Our Fathers (Conner Beach Crime Series)

by John Chabot

  "Who knows? But there are all kinds of letters – love letters, business letters. All kinds."

  "And?"

  Harry looked a bit smug. "Think about it."

  She hated it when he did that.

  Eliot Lansbury stepped through the sliding glass door onto his patio, frankly admiring the view. Since retirement, much of his time had gone into this private part of his yard. The patio gave way to a short, azalea-lined brick walk that led to the pool, closed now and protected by its bright blue cover. A bush of red camellias and a bed of yellow mums still blossomed. To the left was a miniature stand of dogwoods. Here and there the flowerbeds, most of them dormant now, waited for the longer, warmer days of spring before bursting again into color. The whole back yard was surrounded by a seven-foot privacy fence, weathered gray, and lined with a variety of boxwoods and more azaleas. It was, all in all, a place he was proud of, a peaceful place, a place to enjoy in all seasons.

  As he stood there, a slight motion to his right caught his eye. His gaze focused on a spot just above the birdbath he had put in the month before. Two sets of fingers were curling over the top of the fence. He could swear that's what they were. As he watched, a face rose between them, seeming to balance on top of the fence. It reminded him so strongly of the Kilroy-Was-Here drawings of World War II, he couldn't help laughing to himself. If the head had been bald, it would have been perfect. He recognized it as belonging to Ben Campbell. What the devil was he up to now?

  The suspended face turned. It seemed to be looking at his pool with an expression almost of horror. Or was that because he was hanging by his fingers from a rough, wooden fence?

  The face descended and disappeared and, a few seconds later, the fingers followed. That was one of the nice things, he thought, of living next to teenagers. You really do see some of the god-damndest things.

  On the other side of the fence, Ben dropped to the ground and faced the others. "This is really strange," he said. "Sixty-four paces brings me up to the fence. If I go over the fence and do another eleven, I'll be in the pool. Or I would be, except it's covered."

  Diane asked, "Anything that looks like a wizard over there?"

  "Nope. It's just a backyard. Trees, a pool, a birdbath, stuff like that."

  "I want to see," said Christy. "Somebody give me a leg up." Alex cupped his hands, and she rose on them to peer over the fence. She looked back the way they had come at an angle from the street, then mentally extended the line another eleven paces. Ben was right. They were missing something. The yard was just a yard. She saw Eliot standing on the patio, watching her with an amused expression. "Hi, Mr. Lansbury."

  "Hi, yourself. Could I help you with something?"

  She seemed uncertain. "Well, you don't happen to have something in your yard that has anything to do with wizards, do you? Or colonists?"

  He looked around at the scene he had just been admiring, but now in a different way. Wizards? Colonists? He had never thought of his yard in those terms. "No, I'm afraid not. At least, not that I know of."

  "Okay. Thanks anyway."

  She, too, disappeared. Eliot let his eyes wander over his little kingdom with a heightened interest. He half expected to see a colony of elves coming out of the dogwood grove, or perhaps a bearded creature with a peaked cap perched on his diving board. How very lucky, he thought. And to think we almost bought that other place on Oleander Circle.

  "Wes, look at this." Annabelle was standing by the window, looking out on the side yard, the curtain pulled back slightly by one finger.

  "What's happening?"

  "I don't know. They're all standing out there talking to each other, and just a minute ago Christy was looking over the fence into Mr. Lansbury's yard. She knows better than that. What if he had seen her? What would he think?"

  He stood close to her and peered out. "They don't seem to be doing much. They look stumped to me."

  "Well, I hope they find it soon. I wish it were over."

  "Yes, I know. Are you ready to go?"

  She looked at him uncertainly. "Do you think we should? I mean, perhaps we should wait until they leave."

  He slipped his arm around her waist, letting his hand slide down to her hip. "We could stay here if you'd like."

  "No," she answered quickly. "Now, you know we can't do that. We'll go, but there's no reason not to be discreet."

