Isabella Moon (48 page)

“You’re not sorry, then.” She said it as though it were some kind of fact. Like she was saying,
The sun is yellow.

Miles was about to turn his head to look at her, but the road curved abruptly to the left and there was a little girl ahead, in the middle of his lane. He got a quick impression of long, dark braids and a bright yellow coat and red boots. It occurred to him in the moment before he cried out and swerved across the road that she looked ready to go out and play in the snow. Then the sedan was headed down the hillside, breaking the scrub trees as it plunged, airborne, toward the Quair. Finally, it bounced down hard and Miles’s head and shoulders burst from the windshield and he was free of the car, shooting through the air like a man fired from a cannon. A thousand thoughts flooded his head—
Where was the pain? Shouldn’t he be in pain? Had he left his toothbrush at the inn? What had his brother been hiding in his gym bag that afternoon before he died? Who is watching?
—but a single thought tore itself away from the rest:
Why had he only heard his own scream and not his Mary-Katie’s?

Then Miles closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear the anticipation of plunging into the chestnut tree ahead of him, a tree whose thousand twisted limbs beckoned in the failing light like those of some freakish and dangerous mother.

51

MORGEIWICZ, THE YOUNG TROOPER,
had acceded to Bill’s request to transfer Frank away from the Carystown jail to the regional lockup in Bolton County with an attitude of solemn efficiency. It wasn’t lost on Bill that, twenty-five years before, Frank had probably been just as sincere and just as serious about being a Marine as this young man was about the law.

As soon as the paperwork was done, Bill drove out to Frank’s house. He knew it would only have been a matter of time before Frank’s arrangement with Charlie Matter went bad of its own accord. Would Frank have run from his wife, leaving her to deal with the shame of the meth business all alone? He doubted it. Frank had been desperate, but Bill knew he loved Rose more than anything. In fact, maybe he loved her too much if he had let it drive him to attempted murder.

Rose’s sister, Julie, had been there to help handle the tears, the disbelief. It was the disbelief that had remained in Rose’s eyes when he’d gotten up to leave. There would be the call from Frank, soon enough, to bring her around.

It was only later, with Mitch and Daphne, that Bill shared his theory that Frank had intentionally avoided killing Charlie Matter.

“I don’t think he could do it,” he said as the three of them sat in his office drinking cups of the strong coffee that Mitch had made as soon as they got back from Frank’s house. Mitch had waited in the cruiser, but he’d seen the regretful look on Bill’s face when he came out of the door.

“You don’t think he
wanted
to get caught?” Daphne said. “I just don’t see Frank in this at all. It’s like finding out my dad was dealing.”

“Well, if you had a disease that was killing you slowly and your husband made the kind of salary this county pays its deputies, I expect he would do some moonlighting,” Bill said.

“Pumping gas or working at the quick-stop, maybe,” Daphne said.

“We don’t know how deep he was in,” Mitch said.

“I’m sure Mr. Matter has all the details,” Bill said. “Not that we don’t need to hear Frank’s side of it.” He was feeling a little guilty about having suspected Mitch of being Charlie Matter’s inside man.

“That bastard Matter,” Mitch said. “Between him and Birkenshaw, they’ve made this town some kind of sewer.”

“Paxton Birkenshaw?” Daphne said. “What about him?”

They filled her in on the details of the search at the Birkenshaw house. Bill told them both once again to keep mum on the details and absolutely to stay away from the press. When he mentioned the press, he gave Daphne a severe look. This time, she had the decency to look a little chagrined.

“Things are going to get ugly,” Bill said. “We’ve got to bring in a big name and his mama’s not going to like it. And it’s more than the drugs and his possible involvement with the death of the Moon girl.” He turned to Mitch. “I want you to continue with the Cayley case with an eye toward Birkenshaw. He’s been seeing Francie Cayley and I’m thinking that her mother objected.”

