Spackled and Spooked

7

My adopted hometown has two newspapers. There’s the Waterfield Clarion, established in 1915, and the Waterfield Weekly, established in 1912. Because it’s a weekly, the latter isn’t quite as timely when it comes to reporting hard news as the Clarion, but it does a much better job with human interest stories, like reports of the Garden Tour and the school bake sale. The offices of both papers are located on Main Street, each in its own turn-of-the-last-century Victorian commercial building. I started at the Clarion, and if I couldn’t find what I was looking for there, I figured I’d cross the street and try the Weekly instead.

OK, so I know it seems a little odd that I’d shoot off so quickly, leaving Derek to handle the mess back at Becklea, but it’s not like there was anything I could do there, you know. I don’t know anything about working a crime scene, and Wayne wouldn’t let me help even if I did. And I had absolutely no desire to get any more intimately involved with the skeleton than I had been already.

But there was just a chance that I might be able to discover something in one of the papers. If I could put a name to the skeleton, or at least come up with a missing person or two during the time when Brian Murphy had been in residence, maybe that would help…

Derek had showed me how to operate the microfiche machine last time we were here, and it didn’t take me long to get what I needed from the archivist, who remembered me from last time. Derek has a way with middle-aged women, from spinsters to happily married matrons. They all adore him, and I always feel like they’re looking at me askance, trying to determine whether I’m good enough for him. I had that feeling now, as the plump sixty-something behind the counter handed me the boxes for the late ’80s and early ’90s and gave me a thorough once-over.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling my most winning smile.

She nodded but didn’t smile back. “How is Derek?”

“He’s fine. Busy. We’re renovating another house.”

She nodded. “I heard he bought the old Murphy place. That what you’re looking for?”

She glanced at the boxes I was holding. I hesitated, and she added, “Because the tragedy took place here.” She tapped her finger on a box halfway down the stack. “You won’t need the others.” She leaned back on the chair and folded her plump arms across her plump chest.

“I’m going to read about the… um… tragedy,” I admitted, since I was, “but I’m also looking for anything else I can find. Just out of curiosity, you know.”

She didn’t look convinced, and I couldn’t blame her. But since I couldn’t very well tell her about the ulna and the fact that the Waterfield PD was currently digging up the Murphy house crawlspace, I excused myself with another bright smile and scurried off to the microfiche machine, where I muddled my way through the process of getting everything set up.

I knew exactly when the Murphy murders had taken place, so those stories weren’t difficult to find. They matched Derek’s account in pretty much every particular, with very little additional information. The police had been notified in the early hours of the morning, when one of the neighbors called to report a domestic disturbance and shots fired at the Murphy house on Becklea Drive. According to the newspaper article, five-year-old Patrick Murphy had been woken from sound sleep by a “bang,” and when he stuck his head out into the hallway, he had seen his father, gun in hand, move from the master bedroom to the room where Patrick’s grandparents, Margaret and John Duncan, slept. Patrick, being more astute than the usual little boy, had made for the outside door and had run down the street to his friend Lionel’s house, where Lionel’s father had called the police. Upon arrival, the Waterfield PD had found all the inhabitants of the Murphy household (with the exception of Patrick) dead: Peggy and her parents in their beds, and Brian on the floor in Patrick’s room. Police Chief Roger Tucker had gone on record to say that the police were treating the case as a homicide and suicide, and that there was no doubt whatsoever that Brian Murphy had killed his wife and his in-laws, and that he had then gone to his son’s room to finish the job. The police found several bullets in the boy’s bed but were unable to say for sure whether Brian thought he had actually succeeded in killing Patrick, or had realized, too late, that the child was gone. In either case, he had ended his short reign of terror by shooting himself.

A follow-up story, a day or two later, quoted a couple of neighbors and friends of the family as saying that Brian had been increasingly sullen and difficult to deal with over the last few months. There had been problems at work-he had been a forklift operator at a nearby warehouse-and management had had to give him several warnings about his temper and about his increasing tardiness. He had taken to hanging out at a local bar late into the nights, and it must have made it difficult for him to punch in by six in the morning. Once he had turned up at his wife’s place of employment and caused trouble. Mr. Nickerson, her boss, didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but he had gotten the impression that Mr. Murphy was, not to put too fine a point on it, stinking drunk. And at four o’clock in the afternoon, too. Brian had removed his wife, bodily, from the premises, but the next morning, when Peggy Murphy came back to work, she had claimed that everything was fine, and having no choice but to believe her, Mr. Nickerson had taken her word for it.

