Irene took a deep breath, pulled herself together and gave the details of the situation as quickly and concisely as possible. It helped to concentrate on the facts.
By the time she ended the call, a strange numbness had settled on her. She fumbled with the phone and nearly dropped it before managing to put it back into her shoulder bag. She could not bring herself to look at the body.
“We don’t need to wait in here,” Luke said, taking her arm. “Let’s go outside.”
She did not argue. He steered her back along the hall, into the foyer and out onto the front steps.
“How did you get here?” She looked around the drive. “Where’s your car?”
“I left it down the road a ways.”
Understanding hit her. “You followed me.”
“Yeah.”
There was no apology in his tone, no hint of awkwardness or embarrassment. Just a simple statement. Yeah, I followed you. So what?
Outrage washed through her, dissipating some of the numbness. “Why did you do that? You had no right whatsoever—”
“That woman in there on the sofa,” he said, interrupting her short tirade with the calm arrogance of a man accustomed to command. “Is she the person you were trying to get in touch with earlier this evening?”
She clenched her teeth and folded her arms very tightly beneath her breasts. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, I see no reason to answer yours.”
“Suit yourself, Miss Stenson.” He turned his head slightly in the direction of the distant sirens. “But it’s obvious you were acquainted with the victim.”
Irene hesitated. “We were friends once, a long time ago. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in seventeen years.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, his eyes startlingly bleak. “Suicide is always tough on the people left behind.”
“I’m not so sure it was suicide,” she said, before stopping to think.
He inclined his head, acknowledging other options. “Could have been an accidental overdose.”
She didn’t believe that, either, but this time she kept her mouth shut.
“Why did you come here to see her tonight?” Luke asked.
“What’s your interest in this?” she countered. “Why did you follow me here?”
A police cruiser turned into the drive before he could respond, assuming that he would have responded, she thought grimly. Harsh lights pulsed in the night. The piercing siren was so loud now that she automatically raised her hands to cover her ears.
The siren stopped suddenly. A uniformed officer got out of the car. He glanced first at Irene and then turned immediately to Luke.
“Got a report of a dead body,” he said.
Luke jerked a thumb in the direction of the hallway behind him. “Front room.”
The officer peered into the front hall. He did not seem eager to enter the house. Irene realized that he was young. In the course of his short career here in Dunsley, he had probably not encountered a lot of dead bodies.
“Suicide?” the officer asked, looking uneasy.
“Or an OD,” Luke said. He glanced at Irene. “At least, that’s what it looks like.”
The officer nodded but made no move to investigate.
More sirens sounded in the distance. They all looked toward the entrance of the drive. An ambulance and another cruiser were coming toward the house.
“That’ll be the chief,” the officer said, obviously relieved.
The vehicles halted behind the officer’s cruiser. The medics got out of the ambulance and pulled on plastic gloves. Both looked expectantly at Luke.
“Front room,” Luke repeated.
Irene sighed. Alpha male, she reminded herself. The kind of guy everyone instinctively turns to for direction in a crisis.
The medics disappeared into the foyer. The young officer followed in their wake, more than willing to let them take the lead.
The door of the second cruiser opened. A big, powerfully built man of about forty climbed out. His light brown hair was thinning on top. The expression on his craggy face was grim.
Unlike Pamela, the intervening years had taken a toll on Sam McPherson, Irene thought.
He gave her a swift once-over. No sign of recognition flickered in his gaze. He turned to Luke, just as the other responders had done.
“Danner,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Evening, Chief.” Luke angled his chin toward Irene. “I’m with Miss Stenson. She’s a guest at the inn.”
“Stenson?” Sam jerked back around and gave Irene a closer scrutiny. “Irene Stenson?”
She braced herself. “Hello, Sam.”
He frowned. “I didn’t recognize you. You sure have changed. What are you doing back in town?”
“I came to see Pamela. You’re the chief here now?”
“Took over after Bob Thornhill died,” he said absently. He looked through the doorway, a tense, troubled expression creasing his face. “You’re sure that’s Pamela in there?”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid of that.” He exhaled deeply, a long, world-weary sigh. “Heard she was in town this week. But when I got the call tonight, I hoped there was some mistake. Thought maybe she’d let one of her city friends use the house for a few days.”
“It’s Pamela,” Irene said.
“Damn.” Sam shook his head, mournful but resigned to the inevitable. “You’re the one who found her?”
“Yes.”
He gave Luke a brief, speculative look and then turned back to her. “How’d that happen?”
“I got into Dunsley very late this afternoon,” she said. “I tried to call Pamela several times throughout the evening. There was no answer. I began to get concerned, so I finally decided to come out here to see if she was home.”
“Cathy Thomas, the woman who took your call, said you reported booze and pills at the scene?”
“Yes,” Irene said. “But—” She started to say that she didn’t think Pamela had committed suicide, but Luke gave her a hard look that, much to her annoyance, made her hesitate. By the time she had found her tongue, Sam was speaking again.
