Murder on the Bluffs, page 19
I opened my mouth to continue. And kept it open as a man in a sport coat and tie flung open the outside door. He was closely followed by Chief Flaherty and several more uniformed Ashford police officers. The man in the suit strode to Mr. Wojinski’s table.
“James Wojinski?” he asked.
Mr. Wojinski nodded with a bewildered look.
“Yes, his name is James,” his wife said with a scowl. “You’re the police.”
“I’m Detective George Smithson with the State Police. Mr. Wojinksi—”
Fiona stood. “I did it. I wished for him to die, and he did.” She held both wrists out in front of her.
“You did what?” the detective asked. He frowned at her.
At the same time, Mr. Wojinski said, “You didn’t do anything, Fiona. Sit down, honey.” To the detective he added, “She’s not well mentally. I’m sorry.” He tugged on his wife’s sleeve.
“No, I’m guilty.” Fiona’s voice was strong. “They’re here because I caused that lawyer’s death. Vincent Waters deserved to die. Arrest me.”
A gasp echoed around the room. Mr. Wojinski stood, his face a mask of disbelief mixing with fear. The detective shook his head as if to clear it, looked at Fiona, switched over to Mr. Wojinski, and then back to Fiona.
I remembered noticing Fiona’s strong hands and wrists in Iris’s Bakery that morning. Could Fiona have been the cause of the lawyer’s fatal car crash instead of his own speeding? But how?
“But why?” Mr. Wojinski’s anguish ripped from his lips. But he didn’t sound surprised.
Fiona turned to face him with a calm expression. “You said he was evil and dangerous. Evil needs to be removed from God’s world. Evil is the Devil moving among us.” She stood straight: fulfilled, triumphant. “Take me,” she said to the detective.
“Actually—” the detective began, then halted. He wiped his forehead with a hand. “Chief?” he said to Flaherty.
“Come with me, Mrs. Wojinski. We’ll straighten this out.” Flaherty took her elbow and began to escort her toward the door.
“No! You can’t do that,” the daughter protested. “She’s not well. She’s under care of a psychiatrist.”
“Yes, we can. Sorry, Tina.” Flaherty looked apologetic but continued out the door with Fiona.
The detective cleared his throat. “James Wojinski, you are under arrest for the murder of Charles Heard.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jackie and I looked at each other, and then at Mr. Wojinski.
“I didn’t kill Charles!” His normally tanned face went pale. He stood. “I wouldn’t kill anyone. This is a mistake.” He kept one hand on the table. The other fluttered at his side as if it had lost its way.
“What are you doing?” Tina stood. “My father doesn’t even kill cockroaches.”
One of the uniformed officers read Wojinski his Miranda rights and then stood behind him in the aisle, blocking the way farther into the restaurant. The room was quiet, all heads turned toward Wojinski and the detective.
“Please come with us.” The detective extended his right arm behind Wojinski and gestured with his left toward the exit. “Don’t make us handcuff you, sir,” he murmured.
“Wait.” Wojinski slipped his hand into his pocket.
Instantly the detective locked his hand onto Wojinski’s arm. “Sir, take your hand out of your pocket. Now.”
“I have to give Tina my keys! I drove here. And my money. For the dinner.” He squeezed his eyes shut and looked like he might pass out.
“Officer?” The detective motioned an officer over. “Pat him down, make sure his pockets hold only keys and wallet.”
The officer did so and nodded at the detective.
“All right, proceed. Take out your keys and wallet and lay them on the table.”
Wojinski complied with a trembling hand.
“Dad—” Tina stretched out her hand.
Mr. Wojinski looked back at his daughter, his eyes torn with anguish. “Honey, call my lawyer,” he said. “This is all a big mistake. And your mother—”
The officers led him out the door. Wojinski’s daughter looked stunned. She shook herself and motioned to the waitress, who brought the check. Tina handed her a wad of money and dashed to the exit.