So much for that part of it. I started scanning the microfiche for missing persons.

In any town of any size, people disappear once in a while. It was just a few months ago, as a matter of fact, that Professor Martin Wentworth from Barnham College had gone missing. He had been acquainted with my late Aunt Inga, and at the time, while we were trying to figure out what had happened to him, Wayne had explained to me that it’s extremely difficult for someone to just disappear without a trace. Someone usually knows something, whether it’s the missing person himself, if he left under his own steam, or it’s whoever did away with him, if he didn’t. In most cases and both scenarios, the missing person shows up sooner or later, either alive or dead.

I had requested the microfiche for a couple of years before the Murphy murders, just in case Brian Murphy had buried someone under his house, and also for the time around two years ago, when Venetia Rudolph said there had been squatters in the crawlspace. The idea that the body might belong to one of the squatters made a certain amount of sense. It would explain why they cleared out suddenly, too. Does a body buried in the ground smell? I wondered. Nah, probably not. If buried bodies smelled, then nobody would ever visit churchyards.

The thought inspired a pang of guilt, and I promised myself I’d go visit my Aunt Inga’s grave again shortly. It had been a few weeks since I’d been there, and the flowers I’d put out had probably died long since. Pushing the thought aside for more pressing, or at least more immediate matters, I went back to microfiche scanning.

Nobody seemed to have gone missing during the time the Murphys had lived on Becklea, and there was no mention of any missing persons two years ago, either. I scanned the pages for any information about the squatters, but couldn’t find any. I’d have to ask Venetia again, to see if she knew anything more about them. I didn’t even know if they were old or young, runaway kids or professional hobos. Waterfield didn’t seem to have a large homeless population, so maybe it had just been someone passing through on their way to or from Canada, maybe. Illegal aliens or something.

Since it was still early, and the Waterfield Weekly was located just across the street, I dropped in there, as well, and went through the same process of requesting microfiche and access to the machine. The Waterfield Weekly, being a weekly, could squeeze more issues of their newspaper into a microfiche box than the Clarion could, and the woman behind the counter gave me several boxes that covered several years each. I popped one in the machine and started scanning idly.

I wish I could say that I found a marvelous clue that explained everything, but no such luck, I’m afraid. I came across a few photographs of members of the Murphy family taken at various times, though. There was one of Peggy, taken around Christmas, outside her place of employment on Main Street. Apparently the town did a Dickens Christmas celebration every year, during which the shopkeepers and business owners dressed in period costume and handed out grog, hot chocolate, and toddy, along with Christmas cookies. Peggy was kitted out in a long dress and velvet bonnet, and her cheeks glowed with cold. She looked familiar somehow, although it was difficult to see her face clearly under the bonnet. As part of the same article, I also saw a picture of Dr. Ben in frock coat with tails, and bushy sideburns he must have grown especially for the occasion. I printed it out, just so I could show it to Derek, although he’d probably seen it before, come to think of it.

I could find no pictures of little Patrick Murphy, although his father made it into print in an article about St. Patrick’s Day. Apparently there were a fair few descendants of Irish immigrants in the Pine Tree State; enough to enable a Maine Irish Heritage Society, which put on a big shindig in Portland every year, with a St. Patrick’s Day parade and everything. Brian was redheaded and freckled, with a green wool newsboy cap on his head. He didn’t look unhappy or particularly homicidal in the picture, but then it was a special occasion, so maybe he’d put on a happy face for the camera. He was hoisting a tankard of beer, anyway, seated at a table in the Shamrock, celebrating.

Shortly after that, I came across an article about the Waterfield High School prom for the year the Murphys died, and I squinted at the pictures of smiling girls in poufy dresses and boys with fluffy hair. A familiar face caught my eye, and I leaned closer, giggling, at the sight of a tragically hip seventeen-year-old Derek in an ill-fitting tuxedo, side by side with a plump girl with big hair and a strapless dress with an enormous ruffle around the hips. I printed it, too, looking forward to sharing it with him.

Like the Clarion, the Weekly had no information about any missing runaways or hobos during the time frame that Venetia had mentioned. But since I’d gotten into looking at prom photos, I looked for the articles about prom two years ago and was gratified to see a picture of Josh and Paige, and one of Shannon with some good-looking boy I’d never met. She looked like a Hollywood starlet in a white, clingy gown, with that dark red hair falling over her bare shoulders, while Paige looked small and waiflike next to the tall Josh. The top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder.