“Thought she was doing okay,” Sam said quietly. “She was in and out of rehab for a while after college, but in the past few years she seemed to be staying clear of the crap.”
“The pill bottle in there has a prescription on it,” Luke said.
Sam narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like she was back in therapy again.” He moved into the foyer and paused just inside the doorway to look back at Irene. “You going to be in town for a while?”
“I was planning to leave tomorrow,” she said, not certain what she would do next.
“I’ll want to ask you a few questions in the morning. Routine stuff.” He angled his head toward Luke. “You, too, Danner.”
“Sure,” Luke said.
Irene nodded, not speaking.
“I’ll see you both at the station around nine-thirty,” Sam said.
He vanished into the house.
Luke regarded Irene. “You’re not exactly a stranger here in Dunsley, are you?”
“I grew up in this town. I left when I was fifteen.”
“First time you’ve been back?”
“Yes.”
He watched her closely in the porch light. “I take it you’ve got some bad memories of this place.”
“What I have are nightmares, Mr. Danner.”
She walked across the drive and got into her compact.
It was going to be one of the really long nights, she thought, starting the engine, one of those mini-eternities when none of the usual rituals worked.
Four
When she got back to the brightly lit cabin, she took the travel pouch of tea out of her shoulder bag and went into the tiny alcove kitchenette to boil some water.
The cabins of the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge did not boast many amenities, but they had been designed as long-term-stay accommodations for summer
visitors who liked to spend two weeks or a month at a time at the lake. In addition to the minimal cooking facilities, there were place settings for four, a teakettle and a few basic pots and pans.
She thought about Pamela while she waited for the tea to steep. The dark phantoms of memories that were stored in the vault in her mind stirred. Over the years various therapists and well-intentioned counselors had done their level best to help her lay the ghosts to rest, but she knew that only the truth could do that. Unfortunately, the truth had been the one thing denied her.
She took the chipped mug of tea back to the sagging couch and sat down. A heavy engine growled softly in the night. Luke had returned. She looked through the curtains and watched him get out of the SUV and let himself into Cabin Number One. Somehow, it helped knowing that he was in the vicinity.
She sat quietly and thought about the terrible summer of her fifteenth year, the summer when she had become, for three short, memorable months, Pamela Webb’s best friend. The summer her parents had been murdered.
At a quarter to three in the morning, she made her decision and reached for her phone.
Adeline Grady answered on the sixth or seventh ring.
“You’ve got Grady,” Adeline said in a sleepy voice that had been rendered permanently husky by a daily regimen of expensive whiskey and good cigars. “If this isn’t important, Irene, you’re fired.”
“I’ve got an exclusive for you, Addy.”
Adeline yawned audibly on the other end of the line. “Whatever it is, it had better be a lot bigger than the fight over the proposed dog park at the last city council meeting.”
“It is. Senator Ryland Webb’s daughter, Pamela, was found dead in the family’s summer home on Ventana Lake at—” She glanced at her watch. “Ten forty-five this evening.”
“Talk to me, kid.” The sleep disappeared miraculously from Adeline’s voice, leaving behind an edgy impatience. “What’s going on?”
“At the very least, I think I can guarantee that the Beacon will be the first paper in the state to break the news of Pamela Webb’s mysterious and untimely death.”
“Mysterious and untimely?”
“The local authorities are going to call it a probable suicide or an accidental overdose, but I think there’s more to it.”
“Pamela Webb,” Adeline said, sounding thoughtful now. “Is that who you went to Dunsley to see?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“It was a long time ago,” Irene said.
“Huh.” There were some rustling movements on the other end of the line and then the muffled click of what sounded like a light switch. “I seem to recall some rumors about her having done some time in rehab.”
Before Adeline had retired and moved to Glaston Cove to take over the Beacon, she put in thirty years as a reporter with one of the state’s major dailies. Irene was reassured to hear the unmistakable spark of interest and curiosity in her boss’s rough voice. There was a story here, she thought. Adeline sensed it, too.
“I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got in a few minutes, okay?” Irene said.
“You’re sure this is an exclusive?”
“Trust me, at this point the Beacon is the only paper in the entire world that knows Pamela Webb is dead.”
“How did we get lucky?” Adeline asked.
“I was the one who found the body.”
Adeline whistled softly. “Okay, that qualifies as an exclusive. You’ll get your byline and you’ll be above the fold. Under most circumstances, the death of a senator’s daughter would be nothing more than a private tragedy. But given that Webb is getting ready to make a run for the White House, this is a bigger story.”
“One more thing, Addy. Would you ask Jenny or Gail to go to my apartment, pack up some clothes and overnight them to me?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to be here in Dunsley for a while.”
“Thought you hated that town,” Adeline said.
“I do. I’m hanging around because I’ve got a hunch there’s more to this story.”
“I can feel lust growing in this old reporter’s heart. What’s going on?”
“I think Pamela Webb was murdered.”