“Wow.” I turned to gaze after her and then back at Jackie. Beyond the booth at the entrance to the bar area, a clump of people spoke in low voices.
“Shouldn’t’ve argued with Heard in public all the time like he did. Just gets you in trouble.” A man’s voice rose above the others.
“Oh, shut up, Bill. Arguing can’t land you in trouble. They wouldn’t have arrested him without real evidence.” The speaker was a trim young man with a military-style haircut. “That’s the first thing we learned in the academy.”
“Come on, everybody. Party’s over.” The head waitress shooed the onlookers back into the bar.
“He’s right.” I rested my chin on my hand.
“About what?”
“They can’t arrest somebody without evidence. I wonder what they have?”
“Not really your business, is it?” Jackie asked. “What’s up with his wife, anyway?”
“Seems like schizophrenia or something. She acts very out of the norm.” I frowned. “But thinking she killed someone by wishing it? That’s really crazy.”
“Listen, let’s change the subject and enjoy our dinner. Like, how about them Red Sox?”
• • •
An hour later, we said goodbye at Jackie’s car, and I trod slowly up my front steps. I took Wulu out for a quick walk and locked up. I poured a couple of fingers of Scotch, with a quick pang related to Jackie’s comment about my drinking, and sat on the couch with my feet up. As I sipped, I saw Fiona’s defiant expression as she confessed to causing the car crash and the anguish on James Wojinski’s face as he was arrested.
Fiona’s crime I could understand, at least in the context of mental illness. But was James’s the face of a murderer? Sure, he’d had very public disagreements with Charles Heard, but who hadn’t? If the accusation of murder proved true, then Bobby Spirokis, Walter Colby, Mary Heard, and Dan Talbot were all innocent, along with everybody else in town. So why had Mary accused Dan of killing her brother?
I wandered into my office. I smiled at the picture of Elise and myself taken at the top of Mount Fuji all those years before. Our cheeks were ruddy from the climb, and we looked happy. Elise was currently still in rehab. I hoped she was on the mend and that it would stick. I sank into my desk chair and turned on the computer. Wulu wandered in after me and sat on my left foot as he often did. He never sat on my right foot.
I had a new Facebook instant message from Dan. I didn’t think I’d encouraged him romantically, but he kept coming around. I sighed and opened the message, noticing the little green dot indicating that he was currently logged in.
“How are you, Lauren?” he had written.
“Fine,” I typed in return. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just having a quite evening. But there’s another tour at the Holt mansion tomorrow. Want to go? I have tickets.”
“I’m not sure. It’s different from the other one?”
“Yes. This one focuses on how the Holts themselves lived.”
“I have a lot of work to do here.” And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be hanging around with Dan in an extracurricular way, so to speak.
“It’ll be fun. Four o’clock again.”
There couldn’t be any harm in going on a guided group tour. “Okay. I think my ankle is better enough for a stroll through the luxurious parts of the mansion.”
“Good. Want me to pick you up, say three thirty?”
I thought quickly. “No, I’ll meet you there. I have to be in Boston for a seminar in the morning. If I catch the two thirty train home, I should make it in time.” It felt safer to arrive there under my own steam and be able to leave when I needed to. This wasn’t our first date—well, it wasn’t a date at all—but that was what Match.com recommended for the first date with someone you met online: always handle your own transportation there and back.
“Thanks for the flowers, by the way,” I typed.
“Anytime.”
We wrote goodbye to each other, and his name disappeared off the list of logged-in friends.
I sipped my Scotch and gazed at the screen. He’d had a “quite” evening. Maybe he was Clammer4Ever. So what? A carpenter and sensei didn’t have to be a perfect speller. But was he telling the truth? That was the more important question.
I clicked over to the Holt Estate website, curious about what other kinds of tours they held. If they offered tours of the grounds, I could bring Gardener Jackie. She’d love it.
