By The Howling Read online

  “Yes I gathered as much,” Charlotte answered, “Both that you wanted to talk and that, at the same time, it was troubling to you to talk. You were reticent the whole drive from Hopewell. I didn’t for a minute think your mind was on what you were saying. Listen, Brenda, you—”

  “I feel I need to tell you about my mother’s—”

  They were talking on top of each other, and both stopped, both with a nervous laugh, in midsentence.

  “If you want to tell me anything, that would be fine,” Charlotte said. “But you don’t have to, you know.”

  “But you’d advise that I not leave town. Isn’t that right?” Brenda said. She was showing a half smile, and Charlotte realized that she melted to that just as much as she did to Brenda’s full smile.

  “Yes, I guess that’s right. It wouldn’t look too good if—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll stay put,” Brenda said. “But I want you to know . . . I want you to believe that I had nothing—”

  “I don’t believe you did, Brenda. Rest assured. I don’t believe that of you. And that’s not just my emotions speaking—it’s my instincts. And my instincts supported me well for over thirty years, so—”

  “Thank you. Thank you for that,” Brenda said. And the way she said it told Charlotte how heartfelt that was. “That means a lot to me. More than I can say. But I do want to tell you about it.”

  Charlotte and Brenda broke off and nervously dabbed at their napkins as they were served by a young woman whose eyes were big and glued to Brenda.

  Another fan, Charlotte thought. Then, without hesitation, she added in her thoughts: other than me. And it was then that she was sure, that she knew that she wanted Brenda for more than just a casual friend.

  “There was some suspicion of me at the time,” Brenda was beginning. “But then there was enough suspicion to go around. My father bundled me right off to California—to college and then acting school. He’d seen the potential in my acting career from the beginning. My mother never had. In fact, she wasn’t supportive of much of anything that either my father or I wanted to do. And Hopewell was a small town, even then. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. And my father moved to New York at the same time. That’s when the house was closed up—always maintained well, but closed to the world. Just as both I and my father became. Closed to the world and even, then, to each other. More than my mother died that summer after my senior year.”

  “You don’t have to—” Charlotte said.

  “I want to. I’ve begun now, and I want to finish. And I don’t want to sugarcoat it. I became as hateful to my mother in that last year as she’d always been to me—and to anyone else whose path she crossed. I wondered at the time why my father married her. He came from a wealthy family and she had been a waitress from a broken home. I only learned later that he married her because I was coming along—and I don’t even think he every really believed that I was his. But that’s more to his credit, because he always was loving and kind to me—and attentive, at least up until the moment that glimmer of suspicion was attached to me.”

  “But surely just not getting along . . . surely that wasn’t enough to—”

  “Oh, there was more. And everyone in the village knew about it.”

  The young woman showed up to ask the two if they wanted a refill of their tea or more cookies or more anything at all—and were they finding everything to Their liking? Brenda raised her head and gave the woman a brilliant smile and a thank you, and the young woman floated away on cloud nine.

  Charlotte wondered, though, if the waitress had seen the tears in Brenda’s eyes that she had seen. Probably not, Charlotte thought. They probably hadn’t been visible through the stars in her own eyes. From what little the waitress had said to Brenda and Charlotte, it was obvious that she aspired to be an actress too and now had a dream to carry her through many an audition.

  “Go on,” Charlotte said, realizing now that the story was too far along for Brenda not to complete it.

  “I palled around with a pretty wild bunch at the time,” Brenda said. “The village is dominated by retirees now, but then there were several young people, mostly my age, living up and down River Street. And, like any small clique of young people, we thought we owned the world and were reckless in exercising that ownership.”

  “Joyce and Grady?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yes. Joyce was the only one—at least that I knew of—who was caught by it. But there was a group of us girls, including Joyce and me, who were inseparable—and trading off on the few boys who were around . . . and, and on each other.”

  “Yes?” Charlotte interjected. “But what does that—?”

  “What does that have to do with my mother being murdered at the same spot as that young woman’s body was found the other day?” It apparently was a rhetorical question, because Brenda drove on. “That was our favorite spot. Our club meeting place. Where we went to smoke our cigarettes and drink our beer and, eventually, to become intimate with each other. And my mother found out about it, and she descended on us like a bat out of hell one evening—she rousted us all out and proceeded to troupe around town and report what she found to the parents of anyone she could identify there. Of course the parents were embarrassed and not all that thankful. But the teens she’d caught—they all hated her for it. And not one of them hated her more than I did. And then she was killed, three nights later. In the same spot.”

  “So there were suspects enough to go around,” Charlotte said.

  “Yes, but a few of us—including me—couldn’t produce good alibis, and, of course, the greatest suspicion fell on me as the one who was the most abused and had the most to gain by her death. And my sudden departure for the West Coast after that probably didn’t help. Regardless, they never did arrest anyone for the death. It wasn’t as if anyone in the town missed my mother—and it wasn’t long after that before they all had something else to gossip about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, tongues were wagging a different tune when Joyce almost proudly announced that she was pregnant by Grady, who wasn’t one of us. He was a new teacher at the school.”

