How Secrets Die

by Marta Perry

  “What does that mean?” She was ready to do battle. This visit would be worse than useless if she couldn’t be free to follow whatever turned up.

  Mac stopped, turning to face her as if to give added emphasis to his words. “Look, I’ve already told you about Russ’s condition. If he starts getting agitated or upset, we call a halt. No arguments. Agreed?”

  “It’s only when people are upset that the truth comes out,” she countered.

  He seemed to consider for a moment. Then he gave a short nod. “I’ll give you some leeway. But I can’t risk getting us both charged with harassment, either. Agreed?”

  “I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I?” She resented his efforts to control her, but the sneaky thought intruded that there was something admirable about his protectiveness for his town and the people in it.

  They headed up the walk and the few steps to the porch. The yard was well cared for, presumably by someone hired to deal with it.

  “Just one other thing.” Mac paused again. “Let’s start out with something innocuous. I’m afraid if you say something about Jason right away, we’ll risk upsetting him so quickly we won’t get anything out of him.”

  Kate studied his expression and found nothing more than genuine concern. And he was probably right—easing into the conversation she wanted to have might be the way.

  “Okay, as long as you don’t try to take over.”

  His lips quirked. “I’ll try.”

  The caregiver must have been watching for them, because she opened the door the instant Mac knocked. Kate blinked.

  “You’re—”

  “Sheila.” The woman beamed. “Sure thing. Glad to see you up and around after your accident.”

  It was the woman who’d come to the rescue the night she’d nearly been run over at the Lamplight. Sheila’s obviously bleached hair frizzed in a halo about a round face that beamed with friendliness.

  “So, are you all better now?” She waved them inside as she spoke.

  “Fine, thanks. Just a bruise or two to show for it. I wanted to thank you for your help...”

  The woman waved her to silence. “Forget it. No trouble at all. Gave us all a little excitement that night.”

  “I could do without that kind of excitement,” she said ruefully.

  “Well, if Mac here had caught the guy, it would have been even more exciting.” She elbowed Mac. “You’re falling down on the job.”

  “It’s all your fault, Sheila. If you’d managed to get a description of the vehicle, it’d be a different story.”

  He sounded as if the joking exchange was second nature to him, but Kate could sense the frustration beneath his words. He did feel as if he’d failed.

  “Next time, I’ll arrange to have my accidents where there are more reliable witnesses,” she said, and then feared Sheila would think she meant her. “Sheila was the only one who kept her head, and she was busy with me.”

  Sheila shrugged. “Most of the boys had had a few by that time of the evening, and nobody could say that parking lot is well lit.” She grinned. “’Course there’s those who like it that way.”

  “You can never please everyone,” Mac said with a return of his official manner. “So how is Russ doing today?”

  “Pretty fair. He’s pleased to have company. The thing is, there’s no telling what’ll set him off. Gets upset and starts to cry sometimes, and all I can do is hug him and tell him everything is okay.” Sheila shook her head. “Sad to see a smart gentleman turn out like that, but we’ll all come to it sooner or later, if we live long enough.”

  There didn’t seem to be any appropriate answer to that comment, so Kate just nodded.

  “I told him you were Jason’s sister. He seemed to understand, but...” She let that trail off with a shrug. “Come on in the living room.” Sheila ushered them into a room to the left of the center hall with its typical Victorian hat stand and mirror.

  “Mr. Sheldon, here’s Mac Whiting, come to bring you a visitor.” She raised her voice, but there didn’t seem to be a need. The face that turned toward them was alert and intelligent.

  Russell Sheldon rose immediately at the sight of Kate, and the dog that had been dozing at the side of his armchair rose, as well.

  “How pleasant to have visitors...” he began, but the dog, apparently recognizing Mac, rushed toward him with the obvious intent of jumping up.

  “There’s a good dog, Ruffy.” Mac caught the paws that would otherwise have landed on his chest. “No, I don’t want a kiss, and Kate doesn’t want one, either.”

