The Lure

by S. W. Hubbard

  “I haven’t even got a baby for the Braithwaites yet. Now you want two?”

  “Just see what you can do.”

  Earl entered the office whistling. He looked different somehow–cleaner; Frank couldn’t put his finger on it.

  “Did you get a haircut?” Frank asked after studying him for a while.

  “Uh, yeah,” Earl ran his hand nervously over the neatly trimmed nape of his neck. “Why?”

  “It looks good. And they trimmed your mustache, too.” That was what really made him look different—trimmed and evened out, the wooly caterpillar on Earl’s upper lip didn’t look half bad.

  “You didn’t go to the Butcher of Verona, did you?”

  “No, I went to the place in Lake Placid you and Edwin go to.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t like Earl to part with twenty bucks when Joe’s Barbershop would mutilate your hair for half the price. Something was up.

  “Do anything last night?”

  “ Melanie and I went to the movies.”

  Ah, Melanie again. Frank couldn’t imagine that pairing; Earl hardly had the training wheels off his bike and now he was racing in the Tour de France.

  “We saw Berserk, that serial killer movie. It was great!”

  “Earl, that’s not the kind of thing you should take a girl to on a date.”

  “She picked it,” Earl protested. “She loves mysteries and cop shows and stuff.”

  So, maybe that was behind Melanie’s sudden interest in Earl, now that she knew he planned to go to the police academy. He hoped Earl wasn’t headed for a broken heart.

  Earl hummed happily as he prepared to go out to run the morning speed trap. Frank opened his mouth to offer some advice, then shut it again. What the hell did he know about women? Earl was doing fine.

  “Dr. Hibbert’s on line one,” Doris announced.

  Frank stared at the blinking light for a moment. He was almost sure what the coroner was going to say. Probably poor Dean Jacobson had a couple of beers under his belt and his blood alcohol level was slightly over the legal limit. For that, he’d gotten the death sentence, and Frank couldn’t help feeling like he was the executioner.

  “Hi, Chuck, what do you have for me?”

  “Your crash victim was pumped full of PCP. He probably would’ve crashed into something before long, even without you on his tail.”

  “PCP…angel dust? I haven’t seen that around since the eighties,” Frank objected.

  “I know, and we never had much of it up here, even then. But I was just reading a journal article the other day—apparently it’s making a comeback with the kids again. Teenagers today don’t have any memory of how screwed up PCP makes you. Prolonged use leads to extremely irrational behavior: paranoia, delusions, hallucinations.”

  Frank felt relieved. PCP did make people crazy. There had been a case years ago in Kansas City of a college kid diving out a fifth floor dorm window because he was convinced he could fly. And Dean’s grandfather had said the boy hadn’t been himself lately. But relief was immediately followed by worry.

  “Where the hell did he get it?” Frank asked. He’d arrested Trout Run’s foremost pot dealer a few months ago for blatantly conducting a sale in the parking lot of the Mountainside. Since then, Earl had reported that the scuttlebutt around the tavern was that dope had been hard to come by without a long drive.

  “Maybe over in Burlington. This article said PCP’s becoming a popular party drug on campus.”

  “Possible, I guess. But Dean didn’t strike me as a kid with a lot of U. Vermont frat-boy friends.”

  “You don’t have to be their friend to be their customer. Anyway, finding the source is your problem—I’ve got patients waiting.”

  “Thanks for the call, Doc.” Frank hung up and made a note to call Mr. Jacobson to find out who Dean’s friends had been.

  “Anita Veech is here to see you.” Doris’s voice came through the intercom dripping with disapproval.

  What would Anita be doing, coming to the town office to see him? Frank crossed the room and opened the door. Sure enough, there she sat with a grimy little girl beside her.

  “Hello, Anita—come on in.” Frank bent down to the little girl as Anita lumbered past. Why wasn’t this kid in school? “Hi there, sweetie. What’s your name?”

  The child squinted at him through a tangle of hair as if he were a two-tailed cat. She looked like she had never had a real haircut in all her six or seven years, but when the stringy brown strands got in her way, someone came along and whacked off the offending pieces with dull nail scissors.

