How Secrets Die

by Marta Perry

Mac muttered a few words he’d probably just as soon no one heard. “Stay put and keep your phone with you. Is the door bolted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Don’t touch anything.” He must have turned away from the phone for a moment to speak to someone else. Then he was back. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Okay? I’m coming.”

  It’s all right to be afraid. The voice of her stepfather sounded in her head. But use the fear to be smart. Don’t let it master you.

  “Okay.”

  Fingers scraped along the windowpane, as if seeking a way in. She sucked in a breath and shouted. “The police are on their way. Hear that? They’re almost here.”

  She swung the penlight back to focus on the inert figure, her mind starting to work. Don’t touch anything, Mac had said. But the blood still flowed, slowly, from the wound in the back of the boy’s head. He was still alive, then. She had to do something, and she would.

  * * *

  WHEN MAC PULLED up in the driveway, he left the headlights on. At least it illuminated a fraction of the yard.

  “Search the area,” he told Foster. “Look for any signs of someone hiding in the bushes. And if you find any footprints, don’t put your own feet on top of them. Just mark the location and come and tell me.”

  “You think the guy is still here?” Foster swung the beam of his heavy police flashlight around the yard.

  “Not if he has any brains.” Mac strode quickly to the door.

  Kate was already opening it. “Did you call an ambulance?”

  “They’ll be right behind us.” He took a moment to study her face. Pale but composed. Whatever had happened, she had control of herself. “You weren’t hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No one touched me. But Larry—” She gestured, and he strode quickly to the inert form on the floor.

  Larry lay facedown, one hand reached out as if to ask for help. A blanket had been tucked around him, and a blood-saturated towel lay next to him. There was blood on Kate’s hands, as well.

  “I see you didn’t follow my instructions not to touch anything.”

  “I couldn’t just let him bleed.” She looked down at the boy, pity filling her face. “It’s nearly stopped now. I hope that’s a good sign. He’s just a kid.” Her lips trembled, and she pressed them together.

  Was she thinking of Jason? He’d been just a kid, too.

  The wail of a siren was followed in short order by a couple of paramedics pulling a stretcher between them. Mike Callahan, the senior of the two, squatted next to the figure, his deft fingers checking the injury.

  “You determined to produce more work for us?” His attention didn’t leave his patient, but he flickered a glance from Mac to Kate.

  “Not my doing,” he said. “How bad is it?”

  “Not my call,” Mike said quickly. He looked at Kate. “You stopped the bleeding?”

  “I did what I could.” She looked at her hands and shivered.

  “Good job. We’re going to transport him pretty quickly. The head injury should be looked at by a surgeon. You coming along, Mac?”

  As usual, he was hamstrung by his lack of personnel. Someone should go to the hospital on the slim chance that Larry spoke and named his attacker. But someone had to question Kate and investigate the crime scene, and that had better be him.

  “I’ll call Harry Young and ask him to meet you at the hospital.” Harry was pushing the age limit for part-timers, and he didn’t have the energy to chase down a toddler, let alone a criminal, but he was steady and responsible. “I’ll have to keep Johnny Foster here to help process the scene.”

  Though now that he and the paramedics, to say nothing of Kate, had already traipsed through the area, the chances of finding anything were lessened.

  As the stretcher was moved out through the door, Kate seemed to wilt. “I’d like to go wash up,” she murmured, looking at her hands in distaste.

  “Not yet.” In answer to her questioning look, he went on, choosing his words carefully. “I’ll need to take a swab from your hands to match against Larry’s blood.”

  “I don’t see anyone else bleeding around here.” Her temper flared, and he could see she was on the edge of losing that carefully detached facade she prized.

  “It’s just routine. We don’t want to leave any loopholes for a defense attorney to drive through. Just hang on until I get the kit from the car. Okay?”

  She managed a nod.

  Mac strode outside and gestured to Johnny. The people who made up the guidelines for processing a crime scene apparently hadn’t heard of police departments like his.

  “Anything?”

  Foster shook his head. “Some scuff marks over there by that big bush.”

  “Lilac,” he corrected automatically. “Any identifiable footprints?”

  “No. And I was careful, Chief. Looked like maybe the perp scuffed it up himself.”

  He was more thorough than most criminals they ran across in Laurel Ridge, in that case. Foster was looking at him as if he had a question he hesitated to ask.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “You buy Ms. Beaumont’s story?”

  Mac’s jaw clenched. “We investigate. We don’t make judgments. But on the face of it, I doubt she’d have had time to meet Foust, get into an argument and bash his head in. We’ll be looking to see if anyone saw her car arrive and can establish the time.”

  “You want me to start on that now, Chief?”

  “No. We process the scene first. Get the camera and crime scene kit.”

  Mac headed back inside, trying to find the detachment he so desperately needed. Right now he had to be the police officer investigating, not the man who’d held Kate in his arms such a short time ago.

  Soon after he’d swabbed her palms and put the result into an evidence bag, Mac realized that if Kate had anything to say about it, he wouldn’t need to worry about keeping her at arm’s length. She was looking at him as if he were a lower life-form. Obviously, she hadn’t bought his explanation about the process being routine.