I pulled up the schedule of tours. Funny, it looked like the estate was closed on Tuesdays. It must be an old list. I checked the date the website had last been updated. Sure enough, it was two years ago. Some nonprofits didn’t realize that if you have a website, you have to keep it current. The site did list a tour of the landscaping. I read that it was a two-hour walk that included a discussion of the extensive plantings and architectural details of the estate. I made a note to reserve slots for Jackie and myself sometime soon.
A gust of wind rattled the window. I stared into the dark night. I pictured James Wojinski in a jail cell. Something was just not right.
• • •
After my early run the next morning, I showered and ate a piece of toast as I stood at the counter. “How about a walk before I leave for Boston?” I asked the dog at my feet.
Wulu jumped up and ran for his leash. As we strolled, I thought. The urge to find out more about my father and his death tugged at me until yielding to it was easier than suppressing it. With any luck, the seminar would end on time and I could dash over to the Boston Public Library. They’d have sixteen-year-old news articles on microfiche, files not available either in the Ashford Library or online. I’d gotten lucky with that one Daily News article online and hadn’t been able to locate anything else.
I walked into downtown Ashford and caught the eighty thirty train into town. I took notes on everything I knew so far on the hour ride into the city, but the notebook page was barely half full by the time the train pulled into North Station.
By the afternoon, I had found several news stories on my father’s death in the library and had made copies. Then I’d seen the time and rushed back across downtown to catch the train north.
• • •
Early commuters in sensible shoes and backpacks designed for laptops enveloped me as I hurried down the platform toward the northbound two thirty train. The crowd parted around a dozen excited fans coming toward them in Bruins jerseys, who rushed toward the hockey arena that shared the building with the train station.
I shifted my African bag to my right shoulder, the all-purpose bag that accommodated wallet, hairbrush, books, lunch, water bottle, and anything else I stuffed into it. The train north idled down the platform, but it wouldn’t wait for long. I wondered why they hadn’t pulled it all the way in as they usually did.
I passed to the right of two ear-budded boys who slouched along with skateboards tucked under their arms. I felt a sudden pressure on my back. A shove. A push toward the edge of the platform. I tripped and started to fall into the empty air above the tracks six feet below. I cried out. My handbag dragged me downward.
“Dude!” One of the boys grabbed my arm and pulled.
As fast as it had happened, it was over. I gazed up into the face of a worried-looking teenager. My legs shook and my heart would have maxed out my running monitor if I’d had it on.
“Lady, you okay? What, like, happened?”
“Somebody pushed me. Hard.” I looked both boys in the face. It couldn’t have been either of these kids. Could it? One was freckled and red-haired. The other one, who had rescued me from my fall, was darker with jelled spikes of black hair. Who, then?
“Yeah,” Redhead said. “Some guy was there, then he wasn’t.”
My voice shook as I asked, “What did he look like? How tall was he?”
The boy shook his head. “I didn’t really, you know, see him very well. Taller than me.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Ma’am? Is everything all right?” asked a concerned black-uniformed MBTA official.
“I think I was shoved toward the tracks. I almost fell in.”
The woman fixed a stern gaze on the boys and opened her mouth.
“No! Not them. He rescued me from falling.” I gestured at the dark-haired boy. “It was somebody else.”
“Do you want to file a report with the T police?” The officer raised her eyebrows.
I turned toward the boys as the loudspeaker announced that the train to Newburyport would leave in one minute.
The boys glanced down the track. Darkhair started to jitter.
“Shoot,” I said. “Can I do it later?”
The woman nodded, hands on hips. “We have security cameras.”
“Thank you,” I called back. “Let’s go, guys,” I said to my new young friends. We ran to the last car and eased in. The train began to move. I laid a hand on Redhead’s arm.
“Are you sure you can’t remember anything else about the man you saw?” I looked from one to the other, imploring them silently: Please help me find this guy.
They looked at each other. Redhead shook his head.
Darkhair gazed up at the corner of the car, as if thinking, then back at me. “Sorry.”
“Can I at least write down your numbers, then? Please? Maybe you’ll think of something else you saw or heard.”
