Murder With Puffins Page 16

  “I’m afraid my idea of a desk is a mound of papers with legs sticking out from under it,” I said. “I never imagined that anything that tidy could be a working desk.”

  “You’re describing your own desk, aren’t you?” Michael said.

  “’Fraid so.”

  “And yet I’ll bet you’re going to say that, despite its messy appearance, you can find any piece of paper you need in five minutes.”

  “Are you kidding? Five days, working full-time, and that’s if I’m lucky. Now that’s more like it,” I said as we rolled up the top, revealing a desktop computer and a reasonably promising quantity of paper. “A little too tidy for my taste, but at least there are signs of life here.”

  “Luckily, the desk is awfully close to that cracked window,” Michael said. “See, it’s getting wet already.”

  “I don’t suppose we could possibly lift the desk,” I said.

  “I don’t even want to try,” Michael said. “We’ll have to move the contents to safety. The wine cellar, I should think.”

  Most of the contents weren’t all that interesting. We studied his bills and bankbooks as we transported them, but we didn’t find any dirt. Victor Resnick was a rich man who spent a great deal of money on his own pleasures, but then, he had a great deal of it to spend.

  Or did he? He didn’t have a very large balance in any of his accounts. Maybe he had a broker somewhere managing the bulk of his money. Then again, we found an awful lot of dunning letters from creditors. Was he simply, like so many wealthy people, careless about paying on time, or was he going broke?

  We found an entire drawerful of papers related to the publication of the book of his paintings I’d bought—contracts, proofs of the photographs, and about fifteen drafts of the text, each annotated lavishly in a bold, angular handwriting. Along with corrections, we saw a great many scathing remarks about the intelligence and ancestry of the writer. If by chance we found the writer on Monhegan, I’d add him to the top of the list of suspects.

  “The handwriting on these matches the edits on the biography,” I pointed out. “Resnick was definitely cooperating with James Jackson.”

  “Did Jackson write this, too?” Michael asked as he perused one of the drafts.

  “No, someone named Edwards. Who can actually write. I don’t know where Jamie boy came from, but he can’t write for beans.”

  “Resnick didn’t realize that,” Michael said, flipping through a fat sheaf of papers from another drawer. “And Jackson’s definitely a pseudonym. Here’s another copy of the biography—dated a couple of weeks ago, with the author listed as James Jones; and Resnick crossed the name out, with these orders: ‘Sounds too phony—pick another alias!’”

  “And the biographer thought James Jackson sounded more plausible?”

  “I suppose; tell that to the publishers of From Here to Eternity. Resnick edited this version with just as heavy a hand; the whole manuscript looks as if it has the measles. But he’s not as hard on Mr. Jones/Jackson as on poor Edwards.”

  “Another draft or two and I bet he’d have started ripping Jamie boy’s liver out, too,” I said.

  “He didn’t like the galleries that handled his work, either,” Michael remarked.

  We found several files of letters to and from various galleries. Resnick evidently considered the owners of several of the most prestigious New York and Boston galleries either fools who had no idea how to sell his work or scoundrels trying to take him for a ride. More suspects, if they were on the island, which I doubted, but I grabbed a piece of paper and jotted down their names anyway.

  “You suspect the gallery owners?” Michael asked.

  “I suspect everybody,” I said. “Besides, haven’t you heard that the value of an artist’s work triples when he dies?”

  “I don’t suppose we could buy a few before word gets out on the mainland,” Michael suggested.

  “Probably not,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t know about you, but it’s not as if I have fifty or a hundred thousand dollars to do it with.”

  Michael whistled.

  “They sell for that much?”

  “Well, that’s nothing compared with what you’d have to pay for a painting by someone really famous. A major Wyeth, for example. I think they go for a million or two.”

  “But still, it’s a motive. I wonder how we could find out who owns his paintings.”

  “Ask and ye shall receive,” I said. “See, he keeps a list of everything he sells. Most artists do.”

