Trick Or Treat Murder. Leslie Meier
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wonder what the captain’s wife was like,” mused Lucy.
“Which one?” asked Bill, carefully prying off a piece of window casing. “The first three all died in childbirth, not one lived past twenty-five. The fourth was a rich old widow who already had six children.”
“My goodness,” said Lucy, recalled to her grim task. “Bill, I’ve got some bad news. Terrible news.”
He straightened up and turned to face her.
“Monica was there,” said Lucy, her voice breaking. “She died in the fire.”
He shook his head, refusing to believe her. “It must have been somebody else. A vagrant or something. Monica was never there except in the summer.”
“She was there. They’ve identified her.” Tears were now running down her face.
“Where did you hear this?” Bill’s voice was sharp.
“On the radio.”
His face went white and slack; he looked as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. Then his jaw tightened and he turned away, facing the wall. Raising his fist, he slammed it against the tough old horsehair plaster, raising a cloud of dust.
Lucy reached up and touched his shoulder. He spun around and drew her against him, burying his face in her hair. They clung together for a long time. Finally, he pulled himself away and began to pace.
“Dammit,” he said, suddenly stricken with guilt. “It was my fault. There was no smoke alarm in that house. They changed the code a year or two later. If I’d thought to put one in she might have lived. At least she would have had a chance to get out.”
“It’s not your fault. You did everything you were supposed to. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Damn. I hate fires.”
“I know,” said Lucy, thinking once again of the flames, remorselessly consuming everything and leaving only ashes. And bones. She shivered. “Do you want to take the day off? We could go for a ride or something—something to take our minds off the fire.” She wiped her face with a crumpled tissue she’d found in her pocket.
“Thanks,” he said, gently caressing her shoulder. “I’d rather work. I’ve got some old ceiling tile upstairs that has to come down. Today seems like a good day to rip a building apart.”
“Just be sure you stop with the ceiling tile,” said Lucy, attempting a feeble joke. “I don’t want you to tear down the whole place.”
“I’m not guaranteeing anything,” said Bill, pulling a crowbar out of his toolbox and picking up the battered old tape player he kept on the job. “You’d better get out of here if you don’t want Zoe to wake up. I’m gonna play some AC/DC—real loud.”
“Be careful,” cautioned Lucy. “We don’t need any broken bones.”
“See ya later,” he said, mounting the stairs.
Back in the car, heading for home, Lucy could think of nothing but the fires. Sue was wrong. These fires weren’t just happening. She was sure someone was setting them. But who? What sort of person would do such a thing? Did he stand in the dark, watching as the flames grew stronger, listening for the wail of the sirens? Why did he do it? Was he frightened, now that someone had died? Or was he thrilled by the fact that he had taken a human life? Would Monica’s death spur him on to set more fires?
Pulling into her driveway, Lucy regarded her own comfortable home. A spacious white clapboard farmhouse, it had been built in the 1850s, just before the Civil War. The builder was known to have had strong abolitionist sympathies, and some people believed the house had been a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Lucy loved her house. She loved the fact that it was old, and the thought of the many generations it had sheltered reassured her. To her the house was a tangible link to the past, and a launching pad for the future. More than a wedding ring, or a big diamond, it was proof of the commitment she and Bill had made to each other. The house had been in terrible shape when they bought it, a real handyman’s special, and they had labored together to make it a home.
We could be next, she thought, feeling very vulnerable. The house, after all, was nothing but wood. Mostly old wood. Like the others, it would go up in a flash We’re not safe. Nobody’s safe, she thought, nobody who lives in an old house.
She shifted into park, switched off the engine, and began to unfasten the straps that held Zoe in the safety seat. Still sound asleep, Zoe didn’t even blink. Lucy gazed at her beautiful baby and gently stroked her cheek. What if their house began to burn like the Hopkins Homestead? Would she be able to save Zoe?
She didn’t want to find out. Whoever was setting the fires, this maniac, had to be found and stopped.
CHAPTER SIX
“Never, ever eat any of your trick or treat candy before your parents have a chance to look it over.”
The next morning, Lucy kept her promise to Sara and visited the kindergarten. As she joined the other mothers in the back of the room, she felt remarkably light and unencumbered without the baby carrier strapped to her chest. She had taken Sue at her word when she insisted she would be happy to baby-sit and had left Zoe with her.
Lucy always enjoyed visiting the elementary school. Here, in the brightly decorated rooms, order prevailed. The children marched in lines, two by two. They practiced their round letters on lined paper. The answers were right, or they were wrong. There was none of the conflict and confusion that reigned in the real world. Here, for just a few minutes anyway, she could push the fire and Monica’s death to a dark, back corner of her mind.
Catching Officer Barney Culpepper’s eye, she gave him a little wave. He was standing in the front of the room, surrounded by the entire kindergarten class who were sitting cross-legged on the floor. At six feet, with a stocky build, he seemed enormous compared to the children. Lucy looked for Sara and found her in the front row, next to her best friend, Jenn Baker.
A hand shot up, and Culpepper leaned forward.
“Joey Wade, do you have a question?”
“What if my mom eats all my candy?”
The question set off a chorus of anxious laughter; Joey had voiced a shared concern.
“If you ate all your trick or treat candy yourself you’d probably get an enormous stomachache,” said Culpepper, grabbing his beer belly and groaning. “I hate it when that happens, don’t your?”
The kids laughed and nodded, and a few of the more active boys imitated him, grabbing their stomachs and groaning.
“John, Peter.” The names were accompanied by a stern look from teacher Lydia Volpe, and the boys settled down. Lydia was a pro, she had been teaching for years. She had also taught Toby and Elizabeth.
“There’s a reason why your parents should check your candy. They want to make sure it’s okay for you to eat, that it hasn’t been opened, and there are no germs.” Officer Culpepper was doing his best to warn the kids without frightening them, thought Lucy.
“My cousin got an apple for Halloween and he bit into it and there were pins inside,” volunteered a blond little girl dressed all in pink.
“My cousin bit into an apple and there was a razor blade,” added a little brunette, already accomplished in the art of one-upmanship.
A general buzz ensued in which Lucy heard poison, thumbtacks, and broken glass mentioned. She was shocked. Where did five-year-olds hear these things?
“Now, children,” reminded Mrs. Volpe. “Officer Culpepper hasn’t finished. He has more to tell us.” Her dark eyes flashed. “We listen with our ears, not our mouths.”
“Some of the stories you hear about Halloween aren’t true,” advised the policeman. “But it’s better