By The Howling Read online

  “Yes, if I’m honest, I guess that’s a good thing to call it. I had a friend . . . the one person who could make me forget the isolation and loneliness of center stage.”

  “Such a friend is a godsend,” Charlotte said, feeling envious, as she had never had such a friend—at least, maybe, not until now. “That friend is gone from you now?”

  “Yes, yes she is. Have you ever heard of Helga Lund, the costume designer?”

  “Helga Lund? Yes, I’ve heard of her in some context. Movies, of course, but there was something . . . else.” Charlotte’s musings ground to a halt as she remembered the something else. “Wasn’t she . . . didn’t she die some months back. A questionable death. Found hanging from a chandelier, wasn’t it?”

  Then Charlotte looked up and saw the sudden devastation in Brenda’s face. Suddenly Brenda was no longer young and effervescent. And it was time for Charlotte to say “I’m sorry” again, something that she was painfully aware that she’d had to say to Brenda too many times already today.

  “Yes, she died. In my . . . in our . . . home. I stayed around until all hope was gone to continue believing that she hadn’t done that to herself. And then the house, Hollywood, all of California—the whole West Coast culture—was too fake, too cloying, too much for me to bear, and I came . . . home.”

  “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have . . .”

  “No, it’s all right, really it is. She died . . . that way. That cannot be erased or denied. I just don’t know why. We’d been so happy. If she took her own life, I cannot understand. . . . And if she didn’t, if someone else took it, I am angry . . . but equally in the dark and powerless. But. . . . Well, that’s that, and so I came home—retreated to Hopewell—to the familiar.”

  “The familiar? But surely there isn’t anything in Hopewell that’s familiar to you anymore—other than most of the buildings and the memories.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised. Hopewell is a small town. Some things never change. And some people stay and some, like me, come back.”

  “There are some long-term residents in the town?” Charlotte asked. This was a revelation to her. “I thought we were all retreads from the city—come there in search of the idyllic waterside life and artistic inspiration—and to escape someplace—something—else.”

  “Well, those needn’t be mutually exclusive,” Brenda answered, her million-dollar smile back in place now. “Some, like Joyce Purcell, came back—and did so because of the pull of the idyllic life you mentioned, and . . .”

  “Joyce Purcell? You don’t mean . . . ?”

  “Ah, yes, I guess you only know her as Joyce Vale. She was Joyce Purcell when we grew up together in Hopewell. That B&B she’s running with her husband is the old Purcell place. She inherited it and she and her husband turned it into that small hotel.”

  “Interesting. But the name Purcell. Susan Purcell, the arts center curator. She isn’t . . . ?”

  “Yes, she’s Joyce’s daughter. But then I assumed you’d sleuthed all of that out already . . . with your background and all. I had no idea you didn’t know.”

  “No I didn’t,” Charlotte said somewhat in amazement. She must have been slipping more than she thought, was what was racing through her mind. Not more than six months off the job and she was missing little details like that.

  “Yes, it was quite a scandal at the time,” Brenda was continuing on. “Susan wasn’t married—and never did marry the father—both of which were the stuff that real scandals were made of in this part of the Eastern Shore at the time. Her father was mayor and ran the only insurance agency around, and they were supposed to be the standard setters. And yet Susan made no bones that she was going to go it alone and be a single mother. And that with the father, one of the school’s new, young school teachers—a scandal in its own right—Grady, living right across town.”

  “Grady? Now you are losing me.”

  “Grady. Grady Tarbell. The baby’s father. Grady’s one who just stayed here—in spite of all of the tongue wagging. So some just stay put and some come back. And . . . why are you looking so perplexed, Charlotte? You didn’t know? But then I guess you wouldn’t know about Grady if you didn’t know about Joyce and Susan either.”

  Charlotte’s head was spinning, and she remembered little of the rest of the conversation, except that they were still chattering amiably when they had been launched out of the tavern door and Brenda was snatching familiar landmarks in Easton from her memory banks and taking Charlotte’s arm comfortably in hers and guiding her to the head of Goldsborough Street for their leisurely prowl down the row of antique shops they found lining that street.