  Terry glanced at the others. They were on the Campbell's front porch, Christy sitting on the steps, Ben somehow balanced on the railing, Diane and Alex in a worn wicker loveseat. Terry leaned against the post at the top of the steps, with Kelly half sitting on the rail beside him. The expressions he saw ranged from frustrated concentration to depression to boredom. He felt vaguely guilty, as if he had somehow let them down. He didn't know what else he could do, but he was supposed to be in charge of this fiasco.

  They looked around as the front door opened and Annabelle and Wes came out. Mrs. Campbell looked at their faces and asked, "Well, what's the matter here? Everyone's so glum." She was trying very hard to be cheery.

  Ben started to say something, then stopped, then went ahead with, "We're just working on a clue, that's all."

  "Well, you mustn't take it too seriously."

  "The nudes on the beach?" asked Wes.

  "No, it's . . . it's another one."

  "Anything I can do to help?"

  There was a short silence and then, "No, that's all right. We'll get it. Thanks."

  Stoneman saw his reluctance to talk, and let it go.

  Annabelle noticed Kelly. She offered a tight, formal smile, inviting introduction. After Terry provided it, she smiled more intimately at Kelly as if taking her into her confidence. "You know, at first I was not really in favor of all this. But since it was, in a way, my poor brother's last wish, well . . ." She gave a what-can-one-do shrug and went on. "It's just that bringing up children is difficult enough without all these unexpected . . . things. Trying to watch who they associate with, that kind of thing. It's very difficult, but it's so important, don't you think? I don't know what my brother could have been thinking. Do you have children, by any chance?"

  "No. I was married once, but I didn't make that mistake."

  "Ah, I see. But don't you think that if you had had children, they might have kept you and your husband together?"

  "God forbid!"

  "Mother, please!" Christy sat with her head in her hands, trying to disappear.

  Annabelle chose not to hear her. She asked Kelly, "Do you live in Wilford, then?"

  "No, I live in Raleigh. I have a place at the beach."

  "Oh, how nice. Then you and Mr. Eason are neighbors?"

  Kelly gave her friendliest smile. "No, not at all. Mr. Eason and I are lovers. We don't actually live together, but we do enjoy sex."

  "Like someone else I know," muttered Christy.

  Annabelle turned rather smugly toward Alex and Diane, then realized it wasn't them her daughter was referring to.

  "Really, Christy!"

  "And the reason I don't have children now," continued Kelly, "is that I'm single, and I'm not masochistic enough to do it on my own."

  "Well, I'm sure that's your business, dear."

  Kelly's smile disappeared. "Yes, I would have thought so."

  Wes Stoneman stepped in, saying, "We really have to be going." Putting his hand on Annabelle's back, he began moving her down the steps. As they reached the bottom, she turned and smiled as if they had all been exchanging pleasantries. "Mr. Stoneman and I may be a little late this evening. Christy, you be sure you and your brother are home at a decent hour." She turned her attention to Terry. "Mr. Eason, I'm counting on you to see they are."

  It was quiet on the porch until Stoneman's Cadillac had grown smaller and finally turned a corner. Then Kelly said, "I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have lipped off. It's just . . . Sorry."

  "It's okay," said Ben. "That's just Mom. She thinks we're still in grade school." He looked down the street in the direction they had gone. "I wo
nder where they're off to."

  "Since we're here," answered Christy, "probably to his place."

  "His place? What for?"

  "Oh God!" Christy stood up and faced him, furious. "Don't be so dumb. Honestly, you just . . .!"

  "Hey, don't take it out on me. I just asked."

  And at this point, it occurred to Terry what their next step should be. It appeared in a brilliant burst of insight, clear and perfect. "I don't know about you people," he said, "but I haven't had any lunch. It's nearly 3:00. We'd all be better off with some food in us."

  "Damned straight!" agreed Ben.

  "How about pizza?" asked Alex. "Things always look better with pizza."

  "No anchovies," put in Diane.

  As they pulled away, following Alex's car, Kelly said, "Not a bad idea, Eason."

  "Thank you."

  "Your stomach comes through again."

  "Hey," he said defensively, "you use what you have."