  “Okay, you can wash up now. At the kitchen sink, please.” He’d be able to see her in the kitchen from here. Not that he thought she would attempt to hide anything, but because...well, because that was what he’d do if it were anyone but her in this situation.

  Not speaking, Kate marched into the kitchen, taking a good long time scrubbing her hands. He could hardly blame her for wanting to get rid of the blood.

  She’d done the sensible thing in a situation that would have had many a civilian running mindlessly. That control of hers was standing her in good stead right now.

  When she came back into the living room, he was on the phone.

  The instant he hung up, she spoke, as if the words could barely be contained. “Was that the hospital? Is he...did he make it?”

  A suspicious cop could look at her eagerness two ways—either she was innocent and genuinely concerned, or she was guilty and hoping Larry wouldn’t name her.

  “He made it to the hospital. The surgeon’s with him now. And my officer.”

  “Good.” Kate’s relieved sigh sounded like the real thing. “He’ll be under guard, won’t he? The person who did this might come back.”

  “He’ll be safe in the hospital.” He pushed that aside impatiently. He gestured to a chair far enough removed from the spot where Larry had lain. “Tell me what happened from the time you left the farm. What time did you leave?”

  Her face tightened. For a moment he thought she’d remain defiantly standing, but then she crossed to the chair and sat, very erect on the edge of the seat.

  “I’m not sure. I went in the house with...with your family.” For an instant she seemed to understand how difficult this was for him. “Your mother insisted on giving me food to bring home—” Sh
e stopped, looking around. “I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “Two pieces of pie on a plate,” he said. “It was lying in the grass next to the walk.”

  Kate nodded. “I must have dropped it when I ran.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d guess I left at about eight fifteen, but I’m not sure.”

  He’d already spoken to his parents. His mother had no idea, but Dad put the time at around eight fifteen, maybe five minutes either way at the most.

  “Did you stop anywhere on your way back?”

  Kate shook her head.

  “So, figure ten to twelve minutes once you got going to get here.”

  “Or a bit longer. I don’t know the roads as well as you do.”

  True enough. “Did you come straight inside?”

  She looked slightly embarrassed. “I probably hesitated. Usually Mrs. Anderson has the back porch light on, but she didn’t. I got out my keys with the penlight attached. The city is never totally dark,” she said defensively.

  In other words, she had taken what were probably normal precautions for her. “Right. When did you hear someone?”

  Kate pressed her hand to her forehead. “I think not until I’d realized that the door was unlocked. I backed up—I was going to go to Mrs. Anderson’s, but it didn’t look like she was home.”

  “You should have called me.” He couldn’t prevent the personal note from intruding.

  “I knew you were at the fire.” She shivered, rubbing her arms. “Anyway, I could hear someone in the bushes. Coming closer—I glanced back.”

  “Did you see him at all?”

  “Just as a man-sized shadow.” She glanced at him. “Run, hide, fight. That’s what my stepfather always said. It was go toward him or come into the cottage, so I ran inside and locked the door.”

  “Did you turn the lights on?”

  She shook her head. “The front drapes were open. I didn’t want to be seen from outside. That’s when I heard Larry make a noise and knew someone was in here with me.”

  Kate rubbed her arms again, hugging herself. He wanted to put his arms around her and knew he couldn’t.

  “And then?”

  “I turned my penlight toward the noise and saw him. Larry, that is. And called you.”

  Her call had come in about thirty minutes after she’d left the farmhouse. He didn’t see how she could possibly have had time to get in here, find Larry and hit him. But the questions had to be asked.

  “We’ll be trying to find someone who saw you pull in. That will narrow the time down still further.” He thought that would be reassuring, but her eyes flashed in response.

  “If you think I did this, then you don’t know me at all.”

  “I don’t think you attacked Larry,” he said carefully, aware that he was treading the line between cop and man. “But if you came in and he attacked you, you’d have been justified in defending yourself.”

  “If it had happened that way, I would have. But it didn’t. He was already lying on the floor, injured, when I came in.” The words were firm. Not argumentative, just assured.

  He switched ground. “Did you leave the door unlocked when you went out?”

  “Certainly not. I’ve told you before—I’m careful about things like that. I remember turning the knob to double-check it.”

  “So how did Larry get in?”

  She leaned her head on her hand for an instant, and the sign of weakness nearly knocked him off balance. But then her head came up.

  “I told you someone had been in the cottage before, and you didn’t believe me. I suppose Jason might have given Larry a key for some reason. Or he might have gotten hold of Jason’s key and had a copy made. Or he could have walked in the back hallway of the bed-and-breakfast and lifted the key off the hook anytime Mrs. Anderson was occupied.”

  Too many choices, and all of them were perfectly logical. “Granted, getting a key wouldn’t have been impossible. In any event, he was here, and so was someone else. He didn’t hit himself on the back of the head.”

  “No.” She pressed her lips together in the gesture he’d begun to realize meant she was determined not to let emotion show.