“No kidding,” Mitch said. “I knew she was too good-looking not to have some guy on the line.”

“Wow. Great police work,” Daphne said sarcastically.

Mitch gave her chair a kick. “I don’t see you out there investigating anything,” he said.

“At least I wouldn’t be stonewalled by a suspect just because she’s pretty,” Daphne said.

“Quit it,” Bill said. Who needed children when he had these two?

“If you’d been paying attention to my reports, you’d have known she wasn’t a suspect,” Mitch said. “You want me to bring her in?” he asked Bill.

“Birkenshaw is the one we need to bring in, but it seems we’re suddenly short-handed. I need you to get a couple of hours’ sleep and then relieve Clayton at the hospital. I’m thinking we’ll be questioning our friend Charlie Matter in the morning if his wound is as insignificant as I think it is. We’ll pick up Birkenshaw tomorrow when the troopers get down here.”

“What about Delmar Johnston?” Daphne said.

“For Frank’s sake we’d better start praying he makes a full recovery,” Bill said.

A few minutes after eight, Margaret came into the station, which was empty except for Bill. With a sympathetic smile, she set a small cooler on his desk.

“I hate for you to miss a lunch
and
supper,” she said.

Bill pushed away from his laptop, on which he was writing out the details of Frank’s arrest, and sighed.

“I’m sure glad to see you,” he said. “This is a goddamn dog’s dinner of a mess, Margaret.”

As she unpacked the cold sandwiches and fruit salad, he brought her up to speed on the situation with Frank and Paxton Birkenshaw.

“It sounds like you should go out there tonight,” she said. “Freida Birkenshaw isn’t going to sit by and watch while you haul her only son off to jail. She’d spend every penny she has to protect him. You know that.”

“I’ve got two prisoners in the hospital. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, one is unconscious. But the other one’s meaner than a snake. The troopers will be down here at seven in the morning. Nothing’s going to happen in the next eleven hours except me writing reports and going over Frank’s. Who knows what he left out when I had him doing interviews around the Catlett boy’s death?”

“You know best,” Margaret said.

This was all going to come down on him, whether Birkenshaw got away or was hanged on the green in front of the courthouse. It just didn’t matter. It was damned embarrassing, was what it was. He looked incompetent as hell, and not just in front of the whole world, but in front of Margaret. That’s the thing that really galled him.

“I just wanted you to know that you were right about Paxton in the first place,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pressured you one way or the other.”

Damn.
It was just like her to take the wind out of his sails with an apology when
he
was the one who had been a jerk.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I don’t know that my moving any faster would’ve helped anyway. It wouldn’t have made a difference for Lillian Cayley. But maybe I could’ve gotten Birkenshaw talking about Charlie Matter. And Frank.”

They didn’t linger over the food. He found himself feeling better after the sandwich. The calories had helped, but Margaret’s company had made more of a difference.

As she repacked the cooler, the front door opened. Francie Cayley stood in the doorway, a dark blue raincoat pulled tight around her, looking uncertainly into the dimly lit lobby area. Although he hadn’t locked the front door, Bill hadn’t wanted to invite any curiosity seekers to drop in for a chat.

He stood up and went out to meet her.

When she saw Margaret following behind him, Francie shrank back.

“I don’t want to bother you,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what else to do. Who I should call.”

“You want to come sit down?” Bill asked her.

“What is it, honey?” Margaret said.

Francie spoke, her voice just barely controlled. “I can’t get hold of either Kate or Paxton,” she said. “I’ve tried his cell phone and at his house. And someone is
always
supposed to answer at the house. He hates Kate. I’m afraid he’s done something to her.”

Margaret led her over to a chair. “Sit,” she said, easing her onto the seat.

Francie nodded to Margaret and sat, but took a breath and continued to address Bill, who stood over her.

“He killed my mother,” she said. “Don’t ask me how I know, because you won’t believe me. All day I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. But when I couldn’t reach Kate, and then Paxton—I don’t know. I just think something is wrong.”