  “That’s great! Although I suppose they won’t all still belong to the original buyers anymore.”

  “On the contrary, artists usually keep pretty close track of where all their paintings are. See, here’s a painting he sold to someone in 1962, and a note that it was resold in 1970, with the selling price and the new owner’s name. And here’s one that was sold about the same time, then donated to the Cleveland Art Museum in 1981.”

  “Want me to help you copy the names down?” Michael asked.

  “No,” I said. “He printed out three copies; we can take one and still leave two for the cops.”

  Michael studied the list, looking over my shoulder.

  “Notice anything odd?” he asked after awhile.

  “Only that he wasn’t selling very many paintings these days,” I said, frowning. “And other people haven’t been selling them much, either. Look at all these entries for the fifties and sixties. And in the eighties and nineties—practically zip.”

  “Maybe he stopped keeping track of sales and resales?”

  “No,” I said. “See, here’s a sale from two years ago. And a resale from three months ago. He’s keeping track, but there’s not much to keep track of.”

  “Makes you wonder how he could afford to live like this,” Michael said, looking around. “Imagine how much this house must have cost.”

  “We don’t have to imagine,” I said. “We’ve got the files right here.”

  From the house construction files, we deduced that Resnick had gotten along about as well with his architect and his general contractor as he had with the rest of humanity. He had withheld some of the money he owed them until they fixed various minute flaws. Strangely enough, though, considering the local uproar about the house, we found almost no paperwork on approval for the construction—just a standard building permit for “renovations” signed by Mrs. M. A. Benton, Mayor.

  “Renovations?” Michael exclaimed. “Who did he think he was kidding? He definitely got special treatment. Wonder if he had some kind of hold over the mayor?”

  “Pay dirt!” I shouted, holding up a stack of files. “Here’s the stuff on the resort project.”

  I’d found a file marked “Coastal Properties, Ltd.” and another marked “New England Development Associates.” Both full of correspondence that would no doubt fascinate a corporate lawyer but which only reminded me how little sleep I’d gotten the night before. A third file was more interesting; it contained a map of the island, with all the property boundaries marked and a number assigned to each plot. Parts of the map were colored in solid blue, parts in blue and white stripes, and a few in pink. Behind that was a list of numbers from the map, with people’s names written beside them.

  “What’s this supposed to be?” Michael said, studying the map.

  “If I’m reading this list correctly, the blue is property he owned. See, here’s where we are now, in blue. The gift shop by the dock, that’s in blue, too. And the blue and white stripes are places where he’d negotiated some kind of option to buy.”

  “And the pink?”

  “I’m guessing there are places he’d tried and been turned down flat. Yes, there’s Jeb Barnes’s store in pink. Remember what Jeb said? That Resnick had tried to buy the general store and Jeb told him to take a hike?”

  “Yes, but isn’t that your aunt Phoebe’s cottage there?”

  “You’re right,” I said, frowning.

  “I think she’d have mentioned it if he’d tried to buy the
place.”

  “Maybe it just means places he expected to have problems buying,” I suggested.

  “That sounds logical,” Michael said. “He colored your aunt Phoebe’s lot a particularly intense pink, compared with some of the others.”

  We went on through the rest of the files, which were all marked with the names of local citizens. Some of them—Mamie Benton’s, for example—contained bills of sale. Apparently, Mamie had once owned the building in which her gift shop was located, but now she rented it from Resnick. Other files—including Frank Dickerman’s file—contained long documents in legalese. Options to buy, as far as I could tell.

  But he had a file on everyone on the island, not just the property owners. And along with the contracts or details of any negotiations he’d been conducting, all the files contained notes—sometimes pages and pages of notes—about the owners, including any dirt Resnick had dug up about their personal and financial peccadilloes.

  “Michael, the man was a monster,” I said after browsing in a few files. “He was blackmailing people into selling him their property.”

  “Well, he’s a dead monster now, and these files could very well contain the motive for his murder,” Michael said. “We have to turn these over to the proper authorities.”

