Take the Bait

by S. W. Hubbard

  “Then I got home and Tommy was waiting.” Janelle hugged her knees and rested her head on them, making herself into a tight little ball. Her voice was muffled but still audible. “He was smiling—gloating, like he had just won a prize or aced a test or something. He said, ‘Aren’t you going to thank me? Now you won’t have to worry about picking up any dog hairs when you’re out there in Ned’s truck.’ And he laughed.

  “That night I met Ned and I told him what Tommy had done. I said we had to do something to stop Tommy. I said I was going to talk to my dad. But Ned got angry. I’d never seen him mad before. He said we couldn’t risk anyone finding out about us. He said Clyde could be very unreasonable, and that he would probably fire my father because of what I did with Ned.”

  Janelle lifted her tear-streaked face. “I couldn’t let that happen. Daddy’s worked his whole life there. It’s all he knows. I seriously considered killing myself, but that’s a terrible sin,” she said without irony.

  Frank put his head in his hands. “Oh, Janelle, you honestly think your father wouldn’t have believed you, wouldn’t have helped you?”

  Janelle sighed. “Even after what Ned said, I still thought about telling Daddy. But I couldn’t bear thinking about how disappointed in me he would be. He was always going on and on, warning me not to make the mistake my Aunt Dorothy made. He really thought I was a virgin. And then I thought if I did tell him and he believed me, then what? I didn’t want Tommy to get arrested. It would kill my Aunt Dorothy, and I love her. Then I met Pablo and realized I could go to his compound, and it just seemed like the only solution.”

  Frank looked at Janelle’s slumped figure. There was still one more thing he needed to know.

  “Janelle, what did you and Ned talk about when he visited you in the hospital?”

  “He acted all happy to see me, but I don’t think he really was. And I wasn’t happy to see him. I told him it was over between us, and he agreed. But he wanted to know if I had told anyone about us—you, my father, my aunt. I told him no, but he kept asking.”

  Janelle sat silently, pausing for breath before the final hurdle.

  “And then he asked me about Tommy. He said he supposed it would all come out once Tommy was found, and he only cared because of the pain it would cause Penny and his mom. He said, ‘If only I could talk to Tom. Maybe I could get him to agree not to say anything. Maybe I could offer to pay for a lawyer to get him out of this mess.’”

  Janelle’s voice cracked, and she began to cry. “That’s when I told him where to find Tommy. I thought Ned might really be able to help him. I thought there might still be a chance that no one would have to know. Oh, God! What have I done?”

  She grabbed Frank’s hand. “No, Ned can’t possibly have killed him. He wouldn’t. Please tell me that’s not what happened!”

  Gently, Frank pried her fingers loose. “We’ll get the final pathologist’s report in two days. Until then, don’t tell anyone what you’ve told me. Not even your father. Stay with someone at all times, and keep the doors locked. I’ll have a trooper parked outside.”

  Janelle’s eyes widened. “You don’t think he’d kill me, too?”

  “I don’t know—it would be awfully risky. He must realize that if something happened to you now, even if it looked like an accident, I would never let up ’til I got to the bottom of it. Still, you can’t be too careful.”

  Frank drove away, abusing himself roundly for his own stupidity. He had been so obsessed with finding some romantic connection between Bob Rush and Janelle that he’d completely overlooked the other obvious candidate for her affections. Finally he understood the Stevensons’ extraordinary interest in this case. Janelle’s running away must have been a godsend to Ned—the perfect way out of an affair that couldn’t possibly have ended well. He had a vested interest in promoting the kidnapping theory because he knew it would throw everyone off the real reason for her flight. And Tommy had been in exactly the same position, for an entirely different reason. Neither one of them knew where Janelle had gone; they just both wanted her to stay away. And keeping each other’s secrets had been the best way to keep anyone from finding Janelle.

