Death Comes Silently (21 page)

Headlights from parked police cruisers illuminated Billy. He faced the marsh, burly, solid, and muscular, as he spoke into a megaphone. Annie also recognized Lou Pirelli, Billy’s second-in-command. Henny’s old Dodge was clearly visible. The driver’s door was wide open, the window shattered. Bits of glass sparkled on the dusty ground. A bullet hole marred the left rear fender.

Marian Kenyon, Leica held steady, clicked photos in a frenzy.

Annie tugged on Max’s arm. “Let’s ask Marian.” When they reached the reporter, Annie called out, “Marian—”

“Not now.” She never lowered the camera. “Got to get these.” Her dark hair was pulled back in a scraggly ponytail. She wore no coat. An oversized flannel shirt hung to the knees of her jeans. She’d not bothered with shoes, instead wore once fluffy house slippers.

Far out in the bay, a light flashed, once, twice, three times, then remained on, dimly visible. A distant shout warned, “Miz Brawley may be hurt.” The young male voice was anguished. “There was shots. You got to find her.”

Two police officers climbed into a boat at the far end of Henny’s pier and chugged in the direction of the tiny spot of light.

Annie watched the boat’s running lights. It seemed to take forever until the boat reached the hammock. An officer’s voice was magnified by a megaphone. “Here we are. Steady. Come aboard.” In the boat’s lights, the hammock was a dark uneven hump on the black water. “We’ll get you ashore.” The officer stood in the back of the boat with the megaphone. “Chief, there’s a bunch of stuff out here—”

Billy’s megaphone boomed. “Not now. Bring him in.” Billy handed the megaphone to another uniformed figure and he and Lou strode toward the pier. The police boat pulled alongside and tied up. In the bright beam of a Maglite, an officer climbed the ladder, turned to hold the boat steady as a young man in a brown corduroy jacket clambered onto the pier.

Marian swung toward Annie. “Who the hell’s that?”

“Jeremiah Young.” To Annie, it seemed as if her voice came from a long distance.

Max’s head turned toward her. His eyes narrowed.

Annie looked straight ahead. There would be time for explanations, both to Max and to Billy. Henny had taken a gamble in helping
Jeremiah hide. Her faith in his innocence now seemed justified, but her efforts to find out the truth behind Gretchen’s murder may have come at a terrible cost. Something she’d done, something she’d said, something she’d seen today had brought a murderer here tonight.

“OmiGod. He was out there?” Marian flung an arm toward the marsh. “Okay, ladies and gents, we got a story here. He didn’t get there with water wings. He doesn’t have a boat. I checked on that when he went missing. First thought is always that a fugitive will boat over to the mainland. Plus, he doesn’t have a car. Last mode of transport a bike. Maybe it’s hidden in the woods around here.” Marian practically bounced in excitement. “He didn’t bike out to that hammock. Henny has a boat. My crystal ball tells me she ferried him out to the hammock, then spent the day trying to find out who killed Burkholt. But tonight how did the cops know he was out there? Last I heard there was an APB, but take a look at his welcoming committee.” She gestured toward the end of the pier where Jeremiah was in deep conversation with Billy and Lou. Lou was always Billy’s right-hand man in any investigation. Lou was athletic, fast-moving, and, off duty babied a nineteen eighty Chevy and loved the Braves. “Nobody’s arresting Young. Looks more like he was rescued and he’s part of the team.”

Annie watched as directed. Marian was right. The body language of Billy Cameron and Jeremiah Young was of an older man and a younger, intent, cooperating, talking fast. Lou bent close, listening hard. On the same team, as Marian said.

Billy turned to the officer standing by the ladder, apparently gave instructions. The policeman, a bulky figure in a duffel coat, clambered down the ladder and stepped into the boat. The boat chugged back out into the channel as Billy, Lou, and Jeremiah walked fast to the shore, men in a hurry.

On the bank, Billy gestured toward Henny’s car. He and Lou and
Jeremiah stopped a little way from the car, about twenty feet from where Annie and Max stood with Marian. Billy pointed at the broken driver’s window. “One of the shots knocked out her window.”