  They were sitting at a large round table covered with a red tablecloth, two large, empty pizza pans and a strew of well-used paper napkins. Alex nursed the last of a beer. The mood had lightened considerably. General morale was up to new highs. It occurred to Terry that keeping the troops fed certainly cut down on the mutiny rate.

  It was then that Diane surprised everyone by saying, "I've been thinking about that clue." When the others looked at her expectantly, she said, "I just can't see it. Do you know what I mean?"

  She saw only puzzled faces. "I mean, can you picture it, really? Can you see Matt standing there in the middle of the street, and then following that compass up over the lawn and then over a seven-foot fence—he was supposed to be sick, wasn't he?—and then pacing off across what's-his-name's yard? Someone would have noticed. It just doesn't make any sense. It's as if we were at the wrong place."

  "How could we be?" asked Ben. "It's the only part of the note that's clear. 'Go to my sister's house.' He only has one sister."

  "Ah," said Alex. He put his beer on the table, staring out across the room. His face had the blank, almost stupid expression of someone following a scene in his head. Then his eyes snapped back into focus. The smile on his face was gentle.

  "What are you thinking?" asked Kelly.

  He picked up the beer and drained the last of it. "Just a point of law. I never met Matt Carlsberg, but I'm thinking that he had a very sneaky mind. I'm thinking that he had only one sister, but that, as of Thursday, or whenever the will was filed, his sister had more than one house."

  It was quiet for a few seconds as dark puzzlement gave way to the serene glow of true enlightenment. It was a time of full bellies and quiet minds, a time of satisfaction. Smiles grew around the table.

  "He left her his place at the beach," said Terry.

  "Dead on," said Ben.

  They were in the street in front of the big, white house with the blue roof. Beyond it they could hear the faint sound of the surf, the raucous squeal of the gulls. The sun had nearly set, but there was plenty of light to see the compass he held flat on his palm. He had lined it up at fourteen degrees West of South. It pointed straight down the center of the street.

  "Dead on."

  Slipping the compass into his shirt pocket, he started down the street with a long stride he thought a pace would be, counting each step aloud. When he reached seventy-five, they all stopped and looked around.

  "Now we're in front of my place," said Kelly.

  "Have we gone far enough, though?" asked Alex. "Or too far? We don't know what Matt would consider a pace."

  "So where's the wizard?" asked Ben. "Or the colony?"

  "Be careful," said Diane. "He gets tricky with words. How was that worded, exactly?"

  Terry brought out the folded paper again. In the fading light, he read, "Stop when you are standing directly between the high and mighty wizard and the lowly colonists."

  They began wandering around loosely, looking. On the landward side was a row of houses, a narrow sidewalk, heaved and broken in places, and a row of telephone poles. On the other side were more houses, Kelly's in particular, no sidewalk, no poles. An old, fallen-down fence separated her property from the one next to it. A trash can stood by the fence. A small patch of lawn struggled to stay alive.

  Six pairs of eyes roamed the neighborhood, trying to see familiar things in a new way. Does one of those houses with its peaked roof resemble a wizard? They all had peaked roofs.

  Ben's leg itched, just above the top of his sock, and he scratched at it idly. Only a small part of his mind noticed it. His attention was divided between two things. He was consciously trying to figure out what there was around them that was in some way like a wizard. Something that was high, something that was mighty, something with magical powers. Or maybe it was another of those mixed up words, like dunes and nudes. He thought about that, but couldn't see any combination that would make a word.

  Besides, it was hard to concentrate on words and abstractions. She was there, just a few feet to the side, a little in front of him. His eyes kept glancing that way. The last light touched her hair, as it had the first time he had seen her, giving it a deep red sheen. It was nearly dark now, and the fading details made her silhouette more distinct. She wore faded jeans, tight around her hips and bottom that left little to imagine. He managed, though. From where he stood, he could see how her loose, heavy-knit sweater curved out around her breast and in at her waist.

  He felt heat, and stirrings, and embarrassment, and a longing to touch her. Damn! Stop it! How old was she? A lot older. Nearly thirty, maybe. She was a woman, not like any of the girls he knew. Not a virgin, that was for sure. She was sleeping with Eason, for God's sake.