  It must have been Ned who sent that lame ransom note. And the excerpt from Madame Bovary must have been a little love note that Janelle had once given him. Ned had planned all along to drop it at the stakeout to make it look like the “kidnapper” had been there but had been scared off. When that poor hiker had stumbled into the setup, Ned must have been amazed at his own luck. Frank’s mouth twisted. The cocky bastard was probably sorry Janelle hadn’t died in that box.

  And no wonder he had made Ned so nervous by telling him Dell Lambert had seen him driving up and down Stony Brook Road—Ned hadn’t been spying on Dell, he’d been going to his trysts with Janelle. But Ned hadn’t known Lambert had seen him until Frank told him about it, so it looked like the old man’s death had been an accident after all.

  But for Ned to actually kill Tommy to keep the affair secret—that seemed incredible! Protecting Penny hardly seemed a powerful enough motive for such a drastic action. After all, if he loved her so much, he wouldn’t have been screwing around with Janelle in the first place. Perhaps Ned was worried that Clyde would disinherit him. Frank couldn’t imagine the old man taking such a hard line, but who knew?

  The real problem was how to come up with enough evidence to arrest the sonofabitch. Ned had motive and opportunity, but without any physical evidence to link him to the crime, he would easily beat the charge. And Trout Run wouldn’t take kindly to wild allegations against one of its leading citizens.

  Frank was so deep in thought that he hardly knew where he was. A call over the radio brought him back to the here and now.

  “Frank, there’s a report of a serious accident on Farnham Road. A car went off the road at the hairpin turn. Caller didn’t see it happen. Just says there are car lights shining up from the side of the road.”

  “I’m on my way.” Frank turned the patrol car around and turned on his lights. It never rained but it poured. He had wanted to get back to the office and call Meyerson to discuss strategy; now he’d be messing around with this accident for hours. But nothing could really be done until the coroner’s suspicions were verified, anyway. Tomorrow he’d return to Tommy’s hideout and see if there was any shred of evidence indicating Ned’s presence. Until then, it might actually be better to have something else to occupy his mind.

  Frank knew exactly where the accident must be. Farnham Road was a narrow, twisting mountain road that the locals used as a shortcut between the main road to Lake Placid and the west side of Trout Run. One turn was particularly bad, and if you were going too fast in the dark, you could easily leave the road.

  When he arrived at the spot, the only signs of an accident were some broken tree branches, two deep tire marks in the mud on the side of the road, and the eerie glow of lights shining up into the trees. Frank looked down the hill and saw it: a small car turned on its back like a bug. Its rear end was pointed down the hill. The only thing that had stopped it from rolling all the way down into the ravine was a large maple tree that wedged the hood of the car against the hillside.

  Frank scrambled down the slope, pointing his flashlight at the wreck. As he grew closer, he could see that the car was red. A few more steps and he could make out the insignia on the hood. A jolt of fear hit him. A Mazda Miata—the kind of car Penny Stevenson drove.

  He shined his flashlight through the shattered passenger side window. A dark-haired woman was trapped in the compressed front seat. Her face was turned away from him, but the left hand was flung out. A familiar diamond solitaire glinted in the light.

  Frank moaned, paralyzed by the pain of this new tragedy for a moment. Then he snapped to attention. He needed help. Even opening the door could send the car tumbling down the hill. Gingerly, he reached through the broken window and picked up the limp hand. Forcing himself to concentrate, he placed two fingers across the wrist. Maybe it was just wishful think
ing, but he thought he felt a flicker of pulse. He dropped Penny’s hand and charged up the hillside.

  An hour later, with the help of two tow trucks and an ambulance and with the Medievac helicopter hovering overhead, Penny Stevenson was pulled from the wreckage of her car. Frank watched in agony as the paramedics labored over her. To his eye she looked remarkably unscathed, except for a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth.

  But the paramedic shook his head. “Goddamn Japanese tin cans. They crumple right up. And she wasn’t wearing a seat belt.”

  “It’s too late?” Frank asked.

  “No, she’s alive. But just barely. She’s got some serious internal bleeding. She’s going to have to go to Burlington for surgery. Tell the helicopter to land at the baseball field and we’ll meet him over there.”