Annie clung to Max’s hand. What happened after Henny was ambushed?

In the glare of police cruiser headlights, Jeremiah looked even scruffier than usual, do-rag askew, broad face pale and unshaven, corduroy jacket streaked with dirt. “There was shots. Lots of them. I yelled after the first shot. I yelled and yelled. I called nine-one-one. I tried to sound like I was coming. I took a log and beat on the ground like somebody running. There was like five or six shots. I would of come, but I can’t swim. You got to find her.”

“We’re looking. Did you see her at all?”

A siren sounded and an ambulance curved around the cruise car across the road and drew up near one of the parked cruise cars.

Jeremiah swung toward the road. “Has somebody found her?”

Billy shook his head. “Just in case.”

Annie took a step forward, called out. “Can we help search?”

Lights in the woods winked like fireflies as searchers struggled through undergrowth.

Billy’s face was sympathetic. “We got people working on a grid. Better stay where you are.” Then he frowned. “How come you two are here?”

Marian lifted her sharp chin. “You can tag me for the Darlings.” Her tone was combative. “I gave them a heads-up. Henny called me about seven. She wanted the phone number of Maggie Knight, the housekeeper at the Hathaway house. She and the Darlings are hunting the person who lured Everett Hathaway out in a kayak and killed him. I thought you better talk to them”—she jerked a thumb at Annie and Max—“and find out who might have come after Henny.”

Billy swung toward Annie, his heavy face in a tight frown.

Annie remembered Henny’s plan. The first thing the next morning, she intended to ask Billy to talk to Maggie Knight. “Henny thinks Maggie Knight saw someone take Gretchen’s message. Henny called Maggie tonight. There was no answer. She asked Maggie to call back. Henny was going to ask you to talk to Maggie, see what you could find out.” Annie sounded stressed. “I don’t know where Maggie lives.”

Marian checked her notebook, rattled off Maggie’s address.

Billy unhooked his cell phone, pressed a number. “Harrison, take a run over to two eighteen Barred Owl Road. Bring Maggie Knight to the station. Explain she’s needed in a missing person case. Take her into custody as a material witness if she resists.” He turned back to Jeremiah. “How far out is that hammock?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “I don’t know. A long way.”

Billy folded his arms. “What were you doing out there?”

Jeremiah stared down at the ground. “Hiding. I was scared.” His voice was tired, hopeless. “Listen, Chief”—now his voice was anguished—“I didn’t hurt Miz Burkholt.”

“How’d you know she was hurt?” Billy’s voice was sharp.

“I had a bunch of stuff to take into the storeroom and I came in the hall and I saw blood. I looked inside the room. She was lying there and my axe was next to her. I knew everybody’d think I’d done it and I didn’t.” It was a cry from his heart. “I never did.”

Billy stared at him, his face grim. “How’d you get to the hammock?”

Jeremiah shifted from one foot to another, looked at the ground. “Somebody brought me.”

“When?”

Jeremiah’s face creased in thought. Finally, he said reluctantly, “This morning.”

Lou spoke quietly. “Mrs. Brawley took you out.”

Jeremiah hunched his shoulders, locked his big hands together.

Billy nodded. “Had to be her.”

Jeremiah looked at him pleadingly. “I don’t want to get Miz Brawley in trouble.”

“We can prove it when they bring all the stuff back. Her fingerprints will be on a bunch of it. Why did she take you there?”

“Last night I come here. I didn’t know where to go and I was hungry. I was looking in Miz Brawley’s garbage cans and she got home. She must have heard me or something and she came into that place with the garbage pails.” He hunched his shoulders. “I took my coat and wrapped it around her. I was sorry to scare her. I told her I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Miz Burkholt, but she’d been hit and my axe was there beside her. I knew everybody’d blame me. I told her I’d rather die than go back to prison. She let me come inside and she fixed some bacon and eggs and we talked and she knew I didn’t hurt anybody. She let me sleep on the couch and this morning she said I would be safe on the hammock and she’d find out what happened. Somehow.”