  “Proudly?” Charlotte prompted.

  “Yes, most of the girls wanted him. And, apparently, some of the girls got him. Not just Joyce. Rachel and Jane were after him too.”

  Charlotte sat up straight in her chair. “Rachel and Jane. Our Rachel and Jane? Rachel Sharp and Jane Cranford? They lived here then?”

  “Yes the same. They both lived here then—went to school with me, as Joyce did. Jane’s been here forever—or at least I think she went to New York but didn’t stay long—but Rachel left the same time I did and, I believe, has only come back on and off. She went to Michigan I think. I’m not surprised she became a doctor. She was always the smart, determined one of us. But she was head over heels for Grady too. She and Joyce fought tooth and nail over him. And then when Joyce got him, the game was over for her. He, of course, had to leave town. He went up to Washington College in Chestertown and stayed on and taught there after he graduated. I was surprised to find he’d moved back here at some point. I rather think he sees that period now as the high point of his life—when there were those who paid attention to him and wanted him.”

  Charlotte was trying to listen to Brenda, but her mind was racing on having discovered more of the current residents who grew up here.

  “Edith Smith,” she blurted out. “The woman who lives on the Clagett farm at the edge of the village. Was she here then too?”

  Brenda contemplated the question, but after a moment she shook her head and said, “The name doesn’t ring a bell. I knew the Clagetts, of course, and there may have been one of them named Edith. But there were so many of them. And young girls? No, I think most of the Clagett children were boys—and they were considered bumptious. They weren’t ones who ran with our crowd. Although, wait. I think Kevin might have been a Clagett. He was one of the boys in our group. But I’m rambling now. Is this important?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t know. It’s more a tick at the back of my brain that won’t let me alone,” Charlotte said. “But it’s a revelation to me—like a slow-moving train—to find who was here at that time. Any other townspeople here now who were here then?”

  “There’s Bonny Levitt, of course. She seemed old then too, but she’s in a wheelchair now. And Jason Williams, of course, out at the garage. But others my age? No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, if you’ll indulge me, could you write out a list of anyone you knew here from before?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “And, needless to say, sooner than later, if you will.”

  “Yes, yes. I’m happy to do anything you might think will be helpful. But . . .” and here she paused long enough for Charlotte to give her her undivided attention, “ . . . but I’m surprised you didn’t ask me why I didn’t have an alibi to give for the evening my mother died.”

  “You don’t have to—” Charlotte felt this was important—that she was at the moment of truth with Brenda. And it was suddenly important to her that she not blow this. She could either be an investigator or she could go completely on trust.

  “I didn’t have an alibi I wanted to give, because I was with someone that night . . . one of the girls. And it just wasn’t something . . .”

  Charlotte let it end there. It might have made a difference if she had asked. But then again it might not have. And at that moment she believed that if she had made Brenda reveal who she’d been with, whatever was blossoming between her and Brenda would die in the bud.

  * * * *

  It seemed like it was déjà vu all over again when Brenda drove her sports car down River Street as she and Charlotte returned from Easton that afternoon, to find the whole town was out on the street again in front of Brenda’s house.

  But this time they were turned toward the Vales’ B&B. Charlotte took one look at the tableau on the ground between the B&B and the side of Rachel’s house and rang 911 on her cell phone with a “damn, I should have foreseen this” comment.

  “Can you leave me here and go on to my house and let Sam off the screened porch? He’s long overdue for a walk and it looks like I need to be here,” Charlotte asked Brenda. “Oh, and there’s a camera on the table by one of the chairs on the screened porch. Can you bring that back and get good facial shots of as many of the people here as possible—especially that woman standing apart over there.” The request could quite understandably be the occasion for follow-up questions, but Brenda didn’t hesitate to fall into the plan and was off again as soon as Charlotte had hauled her bulk out of the low-lying seat of the convertible.

  Charlotte was heartened by the groans she heard emanating from Todd’s lips as she reach the base of the house, stepping over a ladder on the ground to get to him. He was alive, and it didn’t look like the damage was permanent, although one could never tell just from looking at the victim of a fall that there was nothing nasty going on inside.

  “What happened?”

  “He was all the way up the roof, cleaning out the gutters, apparently,” Rachel answered. “I heard the cry and came right out.” She was already kneeling beside Todd, feeling for broken bones, and ministering to him.

  Charlotte looked around her as she knelt. They were all here—including Edith Smith, who, Charlotte thought, must have her antenna up for any sign of trouble or tragedy.

  “Could a couple of you guys go for a stretcher?” Rachel was saying. “You’ll find one in my garage. Let’s get him into my clinic.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rachel,” Charlotte said. “I think he shouldn’t be moved.”

  “It will be fine. I need to get him to where—”

  “I called the rescue squad,” Charlotte said. “I really think we need to wait for them. I hear the sirens now.”