  It was in the third shop they entered that Charlotte discovered that her powers of observation and remembrance hadn’t atrophied as much as she was beginning to think they had.

  “Interested in stamps?” the proprietor asked as he noticed Charlotte closely examining the pages of a stamp album she’d found resting on his counter. She had taken a pad of paper and a pen out of her purse and was taking some notes.

  “Umm mmm,” she murmured as the man hovered over her.

  “Those there are particularly rare. Interwar German stamps. You can see where zeros were added after the stamp was cast—and then more added again. Inflation was so rampant in Europe at the time that prices changed astronomically even before goods could get to market. Not really in keeping with the theme of my store. But I just couldn’t resist acquiring it.”

  “And can you tell me how you acquired it?” Charlotte said, lifting her head and looking at him and trying not to convey the question as being as important as it was.

  “Well, I got it from Stan King over at King’s Antiques. It really wasn’t in keeping with his store at all, and he didn’t fully understand the worth of the stamps. He said he’d gotten it fairly recently—not from someone living in Easton, though.”

  “King’s Antiques?” Charlotte asked. She was looking beyond the window of the shop, trying to locate the other store.

  “Yes, but he’s closed today. Has gone to an auction over near the Delaware shore I think. If you’re interested in the stamps—”

  “I’m more interested in the engraved initials stamped on the cover of the album, I think,” Charlotte said. “That does look like a G and a T to you, doesn’t it?”

  Charlotte was ever delighted and surprised at the serendipitous nature of life. She and Brenda had just been talking about Grady Tarbell at lunch. And here, if Charlotte’s keen sense of detection hadn’t gone awry, very likely was the stamp album that Grady had recently said was missing from the desk in his study.

  * * * *

  As they entered the realm of Hopewell on their return from Easton Charlotte and Brenda, were still bantering back and forth on whether Brenda, who had driven them in her sports car and even argued with Charlotte over the luncheon check, was going to give Charlotte curb delivery at her cottage even though Charlotte lived only steps beyond Brenda, when the argument became moot. There were three police cars and a rescue squad vehicle parked in front of Brenda’s house and a gaggle of townspeople gathered around in a semicircle almost in the center of the street. Brenda parked at the curb by the wooded vacant lot next to her house and they both climbed out of the low-riding convertible with their eyes on the approaching deputy sheriff, David Burch. There was an older, and slightly more heavy set uniformed officer limping along behind him.

  “Hello, Ms. Diamond,” David said respectfully and took off his hat to emphasize his good manners. “And would you be Brenda Brandon?” he asked as his eyes shifted to Brenda.

  “Brenda Boynton. I go by my given name here,” Brenda said, as she put out a hand to welcome him. “What seems to be the problem here, Officer? I hope nothing’s wrong with the house.”

  Charlotte had taken the moment of this introduction to look beyond the two officers at the semicircle of gathered residents. Her antenna for something dreadfully wrong was up, and her quick mind flashed back to this morning when Sam was sitting at
her front door attached to his leash and she hadn’t been able to locate Susan Purcell even at a meeting Susan herself had scheduled.

  The townspeople were in three general clusters, with two outriders, both of who looked quite nervous and reluctant to be there. Jane Cranford and Rachel Sharp were standing near the center of the group and almost on the other side of the street. The town clerk, Mary Miller and her husband, Walt, were standing with Jane and Rachel. Jane looked like she was quaking, and Rachel, stalwart town doctor, had her arms around the slighter woman. The Vales were standing right next to the curb and closest to where Brenda had parked. Joyce was almost in hysterics and Todd was holding her tight, preventing her from plunging into the woods of the vacant lot. Grady Tarbell was the farthest away, nearly beyond Brenda’s house. He looked extremely uncomfortable, and Charlotte’s heart went out to him if this tableau represented what she was afraid it did. He was as isolated and spurned from his daughter’s life now as he ever had been.