  The dog, with every appearance of understanding, padded over to Kate and nuzzled her hand. She patted him.

  “What a nice-looking dog.” She tried to find something else that would appeal to a dog lover. “What breed is he?”

  Mac chuckled. “That’s a good question.”

  Mr. Sheldon gave him a reproving look. “Golden retriever on his mother’s side. Alas, the father remains unknown, but I have my suspicions.” He held out his hand to Kate. “It’s nice of you to come to visit me, my dear.”

  Mac, reminded of his duty, cleared his throat. “Russ, this is Kate Beaumont. She’s new in town. Kate, Russell Sheldon.”

  Kate found her hand shaken firmly while she was assessed by still bright blue eyes. Despite the alertness, something in the man’s appearance said he wasn’t well. Maybe it was the parchment-like color of his skin or the slight quaver in his voice.

  “Please, sit down and visit.” He gestured to two armchairs at angles to his. “Sheila...” he began.

  “Tea will be ready in a minute.” Sheila hustled toward the back of the house. “Just have to bring the water back to the boil.”

  “I hope you don’t mind tea,” Sheldon said, sitting down. “I’ve never been able to like coffee, no matter how I try. The doctor seems to think it would be good for me, but I can’t stand the taste.”

  “Tea is fine, thank you.” She glanced at Mac, and he gave a slight nod.

  “Kate is working for Emily at the bookshop in Blackburn House.”

  Kate smiled, trying to still her jittery nerves. “It’s a fascinating place.”

  “It is that.” Sheldon turned to her attentively. “Emily has a nice little shop. Of course, that space was once occupied by the back parlor.”

  “So the place was originally a private home, was it?”

  “Oh, yes. The grandest place in town.” He chuckled. “At least, that was the original Blackburn’s intent. It was a showpiece, with that marble center hall and all those large rooms. Josiah Blackburn was one of the original timber barons. He made a fortune out of harvesting timber from the ridges.”

  Kate couldn’t help a glance out the nearest window to the wooded ridge that overlooked the town.

  He seemed to interpret her look.

  “Second growth, all of it. The only stand of virgin timber left in the area is in the state park. So the era of the timber barons passed, and eventually his heirs sold the house to the Standish family. They converted it to its present form. Did a good job with it, too. Many’s the time I walked up that staircase to my office and thanked Heaven they had sense enough not to pull it apart. Allison Standish is the current owner.”

  So Allison was more than just a partner in the quilt shop. “You worked in the building for a long time, then?” She made it a question.

  “More years than I care to count,” he said.

  Kate nodded. “You’re retired now, are you?”

  “Yes.” He looked down, plucking at the arm of the chair. “Yes, I am.” Sheldon fell silent, his gaze directed inward.

  Kate glanced at Mac, not sure how to proceed in the face of his abstraction.

  “Ruffy has trouble adjusting to retirement,” Mac prompted. “Sometimes he slips out and goes trotting down
to Blackburn House just as if it’s a workday.”

  Ruffy, hearing him name, came and pushed his head against Mac’s hand. Mac patted him absently, his gaze focused on Sheldon’s face.

  “Yes, yes. Ruffy didn’t want to quit.” He’d lost some of the focus in his eyes.

  “Maybe you didn’t want to retire, either,” Kate suggested.

  “No. I mean...” He seemed to lose the thread and then grasped at it again. “Things changed. They said...we agreed it was time.” His voice faded on the last few words.

  “What changed?” She rapped the question and then bit her lip. Easy, she reminded herself.

  Sheldon’s gaze wavered, as if he looked for an answer in the air. “Everything,” he muttered.

  With a clatter of dishes, Sheila emerged from the rear premises carrying a tray. She assessed her patient before setting the tray on the coffee table.

  “Now, you’re not getting too tired from talking, are you? Let me pour your tea. That’ll make you feel better.” She fussed around, handing out cups, passing sugar, pressing a piece of coffee cake on each of them. She was giving him time to recover, Kate realized. Sheila had good instincts—caretaker instincts, obviously.