  “You’ll have to stay somewhere else for tonight, at least, so we can process the scene. Maybe my parents—”

  “No.” She snapped the word.

  He couldn’t help being relieved. His family was already too involved in this situation for his peace of mind.

  “I can hear Mrs. Anderson out there now, giving Foster a hard time.” He doubted very much that Foster could hold out against a determined Mrs. Anderson much longer. “She can give you a room in the house for tonight. Just pack up what you’ll need for tonight and tomorrow, and I’ll set it up with her.”

  For a moment Kate looked as if she’d like to argue the point. Then she shrugged and headed for the bedroom.

  Just as well. He’d have had to insist, and that would have been uncomfortable, to say the least.

  Who was he kidding? No matter what happened from here on out, the events of the past few hours had changed his view. There was something still to be learned about Jason’s life—and perhaps even death—or Larry Foust wouldn’t be lying in the hospital.

  Things had changed between him and Kate, as well. And he didn’t have the least idea how he was going to handle that.

  * * *

  EVERYONE IN TOWN must have heard about the attack on Larry Foust, Kate decided as she walked into Blackburn House the next morning. And that he had been found in the cottage Kate was occupying. The only question left was: Did they think she’d done it?

  She’d called the hospital as soon as she got up, but after asking if she were a relative, the response had been that the patient’s condition could only be discussed with family. And the police, she assumed.

  So, little as she’d wanted to talk to him, she’d called Mac. He’d sounded as reluctant as she was, but he did say that Larry was in stable condition in a medically induced coma to reduce chances of possible brain damage. He’d be of no help to the police for days, and perhaps not then.

  Mac had also said he’d meet her at the cottage at one that afternoon. His tone hadn’t allowed for argument. Well, she was past worrying about being alone with him, in any event.

  Why did he want to talk to her there? Did he think being on the scene would make her confess? If so, he was doomed to disappointment.

  As an alternative to brooding, Kate decided to go to work as usual. Anything was better than staying cooped up in the room, pleasant though it was.

  When she passed the quilt shop, Allison came rushing out, followed more sedately by Sarah. Allison grabbed her hand. “We heard about it from Mac. What a thing to happen! Are you all right? Maybe you shouldn’t be out yet.”

  Kate shrugged. “I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt. As for being out—as long as I can handle people staring at me, it’s better than staying in.”

  “That’s certain sure.” To Kate’s surprise, Sarah gave her a quick hug. “If people want to talk they will. It always happens, but that doesn’t change who you are.”

  “Thanks.” Kate’s throat was suddenly tight at the expected vote of support. Neither of them seemed to have doubts about her. “I appreciate it. I was afraid most people would be ready to ride me out of town on a rail after all the trouble I’ve stirred up.”

  “You’re a newcomer. You couldn’t stir up anything that wasn’t already there to be uncovered,” Sarah said firmly.

  “Sarah’s right, as she usually is,” Allison said. She flashed a smile at her partner. “Why don’t you join us for lunch? We’re going over to the café around noon.”

  Sending a public message, in other words. “Maybe your future brother-in-law would rather you didn’t show your support for me quite so visibly.” Kate suspected Mac was already
cursing the fate that had led her straight from his family’s house to discovering Larry.

  “Don’t underestimate Mac.” At the sight of a customer heading for the shop, Allison turned away. “We’ll stop by for you when we’re ready to leave.”

  “Sounds good. But I’ll have to be home by one o’clock. I’m meeting with Mac then.”

  “No problem,” Allison said. “We’ll break a little early. Sarah’s mother is coming in this morning, so she’ll cover for us. See you later.”

  Feeling slightly better, Kate headed for the bookshop. At least Allison and Sarah didn’t believe she’d brutally bludgeoned someone.

  Emily looked up from the computer when Kate entered the bookshop, her expression somewhere between startled and dismayed. Planting a smile on her face, Kate approached the counter. “I hope I’m not late.”

  “What? Oh, no, not at all. I’m just surprised. After what happened...” Emily’s pink cheeks deepened to rose. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t feel up to coming in today.”

  “I’m better off working than sitting there brooding about it.” She hesitated, but Emily didn’t say anything. This certainly wasn’t the quick reassurance she’d had from Allison and Sarah. “Unless you don’t want me here, that is.”

  “On, no, that’s not it at all.” Emily seemed to be making an effort to sound convincing. She nodded to the shelves Kate had been cleaning the previous day. “You can get on with that job. I’ve got to get some of the dead wood off the shelves, to make room for new releases. Although the minute I remove a book from the shelves, someone’s sure to ask for it.”

  Emily always seemed torn, needing reassurance on the smallest decision regarding the shop.

  “I’ll get right on it.” Kate tucked her bag on the shelf behind the counter and seized a cloth. Just keeping the shelves dust-free seemed a full-time job.

  The area where she was working was out of sight of the front door. Had that been deliberate on Emily’s part? She might not be eager to have such a controversial person on display in her shop.

  If Emily felt that way, she’d have to come out and say so. Kate wasn’t about to give up her access to Blackburn House for anything less. Not that it had provided her with much information so far.