She demanded he cut down the trees. He refused.
She complained to the local zoning board, most of whom were regular (and very happy) customers of Cuppa J. They backed David.
She offered him money. He rejected it.
Clearly, this woman was at war with my friend. I folded my arms and narrowed my gaze, any pretense of politeness over as I asked in a cold, hard voice, “What are you doing here, Ms. Bright?”
The woman’s smirk faltered. Now that her haughty demeanor had stopped cowing me, she seemed less sure of herself. Taking a dramatic drag on her cigarette, she appeared to be stalling for time to think. Finally, she released a long, white plume of smoke. The whipping wind instantly shredded it.
“Just tell David I’m not through suing him,” she responded at last.
Before I could ask another question, she wheeled on the heel of her rubber-soled boat shoe and marched off toward her home, her black-clad form quickly disappearing in the thickening dark.
By now, my pulse was racing. Marjorie Bright’s presence was both creepy and suspicious. It reminded me of something Detective Quinn had said about particular kinds of murderers, how they got off on seeing the results of their acts, something akin to arsonists sticking around to watch the sirens, the activity, the fiery destruction.
My mind began to turn this idea over and over. Was that what Marjorie had been doing? Was she the shooter? Or had she been checking on an accomplice? Clearly, she was no friend of David’s. But was an obstructed ocean view a reason to shoot your neighbor to death in cold blood?
Before I’d left the mansion’s garage, I’d pretty much convinced myself the killer had either slipped away or disappeared back into the crowded party the moment Treat had hit the floor. Now I wasn’t so sure. And the uncertainty unnerved me.
Still, I had come out here with a specific goal in mind. I hadn’t accomplished it yet, and really hated the idea of letting my fears get the better of me. So I gritted my teeth and moved on.
At the rear of the house, I circumvented the cedar plank deck and walked down the lawn, toward the ocean. About halfway there I stopped, turned, and gazed up at the sprawling mansion. I easily located David’s master bedroom window, a huge palladium number that matched the design of windows on the first floor. Next to David’s bedroom was the square window to his private bath.
I lined myself up with the bathroom where Treat’s corpse now lay. Then I walked away from the mansion again, sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth along the lawn. At the end of the grass, a narrow pathway of smooth white pebbles had been used to define the end of the manicured grounds and the start of the beach. I stepped across the pebbles and onto the sand.
As I glanced back at the mansion to check my position, I realized I’d strayed from the intended line of sight. I adjusted my position about two yards, aligning my body up once again with the south wing’s second floor bathroom window. Then I turned my gaze back towards the water—and saw I was lined up with a series of beach dunes.
I climbed the closest one, finding high scrub grass on top.
What an effective spying place this would be…that is, for anyone wanting to spy on David’s beach house.
Every room in his home with a light on was transparent. I could see the people assembled around the kitchen table on the first floor as well as David’s Tiffany bedroom lamps, shining on the second.
This dune could have been the very place where the shooter had taken a shot at Treat, I realized. Without moving my feet, I shined the flashlight beam around every inch of the dune, the high scrub, the sand, the stray gray rocks.
Behind me, the surf had become wild, the waves crashing with unnerving intensity. A sudden, earsplitting crack of thunder nearly stopped my heart. I jerked in surprise and the beam shot across a section of sand a foot away. That’s when I noticed a glimmer of something metallic.
I swept the light back again and moved closer. The pasty spotlight illuminated three brass-colored cylinders on the sand. I didn’t want to touch them, so I crouched down over them as close as I could and sniffed. The smell of gunpowder was unmistakable.
Bullet casings.
I knew very little about guns, ammunition, or caliber, but I could see these shells were long, at least two inches. Obviously, they would not have come from a small gun; more like a hunting rifle, for distance shooting.
This was it, I realized, the evidence the police could use to catch the killer. The rush of excitement was hard to suppress. Consequently, Matt’s accusations about me becoming a risk junkie came back with a vengeance.
Okay, I told myself, so it felt good to find something like this, to play detective and succeed. That didn’t mean I was happy about a young man’s life cut short. Pushing aside the memory of Matt’s words along with my fleeting high, I tried to calm down and decide what to do next.
If I left these casings here much longer, the coming storm and resulting high tide could easily wash them away. But if I disturbed them, I’d be messing with crucial evidence.
With another glance toward the mansion, I could see there was still no sign of the police. So I decided to compromise. Digging into the pocket of my khaki skirt, I came up with a lip balm and a few unused cocktail napkins. I shoved the balm back and used the napkins to carefully pick up one of the bullet casings, leaving the other two where I’d found them. Holding the single casing carefully in one hand, I used the other to sweep the flashlight beam around the area in wider and wider arcs.
If the shooter had used this dune, I figured there might be other clues around. I searched the sand for footprints, but if there had been some, the killer must have covered or obscured them. I walked closer to the water, then paralleled the breakers. About twenty yards away, I noticed something in the damp sand, not footprints but flipper prints. Diver’s flippers were leading straight into the surf.
I shined my light out over the water, but saw nothing. Just black waves. They were high now, roiling ashore with the froth of maddened animals. Lightning flashed, and I felt a few drops of rainwater on my head. On the next disturbing crack of thunder, I shuddered and gave up.
I jogged back across the dry sand, the lawn, the cedar plank deck. As I stepped through the mansion’s glass patio door, the rain began to fall, and I heard voices coming from the front foyer. At last, the police had arrived.
There were two units, four uniformed officers from the local force. To a man, they were nice and polite, but it was obviously the end of a very long day for them, and they were all looking pretty drained.
The oldest officer, a sergeant, explained what had taken them so long—a major auto accident with critical injuries had occurred on the other side of town. There’d been crowd control issues all night, as well as drunken brawls and disturbances ending in arrests. As a result, every unit had been occupied when my call came. Just as David and Suzi had predicted, the craziness of July Fourth had stressed the small local force to its limits.
“The Suffolk County detectives and their forensic team will take over the investigation in the morning,” explained Sergeant Walters, a fortyish balding officer with a friendly, round face. “We’ll take care of the basics tonight.”
He took the bullet casing I’d found and bagged it up. While his partner took statements from David, Madame, me, and the rest of the Cuppa J staff, he supervised the two younger officers in the bathroom.
They took photos of Treat, placed tape around his body, and when the ambulance arrived, helped the paramedics remove the deceased young man. Finally, they closed the bathroom door, crisscrossed it with crime scene tape and asked us not to enter.
By the time I took the sergeant and his two younger officers out back to show them the dune where I’d found the bullet casing, the storm was really raging. The officers were dressed in raingear. I was attempting to hold tight to a flimsy umbrella—a laughable sight in the face of the pelting water and blowing wind.