  Kate sipped at the aromatic brew and tried to contain herself. With both Sheila and Mac giving her warning looks, she couldn’t do anything else, but she had to ask Sheldon about Jason.

  “Your brother was part of the firm initially, wasn’t he?” Mac asked when he’d apparently decided that they’d avoided the topic long enough.

  Russell Sheldon smiled, nodding, his face regaining some of its animation. “That’s right. George. But George never was one to stay in one place for long. He got restless. He went out to California and started a business out there. He was always after me to join him, but I never could see relocating.”

  “So you carried on with the business here,” Kate prompted. She wasn’t interested in roving Brother George.

  “I couldn’t manage on my own as the business grew, so I brought in the younger folks to help. Naturally, they have their own ideas.” He paused, wiping a hand across his face as if to wipe away cobwebs.

  Mac shuffled his feet, and with a flare of panic she thought he was going to suggest they’d been here long enough. But it seemed he was just preparing another question. “What about Jason Reilley? Did he have his own ideas, too?”

  “Jason?” His voice was suddenly old. “Why are you asking about Jason?”

  “Kate is Jason’s sister, remember?” Sheila prompted. “She just wants to talk about him.”

  “You remember him, don’t you? Tell me about him.” Kate leaned toward him, trying to hold his wavering gaze.

  “Jason was a good boy. He wasn’t... He didn’t...” He fell silent.

  “What do you mean? What didn’t he do?” Need pounded at her. He knew something. She was sure of it.

  Sheldon shook his head, and it trembled as if he couldn’t control it. Tears welled in his eyes, and his lips trembled. “He didn’t. It wasn’t fair.” The words seemed to be wrenched out of him, and his tears spilled over.

  Kate was shaken by pity for the elderly man and loathing for herself.

  Mac stood. “I think it’s time we were going.” His tone left no room for argument.

  Tears gripped her throat, too. She stood and then knelt next to Sheldon’s chair, her hands covering his. “Please, Mr. Sheldon. I have to know about Jason.”

  For an instant his hand gripped hers. He shook his head frantically. “No. I can’t. Poor Jason. He didn’t do it. He didn’t, he didn’t.” His voice rose with each repetition.

  Sheila hurried to him, wrapping her arms around him. “It’s all right. Don’t be upset. Sheila’s here to take care of you.”

  Kate’s arm was seized in a grasp of iron. Mac pulled her to her feet. “That’s enough. We’re going.” He propelled her to the door, not pausing until they’d reached the outside.

  Then he let go of her arm as if she carried the plague. “You don’t care who you hurt, do you? I told you he was fragile.”

  His contempt stung her, but she couldn’t let that matter. “He knows something—couldn’t you see that? They’re hiding the truth about Jason.”

  He didn’t respond, and she wanted to shake him.

  “You’re the one who doesn’t care who you hurt as long as it’s not someone in your precious town.” She threw the words at him. “If you were any kind of a cop, you’d be the one looking for the truth.”

  She spun and walked away.

  * * *

  MAC’S ANGER WITH Kate hadn’t abated by afternoon, but it had been tempered by the niggling fear that there was some truth in her accusation. Had he been too ready to conclude the investigation into Jason’s death? He had a feeling that question wasn’t going to go away easily—not until he honestly felt he’d done everything possible.

  But as for Kate’s conviction that Russ Sheldon knew anything...well, she was reading into his ramblings what she wanted to hear. What did she expect him to do—bring a senile old man in for interrogation?

  He clicked out of the file he’d been working on and shoved his chair away from his desk with unnecessary violence. There was one thing he could follow up on. He’d have done it by now if Kate hadn’t distracted him with her fairy tales.

  Kate distracted him on too many counts, and that was the truth. Time to ignore that and get some work done.

  He tracked down his patrolman, Johnny Foster, in the cluttered back room that was dedicated to all the files that pre-dated digital copying. He was supposed to be sorting a stack of unfiled reports, but he actually seemed to be using the wastebasket for a basketball hoop.