The year before yielded no one of interest, but since the Weekly microfiche boxes covered more time than the Clarion boxes, I had prom pictures for four years ago, as well, and was gratified to see both Brandon Thomas and Lionel Kenefick among the featured faces. Brandon was handsome in a well-fitting tuxedo, with his arm around an absolutely gorgeous brunette in a low-cut, green dress, shiny and clingy like fish scales. Lionel’s tuxedo was less well fitting, and the bow tie rather emphasized his prominent Adam’s apple. His date wasn’t anything special, either: a slightly plump blonde in a too-voluminous pink dress. Her name was Candy Millikin, and her face was vaguely familiar as well, but I couldn’t place her. According to the caption, Brandon ’s date was Holly White.

I looked at Holly again. She was the girl Brandon had talked about earlier, who had moved to Las Vegas to become a showgirl. Or Hollywood to be an actress. The one he had gone to our house on Becklea with.

I didn’t know that I could blame him. Even in the grainy newsprint photograph, she had the kind of beauty that jumps off the page and hits you between the eyes. Las Vegas was lucky to have her. Or Hollywood.

By the time I got back to Becklea with the four pizzas I’d picked up from Guido’s on the way, the excavation was well underway, and a small crowd had gathered outside Brandon ’s yellow crime scene tape. As the chief of police had predicted, Josh Rasmussen was there, along with Shannon, Paige, and Ricky Swanson. The latter peered furtively out through his curtains of brown hair, just like Venetia Rudolph’s lined face peered out through her lace curtained window next door. Meanwhile, Paige looked solemn and Shannon perky and interested. The small group was standing off to the side while Josh argued with his father.

“… invited me,” he insisted. “To help with the fix-up.”

“M-hm.” Wayne nodded, not even bothering to sound like he believed it. “You’re here to help Derek renovate. Sure.”

“He did offer,” I said over my shoulder, hauling pizza boxes off the front seat of the truck. “Two days ago. Derek said Josh could come, as long he could be useful.”

“And I wield a mean hammer,” Josh said, with a grin. Seeing his chance and seizing it, he moved to relieve me of the pizza boxes. “Let me get those for you, Avery.”

“Fine.” Wayne knew when he was outfoxed and outnumbered. “You can come in and see the house. And have some pizza. But don’t get any ideas about going down into the crawlspace to see what’s going on. And until we’re finished down there, no more work gets done on the house, either.”

“No more work?” I repeated as I followed Josh and the pizza toward the house. Behind me, Shannon lifted the yellow crime scene tape so Paige and Ricky could duck under and into the yard. “For how long?”

“It’ll just be for a day or two,” Wayne explained. “We have to make sure there’s nothing else down there. And we should probably have a look at the house, too, while we’re at it.”

“I don’t think you’re going to find anything in the house,” I said apologetically. “Not unless you look in the Dumpster. We tore out the carpets and the wallpaper the other day, as well as the kitchen and bathroom floor vinyl. The appliances are gone, and all the cabinets and closets are empty. Even the attic. We found a couple of boxes of old papers and books up there that belonged to Peggy Murphy and her little boy, but that’s all. They’re in the master bedroom, if you want to have a look.”

Behind me, Ricky stumbled over the first step of the stairs, and Wayne put out a hand to steady him. The poor kid probably couldn’t see where he was going through all the hair.

Wayne continued our conversation without missing a beat. “I realize it probably won’t be worth the trouble, Avery, but we’re the police; it’s what we do.”

“I suppose.” I opened the door and gestured the rest of them into the house. Josh headed straight for the kitchen counter with the pizza boxes, while Ricky and the two girls stopped in the middle of the living room and looked around.

“Nice place,” Shannon said after a moment. I nodded.

“It will be, once Derek gets finished with it. Nothing like your mom’s B and B,” or Aunt Inga’s house, “but very retro hip. I’ve been looking at some really cool mod light fixtures with colored glass for the living room and dining room. And in this bathroom down here,” I headed for the hallway toward the bedrooms with Shannon and Paige on my heels; Ricky was already in front of us, looking around as he went, “I’m going to incorporate some Mary Quant daisies and maybe some kind of funky sink and sink base. A chest of drawers or an old-fashioned vanity or something, with a freestanding sink on top. Something bright. I’m seeing pink, but that’s probably too much, you know? So I’m thinking maybe yellow or green. Something less girly but still bright and cheerful.”

I led the way to the bathroom, which looked anything but bright and cheerful at the moment. Farther down the hall, Ricky turned into the master bedroom where the second bath was. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with the tiled brown and navy shower down there yet. The tile work was pristine, so I couldn’t see myself ripping it out, any more than I could see Derek letting me; I’d probably just have to find a way to make the brown and navy work.

