“More than once.” Natalie crossed her arms and shivered against the chill. “It feels like I’ve spent the last six months picking up pieces of my life and realizing they weren’t what I’d always assumed they were. Grace wasn’t really the Grace I thought I knew. My father would’ve been heartbroken.”
“They were my family, too,” Luke said, studying her closely. “The Lockharts. Joey welcomed me into his home. Me, this messed up, fatherless kid. You guys were my second family. The night Grace died, when everything went down the way it did … I wanted a drink so bad I could taste it. There was a worm in my gut that needed sedating. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t touch another drop, and I kept that promise. Alcohol doesn’t numb the pain so much as it dulls the sharpest edges. But you can kill a man with a dull knife.”
She looked at him in a different light—she’d never thought of that … that Luke had loved her family as much as she did. That she wasn’t carrying around her grief alone.
“I wanted to give you whatever space you needed, Natalie,” he explained, both hands on the wheel. “That’s why I pulled away. You asked me to, so I did.”
“Yeah, but it turns out I didn’t need space. I needed the opposite. Only I didn’t know how to ask for it, and hence…”
“Hence?”
She shrugged. “Hence, here we are.”
He looked at her with soulful eyes. “Where are we, Natalie?”
“You tell me.” She couldn’t hold his gaze. She wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t prepared to embrace whatever Luke was offering, or appeared to be offering. She wasn’t ready for her fantasy life of love and marriage and kids and commitment … her heart was pounding. Because even if it only started out with hot sex and intense all-night talks, and then more hot sex, it would eventually lead to marriage and kids. She was positive about this. Change the subject.
“For the longest time,” she confessed, “I’ve been in a dead zone … but lately I’ve felt glimmerings of life. And it’s painful. Going from numb to awake. I’m outraged by my own blind spot with Grace, and now this. Morgan Chambers. Such a senseless death. It makes me think about Bella being gone all these years, and about runaways who’ve gone missing, and about young girls dying, and men taking what they want, and about people judging and shaming.” She glanced up. “Now I’m babbling.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I think it’s Red Bull conspiracy time.” She smirked.
“You’ll do fine.”
“Really? Because I’ve been thinking lately that this town must be cursed.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe in curses, Natalie.”
“Three innocent people were killed in 1712. Maybe we’re all still paying for it? Metaphorically speaking.”
“I don’t believe in metaphors or curses.”
She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans. “What do you believe in, Luke?”
“Good intentions and bad intentions.” He stared dead ahead at his headlights pooling across the road. “We’re all capable of goodness, and we’re all capable of evil. It’s simply a matter of keeping your intentions aligned on the side of good and pushing away the bad impulses.”
She realized she was afraid of him. Afraid of her long-repressed feelings for him. Something was stirring—if it had ever gone away. “Want to come inside?” she asked.
His mood darkened. “I don’t think I’d better.”
She rubbed the chill off her neck. “Look, I owe my friends and colleagues a heap of gratitude. Everyone’s been so kind and thoughtful. But I don’t know how to thank people.” She smiled weakly. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” He looked at her briefly, then shook his head. “I’m proud of you, Natalie. Most people would’ve quit under the pressure. Now go inside. Get some rest.”
She nodded listlessly.
“Good night.” He rolled up his window and drove off.
Back inside, she turned off all the lights and went upstairs to her room, where she lay in bed like a brick, pretending to sleep. She felt sorry for him. She felt sorry for them both.
In music, there was no such thing as perfect timing, she’d once read—music skipped random beats once in a while. These silent notes were called “rests.”
Sometimes the most important parts of a conversation were the things that were left unsaid—the rests between words.
21
Tuesday morning brought a slant of sunshine that turned Natalie’s bedroom golden yellow. She wiped the crust out of her eyes, yawned luxuriously, and glanced at her clock. She’d managed to get a good seven hours’ sleep.
Her phone rang, and she groped for it on the bedside table, knocking a box of tissues to the floor. “Oops. Hello?”
