Black Moonlight (6 page)

Located on the west
side of the building, Marjorie and Creighton’s bedroom was hidden away from the bright rays of the morning sun. Instead, daylight crept slowly through the shuttered windows, basking the room in a warm, soft glow.

Despite the distress caused by the previous night’s events, Creighton had managed to enjoy a few hours of fitful slumber. Marjorie, on the other hand, had lain awake for hours until finally succumbing to her tiredness some time just before dawn.

As the bedside clock ticked slowly toward eight, Creighton pulled back the covers and, trying not to awaken his sleeping wife, tiptoed into the bathroom. He turned on the tap, splashed some cold water on his unshaven face, and prepared himself for the day ahead. He desperately wanted to leave the island, but Griselda’s departure in the speedster the night before had left him and Marjorie, for all intents and purposes, stranded.

He had overheard Griselda tell Marjorie that she might return in the morning, but the elaborate nature of Griselda’s makeup and wardrobe told Creighton that her morning ablutions were not of the speedy variety and that “morning” in this specific context did not mean “prior to noon” insomuch as it indicated “any time prior to lunch.” In any event, Creighton wanted to ensure that he and Marjorie were packed and ready to leave the moment Griselda’s red-lacquered toes stepped foot on Black Island.

Creighton stretched, yawned, and staggered back to his wife’s bedside. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he leaned down and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

Marjorie stirred slightly and rubbed her eyes.

“Good morning,” Creighton said softly. “I know you didn’t sleep much but—”

His voice was drowned out by a woman’s frantic shrieks.

Marjorie bolted upright. “What was that?”

Creighton had leapt from the bed and was hastily donning a white undershirt to accompany his blue-striped pajama pants. “I don’t know, but it came from downstairs.”

Marjorie threw a bed jacket over her sleeveless peach silk nightgown and followed her husband into the upstairs hallway. Outside their bedroom door, the members of the house party—all in various stages of dress—were hurrying toward the main staircase.

Prudence, her hair in rollers and her plump frame draped in a voluminous floral caftan, caught up with Marjorie. “Thank goodness it wasn’t you!” She scanned the small group. “Cassandra’s here. That means it must be Griselda!”

Marjorie shook her head. “She left last night. It’s Selina!”

The party hastened down the flight of cedar steps and along the hallway. Edward, fully dressed in a pale yellow polo shirt and linen trousers, led the way. Creighton, who along the way had armed himself with a heavy bronze statue, followed him closely, while Marjorie, Prudence, and a red-kimonoed Cassandra trailed a few paces behind them. Mr. Miller, his shirt-sleeves rolled above the elbows, his brown trousers unbelted, and his face covered in shaving cream, brought up the rear.

The group rushed into the dining room to find Selina seated in one of the dining room chairs, weeping uncontrollably. A mop lay on the floor beside her chair, and George stood over her, a strong comforting arm wrapped around her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” Creighton posed.

George shook his head. “I came running when I heard her scream. I made her sit down, thinking it would calm her. But I can’t get her to say anything.”

The back door slammed, followed by the clicking of high heels on the polished cedar floor. Griselda, sporting a wide-brimmed sun hat and yet another fancy swimsuit—this time in black and white—entered the dining room at breakneck speed. “What’s going on?” she asked breathlessly. “I could hear the screams all the way across the lawn.”

“Griselda?” Marjorie uttered in surprise. “I thought you’d left.”

“I did. Then I came back. I told you I always come back,” she smiled.

Creighton, still clutching the bronze sculpture, crouched in front of Selina. “Selina, dear,” he coaxed, “please tell us what’s wrong. I know it’s difficult, but please try.”

Selina trembled and shook violently, but remained silent.

Marjorie rushed forward and took Selina’s hands in hers. “She’s freezing. I think she’s in shock. George,” she ordered, “go get a blanket or sweater or something. We must keep her warm.”

George nodded and took off like a shot.

“I’ll go get some brandy,” Prudence announced and headed to the study.

“Someone get some whiskey too, eh?” Creighton requested.

“Why? Is whiskey better than brandy for cases of shock?” Miller asked before leaving to fetch the whiskey bottle.

“No,” Creighton replied flatly. “I simply don’t like the taste of brandy in the morning.”

In the midst of the commotion surrounding Selina, the small black cat appeared at Marjorie’s feet. He meowed loudly and with a dirty paw, pulled at the hem of Marjorie’s nightgown.

“Sorry, puss, but I’m busy now,” she shooed.

The cat didn’t move a muscle except to pull, once again, at her nightgown. This time, he caught the material on his claws.

Marjorie sighed heavily and reached down to free the feline from the garment. As she did so, she noticed that his paw had stained her nightgown a reddish brown. “Are you hurt, puss?” she asked, recalling the kick that Cassandra had given him the night before. “Are you … ?”

Marjorie felt the blood rush from her head and she wondered if she might be sick. Swallowing hard, she reached behind her, grabbed Creighton by the shoulder and shook him.

“What is it?” he answered testily.

Marjorie said nothing, but pointed at the floor beneath her feet.