  The procession to the baseball field was ominously like a funeral cortege, and Frank watched as the chopper carried Penny away. He tried to convince himself that she was young and strong and would pull through this. He grimaced. Pull through and wake to the news that she was married to a murderer.

  A cold rain fell, making the early May day feel more like late October. Frank and Earl trudged through the meadow behind the Harvey house on their way back from watching the state police forensic team unsuccessfully scour the area around Tommy’s hideout, looking for evidence to indicate foul play. Frank had known they would find nothing, but having his suspicion confirmed irritated him intensely.

  As they drew near the patrol car, Frank suddenly tossed the keys to Earl. “Here, you drive.”

  Caught by surprise, Earl let the keys bounce off his arm and drop into the mud. Wiping them off on the seat of his pants, he climbed into the driver’s seat and set the car on course for the office.

  “Say, I forgot to ask—did you call the hospital this morning to check on Penny?”

  Frank nodded, gazing out the window, as if the passing scenery were all new to him. “She made it through the surgery. She’s in intensive care. They said her condition is extremely critical.”

  “Is anyone with her?”

  “Ned and his mother went over last night.”

  “What about her folks? Are they from far away?”

  “No, her parents died when she was young. She’s got no family but the Stevensons.”

  “I wonder what made her go off the road like that? It was dry last night,” Earl speculated aloud. A squirrel darted in front of the car and he slowed momentarily. “Probably she swerved to avoid an animal. Girls are like that. They’d sooner run their car into a tree than take down a stupid possum. Too bad she wasn’t wearing her seat belt, though. That time I stopped her for speeding, she had it on.”

  Frank, who had been listening to Earl’s prattle with only half an ear, turned to face his assistant.

  “You say she did have it on when you stopped her?”

  “Yeah,” Earl said, nodding vehemently. “Otherwise I would have given her a ticket for that, too.”

  Frank pictured Penny getting into her little red car that afternoon he had met her outside the post office. His mental image clearly included Penny buckling her belt as soon as she sat down. And she had been headed home, just a quarter of a mile away. Why would she not have been wearing the belt on the long, dark drive back from Lake Placid?

  Frank opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and returned to staring out the window, until they reached the office.

  They entered in time to catch the tail end of Doris’s phone conversation.

  “Well, I’m glad it turned up. Thanks for letting us know. I bet you won’t do that anymore.”

  “Thanks for letting us know what?” Frank asked as he reviewed his message slips.

  “George Fisk called to say his truck turned up.”

  “Any damage?”

  “Just a dent in the front bumper. He was so glad to have it back, I don’t think he even cares about that. Says he’ll never leave his keys in the truck again.”

  “Too great a temptation for the kids,” Earl said. “Hope they had fun on their joyride. Where did the truck end up?”

  “Over at that little parking area by the trailhead to Mount Dyson,” Doris replied.

  “Strange destination,” Earl commented.

  Frank shrugged, already focused on his need to call state police headquarters and check on the progress of the pathologist’s report.

  But the pathologist could not be rushed, and Frank hung up unsatisfied. He walked to the window and watched the rain slamming against the glass. The green was deserted except for a few cars pulling up in front of the Store, men on the early shift at Stevenson’s already breaking for lunch. Facts that had been floating in his mind began to form into ideas.

  “Where did Doris say they found George’s truck?” Frank asked.

  “At the trailhead to Mount Dyson, why?”

  “Isn’t that on the road that intersects Farnham Road, just past where Penny had her accident?”

  “Yeah,” Earl said without much interest. “It’s about a mile away.”

  “And didn’t George’s truck have a dent in the bumper?”

  “So?”

  “You think that’s a coincidence?” Frank demanded.

  Understanding dawned in Earl’s eyes. “You think the kids who stole George’s truck caused Penny’s accident?”

  “I think whoever stole that truck ran Penny off the road, and I don’t think it was kids. Come on—we’re going over to Al’s Sunoco.”

