Fatal Facade

by Wendy Tyson

  “At the pool with Hilda. I came up here to call Vaughn.”

  Jason climbed back on the bike. Looking toward the pool and spa beyond the meadow, he said, “Wait here. I’ll check on her.”

  Allison watched him ride down the path and hop over the small rocks between the gravel and the meadow with his bike. Graceful as a gazelle on that thing, she thought. They’d spent so much time together these days, and she needed to take a step back, look beyond the work issues, busy-ness, and personal problems of the past few months and really see him. He deserved that.

  He disappeared by the pool and Allison sat down on the step, waiting. The air was soupy today—a blanket of rain clouds were moving in, and the wind was picking up. She didn’t see any police activity by the pool, which calmed her. Still…the inspector had brought friends, and that couldn’t signal anything good.

  Jason was back a few minutes later. “All is fine. Happy as an otter in the water. I think Grace has found a soul mate in Hilda. Hilda said they’ll be up in thirty minutes.”

  “And they will. Hilda is always on time.” Allison paused. “They do seem to adore each other.”

  Jason placed his bike in the small mud room in the cottage. “What do you think of Hilda?”

  “She seems nice. She certainly is good with Grace.”

  “Have you gotten to know her?”

  “Not really. Only by watching her with Grace.”

  In fact, to Allison, Hilda was a cipher—so quiet that it was nearly impossible to have a full conversation with her. But when she was with Grace, Hilda lit up. Allison had to admit, she seemed to watch over that little girl as though she were her own. Grace craved the quiet attention, and she was picking up more German each day. Despite Elle’s inconsistent behavior and the loss of Shirin, this place was still a welcome retreat, if for no other reason than Grace. Allison loved watching her blossom. And Allison was reluctant to let go of that.

  With a glance toward the castle and its circle of police cars, Jason peeled off his riding jersey. His muscles rippled underneath.

  “How about a snack before dinner?” He moved closer, the warmth from his body enveloping her. “And then I’ll put together some fruit and wine when we’re done.”

  Allison smiled. She untied the string around her neck that held up her sundress. She was nude underneath. “Are you suggesting an afternoon tryst, Mr. Campbell?”

  He reached out and stroked the ridge of her bare shoulder. “All work and no play—”

  “Let’s go play, then,” Allison whispered. “But just for a little while. After all, I don’t want anyone calling us dull.”

  Karina was at the cottage door after Allison and Jason finished lovemaking but before fruit and wine. Allison met Karina in the living room, her robe the only thing she could grab and don amidst Karina’s panicked pounding.

  “What is it?”

  “Sam. He’s missing.”

  “Missing as in lost?”

  Karina nodded. She strained her neck to see behind Allison, as though Allison were keeping the rock star hostage.

  “I can assure you, he’s not here.” Allison pulled her robe tighter around her midsection. “When did he leave?”

  “We’re not sure.” Karina’s voice was sharp. “Elle is a mess. Perhaps you should come.”

  “Why don’t you let us help look for Sam?”

  Karina turned to look toward the castle. “La polizia are here. Elle called them when she found her father’s room empty and Dominic was unable to locate Sam.”

  “Maybe he went for a ride into town. Or a walk in the woods.”

  Karina didn’t say anything. Her expression said both options were absurd. She looked beyond Allison again, sighed, and said, “Well then, if you can help scour the vicinity, that would be good. By five it will be raining. And if he’s out then…we need to find him right away.”

  Allison closed the door after Karina left, and then leaned against it. If Sam had Alzheimer’s—or something like it—he could be confused, disoriented. He could be anywhere on this property.

  He could be dead.

  The thought pummeled her in the stomach, sent her head reeling in a million directions. She pictured her mother, who’d been an Alzheimer’s sufferer, and the time she’d gone missing. They’d been terrified—and they were near town, where it was hard to get truly lost. Here, the elements could get someone before rescue could occur. Plus, Sam seemed much more in tune with reality than her mother had been, so what if he wasn’t simply missing. What if something had happened to him? A fall…

  Two accidental deaths? Possible. A third? Surely not.

  Before she could articulate anything, Jason was beside her. He’d thrown on canvas hiking pants and a pair of boots.

  “I heard everything. Stop thinking the worst, Al.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear, leaned over to kiss her gently and reassuringly. With a glance at his watch, he said, “Hilda and Grace will be back here in four minutes. If Hilda will stay with Grace, we can head out onto the trail and look for Sam.”

  “What if we find him out there?” Allison asked.

  Jason looked at her, his eyes shadowed. “What if we don’t?”

  EIGHTEEN

  They started along the path by the pool. While most of the search party members headed into the woods near the ruins of the old stone wall and fanned out by the bones of the former church, Allison and Jason walked toward the cliff and the trail that led down to the river. They walked in silence, aware that just a week ago a woman had died along this path. Overhead, stormy cumulous clouds gathered in a pack between the mountain peaks, their shadows casting a wide net over the valley. The heat hadn’t let up, but the rumble of thunder in the distance said that it soon would—as did the brisk breeze.