The two exchanged a look. Darkhair shrugged. “Okay.”
“Thanks.” I braced myself on the back of a seat. I rooted around in my bag for a pen and a scrap of paper.
“Uh, ma’am? Doncha want to put it, like, in your phone? I mean, you have a phone, right?”
I looked up and laughed. He probably thought I was old enough to be the kind of antique person who was incompetent with cell phones, computers, and television remotes.
“Great idea. Hang on.” I located my phone and clicked the address book function. “Ready.”
Darkhair turned out to be Ernie Aguirre and Redhead was Rob Connolly, both of Hamilton. I gave them my contact information, too.
“I really appreciate it, you guys.”
Rob nodded. Ernie said, “No problem. Glad you didn’t, like, get the third rail.” They waved and headed down the aisle toward the front of the train.
I apologized to a man on the aisle as I squeezed past him into an empty middle seat of three. I closed my eyes. I felt the shove again. The awful feeling of losing my balance. The prospect of falling, of hitting my head on the tracks or the gravel. I wasn’t sure the commuter train had an electrified third track, and I was infinitely glad I hadn’t had to find out. And hoped I could discover who had done it.
• • •
As the train clattered northward, I leafed through the copies I’d made. I didn’t learn anything new. There was no mention of an autopsy after Daddy’s death. I read a brief death notice, which invited the public to a Memorial Meeting for Worship. I remembered sitting in the Meetinghouse with my family, Friends, and friends, weeping quietly as others shared memories of my father. I had no recollection if Peter Talbot had attended or not, but why would I? I hadn’t even known him or been told of his connection with my father.
I descended from the train in Ashford and climbed into my truck. I was halfway to the Holt Estate and absorbed in thoughts about what I’d read on the train when I heard a rhythmic bumping sound from the back of the truck. My heart sank. Another flat. I pulled over onto a wide spot on Argilla Road and climbed out. Sure enough, the rear right tire was flat. At least this one didn’t have a knife in it. Although it reminded me that the police had never gotten back to me on who had slashed my tires the week before.
I sighed. At least I had the spare. I grabbed the jack and lug nut wrench from behind the seat and set to work. The tire was almost rusted onto the lug nuts, but I managed to wrestle it off. I took a break for a minute and called Dan from my cell, but he didn’t answer. I left a message that I was running late and then finished the job. As I hoisted the flat into the bed of the truck, my sleeve caught on a nail that poked out from the treads. It was a simple flat from the kind of sharp object anyone could run over. Relief washed through me.
I dusted off my hands and climbed back in the cab. It seemed odd that Dan hadn’t answered my call. Maybe he’d left his phone in his van and strolled the grounds waiting for me.
When I finally pulled into the lot in front of the mansion, the only vehicle there was Dan’s. Where was everybody? I climbed out and walked around the right side of the building to the entrance. Pulling open the wide door to the foyer with some effort, I spied Dan. He stood in front of a portrait, hands clasped behind him. The heavy door closed behind me with a loud click.
He turned with a big smile. “There you are!” He walked toward me, arms open.
“Where is everybody?” I backed up a step and turned halfway toward the door. Those arms looked like they wanted to come in for a hug. Not what I felt like right now. “I thought you said there would be another tour today.”
“There was. But you were late, and nobody else had signed up. So my cousin gave me a spare key and said I could show you around.”
“Your cousin?”
“Sheila Lopes. She’s the admin here.”
“Lopes.” I nodded. “I borrowed her sweater. The night I found Charles.”
“So it’s just us two.” He waggled his eyebrows like he had on the previous tour when he mentioned his high school girlfriend. “But I know the whole routine. I used to lead tours here when I was in college.” He walked to the door, extracted a key from his pocket, and locked it.
“You’re locking us in?”
“No,” he scoffed with a smile. “I mean, yes, but it’s only to keep errant tourists out while we’re upstairs. Shall we?” He gestured toward the wide hall that led into the heart of the mansion and started in that direction.
