Crimes by Moonlight

“Tell me what you got,” I interrupted. “Let’s start with that. County dispatch said untimely death. The fire department been called out?”

“I called them right after I had dispatch call you. They should be here in a few minutes.”

“Okay, go on.”

It was chilly out on the porch, and I looked through some transparent white lace curtains. I saw what looked to be three people, sitting in a living room. I rubbed my hands, and Harris looked through her notepad and said, “What we have here is Ralph Toland and his wife, Carrie. They’ve lived here just under a year. Ralph runs some sort of online financial service company, and his wife helps with the books and billing.”

“Where they originally from?”

“ Vermont.”

“Oh,” I said and saw the twinkle in Melanie’s eyes with the way I pronounced the word. Years ago, during my grandparents’ time, Vermont was a state not unlike New Hampshire: solid Republican, flinty Yankee, self-sufficient, low taxes, that sort of thing. But now Vermont was just a suburb for rich New Yorkers, just like the southern part of our state was a suburb for rich Massachusetts types.

“Right, oh,” she said, referring back to her notes.

“And who’s the other guy in there with them?”

She flipped a page in the notebook. “This is where it gets… interesting, Chief. The other fellow in the living room, that’s Josh Lincoln. He was one half of a team from the N.E.G.H.”

“The N.E. what?”

She cocked her head. “You don’t watch much cable TV, do you, Chief?”

I said, “Mostly it’s Nickelodeon or the Food Network. Look, don’t keep me guessing.”

“Sorry,” she said. “N.E.G.H. New England Ghost Hunters. Josh and his buddy Peter Grolin, they belong to this outfit that hunts ghosts, spirits, paranormal phenomena, that sort of thing. They go to haunted houses or other buildings, stake them out for the night, film their results, and it gets shown on one of those weird cable cha

“Oh, Christ,” I said. “Ghost hunters. Here. Did you find out whose bright idea that was?”

“The male half of the Vermont immigrants,” Melanie said. “I guess… well, he claims that he and his wife, ever since they moved into the place, there’s been, quote, events, unquote. And the wife, she’s thinking of turning the place into a bed-and-breakfast-”

“Like this county needs another Victorian bed-and-breakfast.”

Another smile from my young officer, who’s the daughter of the selectmen chairman, and who works twice as hard to prove she doesn’t get any favors. She said, “But that’s the deal, Chief. This one, they could say it was haunted. That, plus the view of Vermont and the buttered scones for breakfast, I guess they thought that was a selling point.”

I tried to peer through the window, just saw the three shapes, sitting there silently. “What happened to Peter?”

Melanie’s smile faded a bit. “You can see for yourself. Kinda gross. Looks like he took a fall from the third floor stairs, went down to the second floor landing, and… well, the railing for the landing. There was this lovely sculpted ear of corn or something on the railing, very kitschy and decorative, but it had a sharp point and went right through his throat. Bled right out, up there on the landing.”

I took my uniform hat off, rubbed at my head. “All right. You got statements from all three of them?”

“Yep,” she said.

“You got pictures and preliminary measurements?”

“Yep, again.”

“What’s your gut telling you?”

She looked at me with a calm, clear expression, and said, “Untimely death. That’s all. Nothing suspicious.”

I stared right back at her. “Okay. Not bad… but you screwed one thing up.”

“Oh?”

I motioned to the living room. “You left the three of them alone in there, while you were out talking with me. Those are all witnesses. They should be separated so they don’t get a chance to chat and compare stories, and come up with a nice little narrative.”

Melanie said, “Good point, Chief. Won’t do it again. But still… guy took a tumble.”

“Sure,” I said, going to the door. “But if we find out later that somebody in here pushed him, the attorney general will be all over our ass. Look, stay out here and keep the eager beavers from the fire department from coming in. You’ve done well.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Chief.”

And so I opened the door and entered what was technically a crime scene, but which I thought was something else as well.

IF I was concerned about a crime being committed, I suppose I should have checked out the body of the recently deceased, but I was more interested in talking to the witnesses, aka residents, who were in the house at the time the young man died. Sitting on a couch that looked overstuffed and upholstered, like it belonged to some Manhattan designer’s idea of what constituted Victorian style, were Ralph and Carrie Toland. Ralph had on a pair of gray sweatpants and a T-shirt that said COLBY, while his wife had a light blue terry cloth robe on, her white-knuckled hands tight about the top. Her blonde hair was mussed and her eyes were red-rimmed, like she had been silently crying for the past hour. Ralph was about ten years my junior, black hair cut nice and short, but his face was just a bit flabby and shocked, like he could not believe that his entire life had led up to this, a pleasant home in a pleasant town with a dead body on the next floor.

Slumped in an easy chair that was an uneasy match to the couch was Josh Lincoln, who looked to be about the same age as our county dispatcher. He had on black sneakers, blue jeans, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt that had the same logo displayed on the van outside. There were tattoos on the back of his hands, and he had earrings in both ears. His dark hair was in a ponytail, and he was just staring at his feet.

“Mr. Toland? Sir?”

Ralph looked up, like he just recognized that someone else was in the room, and said, “Yes?”

“Sir, I’m Chief Hoyt Graham, Salem Falls Police. Is there a place where we could talk, just for a few minutes? Just the two of us?”

“Um, sure,” he said, getting up from the couch, squeezing his wife’s free hand. “Sure, come with me,” and then Carrie looked up at him, her face pinched, and whispered, “Your fault, damn you, your fault.”

He sighed and ran a hand across the top of his head, and I followed him as he walked into a kitchen, flicking on a light. I took in all the stainless steel gear and thought my wife would drool at seeing such a display. He took a stool and so did I, and I said, “I know you’ve talked to Officer Harris, but I just want to hear it from you, what happened.”

He shook his head and sighed and said, “Damn… I mean, it seemed like a hoot at the time, you know? I was watching some TV last month, saw this program on the paranormal, and saw a bit on an outfit called the New England Ghost Hunters. And Carrie and I thought it would be great to have someone come here and investigate our house.”

Sure, I thought. Your idea and your wife’s idea. I wasn’t buying it, but I went on and said, “And what would be the purpose of this… investigation?”

He shrugged. “Some publicity. We’re thinking of converting this place into a bed-and-breakfast, and we thought a television program about what’s been going on here would be wonderful in getting our name out to the public.”

“Has the pla

“Not yet, but our lawyer’s confident it will get approval.”

I flipped over a page in the notebook and thought, Then your lawyer doesn’t know Salem Falls that well, but poor Ralph was already having a terrible night, so I didn’t want to add to his misery. Aloud I said, “So tell me, sir, what’s been going on that you thought about bringing in ghost hunters?”