  The wizard. Concentrate on that. What was it? Where? Why is there never a wizard around when you really need one?

  His leg itched again, this time in two places.

  Kelly was standing in a sandy patch on the seaward side of the street. She noticed that Ben was beside her. Not too close, but beside her. He had also been sitting on one side of her at the pizza place. She had noticed him looking at her a few times in a way she had seen before. Nothing overt, just there. A little curious, maybe a little hungry. Maybe more than a little. Oh well, she thought, he's fifteen. It will pass—in fifty or sixty years.

  Kelly's eyes moved up the telephone pole across the street. They reached the stubby arms that carried the wires and started moving along them to the next pole in line. Then they came back and stopped. What is that? she wondered. What do they call those things? Then she remembered. Yes, that was it. She turned her attention to the houses, to the porches, the steps, the . . . What was that thing called? She looked again at the top of the pole—and smiled. To the others she said, "Okay, so much for the wizard."

  "You found it? What is it?"

  Should she tell them? Of course, but not right away. The satisfaction of it was too good to give away all at once.

  "What does a wizard do?" she asked.

  "Do?" someone asked. "Magic, I suppose."

  "What kind of magic?"

  Terry frowned at her. "You're not going to do this the easy way, are you?"

  "Not a chance. This is too much fun. What does a wizard do?"

  "Puts curses on people," said Diane.

  "No," said Alex. "Witches do that. Wizards break the evil spells."

  "Says you!"

  "What else?" asked Kelly.

  "Change snotty boys into frogs," grinned Christy.

  "And frogs into princes," countered Ben.

  "Good, good. They change things. And what's another word for change?"

  "Vary?"

  "Edit?"

  "Mutate?"

  "No. Another one. If a wizard changes lead into gold."

  "Transform?"

  "Right. So a wizard is a . . ." She let her eyes travel up the pole and stop on the gray, ugly shape near the top.

  "Oh my God!" moaned Terry. "A power transformer."

  "It's high," agreed Alex, "and it's damned sure powerful."


  "That's sick," said Diane. "I think I could get to like these puzzles after all."

  She had done it. And it was so simple, sitting up there, high and mighty. They all had seen it, but she had understood, and Ben felt a certain pride, almost as if he had done it himself. Now, he thought, it's my turn. She found the wizard; I'll find the colonists. Think. Think. Get it before Christy does. Where I stopped in the street should be between the wizard and the colonists. So, if I wasn't too far off, they should be somewhere in a line with that spot in the street and the telephone pole. About where I'm standing now. Nothing but the street between me and the pole. Okay, behind me then, but in the same direction.

  He turned and saw the neighbor's house, the broken fence, the trash can. What else? Not much. Nothing really. How could any of those things be connected to colonists? Alex was right. His paces might have been longer than Matt's, or shorter. Still, he couldn't have been far off. It had to be right around here.

  "Ow! Dammit!"

  "What's the matter?" asked Kelly.

  "Something bit me."

  Ben was rubbing his lower legs with both hands now, fully conscious of the stings. "Ow! Dammit, there's another one."

  The others came over to see what was happening, trying to understand the trouble, while Ben kept hopping around, swatting at his pants legs. Christy squatted down to look at the place he had been standing. It was dark enough now to make it difficult. Finally, she saw what she was looking for and said, "Congratulations."

  "Don't be a wise ass!"

  "Who, me? I'm just congratulating you on finding the colonists."

  "What?"

  She stood up and nodded at the ground. "It's an ant hill, dummy. You were standing on the colony."

  CHAPTER 23

  Ben stood in the middle of the street, at a spot between the wizard's throne and the angry colonists, holding the compass flat in his palm. Terry stood beside him, using the flashlight to light up his hand. "Ninety degrees to the left." He lined it up carefully and sighted along the top. "Wouldn't you know. Thirty paces is going to put us right back in the house."

  "Are you sure?" asked Diane.

  "Sure I'm sure. Watch."