“Good morning.” It was Luke. “We got the tox report back.”
“Be right there.” She hung up.
Natalie got up feeling refreshed, had toast and coffee for breakfast, then headed into town. She got stuck in traffic and was ten minutes late to the meeting. She parked in the underground parking garage of the county health building and took an elevator to the coroner’s second-story office. She straightened her jacket and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Barry Fishbeck said.
She stepped inside. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”
“No problem.” Barry smiled warmly at her.
She took a seat next to Luke, who handed her a copy of the toxicology report.
“I was telling Luke,” the coroner said, “what these findings mean. In addition to alcohol, it looks like Morgan Chambers had two drugs in her system. Ecstasy and GHB.”
Natalie frowned. “The date rape drug?”
“Gamma-hydroxybutyrate.” Barry nodded. She wasn’t used to seeing him out of his lab coat. Today he wore a plaid short-sleeve shirt and brown corduroy trousers, and his face was etched with an untold number of deaths—one wrinkle for every slash of the scalpel or slice of the bone saw down in the morgue. “GHB is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and therefore undetectable in drinks. It’s sold as a liquid in a vial and has a slightly salty taste, so it would blend right into a cocktail. It acts as a depressant on the central nervous system. Similar to Rohypnol.”
Thumbing through the tox report, Natalie said, “We’re talking about a deliberate intent to induce a state of unconsciousness?”
Barry nodded. Behind his desk was an oak cabinet full of Victorian-era mason jars containing preserved body parts that were fairly common back when doctors were called quacks. Mellow jazz was playing in the background.
“So she must’ve been in a bar that night when somebody slipped her a roofie. How long does it take to feel the effects of GHB?”
“Not very long. Approximately fifteen minutes,” Barry said.
“Which means she would’ve left the bar around eleven thirty, because clearly on the video, she was feeling the effects when she went into the alley at eleven forty-four.”
Luke turned to Natalie and said, “You called it. She was running away from whoever slipped her the drug. Which would explain why she kept looking over her shoulder and pushing through the crowd.”
“It wasn’t nicknamed ‘easy lay’ for nothing.” Barry picked up the phone. “Anyway, I’ve asked Russ Swinton to chime in on this, since he’ll be able to tell us if anyone else tested positive for GHB over the weekend. Hold on…” He punched in a number, and after a moment Dr. Swinton picked up. “Hello, Russ. You’re on speakerphone. Luke and Natalie are here.”
“Good morning, Barry. Hello, everyone,” Dr. Swinton said.
“Hello, Russ,” Luke chimed in.
“Good morning,” Natalie said a little self-consciously. They hadn’t spoken since Sunday night, but this conference call made perfect sense. Russ was the best person to talk to regarding the effects of GHB, along with finding out if there were any Halloween emergency room visits involving GHB poisoning.
Barry leaned forward and said, “Russ, if you don’t mind, I’d
like you to explain to Natalie and Luke what you told me earlier this morning.”
“Of course,” the doctor said. “The combination of substances you described … GHB, ecstasy, and alcohol … can be lethal to a patient, depending on the dosages. There are any number of things that can go wrong. You can choke on your own vomit, your heart rate can slow down considerably, and if your breathing dips under fifteen to twenty breaths per minute … that’s called respiratory depression. A fatal dose of GHB alone could involve any of the following symptoms … vomiting, seizures, profuse sweating, lowered body temperature, agitation, tremors, hallucinations, unconsciousness, fever, and even coma or death. If help doesn’t arrive promptly, you will most likely die. GHB is a Schedule one controlled substance, and it’s manufactured illegally.”
“Have you had any emergency cases involving GHB recently?” Barry asked.
“Hard to say, since that particular drug can go through the system very quickly. Usually, by the time toxicology tests are performed, there’s no trace of the drug left in the bloodstream. You were lucky to catch it this time.”
“Have you had any patients complaining about any of the symptoms you described, Russ?”
