She jerked upright and, for the first time, her flashlight beam shone directly on the face of the manikin.
Bile rose in Liss’s throat. Her knees went weak, forcing her to grip the back of the sofa to keep from falling. What lay there was not a manikin. It was a man. A very dead man. The red marks on his neck weren’t fake blood. The gore was all too real.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst of it was that she knew him.
Chapter Seven
“Ned Boyd? Son of a gun! I thought he was still in jail!”
Feeling oddly detached from reality, Liss listened to Chief of Police Jeff Thibodeau exclaim over the body she’d found. She sat at the kitchen table in the Chadwick mansion, her back to the doors that led to the rest of the house. She clutched the cap from a thermos in both hands. She didn’t know who had given it to her—the place seemed to be full of people, some of them in uniform and some not—but it contained hot coffee and she felt chilled to the bone. She gulped it down, grimacing only slightly at the strength of the brew. The taste lingered on her tongue, making her feel slightly ill.
“You should go home,” someone said. “You don’t need to stay here.”
Liss turned her head to look at the person sitting next to her and recognized her with a vague sense of surprise. “Sherri? Where did you come from?”
“You’ve had a shock,” Sherri said, “finding your cousin like that.” She relieved Liss of the empty thermos cap. “Good Lord! Your fingers are like icicles.”
She set the cap on the table and grabbed both of Liss’s hands. As she rubbed them between her own, warmth and circulation slowly returned. Along with feeling came increased awareness of her surroundings. The awful truth Liss had been trying to block out crashed through her defenses. The tears she’d been holding back streamed down her face.
“How am I going to tell Aunt Margaret?” she choked out between sobs. “Ned wasn’t much of a person, but he was the only son she had.”
“You don’t have to be the one to tell her.” Dan’s voice was so close that Liss jumped. She hadn’t heard him enter the kitchen.
“She’s my aunt,” Liss said without glancing his way. “He was my cousin.”
“Gordon Tandy’s here now. Let him break the bad news.” Dan pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the table and sat down, reaching across the laminate surface to pass her a clean, white handkerchief.
As if from a great distance, Liss heard the sounds of the state police forensics team at work in the parlor. Gordon Tandy would be the trooper in charge of the investigation. This was his patch. And it was murder. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. The world came back into focus.
First she’d screamed, Liss remembered. Then Dan had come running. He’d taken one look at poor Ned and hustled her out of the room. He’d used his cell phone to call the police. Then he’d tried to get her to leave the house, but she’d refused. “Someone has to stay with the body,” she’d said.
After that, things got fuzzy. She didn’t remember seeing Sherri arrive. Or Jeff, who was Sherri’s boss. Or George Henderson, the local ME, although Liss was sure he’d been called out. Or Gordon.
That meant all kinds of official vehicles were parked in the driveway. And anyone who’d showed up to tour the haunted house had been turned away. Liss had no idea how much time had passed since she’d made her grisly discovery, but she was sure that everyone in town knew a crime had been committed up to the old Chadwick place.
“Aunt Margaret believes Ned’s still in prison,” she said aloud, “but if she can’t find me at the Halloween party, she’ll worry that I’m the one in trouble.”
“All the more reason for us to go home.” Dan said. “She’ll likely phone there and you can reassure her that you’re fine.”
“I’m not going to lie to her, and you don’t break news like this to someone over the phone. I have to tell her in person. I—” She broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps clumping toward the kitchen from the front of the house. She stood up, her fingers tightening spasmodically on the handkerchief. She half expected to see two men enter carrying a body bag and breathed a sigh of relief when only one person, Gordon Tandy, came through the doorway.
The state police officer topped six feet by an inch or two and was solidly built. He had a military bearing and wore his reddish-brown hair short to go with it, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t overcome perpetually youthful features. He was in his early forties and still looked like a fresh-faced kid. That he was frowning made no difference.
“What are you still doing here, Liss?” Gordon directed a glare at Dan, who spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“What was Ned doing here? He was supposed to be in jail, Gordon. If he was in jail he wouldn’t be dead.” Aware that her voice had risen steadily during this harangue, Liss abruptly stopped speaking.
“I’d like to know what he was doing in this house myself.” Gordon spoke with irritating calmness. “You had no idea he’d been released early?”
“He’d been released early?” Dan repeated the words, but gave them a far different inflection. Slowly he got to his feet, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
Liss winced. She heard in Dan’s voice what Gordon and Sherri clearly did not. She alone knew what Dan must be remembering—that he’d arrived on the scene too late to help her on that dreadful day when Ned had tried to kill her. That she’d managed to save herself had been a near thing, and although Dan had gone along with her wishes, he had not approved of her decision to keep that part of the story from the police.
As a result of Liss’s reluctance to cause her beloved Aunt Margaret still more grief, Ned had never been charged with attempted murder, only with manslaughter. That death, he’d insisted in court, had been an accident. It had occurred during the commission of a burglary and should have earned him a longer sentence, but the judge had been taken in by Ned’s apparent contrition. He’d been sentenced to a mere five years for taking the life of another human being.
Liss closed the distance between herself and Gordon. She wanted to be able to see his face clearly. That way she’d know if he was holding anything back.
