The Body in the Moonlight (24 page)

Spend the night in the crypt!

It was a prospect straight from one of Scott's books.

She stood up and pounded on the door, yelling, “Help, I'm locked in the crypt!” a few times for good measure.

Scott's books. She shuddered as the memories of some of the more sensational plots came flooding back. Inexplicably, the memory of the ad she'd seen in the paper came back, too. She could visualize it. Saturday, November 6. “Spend Saturday night with the master of crime.” She was positive. Why would he lie?

She stopped pounding. She kept very quiet.

The master of crime. Suddenly, she knew who had killed Gwen and who had killed Jared. And who might very well be intending to kill her, too. Right now.

When the footsteps came, she retreated down the stairs, stumbling over a pile of framed religious prints at the bottom. One slid to the floor, the glass shattering. The footsteps stopped. She flashed her light, searching for a place to hide. The crypt didn't offer
much cover. There were, as she'd recalled earlier, boxes of hymnals, chairs in various states of disrepair, some coatracks, and a great many memorial stones, some flat on the floor, some set into the side walls. The best she could do was crouch behind one of the supporting columns. She did so immediately. She was still clutching the thermos and bag of cookies. The thermos was a heavy metal one. She dropped her pocketbook and the cookies and held the thermos in both hands as a club. Hope flickered as she prayed the door would prove as impenetrable from the outside as it had from the inside.

Anson L. Scott. Why?

Bill Brown's voice came back to her. “Murderers are crazy.” Leopold and Loeb. And Veronica's: “Place can be another character, you know.” They'd all said that murderers are accomplished actors. Tanya had suggested a sexual thrill, and Anson himself had summed it all up, saying that murderers are conceited. They believe they can fool the world.

Hubris. Anson L. Scott. It was all there, all the time. From Ballou House, the setting, to the mutilated squirrel, to Halloween night—to now.

And Faith herself had suggested the meeting place.

“Ah.” Hearing his voice panicked her so much, she thought she might pass out. She tightened her grip on the thermos. She'd have the element of surprise. “A faulty door. And, silly girl, you've locked yourself in. I'll get you out in a jiffy, dear lady,” he called. “Thank
goodness I heard your calls for aid. Nasty place to spend the night. Fortunately, I have my picks with me. Trained with the best—although presently he's doing six to ten at Walpole—for a book I wrote some years ago.”

He sounded absolutely normal. Normal for Anson L. Scott. Could she be wrong? She would feel silly indeed if she knocked him out cold and he wasn't the murderer after all. That it was Janice—or Nick. But Nick wouldn't kill Jared. Ursula had said they were like brothers, the good kind of brothers, close. And Janice—the night of October 23, Janice had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She saw the beam of a powerful flashlight on the stairs. The door was open—and he was coming down. “No lights. This suggests penury rather than thrift on the church's part, but I always carry my trusty torch in my greatcoat.” He sounded positively jovial.

“Faith, where are you? Playing hide-and-seek?” When the silence of the grave was all that greeted his query, good humor swiftly vanished, and there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. “Answer me!” Not finding her right on the other side of the door had immediately given him the clue he needed. “Now, lovely Mrs. Fairchild, I know you're down here. No need to be frightened. It's only me.” He laughed theatrically. A Vincent Price laugh.

The stairs creaked under his weight and Faith wished in vain he'd go through one, injuring himself. Of all the things in the crypt to be in good shape…

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” he called mockingly, letting the flashlight beam play against the walls.

“I see you,” he chortled, and walked directly toward her. She didn't move. She'd known the narrow column wouldn't hide her for long, but she'd make him come to her.

“Let me see. What little trick do you have up your sleeve? Not a gun. Ministers' wives are seldom armed in these parts. You would have been carrying a purse, and, aside from the goodies for me, it probably contains any number of lethal implements. A nail file—good when aimed at an eye. A pocketknife. Go for the jugular with that. Especially in my case. Too much avoirdupois over my heart. How about pepper spray? That would be annoying. Except in Aleford, you have to get permission from the police to carry it, and I can't see good old dim-witted Charley agreeing to a need for it on our safe streets.”