  “You mean to Mayor Benton, who, according to her file, had to sell her building to him to pay off her gambling debts and then rubber-stamped the building permit for this house to keep him quiet? Or Constable Barnes, who hadn’t yet agreed to sell the store, but might have changed his mind if Resnick had threatened to tell his wife about that fling he had with Candi, the hairdresser over in Port Clyde?”

  “I see your point,” Michael said. “The mainland authorities. Well, this is interesting.”

  “Whose file are you reading?”

  “The Dickermans’. One of those blue-striped pieces is their house, and it was about to go solid blue.”

  “Why?” I asked. “The power company isn’t making a profit?”

  “The power company’s doing fine, but they’re probably going to lose that, too. Mr. Dickerman senior borrowed money from Resnick to bail two of his sons out of jail on charges of grand theft auto. And assault. Our charming friend Fred and a brother named Will, whom we probably won’t be meeting, because he skipped out on his bail, bringing the whole family economy crashing down in ruins. Resnick threatened to foreclose on the loan in a few weeks.”

  “Now, there’s a motive.”

  “And the assault consisted of Will hitting someone on the head with a lug wrench.”

  “Ooh, I like it!” I said. “I mean, it’s terrible, of course; but I’m sure the mainland police will find it fascinating, having someone with a motive and a history of bludgeoning his victims.”

  “And consider Will Dickerman a far more likely suspect than any of your relatives.”

  “Him or Fred, either one,” I said. “I’ve never met Will, at least not since we were kids, but if you asked me who of all the people I’ve met on Monhegan in the past few days was the most likely to have bashed someone’s skull in, Fred Dickerman would be my number-two choice.”

  “Only number two?” Michael said, raising one eyebrow. “Who’s number one?”

  “The victim himself.”

  “And, unfortunately, he’s out of the running.”

  “True,” I said. “Suicide by blunt instrument’s pretty hard to accomplish. Oh, good grief!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Is there anyone on this island who doesn’t have a guilty secret in their past?”

  “I see you’re holding your aunt Phoebe’s file; don’t tell me he dug up any dirt on her!”

  I scanned her file quickly.

  “No, thank goodness. The only charges he’s logged against her are a complete lack of tact and caring more about birds than humans.”

  “Guilty on both counts, if you ask me,” Michael said with a chuckle.

  “Agreed. But I’ve never heard either of those is even a misdemeanor. Besides—”

  “What’s that?” Michael said, pointing to the glass wall behind me. I saw only the rain-soaked shrubbery outside.

  “What did it look like?” I asked, going over to the window.

  “I thought I saw someone behind that bush.”

  Just then, I saw a flicker of motion at the edge of the yard and caught a glimpse of someone disappearing into the woods.

  “Rhapsody,” I said. “Wonder what she’s doing here?”

  “Maybe she’s researching her latest book,” Michael said.

  “To Kill a Puffin, I suggested. “The Happy Puffin Family Solves a Grisly Murder.”

  “Or Silence of the Puffins?” Michael countered.

  “I know!” I said. “The Puffin of the Baskervilles!”

  “You’re right; that’s it,” Michael said as we dissolved into laughter.

  “Ah, well,” I said. “Maybe we should wrap things up here before someone else comes along snooping. I think we’ve found as much as we’re going to. At least until the power comes on and we can get into his computer.”

  “By the time that happens, we’ll have police all over the place,” Michael said.

  I didn’t answer. He was right, of course.

  “Let’s check the studio,” I said.

  We locked the last of the papers up in the wine cellar and went back out the smashed window in the front hall. Unfortunately, the studio had weathered the storm far better than the house. The only broken glass was in the roof, way beyond our reach.

  “I think if we had a rope, we could let ourselves down through that hole from one of those trees,” I said.

  “Aren’t we supposed to have ropes in our knapsacks?” Michael asked, shrugging his off his shoulder.

  “Yes, but we used them hauling Resnick’s body up, remember? And we never got them back.”