Five
Maxine blew in through the lobby door at nine o’clock, moving like the small whirlwind she was. She was an attractive, high-energy woman in her mid-thirties with blue eyes and a cloud of artificially blond hair that always looked as if it had been whipped up by the rotor blades of a helicopter. She controlled the wild hair with a headband. Luke had discovered over the past few months that she had an endless assortment of bands, each in a different color. Today’s was bright pink.
He found her enthusiasm for her job amusing, inexplicable and mildly exhausting.
She kicked the door shut and came to a halt, her arms wrapped around a paper sack that bore the logo of the Dunsley Market, and fixed him with an accusing glare.
“I just came from the market. Everyone’s saying that Irene Stenson is back in town and that she’s staying right here at the lodge and that the two of you found Pamela Webb’s body last night.”
Luke leaned on the desk. “The way gossip moves through this town probably ought to be a classified military secret.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maxine put the sack down on the table she had selected for the morning coffee and doughnut service. “I work here at the lodge, for heaven’s sake. I should have been the first to know. Instead I had to hear the news from Edith Harper. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?”
“Irene Stenson phoned in the reservation yesterday morning while you were out running some errands. Checked in late yesterday afternoon after you’d gone home for the day. We didn’t find the body until a quarter to eleven last night. What with one thing and another, there hasn’t been time to bring you up to speed. Sorry about that.”
Maxine whistled softly and slung her coat over one of the antlers of the coatrack. “The whole town is talking. I doubt if there’s been this much excitement since the day Irene left all those years ago.” She frowned in genuine concern. “How is she, by the way? Finding Pamela like that must have been dreadful. They were best friends for a summer back in high school, you know.”
“Just one summer?”
“Pamela was usually only here during the summers. The rest of the time she was away at some fancy boarding school or skiing in the Alps or something. She and Irene made an odd match, to tell you the truth. They couldn’t have been more different.”
“Maybe that was the appeal.”
Maxine pursed her lips, considering the possibility, then shrugged. “Could be. Pamela was the classic wild child. She was into drugs and boys, and her daddy the senator gave her everything she wanted. She always had the newest, trendiest clothes, a flashy sports car the day she turned sixteen, you name it.”
“What about Irene Stenson?”
“Just the opposite, like I said. The quiet, studious type. Spent most of her free time in the library. Always had her nose buried in a book. Always polite to adults. Never got into trouble. Never had a date.”
“What did her parents do?”
“Her mother, Elizabeth, painted, although I don’t think she ever made any money off her art. Her father, Hugh Stenson, was the chief of police here in Dunsley.”
“A job that probably didn’t provide for unlimited teenage wardrobes, new cars and ski trips.”
“You got that right.” Maxine scowled at the empty platter on the coffee service table. “You didn’t put out any doughnuts for the guests.”
“I threw the last batch away yesterday. It was either that or weld them together to make a new anchor for the boat. Besides, there’s only one guest at the moment, and something tells me she isn’t going to get excited about doughnuts, at least not the kind the Dunsley Market sells.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. Luckily I picked up a fresh package this morning.” Maxine took a box out
of the paper sack, ripped it open and began arranging doughnuts on a plastic tray. “It looks inviting to have a few pastries and some freshly brewed coffee available in the mornings. All of the better-class hotels and inns do it.”
“I like to think that the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge is in a class by itself,” Luke said. “Tell me the rest of the Stenson story.”
“Well, as I was saying, for whatever reason, the summer Pamela Webb turned sixteen, she decided to make Irene her best friend.” Maxine tipped her head slightly to the side, looking thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Pamela liked the contrast she and Irene made. She probably figured that having quiet, unfashionable little Irene in her orbit made her look even more glittery and exciting. At any rate, for about three months they were inseparable. No one understood why Irene’s folks allowed her to associate with Pamela, though.”
“Pamela was held to be a bad influence, I take it?”
Maxine grimaced. “Worst possible influence. Lot of busybodies took it upon themselves to warn Mr. and Mrs. Stenson that if they didn’t keep Irene away from Pamela, she would come to a bad end. It was widely predicted hereabouts that sooner or later sweet little Irene Stenson would fall victim to the evil forces of sex, drugs and rock and roll.”
“Ah, the innocent pleasures of youth.”
“Yep, the good old days,” Maxine agreed. “But for some reason, which no one in town could understand, the Stensons didn’t seem to object to the friendship between the two girls. Maybe they liked the idea of Irene hanging out with the daughter of a U.S. senator, although I never thought the Stensons were impressed by that kind of thing.”
Luke studied the view of Cabin Number Five through the trees. Most of the lights had been left burning all night. The last time he had checked, sometime after four in the morning, the glow in the bedroom had diminished to a dim, silvery blue. He had concluded that Irene had finally gone to sleep with a night-light in that room.
“Go on with the story,” he said. It was going to be bad, he thought. He could feel it in his bones.
“One night Hugh Stenson shot his wife to death in the kitchen of their home. Then he turned the gun on himself.”
All Night Long Page 4