“Ned should have had another three years to serve. Why did they let him out ahead of schedule?”
Gordon hesitated, then shrugged. He made no attempt to avoid meeting her eyes. “I don’t know, Liss, and that’s God’s honest truth. Maybe he got time off for good behavior. Maybe it had more to do with overcrowded conditions at the correctional facility. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
“If he was out of jail, why wasn’t anyone in the family notified?” Dan joined them to sling an arm around Liss’s shoulders.
If she’d had energy to spare, Liss would have protested the not-very-subtle staking of his claim on her. Now that they were married, Dan was going to have to stop thinking of Gordon as his rival for her affections. Liss knew for a fact that Gordon had moved on.
“There’s no law that says relatives have to be informed,” Gordon said. “Or anyone else, either, except the local probation officer. It was up to Ned himself to contact his mother. Are you sure he didn’t?”
“She’d have told me if he had.” Liss frowned. “When she mentioned him the other day, she said he refused to see her or answer her letters.”
“Margaret talked about him?”
Liss could understand Dan’s surprise. It had been the first time she knew of in more than a year that Margaret had so much as spoken her son’s name. “We were discussing this house and she said that Ned used to come up here when he was a boy. That he was fascinated by the place. There’s supposed to be buried loot on the property, you know,” she added for Gordon’s benefit. He was a native of Carrabassett County but lived a good hour’s drive from Moosetookalook, in the equally rural village of Waycross Springs.
“That’s right.” Sherri had remained at the table, watching the little drama play out in the mansion kitchen. She joined the others to confirm the p
art of the conversation with Margaret she’d been privy to and to summarize the pranks that had plagued the Chadwick mansion. She finished with an account of Dan’s discovery of the tunnel.
“Have there been any more incidents since?” Gordon asked.
“Someone siphoned gas out of the generator.” Dan was about to elaborate when Liss interrupted.
“When did Ned get out of jail?”
Gordon consulted his notes. “September fifteenth.”
“A couple weeks before Dolores Mayfield noticed flickering lights at the mansion,” Sherri murmured. “I wonder how many times he was in and out? And how he got in again after Dan blocked the tunnel entrance to the basement?”
“I don’t think he was in and out.” Liss was remembering the mysterious thump she’d heard above her head on the day Jason Graye had given her such a scare and with sudden clarity she understood its source. “I think he was living here. If I were you, Gordon, I’d look for a panic room.”
Telling Aunt Margaret that her son had been murdered was the hardest thing Liss had ever had to do. She put her arms around her aunt when Margaret dissolved into tears and sat with her on the love seat in Margaret’s office at the hotel, but there was nothing she could do or say to alleviate the older woman’s suffering. What comfort did anyone have to offer a parent who’d lost her only child? It didn’t matter what Ned’s failings had been. Once he’d been an innocent baby in his mother’s arms.
Margaret was still in shock when Liss and Dan bundled her into the car and drove her home. It wasn’t until they reached Margaret’s apartment that Liss was struck by the fact that she was still in her fortuneteller costume. Margaret was dressed as a witch. She’d even used food coloring to dye her hair green. The image was incongruous with grief, but it didn’t make Margaret’s suffering any less real.
Since it seemed to help her aunt to talk, Liss sent Dan home and stayed to listen. Margaret had hundreds of fond memories to offset the disillusionment she’d suffered on that terrible day two years ago when she’d learned that Ned had confessed to the crime of manslaughter.
For that matter, so did Liss. She and Ned had never been close, but they’d grown up together. Lacking siblings and any other first cousins, the bond between them, while not particularly loving, had been unique. She was sorry he was dead . . . and she was furious at his killer.
It was not just that Ned’s death ended any hope that he might have made amends for his past failings. Liss’s anger also stemmed from the hurt the murder of her cousin was inflicting on her aunt. Margaret’s agonizing loss was made even worse by the intensity of her regret over not having done more to force a reconciliation with Ned before he died.
“I should have made him talk to me,” Margaret said in a choked whisper. “I should have kept going back to that prison until he agreed to see me.”
She’d said the same thing a half dozen times already and Liss repeated the answer she’d been giving right along. “You tried your best. It’s not your fault that Ned didn’t want anyone to visit him.”
No one could force a prisoner to entertain family on visiting day. It was one of the few rights a convicted felon retained after he went to prison.
“Why didn’t he call me when he got out? Why, Liss? He had to know I’d help him get settled.”
“Maybe he wanted to prove he could start over on his own.” But even as Liss uttered these platitudes, she doubted they were true.
Unless Ned had changed a great deal while he was in prison, he wasn’t the altruistic type. He’d mooched off his mother for years and “self-centered” had been his middle name.
Abruptly, Margaret pulled away from Liss and stood. She gathered up scattered tissues and deposited them in the wastepaper basket on her way to the bathroom. Liss heard water running and guessed that her aunt was splashing it on her face.
Liss braced herself. Once Margaret got a grip on her emotions, she’d start asking pointed questions. Liss dreaded the inquisition. She didn’t want to remember finding Ned’s body and she knew next to nothing about anything else.
