purpose!' Rhapsody wailed. 'It was an accident! Honestly!'
Rhapsody lapsed into hysterical sobs. The others gaped when they heard her words, and Mamie froze, her hand still outstretched toward the sobbing woman's shoulder.
'You don't mean--' She gasped.
'Aha!' Dad said. 'I knew you'd solve this!'
'She can't possibly have done it!' Mamie wailed. 'Oh, this is awful!'
'Oh, for heavens' sake,' I said. 'Stop carrying on; what she's done may be perfectly legal.'
'Perfectly legal!' Mamie exclaimed. 'I'm sure you could argue that killing Resnick was morally justified, but even if it was self-defense--'
'Oh, do be quiet for a few minutes and let Rhapsody talk,' I said. I strode over to the sofa and nudged Mamie aside so I could take her place beside Rhapsody.
'Rhapsody,' I said in a firm, matter-of-fact tone.
She continued to sob. Dealing with sobbing members of my own sex isn't my forte. I began to wonder if we should send for someone better equipped to deal with the situation--though I had no idea who that might be. Mrs. Fenniman or Aunt Phoebe would only scare Rhapsody to death, and Mother would enjoy the drama and encourage her to sob for a few more hours. We had no time for that.
'For heaven's sake, stop sniveling and sit up,' I said, pulling her upright and giving her a firm shake. 'No one cares about the stupid puffin; we just want to know the whole story so we can clear this thing up.'
She collapsed back on the sofa with such violence that she knocked over the end table. I could hear the tinkle of breaking glass and china. So much for the knickknacks and antiques.
Michael suddenly appeared, kneeling at our feet.
'Let me try,' he murmured. I scooted aside to let him sit closer to Rhapsody.
'Now Rhapsody,' he said, in soothing tones, taking her hands in his. 'It's all right. No one wants to hurt you. We just need to know what happened so we can take care of things.'
He went on in much the same vein while gently chafing her hands. He was making progress; her sobs grew less violent. She finally sat up, took the tissues Michael had ready, and began swabbing at her face with them.
'They'll arrest me,' Rhapsody moaned, looking at Michael with an expression of adoration. I resisted the impulse to knock her down and jump up and down on her, yelling, 'Mine! Mine!' Michael was, I reminded myself, an actor. The expression of tender concern on his face wasn't real. Still, I was irrationally relieved to see that Rhapsody was not one of those women who can cry charmingly. Her entire face was beet red, and I upped my estimate of her age by a decade.
'Arrest you for what?' Michael asked.
'They'll think I killed the poor little p-puffin,' Rhapsody said, sniffling slightly. 'They'll arrest me for harming an endangered species.'
'Puffins? Nonsense, they're not endangered,' I said.
'But there are only twelve puffin nests on Egg Island,' she said.
'And a couple million healthy puffins flying around northern Canada and Greenland,' I said. 'Isn't that right, Dad?'
'Oh, yes,' he said. 'It's threatened in this habitat, of course; they've all moved farther north, where humans don't impinge on their breeding grounds. But it's not endangered. Not in the least'
'But I can see your point,' I said. 'The birders around here wouldn't take kindly to anyone killing a puffin. But of course you didn't, did you?'
'N-no,' she said. 'That horrible man did, with his electric-shock things. I was trying to sneak past his house to go down to the point, where I could watch the live puffins, and I saw the poor thing die when it landed on the roof, and it fell off and was just lying there, and I couldn't resist. He was always calling my drawings lifeless and mechanical, but all I ever have to work with are photographs and bird books. I thought maybe if I used a real puffin, it would help.'
'And did it?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'I couldn't even look at it without wanting to cry. But by the time I found that out, they'd made him stop using his electric-shock things, and he was chasing people out, and I didn't have a chance to take it back.'
'So you kept it.'
'Why didn't you just leave it somewhere else on the island?' Michael asked.
'Because Puffin Point's the only place on the island where anyone ever sees puffins,' she said.
'And certainly the only place on the island where you'd expect to find one electrocuted,' I added.
'Yes,' she said, sniffing. 'And when the hurricane came along, I thought I could just leave it there, and people would think it had washed up in the storm, and even if they figured out it had been electrocuted, they'd think he was at it again. I didn't even know he was dead until after I did it.'
'That must have been quite a shock,' I said.
'I was so terrified someone had seen me and would think I'd done it,' Rhapsody said.
'Well, you should never keep quiet about something like that,' I said in my sternest tone. 'These things always come out in a murder investigation, and you're always better off if you tell the truth from the start.'
Michael quirked one eyebrow. I rolled my eyes to show I realized how stupid and pretentious that sounded. But Rhapsody, Dad, and Mamie all nodded with great enthusiasm.
'So,' I said. 'Tell us more about the puffin.'
Chapter 28
And so for the next half hour, Rhapsody told us about the sad fate of the puffin. Now that she'd confessed her dread secret, she was pathetically eager to spill everything. I waited patiently and let Michael respond to her description of how she'd found the puffin and what had occurred while she'd had it in her custody. I cared more about her two most recent visits to Resnick's house.
'So anyway,' she said finally. 'I hid the puffin under a cloth in the bottom of my wicker basket and went up the path toward that horrible man's house.'
'Weren't you afraid of meeting him?' I asked.
'Oh yes!' she said. 'So I found a place to sketch where I could overlook the path and see when he went down to the village. I think I ruined my sketchbook, sitting out in the rain all that time.'
She gestured toward the fireplace, where a book bound in lavender velvet stood on end, its pages fanned open toward the thin warmth of her fire.
'I was just looking around the house, trying to decide where to put the puffin, when I heard a noise down on the shore. I thought at first it was Mr. Resnick, coming back from another direction, but when I ran back down the path, I almost knocked him over. So he hadn't been down on the shore after all.'
'Probably the murderer,' Dad said with obvious relish.