“Well, if you look at the last three or four weeks,” he hedged, “I’d say we’ve had our share of alcohol poisonings and overdoses. Unfortunately, that’s typical for Halloween season. For instance, on Sunday night alone, we had two drug overdoses, four alcohol poisonings, a heart attack, a head injury when a man fell off a balcony, three minor traffic accidents, plus any number of scrapes, bumps, cases of heatstroke, food poisoning, and the like. I would have to review our records for a more accurate assessment, but it felt like a fairly typical Halloween weekend to me.”
“Two drug overdoses?”
“Meth addicts.”
“Are you sure?”
“Meth addicts think they’re superheroes,” he said. “They do crazy things. Opioid addicts behave like zombies. Date rape victims will experience periods of amnesia and loss of consciousness. These effects are amplified when combined with alcohol, and they can mimic alcoholic blackouts, which is also why they’re so difficult to detect.”
“So none of your recent patients suffered from GHB poisoning?”
“Not that I’m aware of. We would’ve treated any patient reporting such symptoms immediately. On Halloween night, no one reported having amnesia or suspected their drinks had been spiked. So I’d have to conclude that this particular case was unique.”
Barry looked over at Natalie and Luke. “Any other questions before I let this gentleman go?”
They shook their heads.
“Thanks for your time, Russ,” Barry said.
“No problem. Let me know if there’s anything else you need,” the doctor said and hung up.
22
Luke detained Natalie outside of Barry’s office and said, “If she was given a date rape drug, that would indicate foul play. That’s a whole new ball game. We need to pin down her time line. Follow up on the ink stamps on her hands. I’m assuming she got roofied in one of the bars or restaurants she went to that night.”
“I was planning on dropping by the library this morning, since a book she borrowed was due today. Another book on witchcraft.”
“Okay, you head over to the library. I’ll take the lead on the time line. In the meantime, we still haven’t located her phone, but I’m working on a subpoena for her phone records.” Luke glanced at his watch. “Let’s untangle this fucked up mess and find out what happened to her.”
The hills blazed with an array of spectacular colors this morning—crimson, saffron, pumpkin orange. Flocks of migrating geese flew in V-shapes along the horizon, honking their way south. The public library was designed in the High Victorian style, with Gothic arches and medieval-looking turrets that reminded Natalie of Hogwarts. There was an east wing and a west wing. The stacks took up three levels of the main library, accessible by two circular wrought iron stairwells. There was a courtyard out back where you could sit in the sun or read on the stone benches.
Natalie found the associate director behind the circulation desk. He was busy pasting book pockets into recent acquisitions. In his mid-thirties, Patrick Dupree peered at her over his wire-rim glasses. He had neatly trimmed brown hair and a pudgy, formless face. Three years ahead of her at school, he was one of those unfortunates who were instantly forgettable. A cruel reality. “Hello, Natalie, how can I help you … I mean, Detective Lockhart?” He smiled warmly.
“How are you, Patrick?”
“Not great.” He sat slumped in his stool, a box of tissues and a bottled water on the table in front of him. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Is this about Morgan Chambers?”
“You knew her?”
He nodded. He looked miserable. He unscrewed the bottled water and took a few sips, then plucked a tissue out of the box and blew his nose. “We met at a librarians’ conference over a year ago and spoke on the phone quite a bit. She works at the Chaste Falls Library, and we have an interlibrary loan program with them. She borrowed a book from us…”
“This book?” Natalie asked, handing him the book on witchcraft.
“That’s the one. It was due today. Morgan said she was going to swing by, and we’d go out for coffee. Yesterday, I heard all the rumors about a body in a dumpster, but I never dreamed it was her. Then I saw it on the news.” His voice trailed off. He shook his head numbly.
“You spoke to her on the phone? What did you two talk about?”
“Mostly commiserating about our jobs. You know, librarian stuff. Moldy book donations from a flooded basement. Some perv changing the screen saver to a close-up of a penis. Morgan laughed it off. She thought it was funny. I told her she had a musical laugh. I think that made her feel better.” He grew visibly upset. “I can’t believe something like this could’ve happened to her. She was so nice.”
