My heart was pounding and my stomach churning all the way home. As I turned down our street, I saw a few people, mostly women, in front of the Kleins’ house. I stopped one and asked what was going on.
“Someone’s dead,” she said. She looked very pale.
“In this house?”
“Yes. They found a body about an hour ago. No one will say anything.”
“Oh, my God.” I pushed the bike the rest of the way to our house and was at the top of the ramp when Jack came out from the kitchen.
“You hear what happened?” he said.
“A woman told me somebody had died in the Kleins’ house. And Chief La Coste got a call just before I left.”
“I think it’s Tina.”
“What?”
“I can’t swear to it. Springer wouldn’t let anyone near the crime scene. Someone in the house found a body in the crawl space near the back of the house. I walked over with Eddie and got as close as I could. It’s a girl and there’s blond hair. Sun-bleached.”
“Tina’s.”
“That’s all I could see.”
“This is terrible. She’s a young girl. What could she have done?”
“She could have killed Ken Buckley.”
We went into the kitchen and I took Eddie from him. He looked as though he’d just woken up. He cried a little and nestled his head in the crook of my neck. I put my arms around him and held him as though I could protect him forever from the evils of the world he would grow up in.
I took him upstairs and changed him and he came fully awake and smiled when I played with him. I carried him downstairs and we all went into the living room. Eddie sat on the floor and played with some of the toys that were spread out in what had become a very baby-centered room.
Jack had two tall glasses of iced tea waiting and I took a long sip of mine when I sat down.
“You OK?” Jack said.
I nodded and took another sip. “Chief La Coste said it was murder but he didn’t say who. Do you know how it happened?”
“No one’s saying.”
“Jack, I want to find Dodie Murchison.” I got up and went to the kitchen where the telephone book was and looked up the phone number at Dodie’s house. I let it ring about twenty times before I hung up.
“She’s not there or she’s not answering,” I told Jack. I looked at my watch. “Do you mind if I dash over there? I saw her last night. I’d like to know what she’s been doing with her time since I left her.”
“Go ’head. We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be back to give Eddie his lunch.” I got down on the floor and stuck my face in his face and listened to him giggle. “I’ll see you soon, sweetheart,” I said. I stood up and waved and he seemed to wave back. I threw a kiss and ran.
Dodie’s house was locked and all the windows were closed. After I knocked and knocked, I circled the house, but she wasn’t sitting outside and I couldn’t see her through any of the windows.
When I got back around to the front, a woman came out of the house next door and came over to where I was getting ready to get on the bike and go home.
“She left this morning,” the woman said.
“Left Blue Harbor?”
“That’s what it looked like. She had a couple of suitcases on a wagon and she was walking toward the ferry.”
“What time was that?” I asked.
“Pretty early. Sometime after seven.”
“Was anyone with her?”
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“I’m Chris Bennett,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’m here with my family for a couple of weeks.”
“I’m Jean Hill.”
“Did you get to know her?”
“Not much. We said hello. She didn’t come out here that often and she kept to herself most of the time. I don’t think she was here at all last month till Labor Day weekend. I have the Goodwins’ extra key and I keep my eye on the house for them.”
“Did anyone come to visit her?”
“I couldn’t tell you that. I had enough company of my own that I was busy all summer. I’m just getting ready to leave for home myself. After I go to the funeral.”
“Did you know Ken Buckley?”
“Everybody knew him. It’s terrible, what happened.”
“I’m afraid there’s been another murder.”
“What!” she said, echoing my own reaction.
“Someone in the Kleins’ house. It’s across the street from where my husband and I are staying in the Margulies’s house.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Just that a body’s been found.”
“This is unbelievable. I’m glad I’m leaving. What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk to Dodie Murchison about?”
“I thought she might know the person who I think was murdered.”
“She’s gone,” Jean Hill said. She looked as though she were in a daze. “And Ken Buckley is dead.”
“Did you ever see Ken and Dodie together?”
“Did I see them personally? No, I didn’t.” The implication was clear. “I’m sorry. I really have to sit down and clear my head. This is getting to be a little too much for me.”
“I don’t know when the homicide took place,” Jack said, as I got Eddie’s lunch together. “So if Dodie left her place between seven and eight, it doesn’t rule her out. If she did it, it would have been earlier. I doubt she would have parked a wagon with her luggage outside the Kleins’ house and gone in and murdered someone before walking down to the ferry.”
“Do you know who found the body?”
“I don’t know anything,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I saw Springer race over and zip up the ramp like a maniac and when I got over there, one of the girls who’s been living there was sitting on the deck having hysterics.”
“I can hardly blame her.”
“Marti Jorgensen went over, and some other woman, so she seemed to be in good hands. When I went around the house to find Springer, he shooed me away, along with everybody else. I think he got a bunch of firemen to guard the perimeter.”
“I’d like to talk to that girl,” I said, picking Eddie up off the floor and setting him in the high chair. “Ready for lunch?” I asked him.
He gave me a smile and banged on the tray. I took that to be a yes.
“She may still be at the Jorgensens’. Want me to check?” He went to the window that looked out on the Jorgensens’ property.
“If you want to,” I said.
He waved good-bye to Eddie, who was less interested in his father than his food, and went out the kitchen door. I tried to put together a possible sequence of events. There had been some relationship between Tina and Ken Buckley, although no one I had spoken to had ever seen them together. For some reason, she had gone to see him on Labor Day and murdered him as he lay in bed. (Waiting for her? I wondered.) Dodie had had something going with him herself—that seemed pretty well documented even if Ida Bloom didn’t think so—and when she came to the conclusion that Tina had killed Ken, Dodie went over to the Kleins’ house and killed Tina. Jealousy? I wondered. But what was there to be jealous about? Ken had had affairs and he had never left his wife before. Why would he do it now?
“It’s a mystery,” I said to Eddie, who didn’t think there was any mystery to lunch. It was just good to eat.
Of course, another voice in my head reminded me, each woman thinks she’s the one who’ll accomplish the impossible. The “other” woman in a married man’s life would always try harder. And Ken had charm, no doubt about that. He had won me over just by being nice to my little Eddie. Chief La Coste obviously revered him, and why not? Ken had visited almost every day. That seemed to me a very kind thing to do for someone who was old and widowed and probably didn’t get much farther than the ocean or the bay or a few blocks east or west of his little house.
Eddie plopped his hand into the mushy fruit in front of him and wiped it on his hair. I tried not to laugh. “You are a mess,” I said to him.
He said something that sounded like “more.”
“Here’s some more. But it has to go in your mouth, not in your hair.”
He banged his hand on the tray. “You’re pretty rambunctious today,” I said.
“Ma!”
“I’m Ma. And here’s more. Are we learning vowel sounds today?”
He giggled and banged and finally, he drank all his milk. We both looked a mess as Jack came back.
“Looks like a food fight in here. Who won?”
“Who always wins?” I got a washcloth and worked on the little face, against the will of its owner. “Jack, is it OK if I giggle or will he grow up not respecting authority?”
“You have a nice giggle. Almost as nice as Eddie’s.”
A sweet husband. “Is she there?”
“She’s there. Marti’s making some lunch for her but I’m not sure she’s up to eating it. She’ll come over when she’s finished.”
“Good. We’ll get to ours in a few minutes.”