There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
—Henry Kissinger
I THOUGHT I couldn’t be shocked more than I’d been with the discovery of the corpse on the sunporch. But when I called 911, I learned that Millstone no longer had local policing. The town was struggling financially and decided to cut their force entirely, delegate their duties, and rely on the state or other jurisdictions when necessary.
Gut your police force? Jack cracked. Gosh, what a swell idea. Why not just give felons a key to the city?
The dispatcher assured me that a “community volunteer” would respond to my call in a few minutes. Meanwhile, as per the town’s new police-free procedure, the operator summoned a law enforcement officer from a nearby jurisdiction to handle the preliminary investigation.
The community volunteer who showed up a few minutes later was a twenty-three-year-old school crossing guard who seemed just as unsettled as I felt. Her face was ghostly pale, and she looked like she was trembling under her yellow vest. The tender young thing peeked into the sunporch once, then moaned.
When I asked, the young crossing guard allowed me to use the backyard garden hose to clean off the mud—a relief because it was getting mighty itchy, and the stuff in my hair threatened to cake. In that sense, I was lucky. No real police officer would have permitted me to potentially wash away evidence.
I was wet and cold but moderately clean when, fifteen minutes later, the officer from “another jurisdiction” arrived. I spotted the Old Q symbol on the police car and realized the other jurisdiction was Quindicott. A state police crime scene van pulled to the curb right behind my hometown police cruiser, and four officers exited the vehicle.
I was mortified when I realized that Quindicott policeman was Deputy Chief Eddie Franzetti.
“Oh, Jack. He’s going to find out I withheld information from him—”
If he doesn’t know already—
“Eddie is not going to be pleased with me.”
Relax, doll. It doesn’t hurt to have an ally with a badge.
“I’m not sure I have an ally. Not if I’m reading Eddie’s expression right.”
Disappointment was evident on the deputy chief’s face, and something more. Was he angry?
If so, then Eddie already deduced why I was here. He approached me with a plainclothes policeman in tow, his badge swinging from a strap around his neck.
“Look, I know what you’re thinking, Eddie, and I’m sorry—”
He abruptly cut me off. “This is Detective Toland, Pen, from the state police. He’s going to be taking your statement.”
Uh-oh, doll. Looks like you’re right. The kid gloves are off. Your ex-pal Eddie has just thrown you to the staties.
Jack wasn’t wrong, though things didn’t start out too badly.
Detective Toland noticed I was wet and fetched me a blanket from one of the police cars. Then he led me around to the front of the house and sat me down on the steps. He asked me to describe everything that happened, starting with why I was here.
With complete honesty, I explained my motive (to find Norma or speak with her sister). Then I took him through the timeline from the moment I arrived. He stopped me once in a while to clarify some incident—and he would then summon one of the uniformed officers to verify what I told him.
That took over an hour, and when we were finished, he had me write up everything I’d said and sign it.
Jack was quiet through the whole ordeal, probably because I was handling myself pretty well and Detective Toland was friendly and reasonable.
After the interrogation was over, Detective Toland called everyone together for a confab. He didn’t seem to care if I overheard them. The crux of the discussion was that the state police verified everything I’d told them. The dead woman was indeed Dorothy Willard. They found her driver’s license in her purse. She was a renter who’d lived at this address for the past two years, and there were no indications anyone else had been living with her.
They also found the boot prints in the mud and my face print, too. While one state trooper took casts of the boot prints, another tried to find the spent bullets, while a third followed the shooter’s prints to the other side of the woods. There the mud-splattered trail ended at sparsely populated Grant Street, where the shooter presumably got into a car and drove away.
At that point two new men pulled up in a state police SUV.
The first newcomer was stocky, middle-aged, and wore a state police uniform. The other man was leaner, taller, and appeared to be much older. He was dressed in an expensive-looking suit and long black coat. With grim faces, the pair crossed the lawn in quick, aggressive strides and joined the huddle of officers.
The discussion immediately grew more animated. Finally, Detective Toland broke from the group and proclaimed in a loud voice—
“Everything Mrs. McClure told us checks out. I’ve got her statement, so I think we should cut her loose.”
“Not so fast, Detective Toland—” barked the older man in the suit.
The rush of relief I felt evaporated when I faced this imposing stranger. Though he stood with stooped shoulders, he was tall enough to easily loom over me in his long black coat. He had a severely receding hairline, a gravelly voice, and a cantankerous disposition. He was also very unhappy with me—easy enough to deduce since he was glaring down at my head through half-slitted hazel eyes.