Anson L. Scott was enjoying himself. He was so close she could smell the faint musk of his aftershave.

She screamed. There had never been the remotest chance. Scott had blinded her with the strong beam of light and wrenched the thermos from her hands. He kicked it to one side and drew a knife with a long, thin blade from his coat pocket. He held it in the light, close to his face, smiling. It was a nightmare.

“It's all been such fun and you have played your part admirably. I am going to miss you. So you had a thermos. How thoughtful. Coffee—or maybe milk—to go
with the baked goods,” he said, pulling her in front of the column and pushing her against it. He was wearing soft leather gloves.

“My husband knows I'm meeting you here. You can't possibly think you're going to get away with this.”

“Not an accomplished liar, dear thing. Not like
moi.
Of course I have ascertained that your husband has no idea as to your whereabouts or with whom. That's why I needed a bit of time. A call or two to make. I explained to him that I was checking my messages while on my book tour and would get in touch with you when I was back in Aleford. He told me the Celtics game—I am rather a fan, too—was so boring, he'd fallen asleep and that you had slipped off he knew not where.”

“When you don't show up for your reading, it will come out that you weren't in New York. Plus, you must have been seen coming into the church. And your car is in the parking lot. Not too many other people in Aleford, or anywhere else, drive cream-colored Rolls-Royces.”

“I mustn't laugh. You are such an amateur, though, it's difficult not to break into peals of merriment. First, I
am
in New York. Working in my room at the Carlyle, not to be disturbed for anything save immediate threat of peril. They know me and my ways. No one will knock on the door or ring the phone until I give the word. And when I return after the appearance at the Black Orchid, there will be a
whole new crew at the desk, who will assume I left earlier. My car is in my garage and the rental, something American that looks like every other car on the road, is parked in the Shop and Save lot with others of its ilk. Easy to slip through the woods behind the church to and from the lot, you know. It gets dark so nice and early now. My favorite time of year. And even if I am noted on the shuttle, there's nothing to connect me to all of this. I barely know you. No one would think to suspect me and check the airlines.”

He was right. He'd appear at the bookstore in time and no one would know he'd spent the day in Aleford. Just as no one had known she'd spent Thursday in New York. There was something ironic in all this, but it wasn't something she wanted to think about at the moment.

“And now here we are, the crypt. I couldn't have picked a better spot myself. The book will be fabulous. My crowning achievement.” He gestured expansively with the knife.

“You're writing a book about all this? It's all been so you can write a book!” She was indignant. Who knows? Perhaps his sales figures
were
slipping, but that was no reason to murder two—make that three—people.

He looked at his watch. “We have a few minutes to spare—and it's the least I can do after you've brought me a treat.” He pointed the light at the bag on the floor. She immediately kicked it against the wall, where it
came to rest, appropriately enough, beneath Hiram Slaughter's marker. Sometimes life is truly stranger than fiction, she reminded herself.

“Temper, temper. But no mind. I can retrieve it later. Now, I was about to tell you a tale. The abridged version, sadly. It all started last summer when my agent was calling with a great many dire predictions. He tends to be excitable. I knew the book that's out currently would lay his fears to rest, but he started me thinking about my legacy. Certainly people will remember
Blood Root
and
Fool's Poison
for a long, long time. But I decided to write a book that would live forever, unlike we poor human beings. I would commit the perfect crime, write my account, and leave instructions for it to be published after my unfortunate demise. I would leave not only an immortal book but also an audacious act.”

The whole thing was unbelievable and inexplicable. “Why did you select Gwen and Jared as victims? What had they ever done to you?”