  Foster halted in the middle of a free throw and attempted to look busy. “Something I can do, Chief?” His tone was hopeful.

  “I doubt it, but you’re better than nothing. Come on. We’re going to go lean on somebody.”

  Foster brightened at once, all his ideas of police work having come from intense watching of television series. He rose to his gangling six feet, hand going to the firearm at his side.

  “I’m ready, Chief.” He fingered the weapon.

  Mac couldn’t help wishing that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hadn’t seen fit to grant Johnny the authority to carry a loaded gun. Maybe he ought to ration the kid’s ammo.

  “No weapons are going to be needed, Foster,” he said firmly. “I’m doing the questioning. Your job is to keep your mouth shut and look menacing. Think you can handle that?”

  “Sure thing, Chief.” He rounded the desk, managing to trip over his erstwhile basketball hoop. “Look menacing. Scare the perp into talking, right?”

  Mac suppressed a sigh. “Something like that. Is Larry Foust still working on rebuilding that old T-Bird of his?” Foster’s only value, as far as Mac had been able to determine, was that he usually knew what was going on with the kids his age.

  “Sure is.” He shook his head as he followed Mac toward the door. “He’ll never do it, though. He hasn’t got the touch.”

  He wasn’t concerned with Larry’s abilities as a mechanic, but at least it gave him an idea where to find him at this time of day. Of course, he might equally well be lounging on the sofa in his mother’s house, watching television, in which case this interview would have to be postponed until later. No one with any sense wanted to accuse Ethel Foust’s little lamb with wrongdoing in her presence.

  It was a few minutes’ drive in the patrol car to the Foust place, with Johnny lamenting most of the distance that he so seldom had the chance to turn the siren on. When they reached the block, Mac directed him down the alley in the back. That way they could reach the garage without drawing undue attention.

  The two-car garage held the conservative sedan belonging to Larry’s mother and the candy-apple-red T-Bird that was the love of La
rry’s heart. Too bad the engine needed a rebuild that was beyond Larry’s capabilities. Or maybe not. He didn’t want to envision the patrol car with Johnny at the wheel in pursuit of Larry in the T-Bird.

  Larry was bent over the motor, aiming a light at its innards. He didn’t move at the sounds of footsteps. “I’m busy, Ma.”

  “It’s not your mother. It’s the police.” Mac had the satisfaction of seeing a flicker of fear in Larry’s face as he jerked upright, narrowly missing cracking his head.

  For an instant Larry seemed torn as to what attitude to present to the police. Then he settled on the good citizen.

  “Chief Whiting. What can I do for you?” He rubbed his palms on a pair of greasy coveralls.

  Mac had considered his approach, too. “You can tell me where Jason Reilley got the prescription meds that took his life.”

  Fear and anger chased each other across Larry’s face. “Kate Beaumont sent you here, didn’t she? She’s got it in for me. I knew she’d cause trouble.”

  Mac took in the way Jason’s hands knotted into fists, and his own anger edged up a notch. Maybe Kate had been wrong about how harmless Larry was. He moved toward him, taking satisfaction from looming over the kid.

  “You’re causing trouble for yourself. Where did Jason get the drugs?” He let the question fall like a hammer.

  “Not from me. Honest.” He backed up until he bumped into the wall and sent a longing look beyond the two cops to the door. “I’m not into that stuff. Jason must have bought it himself. He probably had contacts back in the city. Not me.”

  “So you don’t know anything about anybody doing drugs in Laurel Ridge. What about the odor of marijuana that clings to those overalls you’re wearing?”

  Larry turned a sickly shade of green and looked from one to the other of the police who’d closed in on him.

  “Somebody else,” he stammered. “Not me.”

  “If we searched the garage and the house, we wouldn’t find anything? Like maybe some joints, or some prescription meds from your mother’s medicine cabinet?”

  “You...you can’t do that without a warrant.” Larry’s bluster was wearing thin.