Creighton looked down. “The cat? Yes, what about the … ?” his voice trailed off as his eyes traced the cat’s paw prints to a pool of blood that had collected beneath the Italian cassone.

Creighton stood up and motioned to George, who had returned from the cottage with a thick down quilt. George promptly wrapped the coverlet around his mother, helped her out of the chair and, with Mr. Miller’s assistance, escorted her from the room.

Taking a deep breath, Creighton stepped toward the trunk, bent down, and with one hand, slowly lifted the lid.

“Oh, God.” He stepped back quickly, letting the bronze statue slip from his fingertips and fall to the floor with a deafening clang.

Marjorie rushed to his side. There, in the open trunk, lay the tuxedo-clad body of Creighton Ashcroft II. His eyes and mouth were open and his body bent and knotted to fit into the tight confines of the chest. A wide, deep wound on the back of his head and a trail of dried blood emanating from one ear proved to be the most likely sources of the blood on the floor.

Prudence gasped in shock, while Griselda let out a piercing scream.

“I-I’ll go to Hamilton and get the police,” Edward announced.

“No!” Creighton shouted. “No one’s leaving the island. And certainly not alone. Not until we know who did this.”

“Are you suggesting that … that one of us … ?” Prudence drew a hand to her chest in complete horror.

“There’s only one way on and off this island, Pru,” Creighton answered. “You know that.”

“The killer could have hired a boat,” she argued.

Creighton shook his head. “Someone would have heard them. Marjorie and I hitched a ride on one of those ‘hired boats’ yesterday morning.”

“My hearing still hasn’t fully returned,” Marjorie noted.

Creighton nodded in agreement. “Nope, unless somebody paid Johnny Weissmuller to swim out here, kill Dad, and swim back, I think we’re looking at an ‘inside job.’”

“How can you be so glib?” Edward said accusingly. “Father’s dead—murdered—and we need to contact the authorities.”

“Yes, we do. And, yes, we will,” Creighton stated. “There’s a flare gun on the speedster, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll fire it off the pier—together, so that if one of us is the murderer, he’s not tempted to hop in the speedster and take off. Then we wait for the authorities to arrive,” Creighton explained. “Are the extra flares still behind the stables?”

“They are unless you set them off with the Ziegfeld girls,” Edward quipped.

Creighton rolled his eyes. “Now who’s being glib?”

Emily Patterson stepped out
onto the front porch of her Victorian home, a cup and saucer in one hand and the early edition of
The Hartford Courant
in the other. Her plans to enjoy a leisurely summer morning sipping tea and perusing the paper were cut short when she spotted a man lying on her porch swing.

Stuffed into an ill-fitting crumpled brown suit, the man’s bulky torso occupied the whole of the swing’s bench seat, leaving his limbs to dangle awkwardly over the back and arm rests. A brown fedora covered his face.

The man snored loudly and attempted to roll over, thus sending his hat, and himself, tumbling onto the gray porch floor with a thud.

“Officer Noonan!” Mrs. Patterson exclaimed as the face of her overnight guest was revealed.

Noonan sat up, blinked his eyes, and shook his head several times.

She placed her cup of tea and newspaper on an enameled outdoor table and hurried across the porch to check on him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Noonan replied as he stiffly rose to his feet.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah, it takes more than a fall from a porch swing to keep ol’ Noonan down.” He placed a hand on his lower back and grimaced.

“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Patterson questioned. “Were you on that swing all night?”

“Not all night,” he answered and moved his hand from his lower back to his neck. “But long enough.”

“Oh, my! Let me get you some tea, Officer. And some of my homemade scones with fresh strawberry preserves. You must be starving!”

Tea was a beverage Noonan typically reserved for when he was getting over the grippe. However, he smiled graciously. “Thanks Mrs. P, that’s awfully kind of you.”

“Nonsense,” Emily Patterson dismissed as she opened the screen door and stepped inside. Within moments she peeked her head around the door: “And please, call me ‘Emily.’ Just because we’re not drinking martinis at Kensington House, doesn’t mean we have to go back to calling each other by our last names.”

Noonan laughed. “Well, I didn’t want to say nothing. Just in case it was the vermouth talking that night. But okay … Emily.”

She flashed a satisfied grin and went back into the house.

In the meantime, Noonan plumped the porch swing cushions, removed his suit jacket, laid it over the back of the swing, and had a seat. There, in the sun-soaked serenity of Mrs. Patterson’s front porch, he could forget about the events of the previous evening and his miserable failure.

He stretched his legs out, placed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. The breeze that whispered across his skin was warm, but dry—a welcome respite from the New England humidity, and each breath he took was fragrant with the scent of the wild roses that grew in Mrs. Patterson’s side yard.

Yep, he thought, today was going to be a good day. After tea and scones with Emily, he would stop by the drugstore and pick up a few licorice twists for the kids and that face powder Mrs. Noonan had been talking about for months (she’d heard it would make her skin look like Claudette Colbert’s) but still couldn’t justify purchasing. Then he’d head home, play some ball with Patrick Jr., take his daughter, Nora, for a ride in her red wagon, and then—if the chicken was big enough—Mrs. Patterson could join them for dinner.