  “This here is my Olivia.” Anita prodded her daughter. “Say hello, girl.”

  Olivia stared at her tattered Little Mermaid sneakers.

  “She’s shy.” Anita lowered herself into a chair that creaked in protest. “Say, I appreciate what you done for my brother, Ralph.”

  Frank started to say he hadn’t done a thing, but caught himself. If Ralph had wormed his way out of trouble with the Lake Placid police, there was no harm in taking the credit. “Sure. Have you come to repay me?”

  “I always hold up my end of a bargain.” Anita grinned, exposing her dentist’s nightmare of teeth. “I know you been wondering what Mary Pat was doing out on Harkness Road so much, thinking that might have something to do with the baby and all. But she was just coming out to visit Olivia, here. Ain’t that right, Olivia?”

  Olivia nodded vigorously without looking up.

  “But you told me she didn’t visit you,” Frank protested.

  Anita raised a sausage-finger. “I never actually said she didn’t—I just said Pap don’t like visitors, and that’s the truth. So we had to set up times for Mary Pat to visit when I knew Pap wouldn’t be around. See, Olivia here is real smart. Ain’t that right?”

  Again the nod.

  “So Mary Pat would come out and help her with her schoolwork. Because I never was one much for school myself, and I’m not much help with the spelling words and the multiplying, am I, Olivia?”

  A shake this time. Frank watched the performance, fascinated.

  “But Mary Pat, she was real good with that stuff. She liked working with Olivia on the studying and the handwriting and the reading. That’s why she was out on Harkness Road so much.”

  “But that last day—she was with you right before she died. Didn’t you notice how sick she was?”

  Anita shook her head, clucking sadly. “We never did see her that day, did we Olivia? We made a plan for her to come, but then Pap didn’t go out like we expected, so I had to send Olivia down to the signpost to prop up the big stick. See, that was our signal—if the stick was leaning against the sign it meant Pap was in and she shouldn’t come up to the house, right Olivia?”

  Frank looked at the forlorn little bundle of rags with the bobbing head that was Olivia Veech. He could certainly see Mary Pat taking the child under her wing. He felt like doing so himself. “Why didn’t you tell me this when I talked to you at the Stop ‘N’ Buy?”

  “I didn’t like to, just in case it got back to Pap. I figured it didn’t really matter, since it didn’t have nothing to do with why she died. But I know you been spendin’ a lot of time worrying on it, so my conscience got to botherin’ me.”

  Conscience? He didn’t figure Anita had a conscience. “What about the father of the baby—have you given any more thought to that?” He didn’t want to ask her directly about Dr. Galloway, and plant an idea in the mind of someone so unreliable.

  Anita stretched back in her chair and folded her hands over her massive belly. Frank felt his eyes drawn perversely to the slab of flesh that hung down over her crotch. Sometime in the past seven years, Anita had had sex with a man, and he didn’t care to dwell on the logistics required to pull that feat off.

  “I have been thinking, and you know what? I think the fella was not from around here.”

  Typical Trout Run attitude. When in doubt, pin it on an outsider. “Why?” he asked, giving up hope that Anita r
eally knew anything about Mary Pat’s lover.

  “Because it seemed like she knew he would be coming in on certain days, and she would try to get me out the door early then. It was like he passed through on a schedule, see? But I don’t remember the exact days.”

  “Just because he came in on a schedule doesn’t necessarily mean he was from out of town,” Frank said.

  Anita pushed off from his desk to boost herself out of the chair. “You got a point. I guess that’s why you’re the detective.”

  Was she mocking him? It was hard to know what to believe from this woman.

  Anita waddled to the door, with Olivia trailing behind. As she crossed the threshold, the child turned back and met his eyes for the first time.

  “I miss Mary Pat,” she said. He couldn’t doubt the sadness etched in her wan little face. “She was my real friend.”

  The call from Sean Vinson reporting vandalism at the Extrom house building site came in just as Anita left. Frank left for the scene immediately, driven by curiosity to see this house he had heard so much about.