  Rachel looked perturbed, but she didn’t argue further. She did open her mouth to say something, but then the attention of all of them were arrested by the other, blaring, unexpected sound, ringing out over the approach siren of the rescue squad vehicle.

  Brenda had walked Sam back up the street, wanting to know what was happening. As they approached, Sam tugged on the leash and waded into the congregated group of townspeople fanned out around the figure of Todd on the ground. Joyce was cradling his head in his lap and Charlotte and Rachel were hunched over him while a trembling and crying Jane leaned over Joyce’s head. Grady and another man were half way to the garage where Rachel had sent them for a stretcher. Amid all this activity Sam settled down on his haunches and began a god-awful howling to the sky.

  The sound sent chills up Charlotte’s spine and flipped her thoughts back to just a couple of days previously, when the same howl woke her in the darkest hour of the night.

  Chapter Nine

  Charlotte was sitting at the Sheraton table, polished to the highest of sheen, and letting her eyes follow the patterns on the chinoiserie wallpaper and in the massive oriental carpet underfoot, savoring a cup of perfect coffee, and listening to the contented soft snore of the husky covering the fronts of her bare feet with his forepaws when the ringing started. It was a hollow, faraway sound, but she recognized that the ring tone was hers, and her brain started skipping ahead, halfway knowing that it wasn’t a social call—and probably not good news.

  “Your purse is ringing,” Brenda said as she entered her dining room, holding the leather pouch emitting the offending sound out at arm’s length.

  Charlotte smiled up at her, finding Brenda even more beautiful in a robe and slippers than ever before.

  “Thanks. The coffee’s super,” she said, as she reached for the purse.

  “Wait until you taste my pecan waffles,” Brenda countered with as she handed the purse over and then moved through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  Charlotte struggled with digging the cell phone out of her purse, but whoever was calling was both patient and persistent, so it was Charlotte’s index finger that deadened the tone.

  “Is that you, Ms. Diamond?” the male voice boomed off the signal towers. “I’ve tried calling your home, but you didn’t pick up.”

  “Yes, it’s me, David,” she answered the Talbot County deputy sheriff. “It’s much too nice a day to be indoors.”

  Brenda poked her head back into the dining room from the kitchen and gave Charlotte a wink. The two women smiled at the little deception that was not exactly a lie—it indeed looked like it would be a wonderful day to be outside.

  “What has or is transpiring?” Charlotte asked. She figured that David must have something important to report if he was calling her at eight in the morning.

  “Good news and bad news,” he answered. “We’ve found Susan Purcell. The bad news is that she’s dead.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Charlotte answered. “Particulars?”

  “Last evening we triangulated reports on sightings of Pamela Smith’s blue sedan and found a neighborhood where several residents said they saw such a car parked on the street several days running. It’s an area with short-term boarding houses at the edge of Easton. A door-to-door homed us in on where she’s been staying. But when we got there, we found her dead. Bludgeoned.”

  “Oh, dear. I half expected that she was hiding from the murderer rather than being the murderer—and that it was a race to find her. I’m getting rusty, I’m afraid. I’ve moved too slowly.”

  “Well, you are miles ahead of me. How do you figure that she was on the lam from the murderer—and why?”

  “Logic,” Charlotte answered. “Sam, the Wells’ husky, pointed to the answer.”

  “Oh, how so?”

  “It was his leash. The only logical reason for him to have been on a leash was that Susan was walking him the night of the murder. I must have gotten through to her on letting him run free. And if she was walking the dog and her house looked like she wasn’t planning on abandoning it anytime soon, and then she was missing and driving the victim’s car, it didn’t seem that she went out to murder someone. O
n the basis of the combined information, I had to look at other probabilities. Pamela Smith outweighed Susan, significantly, and I don’t see Susan as able to swing something heavy enough to do the damage I saw to the victim’s skull. Also, Susan was a bad girl, but her MO was theft, not murder. And she didn’t go far away; she came back the next night and stole the paintings. It just didn’t add up that she was responsible for the dead body. I think it more likely that she saw the killing, let loose of Sam in her surprise and shock, and then left the scene as quickly and conveniently as she could—in Pamela Smith’s car.”

  “That’s it? That makes you sure she’s not the murderess.”

  “Well, I’d never say I was positive about anything that didn’t have a believable confession backing it up. But there is one other little thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I called GML Headquarters—the insurance company Pamela Smith works at.”

  “We’ve been trying to get a response out of them since yesterday,” David said, not without discernible consternation. “How did you—?”

  “I had contacts there from my FBI days—close to the top. They were quite cooperative. Pamela Smith was, indeed, on assignment. But she wasn’t working an art fraud case—which is what would most likely apply if Susan was her target. She was working life insurance fraud. Susan’s parents are both alive and there is no record she ever was married. No one, really, to insure but herself. I think we’re looking for an entirely different motive here. They mentioned something about a black widow operation. I’ve asked them to send a copy of the file to you at the sheriff’s office, and they should have faxed it there by now.”

  “Oh,” David responded. “Then this is more complicated than I thought.”

  “And there’s something worse than that, David.”