Margaret shared a glance with Bill. Not an I-told-you-so look, but a mutual agreement.

“Where did you last see Paxton? When?” Bill asked, already mentally preparing to call the state police post to get someone out to help bring Birkenshaw in. With Kate Russell in imminent danger, he wouldn’t have to bother a magistrate until the morning. It was the excuse he needed to do what he should have done earlier.

“He left my house late last night,” she said. “You have to help me find Kate, please. She’s not at the cottage, and I’ve tried to reach Caleb, her boyfriend, but all I get is a busy signal. For hours. Please.”

Bill knew it was the wrong time to mention that her friend Kate had her own secrets. It was entirely possible that Kate Russell had left town.

“If we can pick up Birkenshaw, she’ll be fine,” Bill said.

“Do you know what he’ll do to her?” Francie said. “Do you want her dead, too? She doesn’t deserve this. She only wanted to help me.”

“Bill,” Margaret said. “I’ll go with her.”

“I didn’t go in, but I’ve got a key to the cottage,” Francie said.

There was no way he was going to send Margaret out to look for a murderer or potential victim. But he also knew that he was going to have to give in.

“Let me make some calls,” he said. “I’ll get someone out to the Birkenshaw farm to see if he’s there and bring him in. Then we’ll go find your friend.”

Darkness engulfed the cottage. The lights from the antiques mall illuminated the edge of the yard, but that was all. Bill pulled the cruiser into the empty driveway.

“Does she have any other friends she might be staying with?” Bill asked.

“No,” Francie said. “I would have told you. Can we please go in?”

“I’d rather you stay here,” Bill said.

But after she handed him the key, she followed him up to the front porch. When he had trouble with the lock, Francie said, “Here, let me do it.” She opened the door, but Bill went in ahead of her to turn on the lights.

The cottage was empty. The neatly straightened living room looked as though it were ready for company. Bill checked the kitchen, noting the refrigerator’s pitiful contents.

Where are you, Kate?
He wanted to believe that she hadn’t left town. Sometime after their conversation at the diner he’d come to terms with his feelings for her and had promised himself that he would never pursue her. Leaving Margaret was out of the question, but he still felt a desperate need to find her and make sure she was safe.

In the bedroom, Francie noted the open drawers and gaping closet. The room didn’t look ransacked, only carelessly abandoned. A single outfit, including jewelry, lay on the bed.

“That’s weird,” Francie said. “She wasn’t getting ready for anything special that I know of. And she wouldn’t wear that to work.”

Bill, who was clueless about what any woman besides Margaret would wear, made a mental note of her observation.

“Looks to me like maybe she was packing,” he said.

“She might have gone out to Caleb’s,” Francie said. “Sometimes she spends weekends out there.”

On the way out to Caleb Boyd’s place, the young woman beside him was quiet except for the occasional direction. Boyd’s father had been one of the barbershop regulars, but not a loafer, and a well-known turkey hunter. When others would spend day after day in the woods and come home with nothing, Trace Boyd would drive up with six or seven good-sized males. When his wife died, though, he’d stopped showing up at the barbershop. He died in his sleep six months later.

Unlike the cottage, Caleb Boyd’s house was ablaze with light. Bill was glad to see it.

“Her car’s here,” Francie said. “Caleb’s truck, too. Look.” She pointed to the small convertible in front of the house. Boyd’s pickup truck was parked just outside the garage.

Before Bill could park and shut off the engine, Daphne radioed in that she and two state troopers were set to meet at the station in half an hour.

“Are you coming back? Or do you want me to take them on out when they get here?” she asked.

“We’ve just arrived at Boyd’s house,” he answered. “It might be an hour before I get back to the office, so you’d better take them on out. I’ll be in touch when I’m done here and find out where you are.”

“Ten-four, Boss,” Daphne said.