  Jason looked upward, squinted, and took Allison’s hand. “Hurry up. I’d say let’s split up to cover more ground, but I don’t want us separated in this either. We’ll stick to the path and, if we can before the rain starts, check out the river bed below.”

  Allison nodded. She’d never been much of an athlete, and her only time spent outdoors as a kid was during her family’s once-a-year excursion to Knoebels Amusement Resort an hour and a half away. Her father had made them all cram into one tent to save money on campground fees. Since then, Allison associated the word rustic with cramped and miserable. She loved this area of Italy, but she knew that when it came to steep hikes and dangerous climbs, her view was that of Vaughn’s: not for me.

  Allison walked carefully in the center of the trail. It started off relatively flat, but by a quarter of a mile in, it started to pitch downward. The ground underneath, peat that had gone dry from a few rainless days, rolled under her hiking boots, making her feel unsteady. She concentrated on listening—for rustling, yelling, calling, anything that might give away Sam’s location.

  In another eighth of a mile, they reached a crossroads. To the left was a steep climb toward a clifftop. To the right, the trail continued its descent toward the river. Allison could hear the water rushing below. It occurred to her again that this was the trail Shirin had taken the fateful evening of her fall.

  “Go right,” Allison said between huffs. She reprimanded herself to make better use of that gym membership.

  The path got steeper and steeper as it marched resolutely toward the river valley. On the left side, the trail gave way almost immediately to the cliffs: rocky outposts that plunged nearly vertically to the river below. On the right side of the trail was forest—now lush and green and shadowed, but no doubt dark and ominous the evening Shirin fell.

  A few hundred feet and it was obvious where the accident had occurred. The trail went from dry and smooth to trampled and wide. Someone had created a seat from an old tree stump, and cigarette butts circled the makeshift stool. The cliff in that section was particularly rocky, with a slight overhang before the rock dropped to the
river below.

  Had it not been for the litter and the knowledge of Shirin’s death, this would have been a cozy spot—a nice place to look out over the wild river and the flower-dotted meadows beyond. Instead, Allison felt a shiver run the length of her spine. Something bad had happened here. The boot prints told only part of the story.

  Jason stopped walking. He looked out over the river, then backwards toward the tree stump and the trees beyond. “I take it this is where she fell?”

  “Shirin? I think so, at least based on Karina’s description.”

  A buzz started in the distance and grew louder. “Chopper,” Allison said. “Perhaps they’re broadening the search.”

  “Or they’ve found him.” Jason spun around, toward Allison. His eyes looked distant, as though contemplating a problem. He frowned. “Something is odd.” He squatted, placed peat between his fingers, and rubbed. “Did it rain the night Shirin died?”

  Allison thought back. “Yes.”

  “Was it pouring?”

  “For a little while, maybe. Not too bad.”

  “And they say she slipped?”

  “She slipped off the trail. They saw the skid marks the next day.”

  Jason’s frown deepened. “If it was raining, how did the tracks remain?”

  Allison shrugged. “As I recall, the rain had ended earlier. By the time she was out, it was just misty.” She knelt beside him, not sure what she was looking at. “Why?”

  “This material—” Jason held out a palmful of peat “—would be easier to slip in when dry. It gets smooth and dusty, like it is now.”

  Allison immediately saw where he was going with this. “So if it had been raining, she would be less—not more—likely to slide over the edge.”

  Jason stood, clapping the dirt from his hands. “Right. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have tripped over something.” He glanced around, shook his head. “But there are no exposed roots or other detritus here.”

  “There could have been that night. Detritus, that is. And it was dark.”

  “Perhaps.” Jason chewed on his lip, a habit he had when thinking deeply about something. “They definitely saw skid marks in the peat?”

  “Yes, that’s what was told to me.”

  “I want you to trip, Allison.”

  Allison’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  Jason smiled. “Not over the side. Just here, now. Feign a trip. Pretend you lost your footing while walking quickly down the path.”

  Allison did so. She forced her feet to flounder, made a mock trip, and landed softly on her bum. She rose quickly, wiping the dirt from her knees.

  “Now look.” Jason pointed to the path. There were gouge marks where her feet had hit the ground, and a spot where she’d landed. No skid marks, though.

  Jason reached out to her. “Give me your hand. Just relax and go with it.”

  He started to pull her. At first she felt her feet tripping, but she dug her heels in and slid.

  “See?”

  She did. When she looked at the path, there were two holes where she’d started to fumble and lines where her heels had dragged.

  “You think someone dragged Shirin over the cliff?”

  Jason shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Look, I’ve been mountain bike riding and rock climbing since I was a kid. I know trails, and I know what the consistency of a trail means in terms of traction, speed, etc. If this woman had stumbled and fell, she wouldn’t have left track marks. Sliding—like you would do if it were very slick or if someone were pulling you—makes more sense.”

  “If the peat had been wet, it wouldn’t have been very slick.”

  “Exactly.”

  The sound of propellers got louder. Allison looked up to see the chopper flying overhead, in the direction of the castle.