Margaret emerged from the bathroom wearing a robe. She’d hidden the green hair with a towel. Liss couldn’t tell if she’d washed the color out or just covered it up. Liss had pulled on a cardigan over her peasant blouse and buttoned it up to the neck. She’d left the black wig in the car. Ignoring Liss, Margaret went straight to the kitchen. It was not until she’d brewed a pot of soothing chamomile tea and poured a cup for each of them that she again addressed her niece directly. “Do you suppose Ned was here in town all along? Ever since he got out, I mean.”
Liss shook her head. “I don’t know. No one saw him. I’m sure of that much.” Given the effectiveness of the local grapevine, word should have reached them within an hour of any such sighting.
“Gordon Tandy is in charge of the investigation, I suppose.”
It wasn’t a question, but Liss nodded anyway. She and her aunt had taken seats opposite each other on two of the stools arranged around a center island. Liss took a sip of the herbal brew Margaret had placed in front of her and grimaced. She’d never been fond of chamomile, but if it had a calming effect on her aunt, she was all for it.
“Tomorrow is going to be hellish,” Liss said after a long silence. “The news media will have picked up on the story. The Halloween angle is too good to ignore.” They’d probably make the national news, God help them!
“I know.”
It made sense that she had already considered that particular problem, Liss realized. Margaret’s job involved public relations and she was good at it, but it worried her that Margaret was staring vacantly into the dregs of her herbal tea. She wondered if she should suggest that her aunt take a sleeping pill and send her off to bed. Or would it be better to get her to reminisce about Ned? Liss wasn’t sure she could stomach hearing too many more of Margaret’s fond memories of her son. For years, she’d remained blind to Ned’s many faults. He’d been a good liar and his mother had been willing to be deceived.
Liss’s thoughts drifted as she waited for her aunt to give some hint of what she wanted to do. Exhaustion crept up on her as she considered what a very long day it had been even before she’d found Ned’s body. She was unable to hold back a jaw-popping yawn.
“Go home, Liss,” Margaret said. “I’ll be all right. You don’t need to stay and babysit me.”
“I hate to leave you alone.”
“I’ve been coping with life alone for years.” Margaret’s lips twisted into a rueful half smile. “And to be honest with you, I lost Ned a long time ago.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about me. Go.”
Liss went.
The next day was every bit as bad as Liss had expected, made worse because she hadn’t gotten much rest the night before. Nightmares had haunted her sleep. Although she couldn’t remember much about them this morning, she was certain there had been vampires.
With the dawn, camera crews had arrived in droves. Reporters swarmed the Emporium, fortunately closed on a Sunday, and climbed the external stairs to bang on the outside entrance to Margaret’s apartment. She sent Liss an e-mail to say she was fine, but that she’d unplugged her phone, closed the blinds, and was going back to bed.
Having failed to interview her aunt, the slavering horde descended on Dan and Liss’s house. They knocked on the door and rang the bell, annoying Lumpkin so much that he chewed a hole in the footrest of Dan’s recliner. The phone jangled constantly until Dan followed Margaret’s example and unplugged it. Eventually, however, the siege lifted. The state police issued an extremely vague statement. And then Gloria Weir turned up in the town square to announce that she, too, would talk to the press . . . speaking on behalf of the Moosetookalook All Hallows Festival committee.
“Who elected her queen?” Liss muttered, peering out through the front window of her new attic library/office to watch Gloria’s performance. The hobby shop owner stood in the center of the gazebo in the middle of the town square, s
urrounded by representatives of all three local network affiliates and a bevy of print reporters.
“Someone needed to talk to the press.” When Dan came up behind her, Liss leaned against his chest, taking comfort in the warmth and strength of him. “Better her than you, me, or Margaret.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just wish I had some idea what she’s saying.”
“Tune in at six.”
Liss snorted. “I guess I’ll have to. Did you talk to Stu?” She felt Dan nod.
“The good news is that everything except the haunted house went off as planned last night. It looks as if the festival may even have made a profit.”
Surprised, Liss turned in his arms to look up into his face. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted to hear it. But how on earth did the police manage to keep things quiet that long?”
“You’ll love this—it was Jason Graye’s doing. I don’t know how he got involved, but apparently he stationed himself at the foot of the Chadwick driveway and turned people away. He told everyone the haunted house attraction had to be scrapped because of an electrical problem. Most people didn’t hear any different until this morning.”
It was three in the afternoon before the news hounds dispersed. Liss watched the town square for another hour, sitting by the window with Glenora on her lap to make sure they’d really gone. Finally satisfied, she transferred the black cat to the seat of the chair she’d just vacated and went downstairs. She found Dan in front of the TV, a bowl of microwave popcorn beside him and Lumpkin stretched out across the back of the chair.
“Is he okay?” she asked, indicating the cat.
“Much better since he threw up.”
“Sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She had only half his attention. The rest was on the football game on the screen. The Patriots had a bye week, but Dan liked the Bills, too.
“It’s safe to go out now,” Liss told him, “and I need a breath of fresh air. I’m going to go check on Aunt Margaret.”
Vampires, Bones and Treacle Scones Page 9