  Extrom’s place was located at the summit of one of the higher peaks in the Verona range. These mountains weren’t part of the forty-six named High Peaks, but the locals referred to this mountain as Beehive because of its conical shape. There were several homes nestled in the woods at the bottom third of the mountain, but the top two-thirds had generally been considered too inaccessible for anything more than a rough hunting shack. Then Extrom had come along, bought up the entire top of the mountain from several different owners, and set about building an access road, drilling a well, and installing his own power generator. What all this cost was a subject of constant speculation among the regulars at the Store and Malone’s diner, with the tally rising by tens of thousands of dollars every week.

  Frank turned onto the unpaved road marked with a hand-painted plywood sign that read EXTROM SITE. The road grew increasingly steep, winding through the dense maple and birch forest, but it had been worn smooth by the constant traffic of trucks and earthmovers. At the higher elevation the trees thinned a bit, and wind-stunted hemlocks and balsam wrapped their roots around boulders searching for some nourishing soil. Frank followed one last twist in the road, and the Extrom house appeared before him.

  The house seemed to cling to the rocky peak much like the resilient trees, but there was nothing stunted about it. It cantilevered out from the mountaintop, a vast, multi-leveled structure of natural field stone, huge log beams, and cedar shakes. One wall appeared to be made of nothing but glass. The rhythmic explosion of nail guns echoed in the cool morning air as a crew of men installed shingles.

  Frank parked and walked toward the house, amazed and appalled at once. Extrom’s new home commanded a panoramic view of everything from Lake Champlain to the east and Lake Placid to the west. Stretched out below, like clouds beneath a high-flying plane, was a blanket of brilliant reds, yellows and oranges, broken only intermittently by a thin ribbon of road. Frank knew there were houses down there, but he couldn’t see them through the dense leaf canopy. The old cliché, “master of all he surveys” popped into his head. Yes, a man would feel like a feudal lord in his castle in this place.

  Frank was so intrigued by the feats of engineering that the house presented, and the stunning craftsmanship of the stonework, that he didn’t even look for signs of the spray-painted vandalism that Sean Vinson had reported. Staring up at the trusses supporting one wing of the house, he jumped at the sound of a voice right behind him.

  “The damage is over here.”

  Frank whirled around to face Sean Vinson, an exceptionally thin man wearing work boots with blue jeans and a flannel shirt that looked like they had been professionally laundered and pressed. With several silver rings on his fingers, a diamond stud in one ear, and a precision-trimmed mustache, it was no wonder Vinson came in for so much grief at the Mountainside Tavern.

  “This is quite a place,” Frank said. “I haven’t been up here before.”

  “I haven’t had occasion to call you until now,” Vinson said as he led Frank away from the house. “But we’ve had a major episode of vandalism that threatens the work on this project.” Vinson stopped in front of a small construction trailer at the edge of the clearing. Spray-painted in bright orange across the siding, door and window was the message: HIRE LOCAL OR THE HOUSE IS NEXT.

  “Any idea what that means?” Frank asked.

  “I know exactly what it means and who wrote it. Last week I had to fire three local men who were working here as carpenters, because they simply refused to follow the blueprints. I replaced them with reliable men from New York City who have worked for our firm before. Today, I came in and found this blatant threat to damage the house. I demand that you arrest these men. Their names are Richie Blevins, Pete Ringold and Dan Strohman.”

  Frank knew who the three men were—Richie and Pete were about Earl’s age; Dan was a little older with a wife and kid. They were all struggling to stay afloat, patching together a living by working a variety of part-time jobs. He knew they were all hard workers, and probably damn good carpenters, even if they weren’t used to following a fancy architect’s plan. He could just imagine Dan arguing with Sean that those trusses would never hold the house up.

  Getting fired from one of the best-paying gigs in the county wouldn’t be easy to swallow, so Frank didn’t doubt the boys had cooked up this little retaliation after a few beers at the Mountainside. But they had probably gotten the anger out of their systems now and had forgotten all about their threat. “You may be right, but I can’t arrest them without more evidence than that. I’ll talk to them, though.”