Beneath us, in the crawlspace, I could hear muted conversation, and then Wayne ’s voice, calling Brandon and Derek upstairs for pizza. It sounded surprisingly domestic. The activity downstairs ceased, and a moment later, several sets of steps came up the stairs to the back door. Shannon, Paige, and I left the bathroom and headed for the kitchen, where Josh had already dug into the top box and was halfway through his second slice of pizza.

Now, if it had been me downstairs, digging up bones and scraps of hair and clothing, I wouldn’t have had much appetite. In fact, the idea that such digging was going on, even if I hadn’t been a part of it, was enough to put me off my feed. I found myself nibbling daintily on a piece of crust while I watched the others tuck in.

Derek and Brandon seemed to have no adverse reaction to what they’d been doing. If anything, the digging had built up their appetites.

“So what’s the news?” Josh wanted to know as soon as Brandon had polished off a piece of pie and was reaching for another slice. “What have you found?”

Brandon rattled off, “Scapula, humerus, radius, five metacarpals, fourteen phalanges, a handful of carpal bones…”

“Sounds like you’ve found rather a lot of bones.”

Derek shook his head. “Not really. The human hand has twenty-six bones in it. Brandon has uncovered the bones in one hand and an arm, up to the shoulder. And he has just started finding leg bones. A femur-that’s the thigh bone-and a tibia and fibula.”

I nodded.

“No head?” Wayne asked.

Brandon shook his own.

“Did you look? Or is it missing?”

I put my crust down. A headless skeleton? Worse and worse.

“I’m sure it’s there,” Derek said reassuringly. “When Brandon got to the shoulder, he decided to go in the other direction. And leave the head for last.”

“As long as we get it out today.” Wayne bit into a piece of pepperoni pizza. Tomato sauce oozed unpleasantly. “The dental records are our best shot at getting an identification. Unless some benevolent higher power has seen fit to gift us with a wallet or a wedding ring with an inscription or something like that?”

He didn’t sound optimistic, nor did he look surprised when Brandon shook his head. “Sorry, boss. Not yet, anyway.”

“Of course not,” Wayne said. “That would have been too easy.”

Derek picked up another piece of pizza. “Don’t worry,” he said to Wayne between bites, “you’ll figure out who she is.”

“She?” Wayne glanced over at Brandon, who rolled his eyes.

“Dr. Ellis here thinks we’re looking at a female.”

“Really?” Wayne looked at him.

Derek nodded. “I can’t say for sure until I see the pelvis-the hip cradle is a dead giveaway-but it’s either a woman or a very young man. The bones are less heavy than you’d find in a full-grown male skeleton, and they also look shorter. Judging from the length of the femur, the tibia, and fibula, you’re looking at someone who was well under six feet in height. Because some people are long-waisted and short-legged, while others are the opposite, it’s hard to determine without the entire skeleton, but from what you’ve got right now, I’d say you’re looking at a person who was somewhere around five and a half feet tall at the time of death.” He bit into the pizza again.

“Interesting,” Wayne said. He pulled out his trusty notebook and pencil and made a notation.

Derek swallowed and added, “Also someone youngish. The bones are brittle now, but there’s no evidence of any arthritis or other bone disease prior to death. Also no fractures in what we’ve found so far.”

“So a young and healthy person, possibly a female, approximately five and a half feet tall. It’s not much, but it’s something. Anything else?”

Derek indicated Brandon, who cleared his throat. “We found a couple of little metal thingamajigs-grommets or something-that we think may have come from a pair of jeans.”

“Thingamajigs,” Wayne repeated, straight-faced, his pencil poised. “That’s the technical term, is it? Not much help there, I’m afraid. Everybody in the world wears jeans these days.”

Including the chief of police, when off duty. I’ve seen him. A quick look around the kitchen showed me that every one of us, except for the two policemen in their uniforms, were dressed in denim, from Derek’s comfortably threadbare Levi’s to Shannon’s seemingly brand-new hip-huggers, which fit her like a second skin.

“Where’s Ricky?” Josh said, and it wasn’t until then that it occurred to me that Ricky Swanson hadn’t been standing here with us, partaking of the pizza and gruesome conversation.

“The last time I saw him, he went into the master bedroom.” I gestured down the hall. “That’s a few minutes ago, though.”

“I’ll go,” Paige said quickly as Josh made to push off from the counter where he was leaning. She gave him a pat on the arm on the way past, and he smiled at her. Shannon quirked a brow, and Josh shrugged.