Billy’s gaze was thoughtful. “You knew we’d find you when you called nine-one-one.”

Shots at Henny and shouts from Jeremiah. Annie imagined his panic, trapped so far from land. He’d done the best he could and he’d called for help even though he understood the consequences to himself.

Jeremiah’s face was heavy. “I had to get help. I couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t let somebody hurt her. Not after all she did for me. I figured I had to tell you what I knew. I owed her that. But I’d rather die than go back to jail. They hurt me there.” His voice shook.

Lou’s face squeezed in understanding.

“She was a damn fool to take you out there.” Billy looked exasperated yet excited. “But that tells me a lot. She’s smart about people.
She believed you.” Billy let the words hang in the damp air. “She could have been wrong. If she’d been wrong, we wouldn’t be hunting her tonight. She’s a small woman, elderly. You could have overpowered her, taken her boat, got to the mainland, dumped a body way out in the Sound. You didn’t do that. You got out of her boat and you’ve been on that hammock. All right. Run through everything again from the time you heard her car tonight.”

“She didn’t come home until about ten, but somebody was here a little before that. I didn’t think about it. I mean, I guess I should have wondered why I didn’t hear another car. It’s kind of like at Better Tomorrow. I never heard anyone come there, either, but when I went inside, Miz Burkholt was dead. And tonight, I was kind of watching out for Miz Brawley to come home—”

Annie felt a twist of sympathy. He’d been out on the hammock, alone, and he’d wanted to know Henny was home, not to ask for anything, not to call for her, just to know that she was there.

“—and then I saw the front door open and somebody going inside. I didn’t have a good look. Just a dark figure, moving fast. I figured some friend had come over and was waiting for her. In a little while, the door opened and somebody came down the steps. It was just a quick shadow. I thought maybe her friend got tired of waiting. About twenty minutes later, her old Dodge come up the road. The motor knocks. It needs some work on the carburetor. Anyway, I felt good that she was home. I saw the headlights as she parked. She got out and that’s when the first shot came. Then two more, real quick.”

“What did she do?”

Jeremiah looked miserable. “I don’t know. There was light from her house windows but she didn’t come that way. I guess she ran toward the woods.” He gestured to his right.

Billy’s head turned. He surveyed the car. “If she’d been hit, she would have fallen there. There’s some blood—”

Annie felt sick. Henny had been so confident when she left.
Tomorrow at nine.

“—but not enough for a serious wound. Likely some of the glass from the window hit her. So she knew she was a target. She’d stay away from the light and head for cover.” He turned back to Jeremiah. “How many more shots?”

“Three. I was yelling the whole time—”

Billy nodded. “We got you on tape. You sure as hell were. You yelled for us to get here, too.”

“—and beating with the log. I yelled and yelled. After a while I stopped and listened. I didn’t hear anything except the water and the cordgrass until the sirens started.”

“Right. So now—” Billy’s walkie-talkie beeped. He unhooked it from his belt. “Cameron… Right. Yeah, might as well bring all the stuff in. He won’t be going back out there.” He clicked off, sheathed the mobile radio. “That hammock’s a good hundred yards out. About twelve feet deep there. I’ll check it out, but I figure you’re telling the truth that you can’t swim. You wouldn’t have made it anyway. Too cold. And there’s nothing out there, not a canoe, not a kayak, not a rowboat, not even a damn air mattress. You were marooned.” He jerked a thumb toward the nearest cruiser. “Wait in the car.”

Jeremiah stood stiff and still, shoulders hunkered forward.

“Just a place to wait until we get a break. The front seat. There’s a thermos. Have some coffee.”

Not the back, Annie realized, where a metal grill separated the backseat from the front and there were no handles on the doors.

“Coffee?” Jeremiah’s voice shook.

“Yeah. We’ll need your statement. Then you can go home.”

Jeremiah’s eyes widened. “You mean—”

“Right. We’ll cancel the APB—” Billy’s walkie-talkie buzzed. He lifted it. “You found her? I’ll be right there.” Billy nodded at Jeremiah. “Wait in the car.” Then he gestured to the paramedics. “Time to move out.”