  Both Penny’s crushed Miata and George’s dented truck had ended up at Al’s Sunoco, the only garage in town. Without a word of explanation to the incredulous Al, Frank flung himself down in front of the large Ford truck’s dented bumper and peered up at the damaged edge.

  “Ah, I knew it! Red paint!” Frank emerged triumphant from under the truck. “This thing is so much higher than Penny’s car that the tires did most of the work pushing her off the road. But the back of her car caught under the truck’s bumper and left some red paint. Now, let’s go look at Penny’s car.”

  Frank barely paused to look at the rear end. The Miata was so thoroughly damaged on every side from its tumble down the hill, it was impossible to determine if any of the scratches on the back came from the truck. Instead, he pulled open the driver side door and knelt down to examine the seat belt mechanism. The belt still moved freely, but when Frank attempted to insert the tongue into the clasp, it wouldn’t hold. “Give me a flashlight,” he demanded.

  Al produced one and Frank soon uttered a grunt of satisfaction. “There are scratches on the clasp end of this. I’ll bet money that it was tampered with to make the seat belt unusable.”

  Frank strode back to George’s truck, with Earl and Al in his wake. He gazed into the pristine interior. The truck still had that new car smell. “I can prove that this truck ran Penny off the road. I can prove that it was premeditated. But how the hell am I going to prove that bastard was the one who did it?”

  “Who?” asked Earl and Al in unison.

  “Al, don’t let anyone near these vehicles, including their owners. Especially their owners. I’ll have the state police forensics guys over here this afternoon.”

  As they got back to the patrol car, Frank commanded Earl to drive.

  “Where to?”

  “Just around. I need to work this all out.”

  Once they were alone, Earl asked, “So who do you think was driving George’s truck? Who would want to hurt Penny?”

  “Ned.”

  “Get outta here! Why?”

  “This is what I think: Ned killed Tommy to keep him quiet, but then he must’ve realized he’d taken away part of the hold he had over Janelle,” Frank continued, talking more to himself than to Earl. “Without the need to protect Tommy, Janelle might eventually have told her father or her friends why she ran away. Once Penny found out about the affair, she’d have left Ned for sure.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense! Why kill your wife if you don’t want her to div
orce you?”

  “Remember I told you Penny said she was an orphan? Nick Reilly says her parents left her a trust fund. That’s why Ned was so panicked that no one should find out about him and Janelle. If Penny divorced him, he could kiss that money good-bye. So he had to kill her now and inherit it, before any gossip about him and Janelle could get out.”

  “But the Stevensons have their own money,” Earl protested.

  “That’s the part I have to look into. You know, when Ned joined the business full-time, they put old Bertha Calloway, who did the books for years, out to pasture. Ned computerized everything, started expanding and modernizing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in over his head. And Clyde probably doesn’t realize it—Ned has him bamboozled with computer spreadsheets and Wall Street Journal jargon.”

  “So Ned figured if he killed Penny and made it look like an accident, he’d inherit all the money and straighten everything out,” Earl said. “I guess he figured an accident with Janelle would look too suspicious, huh?”

  “Right. First, he damaged Penny’s seat belt, so he could be sure she wouldn’t be wearing it. Then he took George’s truck—everyone up there probably knows the keys are always in it. It was risky, but Ned’s about George’s build. They all wear khaki pants and Stevenson’s shirts. Put on a cap like George always wears, and from a distance anyone would think it was George. Then he waited for Penny to come by on her way home, forced her off the road, and dumped the truck at the trailhead.” Frank paused. “Shit. I wonder how he got home from there? He was home when I went by that night to tell him about the accident.”

  “I bet he left his bike hidden over at the trailhead. He’s got one of those fancy mountain bikes. I see him out on it all the time,” Earl offered.

  “Good, Earl. That adds up. Now, how’re we going to prove it was Ned driving the truck?”

  “Fingerprints?”

  Frank snorted. “I suppose there’s a chance Ned was so cocky that he didn’t bother to wear gloves. But it seems like too much to expect.”

  “Maybe they’ll find something else in the truck.”