  There were a few other village residents in yet another grouping, and Charlotte was surprised at how many were in town on the afternoon of a weekday. It struck her once again how much of a retirement village this was. The pastor of the Episcopal chapel, the only church in town, Don Dunkel, was moving from group to group, doing what pastors always seemed to be doing in these circumstances.

  The greatest surprise was seeing a woman standing across the street and closer to the entry to the town than where Brenda had parked. She was a tall, unusually severe-looking woman in a plain cotton frock and what looked like muddy combat boots. The shock, though, was that Charlotte seemed to recognize her—and although Charlotte didn’t know who she was and didn’t remember seeing her around in town, for some reason the association she surfaced in Charlotte’s mind was not just distasteful—it was evil. Charlotte couldn’t place her, but she had every confidence that at some point the woman would click in her mind—and that Charlotte wouldn’t be pleased when she remembered the connection.

  “Not at the house, Ms. Boynton,” David Burch was saying when Charlotte’s attention returned to the two uniformed men standing in front of her. “This here’s the Talbot County sheriff, Haws Wainwright. Haws, the owner of the house here, Ms. Boynton, . . . and Ms. Charlotte Diamond.”

  The sheriff came around from behind David and shook both women’s hands. “Does this lot belong to you Mrs. Boynton?”

  “Yes, yes it does. It’s been in my family for years,” Brenda answered. “What’s wrong, Sheriff? Has something happened?”

  “I’m afraid so,” The sheriff answered. “This afternoon boaters found a body—that of a young woman—in the marshy shallows by this lot. The medical examiner is in there now.” Then he turned to Charlotte. “Ms. Diamond, would you mind accompanying me into the crime scene?”

  “Charlotte?” Brenda said just as Charlotte was saying “Me?”

  “Yes, please, if you’ll indulge us, we certainly could use your help.”

  “My help?” Charlotte said.

  “Of course. You don’t think, I hope, that the celebrated chief of the criminal investigations division of the FBI’s Maryland office could move into my county without me knowing about it—and not be someone I wouldn’t want to consult, retired or otherwise.”

  Charlotte sighed and gave a pained expression, both of which were belied by the fierce beating of her heart and the ever-familiar excitement of the hunt, dormant for six months, which rose inside her.

  The sheriff and David turned and walked along the curb toward where there was a path into the wooded lot at the corner of Brenda’s yard. Charlotte followed him, and Brenda moved in that direction behind them as well.

  As they passed the Vale’s, Joyce reached out with her hand and clutched at Charlotte’s arm, and cried out, “It’s Susan, isn’t it. I knew it.”

  Hearing this cry, Jane started wailing from across the street, “It’s her, I knew it. I didn’t . . . I didn’t. I know I said I’d taken care of her—but I just meant I’d complained about her to the arts council that sent her here.”

  David Burch broke off and headed for Jane, no doubt speculating that a confession of some sort might be in the offing, and Charlotte might have followed except for the clutching hand on her arm.

  “Again. Just like before,” Joyce growled. She looked like a crazy woman.

  “What do you mean ‘like before?’” Charlotte asked, trying to use as soothing a voice as she could.

  “Ask her,” Joyce spat out, casting her eyes beyond Charlotte’s shoulder. “Ask Brenda. She returns and it happens again.”

  Charlotte turned to Brenda, who had tears in her eyes.

  “My mother,” Brenda said. “She died there, at the water’s edge. When I was in high school. That’s why we didn’t develop the lot. That’s why I left here as soon after high school as I could and only now came back. And they never found out how it happened.”

  Charlotte turned and embraced Brenda, but Rachel was there now, having left Jane to David and moved up to talk in guarded tones with Sheriff Wainwright a bit off to the side.

  “Here, Charlotte,” Rachel said gently. “I’ll see to Joyce. The sheriff is waiting for you.”

  Charlotte’s eyes darted this way and that as she entered the woods, already back in the investigator mode, already keen to find anything amiss, anything that would help solve this conundrum.

  She didn’t see anything of interest as they approached the river’s edge, but then she saw enough to pique her interest and get her adrenaline going in high gear.