“I know. It’s really sad.”
“We shared a passion for the Beat poets—not just Kerouac and Ginsberg, but the more obscure ones, like Herbert Huncke, Jane Bowles, and Lucien Carr. She was a huge Lord of the Rings fan, same as me. And she played the violin, and I adore classical music. Mostly we kibitzed about our jobs, though. When you work at a library, you’re privy to a lot of strange behavior.”
Natalie nodded, interested. “What kind of strange behavior?”
“Well, for instance, you’ve got your library masturbators,” he said, lowering his voice. “Occasionally, I’ll find an erotic book or magazine in the men’s room … and you have to toss it out. We’ve banned all the masturbators from the library. And then there’s the homeless population. There are a lot of … how can I put this? There are a lot of in-need people showing up at the library nowadays. I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but they’ve got no place else to go that’s as nice as the library. And they’re pursuing knowledge and being productive human beings, and that’s a good thing. Anyway, this one elderly lady likes to sit in the children’s section and clip her toenails. Imagine that? It’s very sad. We have to redirect her into the restroom, and she’ll clip her toenails in there. Some of these people come in every day. But we never discourage them from using the library, even though the other patrons complain, especially moms with small children. Not that I blame them. So Morgan and I exchanged a lot of crazy library stories.”
Natalie nodded. “What were some of Morgan’s crazy stories?”
Patrick slid his glasses back up his nose and rested his elbows on the circulation desk. “There’s a minister in Chaste Falls who has a thing for literary porn—you know, highbrow stuff like Henry Miller, Erica Jong, Nabokov. And apparently there’s a wealthy, dignified lady who checks out the latest bestselling thrillers, only to return them with obscene comments scribbled in the margins. These are brand-new books, mind you. Completely ruined. To make up for it, she’ll slip Morgan a couple of twenties, which more than makes up for the expense.” Patrick shrugged. “Morgan says they’ve never canceled this lady’s membership, since
she sits on a lot of boards. It’s an embarrassing fetish of hers … but you can tell she’s grateful. She donates each year to the Chaste Falls library fund. She’s one of their most generous contributors. It’s just that she has this strange compulsion … anyway, we’ve got our share of nuts running around right here in Burning Lake. One guy will sit in the corner over there, crying and laughing. Softly, I mean. He doesn’t bother anybody. And then there’s a skinny young woman with no teeth who uses the photocopier every day. I don’t know what for, but she eats snacks from plastic bags and makes a lot of noise. Others come here to sleep.” He shook his head slowly. “I guess it’s a peaceful place.”
“Did Morgan mention any trouble she was having recently? At the library or in her personal life?”
“No, like I said, we were just beginning to get to know each other.”
Natalie knew Patrick Dupree fairly well, the way people knew other people in small towns. He was an overall good guy. Helpful and considerate. He kept to himself. He was professional and caring. Whenever there was trouble at the library, he would call the BLPD for help, because he knew that the officers would handle the incident with discretion. “What about this book she borrowed?” Natalie asked, tapping the hardcover. “Did she talk about it at all?”
“Just that she was interested in witchcraft. Intrigued. I suggested this book by Corvina Manse, so she borrowed it from us. I explained to her that Corvina Manse is the pen name for Veronica Manes,” he said. “It’s almost an anagram.”
“Almost.” Natalie nodded. “Right. There’s an e missing.”
“Correct. This one’s out of print, but it’s quite interesting. A Beginner’s Guide to Witchcraft. Veronica published it in her early twenties, before she stopped writing about Wicca and devoted herself to the practice.”
Everyone in town knew who Veronica Manes was, although Natalie had never met her personally. Veronica was one of the better-known witches in Burning Lake. She was a priestess in a local coven—the oldest active coven in town, started in the mid-1950s. Veronica hosted quarterly moonlight rituals on her property and was the best person to talk to if you wanted to understand modern-day witchcraft.
The Wicked Hour Page 13