If the chicken was big enough?
Noonan nearly laughed out loud, for according to Mrs. Noonan, the chicken was always big enough. Sometimes she added an extra potato. Other times, she baked an extra loaf of bread. On a few occasions, when Noonan was between paychecks or she wasn’t given sufficient notice, Mrs. Noonan simply did without, supplying her guests with the simple, yet gracious, explanation that she “wasn’t very hungry” after partaking of a large lunch. Noonan, however, knew that there were no such lunches; the only lunches his wife ever had the opportunity to enjoy were the crusts from their children’s sandwiches.

Whatever the case, Patrick Noonan never ceased to marvel at his great fortune. An Irish Southie who dropped out of school after the sixth grade, he had a job with the Hartford County Police, two beautiful children, and he’d married a smart, pretty woman who was a good mother and never turned a hungry guest away from her doorstep.

The sound of singing birds adding to his happiness, Noonan sighed contentedly—until he spied something moving in the shrubs just outside the porch.

That “something” quickly jumped upon the porch railing with a loud “meow” and glared at Noonan with bright yellow eyes.

Noonan leapt to his feet. “You!” he shouted threateningly. “You—you—you—”

Mrs. Patterson returned with a tray of tea, milk, sugar, scones, strawberry preserves, cream, and all the appropriate serving tools.

“You—you—wonderful woman!” he inserted, moving Emily’s teacup and newspaper to make room for the tray.

The cat lingered several seconds before jumping back into the bushes from whence he had come.

“What, this?” Mrs. Patterson said humbly. “Oh, it was nothing. I put the strawberries up myself after our fair. But what’s strawberry preserves without a good scone and a cup of tea?”

She deposited the tray and took a seat on the porch swing. “Was that Sam I just saw?”

Noonan played dumb. “Who?”

“Marjorie’s cat, Sam. There was a cat right there on the ledge. Looked just like him.” She dispensed a cup of tea to Noonan and then went on to freshen her own cup. “But, of course, it couldn’t be, could it? Not with you on the case.”

“On the case?” he repeated, fearful that the elderly woman had seen through his antics over the past two days.

“Yes, you’ve been watching Marjorie’s house, and Sam, while she and Creighton have been away. I’m sure she feels better knowing Sam is in such good hands.” She presented the officer with a sliced scone and a linen napkin. “That reminds me,” Mrs. Patterson spoke up, “you never said what you were doing out here last night.”

“I was keeping tabs on, umm, a suspicious character,” he explained while loading his scone with preserves and cream.

“Oh my! Here in Ridgebury?”

Noonan polished off a quarter of a scone in one bite. “Yeah, he walked right by this place, so I decided to watch him from your porch swing.” He chuckled, “I guess I fell asleep.”

“Yes, I guess you did” Mrs. Patterson answered distractedly. “What did this person look like?”

Noonan wiped the corners of his mouth. “Small, wiry, gray hair, and green eyes with—” he was about to say “with yellow bits” but recalled Jameson’s reaction the previous afternoon. “Green eyes.”

“What do you suppose he was after?”

The worry in the old woman’s eyes made Noonan feel like a heel. “Don’t you worry about him, Emily. Probably just some transient passing through town, looking for a job or a handout.”

Emily frowned. “I suppose.”

“Say, why don’t you have supper with us tonight?” he invited, in hope that it might provide a distraction from the shadowy figure lurking in Mrs. Patterson’s imagination.

Her face broke into an immediate smile. “That would be lovely! I can’t wait to meet your wife. Your wife does know I’m coming, doesn’t she?”

“Of course she does—she’s been after me to invite you over for a few weeks now.” As he polished off the rest of the scone, a thought occurred to him. “Hey, do you play cribbage? Mrs. Noonan loves it, but she’s tired of beating me.”

“I adore cribbage! Although I may not be much of a match for your wife, either.”

“You can’t be any worse than I am,” Noonan assured her as he rose from the rocking chair and collected his jacket and hat. “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty.”

“That sounds delightful! What can I bring?”

Noonan shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Oh, but I must,” Mrs. Patterson insisted.

“Nope. You fed me breakfast after a long night on the job. Mrs. Noonan would have a fit if you did anything else today.” He donned his hat and took off down the front walk. “I’ll see you at five-thirty,” he called over his shoulder. “And thanks for breakfast.”

Mrs. Patterson waved after her guest as he strolled off toward the green. Then, with a smile still on her face, she set about clearing the breakfast dishes. As she did so, she remembered the suspicious man Officer Noonan had described.

Poor Mrs. Wilson
, she thought to herself,
she’s all alone!

Without missing a beat, she rushed through the screen door, into the front hallway and to the telephone.

“Hello?” She greeted the familiar voice at the other end of the phone. “Hello, Mrs. Wilson. It’s Mrs. Patterson … I’m fine. How are you? … Oh, your lumbago is acting up again is it? … That’s too bad … Listen, a policeman friend of mine told me that there’s been a suspicious character hanging around the neighborhood … Yes, I thought you should know since you live alone … No, no he hasn’t done anything yet … Just lurking … Oh, he’s small, thin, has gray hair and green eyes … Yes … Alright … I’ll see you at canasta next Tuesday …”