The stocky state police officer stepped up to join the older man, but he remained silent and seemingly disinterested, his bloodshot blue gaze aloof.
“This is Captain Rayburn,” the half-bald man told me, loud enough for everyone to hear. “The Captain works out of a specialized unit of the Rhode Island State Detective Bureau. He will be overseeing this investigation as of now.”
Detective Toland frowned at that but said nothing. His uniformed officers remained stoically impassive, too. But Eddie, who was local law enforcement and not under the jurisdiction of the state police, was not intimidated. He stepped forward to stand toe-to-toe with the stooped-shouldered bully, who hung over Eddie like a hovering buzzard.
“Who are you to come in here and take over?” Eddie demanded.
Seemingly astonished by the pushback, the older man’s narrowed eyes opened wide, wrinkling his high forehead all the way up to his half-bald head.
“Who’s asking,” he growled.
Eddie stood tall. “Deputy Chief Edward Franzetti, Quindicott Police Department.”
“You have no jurisdiction here, son, and I do. My name is Max Braydon and I represent Delaware Mutual Insurance, an international institution with a financial interest in this case.”
Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “You’re looking for that stolen necklace, aren’t you?”
“You mean a stolen heirloom worth in excess of three million dollars?” Braydon countered in a cutting tone of contempt. “Of course that’s what I’m looking for.”
“So, why butt in on a small-town murder case?”
“Don’t play the Podunk hayseed with me, Franzetti,” Braydon fired back, practically spitting out the zetti in Eddie’s last name. “We both know the theft of the Tears of Valentino and this murder are directly connected.”
Max Braydon turned his head. The morning sunlight reflected off his bald pate and his beady eyes skewered me once again. “And Mrs. Penelope McClure is connected to this case, too. I have reason to believe she participated in the crime.”
“What?” I cried.
“Don’t play the innocent, Mrs. McClure. You came here for a reason. To speak with this mystery woman, Norma Stanton, correct? Or maybe to collect your share of the take—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I sputtered.
“Or perhaps you planned to blackmail Norma, threaten to give her hiding place away to the police if you weren’t properly rewarded for your silence. Why else would you withhold the name and address of this associate of Norma’s?”
Braydon paused before adding, “The now-deceased associate of Norma’s.”
“That’s enough, Braydon,” Eddie said. “Penelope has been a respected member of our community since she opened her business. She was born and raised in Quindicott. I’ve known her all my life—”
“Which is why you are completely bungling this case. That incompetence ends now.” Max Braydon faced Captain Rayburn’s aloof form. “Have your troopers take Mrs. McClure into custody.”
The captain’s disinterest disappeared, and his bloodshot eyes sharpened. “On what charge?”
Detective Toland finally spoke up. “On no charge, Captain. We’ve investigated the scene and taken her statement. Everything Mrs. McClure told us has been backed up by the physical evidence. I was about to cut her loose.”
I could see Captain Rayburn was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Braydon obviously had heavy political clout—and he was trying to throw that weight around—but the law was the law. And as far as this captain was concerned, the law won.
“Mr. Braydon,” he evenly countered, “we have nothing to arrest Mrs. McClure for. There’s no evidence she had anything to do with this crime or any other.”
Brayden’s cold sneer could have killed. “Then I insist you begin to collect that evidence. If I can’t have the woman, I’ll have her car. I want that vehicle impounded—”
“What?” I cried. “How am I supposed to get home?”
“I don’t care if you walk,” Braydon spat.
“But . . . why?”
“That vehicle must be thoroughly searched,” Braydon replied. “For all I know, you may have already stashed the jewels inside some hidden compartment.”
Max Braydon lowered his voice again.
“Believe me, Mrs. McClure. We’ll find where you’ve hidden them. Even if we have to take that vehicle apart piece by piece.”
After issuing his final threat, Max Braydon brushed past me, callously crushing a cluster of lovingly planted purple blossoms.
With Captain Rayburn in tow, the insurance investigator entered the sunporch and approached the murder scene. The corpse had already been removed. Only a tape outline remained.
The two men stood talking over that grim memorial, their voices too low to be overheard. As I strained to listen anyway, someone touched my arm.
“Come on, Pen,” Eddie said. “I’ll take you home.”