  Crouching over the body as the medical examiner pulled the sheet from the dead woman’s face, Charlotte looked up at the sheriff and said, “This isn’t who everyone back on the street thinks it is. This isn’t Susan Purcell?”

  “Interesting,” the sheriff said. “Do you have any idea who it is?”

  “No,” Charlotte answered. “It’s no one who lives here, I’m pretty sure. But I have seen this woman before. She was sitting out in a car on the street yesterday. It occurred to me at the time that she was engaging in surveillance. But beyond that I have no idea. That was the only other time I saw her, and when I returned from the meeting I was going to—when I thought I’d talk to her—she was gone.”

  “Can you describe the car?”

  “Yes, certainly. I can even give you a partial on the license plate.”

  “Ah, old habits,” the sheriff said. But he didn’t say it to criticize. He said it almost in awe, having the greatest deal of respect for the reputation of this woman.

  Charlotte barely heard him, though. She was thinking back to her statement that this wasn’t the woman everyone out on the street expected it to be. She knew it was quite possible that she had misspoken. She knew that it was highly likely that at least one person standing out there on River Street knew exactly who this young woman was.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte. If you’ve come to see Joyce, I’m afraid you are out of luck. I’ve just now gotten her to sleep. The sedative Rachel provided took quite some time to set in. Finding out that the murdered woman wasn’t Susan was a shock in itself. There’s still Susan. She’s still missing. So, thanks for dropping by, but—”

  “I’m sure you can help me as well as Joyce could, Todd,” Charlotte said coolly, “and I believe you are aware that I’m not operating in a neighborly capacity any more—that I’ve been officially attached to this case now.”

  “Yes, we weren’t aware that we had such a famous detective among us.” Todd said it somewhat sourly, which was an attitude that had Todd written all over it, so Charlotte didn’t mince words in responding.

  “Nor did you or Joyce bother to tell me that Susan was Joyce’s daughter despite all of us living on the same street. And that would bring me here as much as official duty. Susan’s disappearance drops some neighborhood responsibility in my lap. I’ve been left with the Wells’ dog, which Susan is supposed to be taking care of, parked on my lawn—or, rather on my screened porch, because I h
ave the sense of community responsibility to not leave it running free—as Joyce’s daughter did. Now, since I am here on police business, perhaps you will invite me inside so we aren’t discussing all of this in public. I can see curtains pulled aside in windows all up and down the street.”

  “I suppose. Yes, do come on in,” Todd said reluctantly, cowed by Charlotte’s majestic presence and bearing if by nothing else. He stood aside, and Charlotte sailed into the parlor and made sure that she lowered her bulk into the most substantial chair therein.

  “I have a couple of questions you could help me with, actually,” Charlotte opened with. “First, since Joyce is Susan’s mother, it would save me time and effort to receive permission to enter the Wells’ house to see if anything there would help us find her. There’s no reason to think her disappearance and the body found on the lot across the street are linked—but without evidence to the contrary there’s no reason not to link them, either. I could contact the Wellses for permission, but I would have to track them down in Turkey.”

  Todd hesitated, and Charlotte wondered why. It occurred to her for the first time, which she would return to in her thoughts, that there might be some reason why Joyce and Todd weren’t quick to permit someone to look into Susan’s affairs—something that might even explain why Joyce had never mentioned that Susan was her daughter. She decided to zing him.

  “What if Susan is in the house? What if she has fallen and needs help? Have you or Joyce gone there to make sure that’s not the case?”

  “Oh, no. We didn’t even think of that possibility.” Todd was all flustered now, and Charlotte’s trained eye told her that his reaction was genuine. She had actually played her fears of what might be the case down. The Wells house wasn’t large and Charlotte had been all around it on the previous day, giving every opportunity for Susan to call out if she was in there and conscious—and she hadn’t seen anything amiss through the ground-floor windows. Although Charlotte considered the possibility that she was in there, her years of training told her that what was to be found might be much more grisly than a fall down the stairs.