“Absolutely nothing. That was the joy of it all. I knew my story would find me, so I waited. When the invitation to the event at Ballou House came, I had my setting. My grandmother, who raised me after my poor mother killed herself, had worked there. I'm afraid her employers were not very enlightened, and as a girl, she was forced to suffer many physical hardships and even worse psychological indignities. Mother was born out of wedlock and, in the family tradition, so was I, except Mother couldn't stand the
stigma and left this earth. Granny was made of tougher metal and determined that I should make something of myself. And so I have. I even tried to buy Ballou House, a monstrous ark—don't know what I would have done with it—because I knew it would have pleased her. But I digress. My book is a work in progress. You, for instance, have selected this scene. Throughout, I've simply been following the course of events, with only an occasional intervention. I poisoned one of the desserts when they were on the counter in the kitchen. No one was about. I knew from the paper what you would be serving, and cyanide was a nice old-fashioned touch. All those lovely British village mysteries redolent with the odor of bitter almonds. Little did I dream that Lady Luck would place me at the same table as the victim. It was too delicious. And such an abundance of suspects. There was your husband, fawning all over the girl—sorry, Faith, but these things must be said. Her fiancé, who may have wanted out of the relationship. His cousin, who employed her at the gallery and, I recalled, had been selling prints of dubious provenance not so long ago. There could be something there. I ruled out Ursula Rowe. Too intelligent, and she might figure it all out. Her daughter was no threat to me, but a bit too colorless. All those good works. Of course, they could mask some nice pathology, but I wasn't interested. I
was
tempted by Paula Pringle. She'd been calling incessantly and presuming a relationship where none existed. She is really quite horrible, but
she was leaving town, and that didn't fit in with my plans. I knew suspicion would inevitably fall upon the caterer, and I'm afraid I have been murmuring a word here and there about your business—reminding people about that other ‘mishap' when you were catering the movie shoot. Such fun having them here, even though they were filming a dreary old Hawthorne and not me.”

Faith was furious. “So that's why everyone's been canceling!”

“You give me too much credit and Aleford not enough. Most of them acted solely on their own. You know how rumors spread in this town. Like the one about the reverend and the deceased.”

Faith was so choked with rage, she couldn't speak.

“Again, just one or two words. I'm afraid Margery is an inveterate gossip.”

She certainly didn't look the part, Faith thought bitterly. Poor Tom.

“Yet once more, fate stepped in and gave me the perfect suspect. Someone capable of murder. A veritable time bomb. Janice Mulholland. I'm quite a good listener, you know, and all that was necessary was to ask an occasional question and make sympathetic noises. Janice's life became an open book, including her vendetta against the principal. Again, I was able to fan the flames a bit that evening. It was all there waiting.”

“So
you
framed Janice.
You
put the receipt for the wrapping paper in Jared's briefcase.”

“I had to direct the police to her darkroom, don't you know.” He was adopting a kind of Bertie Wooster/Jeeves tone. “She's quite insane when it comes to her daughter. Completely gaga. Actually gave me the form. I noticed as I came in just now that rather serendipitously she's got a table full of them here at the church. Wonderful red herrings.”

Faith felt a ringing in her ears. Her head seemed about to explode. It
was
an Anson L. Scott book come to life—and he himself was the quintessential murderer. An amoral sociopathic psychopath. Murder—the ultimate expression of narcissism.

“All this time when you've been on your book tour, you've been coming back to town.”

He nodded. “I believe it was D.C. when young Jared was killed.”

“And was that really necessary! You'd already committed your crime!” Faith blurted out.

“You must not read much mystery fiction, Faith,” he said reproachfully. “You always have to have a second body—and in my books, rather more than that. Gwen was chapter one. So obligingly in costume. Marvelous details. That lovely beaded turquoise dress she wore, covered with her so very bright red blood. My words have never flowed as easily across the page.”

Faith gagged.

“Oh dear, I've upset you. Never mind. The end is near.”

Faith straightened up. She had to keep him talking.

“So, it was you who left that squirrel on my doorstep—and followed me home that night.”

He grinned, and as he answered, Faith heard a very, very faint creak. Someone was coming down the stairs.