  “I think they found him,” Allison said. Just then, her phone buzzed. It was Elle texting her to say that Sam had been located. Allison read Jason the text. “Thank God.”

  But Jason wasn’t listening. Instead, he was on his hands and knees with his head hanging over the cliff.

  “What are you doing?” Allison rushed toward him, afraid he would fall. “Are you nuts?”

  “Look at this.”

  Sensing the urgency in his voice, Allison got down on her knees. Jason took her hand and pulled it gently over the side. She gripped the trail hard with her knees and free hand.

  “Relax, you won’t fall.” Jason rubbed her hand against something embedded in the rock. “Feel that?”

  “It’s metal. A stub of some sort.”

  Jason let go of her hand. “Hold my legs—just in case.”

  “Jason, no—”

  But it was too late. He’d shimmied his way down, toward the cliff, so that his head was hanging completely over the side. Allison kept her mouth closed and her body on the back of his legs. She knew Jason was well-equipped to deal with this situation—and not a man given to reckless endeavors. Still, her heart was pounding madly against her ribcage.

  “Jason—”

  “Hand me my phone, Al.”

  “But—”

  “Please? It’s in my back pants pocket.”

  Allison reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Now what?”

  “Turn on the camera and give it to me.”

  Allison did. He snapped a picture, then twisted his hand behind him and handed her the phone. After a moment, he pushed himself backwards so his body was again fully supported by solid ground, her signal to stand back up.

  “Just as I thought.”

  “What is it?”

  Before answering, Jason stood, stretched, and then walked to the tree stump that had been used as a stool. His face was a study in concentration. He examined the bark on the tree and the trees nearby. Seemingly satisfied, he turned back around.

  “That thing you felt? That’s a climbing bolt.” He must have noticed Allison’s confusion, because he added, “When you’re rock climbing and don’t want to tie into a tree or something, you place a bolt and a nut into the rock. You have to drill, though. It takes skill—and forethought.”

  He walked over to the trees on the other side of the path. “If your girl merely tripped, there would be no skid marks. If she skidded, possibly, but she could also have been dragged.” He rubbed the thick trunk of the closest tree. “It’s possible that if someone tied off using a tree, you would see wear in the places the rope was secured, especially if it was a big guy. He’d tie the rope around the tree and then pull it across the path and use it to secure himself against the face of the cliff.”

  “Where he could reach up and grab her ankle.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But then the rope would be visible.”

  “Yes, and if she had seen it, she might stop and wonder what it was or avoid the area all together.”

  “If she stopped, though, the killer would have a chance to reach up and grab her.”

  Jason nodded. “While that’s true, if she had any suspicion that foul play was at hand, she could turn the other way before getting close.” He ran a hand over his thick brown hair, getting the damp strands away from his face. “Plus, the trees. They would give him—or her—away. If there were marks on the trunk, then the police would know something was going on.”

  “So you think they put the bolt in place to stay out of sight.”

  Jason nodded. “Tying off using the tree would have been risky. But there are risks with this method too. For one, noise. To drill that hole would mean loud sound.” He looked toward the river, the din of which made hearing difficult. “But the river would mask most of that, especially if done during the day.”

  “Leaving the bolt is risky too.”

  Jason shook his head.

  “I think whoever did that thought they could remove it. It loo
ks chipped, as though they tried to pull it back out and failed. And it’s nestled in there pretty good.”

  “I wonder if the inspector knows that bolt is there.”

  “Doubtful. He’d have had to have been looking for it.”

  Allison grew quiet. Jason was giving voice to her suspicions—that someone wanted Shirin dead and had gone to some lengths to make it happen. Lightening flashed in the distance, and Allison felt the first sprinkles of rain. She shuddered again, and not from the chill of the water against her skin.

  Jason asked, “There’s only one thing: in this cosmopolitan crowd, who would know enough about climbing to do this?”

  Allison wrapped her arms around her chest, warding off more than the bitter drops of rain. “I think I can answer that.”

  NINETEEN

  “The husband, Douglas,” Allison said. “He’s a climber.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I saw him with his gear the day Shirin died.” Allison pictured the two of them on that fateful afternoon. Shirin with her tan legs and bourgeois attitude, Douglas with his cocky avoidance. “He’d been climbing.”

  “Or so he wanted you to think. He could be a poseur—someone who likes to pretend he’s into certain things.”

  They were walking back toward the castle. Allison held Jason’s hand in her own, as much for reassurance as a gesture of appreciation. She felt chilled and vindicated. While Jason’s hypothesis was just that—a theory—it felt right. Shirin had been murdered.

  Allison said, “But you said someone would have planned that exact spot well ahead of time. If Douglas had killed his wife in a fit of anger or passion, that doesn’t add up.”

  “You’re right, it doesn’t. If Shirin was murdered, whoever did it planned the incident quite carefully. The killer would have had to have scoped out the spot, drilled the hole, and attached the stud and the bolt. But it was a perfect place, Al. Close enough to the river to hide the noise, and a place where the path was hidden from even the castle’s highest towers.”