  “That’s right,” Michael said, hefting the knapsack back onto his shoulders. “Not that I especially want those particular ropes back. We’d need the rope to get up into the tree, too. Not to mention a really good story in case we get caught.”

  “We have to,” I said as my stubborn streak kicked in. I glanced over at Michael. He was looking down at the ground, and from the expression on his face, I suddenly feared that we were on the brink of an argument. That he would refuse to do any more unauthorized snooping, and try to stop me from doing it, too. And I couldn’t exactly blame him; it wasn’t his family.

  Then he looked up, caught my eye, and sighed.

  “Okay, let’s go back to the house and get some ropes, then,” he said.

  CHAPTER 21

  A Cat Among the Puffins

  When we came to the intersection where Resnick’s private path joined the main gravel road, I insisted that we lurk in the bushes for a few moments to make sure no one was around.

  “I told you we wouldn’t run into anyone else,” Michael said as we finally stepped out into the road.

  “We have to be careful,” I said. “After all—”

  “Hello!” called several voices from behind us. We whirled, to see half a dozen birders striding energetically down the path.

  “Did you hear about the murder?” one of them asked eagerly.

  “Yes, we found—” Michael began.

  “Yes, but what’s the latest word?” I asked, interrupting him before he could reveal our close connection to the case.

  The birders swept us into their midst and, as we panted to keep up with them, talked nonstop and simultaneously all the way down to the village. Other birders joined us in progress, and by the time we reached the main square of the village, we formed part of a milling, chattering crowd that must have included half the birders on the island.

  When the police arrived, they’d have a lot of fun interrogating all the birders. Not surprisingly, since they’d wandered all over the island since their arrival, their ranks contained possible witnesses to nearly everything that had happened over the past several days.

  The police would
find witnesses to Resnick shooting at Michael and me, and several witnesses who would testify, truthfully or not, that he’d shot at them. Witnesses to the fight with Ken Takahashi, several of whom had taken photographs. Witnesses to Aunt Phoebe’s struggle with Resnick. I was relieved to hear confirmation that he had still been standing—actually jumping up and down, yelling his head off, according to the witnesses—when Aunt Phoebe stormed off. Of course, that didn’t prove that he hadn’t collapsed later on as a result of the rap on the head, but it was encouraging. Eyewitnesses to Aunt Phoebe pulling up at least one of Resnick’s NO TRESPASSING signs and throwing it violently over the cliff, which could answer the question of how the sign ended up floating in the tidal pool. Though not, of course, the question of whether the murderer had used the missing signpost as a weapon. And from what we heard, the sign couldn’t have landed on Resnick’s head by accident when Aunt Phoebe had thrown it; too many witnesses had seen him alive and well afterward. Witnesses who saw Jeb Barnes’s subsequent arrival and summary dismissal. Witnesses who saw Dad have some kind of altercation with Resnick a short time later, which terrified me, until I managed to extract the information that though they’d exchanged harsh words, Resnick had been very much alive when they parted. Witnesses who saw Resnick afterward, patrolling his borders in search of trespassers. Witnesses who saw him pottering about by the shore, throwing a few stones at the gulls. Even witnesses who’d seen Michael and me when we’d found the body. I’d have felt better if some of the witnesses were a little more reliable on the matter of time. They tended to think less in hours and minutes and more in terms of “before we saw the bay-breasted warbler, and just after I got that snapshot of the crested grebe feeding.” But just by circulating through the crowd and listening, we could more or less put together a time line of exactly what Resnick had done up until shortly before Michael and I found him.

  We also encountered potential witnesses who claimed they had actually seen Resnick shooting down puffins, which I took with a grain of salt under the circumstances, since we had it on good authority that the puffins had all long since departed for the Arctic Circle. And then there were the witnesses who claimed they’d seen a sinister stranger skulking about the island, pretending to be a birder, despite an almost complete lack of birding knowledge. I made a note to ask Rob what kind of pranks he’d been playing over the past day or so.