  “Talk to them?” Vinson all but stamped his foot. “The house is slated to be the subject of a major article in Architectural Digest in the spring. I want them locked up where they can’t do any harm.”

  Yes, the glossy magazine spread might get cancelled if SEAN SUCKS were sprayed on that stonework. Frank gestured toward the trailer. “Minor property damage doesn’t normally result in much of a prison term, Mr. Vinson. Trust me, I’ll see that they don’t give you any more trouble.”

  “We can’t afford any set-backs.”

  “Seems like Mr. Extrom can afford quite a lot. What line of work is he in, anyway?”

  “Communications.”

  “Owns some radio and TV stations?”

  “Hardly.” Apparently, Vinson had rarely encountered such doltish naiveté. “Wireless communications. Satellites, fiber optics. This house will include a state-of-the-art communications network.”

  “That’ll come in handy, I’m sure.” Frank returned his gaze to Vinson. “I’ll go speak to those fellas. They won’t pull any more stunts like this.”

  “You’d better be right.” Vinson slammed his graffitied office door in Frank’s face.

  On the way down the mountain, Frank caught one last glimpse of the house in his rear-view mirror. Why didn’t Green Tomorrow protest this monstrosity? The massive house must’ve displaced more than a few bird nests. Oh, but what was he thinking? This was no monstrosity; this place had been blessed by Architectural Digest, whereas poor old Abe would be more likely to be written up in Trailer Parks Today. Maybe Green Tomorrow didn’t mind assaults on the environment that were so tasteful. He’d have to ask Beth about that.

  Chapter 22

  On the way back to the office, Frank decided to stop in and see the Sheehans. Their front yard was covered in a thick layer of fallen leaves, another sign of Mary Pat’s absence. She had probably taken care of the raking. Frank kicked through them, breathing in their warm, sweet smell. He knocked and waited. Just as he was about to knock again, the door opened. Ann Sheehan stared at him without a word, then turned around, shouted “Joe,” and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Frank on the porch.

  Well, there was no doubt where he stood with Ann Sheehan; he hoped her husband might be a little warmer. Joe had apparently been down in the basement. He arrived at the door slightly out of breath, and came out
to join Frank on the porch.

  “Now what?” Joe asked.

  No, he was persona non grata with them both now. He decided to lead off with the question about Olivia Veech, since asking about Mary Pat’s lover was sure to raise Joe’s hackles.

  “I’m still trying to verify what Mary Pat was doing out on Harkness Road, just in case it has something to do with the baby. Anita Veech, who cleans at the Stop ‘N Buy, recently told me that Mary Pat went out there regularly to visit her little daughter, Olivia. Did Mary Pat ever mention that?”

  Joe let out an exasperated snort. “Oh, Olivia! Mary Pat just worried herself sick about that little gypsy. Always looking for clothes for her at the clothing bank, buying her books and crayons and such. Anita was just using that child to get money out of Mary Pat. I told her she better leave those Veeches alone, but she said Olivia couldn’t help the family she was born into.”

  “So Mary Pat did go out to Harkness Road to visit Olivia?” Why hadn’t Joe mentioned that possibility in the first place?

  “I don’t know about that. Mary Pat talked about seeing the kid when Anita brought her in to the store. I didn’t even know you could get back to where the Veeches live from Harkness. I thought you had to go in by way of Route 12, then take that unmarked road.”

  “If Mary Pat knew you didn’t approve, she wouldn’t have mentioned going out there, right?” Yet another secret Mary Pat had kept from her parents, but not the secret.

  “I suppose so.” Joe no longer bothered to insist Mary Pat wouldn’t have concealed the truth.

  It looked like Anita’s story could be true then—maybe the trips to Harkness Road had nothing to do with Mary Pat’s lover. Which made Galloway all the more likely a prospect.

  Frank pulled the greeting card out. “I found this in the roadside emergency kit in Mary Pat’s trunk. I think it might be from Mary Pat’s—” He found he couldn’t use the word ‘lover’ to Joe. “The father of the baby. Do you recognize the signature?”