“I went to the newspaper archives while I was out,” I said, wondering what the byplay was all about.

“Yeah?” Wayne turned to me.

“I couldn’t find anything about any missing persons any time in the past twenty years, though.”

He shook his head. “Before Professor Wentworth disappeared this spring, we hadn’t lost anybody for a long time. The few people who went missing always turned up within a couple of days. Some of them were dead, but we always found them.”

I nodded, but before I could bring out my other booty-the prom photographs of Derek and Brandon-Paige came trotting into the kitchen again. “He’s locked himself in the bathroom,” she said, her soft, little-girlish voice even softer than usual. “I don’t think he’s feeling well. There were…” she hesitated delicately, “noises.”

Wayne hid a grin. “We should probably get back to work. If you think you’ve had enough to eat?” He glanced pointedly at Brandon, who was still chewing, but who thought it best to nod.

“See you, Tink.” Derek bent and gave me a quick peck on the lips before he followed the others toward the back door. I watched him walk away then flushed and started transferring slices of pizza into a single box when I caught Shannon ’s eye. She grinned.

No sooner had the back door closed and the crawlspace door creaked open outside, than we heard a door close inside the house, as well. A moment later, Ricky shuffled around the corner and into the kitchen. And although it was difficult to see his face behind all the hair, he did seem a little pale. Shannon and Paige exclaimed when they saw him and started flitting around to see what they could do for him, which must have served to make poor Ricky feel even more uncomfortable and embarrassed.

I turned to Josh. “I came across your prom photos in the Weekly when I was in town just now.”

“My prom photos?” He reached for the pieces of copy paper I pulled out of my bag and unfolded them while he continued, “Why would you want to see my prom photos?”

“I wasn’t really looking for them. Venetia Rudolph, our next-door neighbor, told us there were squatters in the crawlspace two years ago. I was looking for information about that, and then I came across the article about the prom.”

Josh nodded, grinning at the photographs. “The Weekly does an article about the prom every year. Hey, Shannon, do you ever hear from Alan Whitaker? What’s he up to these days?”

“The University of Kentucky,” Shannon said over her shoulder, still busy ministering to Ricky. “Baseball scholarship.”

“Ri-i-i-ght.” Josh drew the word out, sarcastically. I could tell he didn’t really like Alan Whitaker. Josh, while adorable in his lanky, bespectacled, brainy way, didn’t quite have the golden-boy appeal of the blonde and athletic pseudo-Norse god in the photograph. Shannon rolled her eyes but didn’t answer. Josh flipped through the stack of other articles while he was at it.

“More prom photos? Who’s this? Oh, wait; that’s Brandon, isn’t it? And she’s quite a knockout, isn’t she? Wow!”

If he had hoped that Shannon would take an interest and come over to see who he thought was hot, Josh must have been disappointed when she just shook her head sadly, like a mother over the antics of her little boy. Josh’s cheeks flushed, but he continued gamely. “And is this Derek? Whoa! How long ago was this?”

“Seventeen years, give or take,” I said as Shannon abandoned Ricky to lean on Josh’s shoulder. He handed the page to her. Paige looked worried, and she kept her hand under Ricky’s elbow as they came closer. Just in case he toppled, I guess. Although I don’t know what she’d be able to do if he did; he was approximately twice her size.

“Who’s this?” Josh asked. I looked back to him and what he was looking at.

“Oh, that’s Brian Murphy. The man who used to live in this house. The one who killed his family. That’s his wife Peggy, in the bonnet. The Murphys had a son, as well…”

I broke off to watch Ricky turn away with a muttered apology. He blundered toward the front door and almost fell over a big can of spackling paste on the way. The kid really needed a haircut, bad. Paige started after him, her elfin face worried. We heard the front door open and then close behind them both before anyone spoke.

“What’s wrong with him?” Josh asked. Shannon shrugged, a tiny wrinkle between her brows.

“I guess maybe he got too close to the pizza?”

We looked at the pizza, a few feet away on the counter. Could be.

“I guess we’d better go, too.” Josh folded the papers again and handed them back to me. “I’ll go tell Dad we’re outta here. You’d better try to catch up with them, see what’s wrong.”

Shannon nodded, and with a polite good-bye to me, left.

She went out the front door, while Josh undoubtedly sneaked a peek at the excavations in the crawlspace while he told his father that the four of them were leaving. I folded the papers back into my bag and finished cleaning up the pizza before I headed out the back door and down to the crawlspace, too.