Crowned and Moldering

It took me a full minute to catch my breath from being frightened half to death. “Aldous, what’re you doing here all alone? How did you get here?”

“My granddaughter has some friends visiting and she brought them up here to see the lighthouse. I hitched a ride, but I couldn’t make the climb up to the top of the lighthouse. So while the girls went exploring, I wandered over here. The back door was open, so I figured, What the heck? Thought I’d take a look around.”

“All righty.” Relief flooded through me. My intruder was no more than a curious old man who had vivid memories of this house. But my breath remained stilted as I led the way downstairs to the kitchen, where the lights were brightest and we could see exactly what he’d found in the chute.

“I guess you saw the kitchen demolition in progress,” I said.

“Sure did,” he said, looking around. “It’s a real mess you’ve got here, Sha

“Promise. Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.” I turned on the light that had once shone over the now-departed sink, and he held up the backpack. I unlatched the wide front pocket and pulled out a school notebook.

“Must be some kid’s,” he said.

“Yeah.” But I already knew whose it was as I flipped the notebook open. The first page was covered in doodles and flowery writing that looked like a young girl’s. Here and there on the page were hearts drawn around the initials BJ and LB.

“Lily Brogan,” I murmured. But who was BJ? I mentally sca

“What’s that?” Aldous said.

“Nothing,” I said, my voice a hoarse whisper. “Sorry, Mr. Murch. I was just thinking out loud.”

And I hated what I was thinking. It doesn’t have to mean anything, I tried to convince myself. Every girl in school had had a crush on Mr. Jones. There had to be a dozen girls who’d encircled their initials with his when doodling in notebooks. We all imagined ourselves walking down the aisle with him.

But Lily had gone missing. Lily had been pregnant. And Lily had drawn little hearts with Mr. Jones’s initials on her notebooks. It couldn’t be true, could it?

But no matter what I told myself, I knew it had to be true. Brad Jones had to have been the father of Lily’s baby.

Now that I accepted that thought, I kept remembering little clues, little things that had happened lately. Mr. Jones had known that Lily had been trying to get a scholarship. He’d talked about it just the other day when he mentioned that her father had been such a bully.

Sean had told me that Lily had refused to tell anyone about her dream of college after being discouraged by Dismal Dean’s remarks. Had Mr. Jones known about her dream before Dean did?

I suddenly knew why I’d had that peculiar feeling when I saw Callie talking to Mr. Jones earlier. It was the look of teenage worship on her face. I’d seen that look so many times over the years whenever I saw Mr. Jones talking to a teenage girl.

I was reminded of a day back in high school when I happened to see Lily talking to Mr. Jones in his classroom. But rather than an artless, adolescent crush, the look on Lily’s face had revealed so much more. She had looked positively radiant, mature, and deeply in love. And I knew now, as surely as I knew my own name, that Lily had been pregnant with Mr. Jones’s child.

Not that those few minor facts alone were the reason I believed what I did. But added to all that was the fact that Cliff Hogarth had tried to blackmail Denise. It made me wonder if Cliff had known that Brad Jones was the father of Lily’s baby.

But how did Cliff even find out that Lily was pregnant? Did she tell him? I couldn’t imagine she would.

Putting those thoughts aside, I returned to the backpack. Opening the main pocket, I could clearly see a flimsy blouse and a balled-up pair of jeans. There were possibly shoes and socks and underwear beneath the jeans, but I didn’t want to disturb the contents any more than I already had.

“Mr. Murch,” I said, “let’s go find your granddaughter and get you back to town.”

“That would be swell, Sha

For me, that red sauce Mac had promised didn’t sound quite so appetizing anymore.

*   *   *

Once I dropped off Mr. Murch, I swung by the police station to see Eric. He didn’t seem surprised that I was bringing him a key piece of evidence.

“Mr. Murch found it stuck in the laundry chute,” I said, holding up the backpack.

He frowned. “The laundry chute would empty into the basement.”

“That’s my assumption, although I haven’t inspected it well enough to make sure.”

“I’m surprised.”

“I know,” I said, smiling. “I’ve been slacking off.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll take it from here.”

*   *   *

Eric decided another search of the lighthouse mansion could wait until the next day, since time wasn’t really a factor anymore. So all day Friday, the police conducted an intensive search of Mac’s house. They called in the county crime-scene specialists, who combed through the backpack and notebook and other odds and ends Lily had carried with her. They searched the attic for even more evidence, but didn’t find much.

Inside the dumbwaiter they found traces of blood.

In the laundry chute they discovered minute threads that had caught on the wooden surface. The threads could’ve come from any material that had ever been sent down the chute, but the specialists would run tests to see if any of them had come from Lily’s backpack.

Eric’s comment the night before about the chute leading to the basement made me wonder if Lily’s killer had debated whether to drop her body down the chute, as if she were nothing more than a sack of laundry, or simply stuff her into the dumbwaiter. Obviously, he had decided on the dumbwaiter. The thought that someone could be so cold-blooded that they would leave her in that place alone, in the dark, and walk away made me sick.

*   *   *

Mac and I had a delightful and very interesting pasta di

Once she went up to her room, I asked Mac, “Did Eric tell you why the police were searching your house all day?”

Mac gazed at me as he sipped his wine. “I think you probably know why.”

I grimaced. “I do, but I don’t want to break any confidences.”

“Then I’ll let you off the hook. He told me that Lily was pregnant with Brad Jones’s baby.”

My shoulders sagged in relief. “I was dying to tell you, but I just couldn’t.”

He smiled. “I think it’s admirable that you can keep a secret, but I obviously need to work on my coercion skills.”

“No, you don’t,” I muttered.

That made him grin, but he quickly sobered. “Brad seems like a nice guy, but hasn’t anyone expressed concern that Lily was underage when she got pregnant by her teacher?”

“That bothers me a lot,” I admitted. “But I remembered that Lily had been held back a year in grammar school, so she was eighteen years old when she was a senior. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not excusing Brad. But, officially, she was an adult.”

He nodded thoughtfully, then thanked me for taking him into my confidence.

“I would’ve told you everything sooner because I trust you,” I said. “But I just couldn’t break Eric’s confidence.”

“I appreciate you saying you trust me, because I feel the same about you.”

“Thank you.” And after hearing myself say it out loud, I realized it was true. I trusted Mac completely. “So Eric told you all about the backpack and notebook we found in the laundry chute?”