To Darkness and to Death

by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  “It’s not going to happen. Well, it is, but not the way she describes it.”

  They walked past the hedge dividing the church from the rectory. “Uh-huh,” she said. What did Courtney Reid’s husband’s business plans have to do with her? She wondered if too many years in the corporate loan department had slanted Terry’s view of life.

  “As far as Shaun Reid is concerned, any move by GWP will be a hostile takeover. I believe he’ll do anything, including putting his house, his savings, and his family’s stock holdings on the line, to stop it.” He shook his head. “He’s not going to succeed. And when he loses control of his family’s company, he’s going to lose everything, as far as he’s concerned.”

  They had gone down the driveway and reached Clare’s kitchen door while Terry was speaking. She rested her hand on the railing and turned to him. “So the happy retirement and the traveling and all that?”

  “That’s Courtney’s fantasy.” Terry sighed, puffing out his great brown mustache, increasing his resemblance to a walrus. “I feel a little . . . guilty, because I turned him down for a loan today. It was the right decision to make, but . . .”

  She smiled. “You have a good heart, Terry.”

  His face reddened. “That makes me sounds like a character out of a Dickens novel.”

  “Okay, then, despite your razor-sharp business acumen, you have a good heart.”

  “Better.” He smoothed his hairy brown wool sweater over his expansive stomach. “Will you . . . I don’t know, keep an eye on Courtney Reid?”

  “I will. Thanks for letting me know.” She climbed the two steps to her kitchen door. “I’m going to go off duty for a bit. I’ll see you later.”

  Terry waved good-bye and shambled back down the driveway. Clare slipped inside, closing the door with a careless kick and sinking into one of the old wooden chairs she had purchased in an attempt to warm up her all-white, straight-out-of-the-box kitchen. She sat for a moment, listening to the silence. Blissful silence.

  This, she thought, is the real reason for celibacy. She had no husband, no children, not even a dog or a tropical fish relying on her, yet she still felt as if she had half the weight of the world sitting on her lap. She tried to imagine what it would be like, dragging home all the concerns and issues of people who needed her as a priest, only to deal with the people who needed her as a spouse and parent. She could remember how exhausted her mother had always looked at the end of the day, riding herd over two high-energy girls and twin boys. And she didn’t have an outside job. How had she done it? How did any woman do it?

  Groaning, she pushed herself up from her chair. Time to shower. Then she’d raid the fridge and pour herself a glass of wine. She crossed through her living room, taking a moment to look over the framed photographs clustered on the sofa table. Come to think of it, that had been her mother’s method, too: a long, hot bath and a martini.

  She had one hand on the banister when she heard the knock at her front door. For a split second she debated ignoring it, but even as her head urged her to stay still and be silent, her feet were crossing the foyer.

  She opened the door to a looming crow of a man. “Ms. Fergusson?” he said. “I’m Deacon Willard Aberforth.”

  3:15 P.M.

  They walked slowly down the path, single file, Sergeant Hayes and the assisting technician in the lead, then Noble Entwhistle, then Eric McCrea, who had been called on-shift early and had made it to Haudenosaunee just in time to join the trek to Eugene van der Hoeven’s last resting place. Russ brought up the rear. He and his two men carried Maglites, long flashlights that were heavy enough to be potentially lethal and could light up an entire grove in this forest if they had to.

  They might. Twilight came early in the mountains, and the sun already sat on the high horizon like a campfire burning out. Orange light stretched in long, dying streamers through the trees, stitching a shadow forest across the landscape.

  Hayes paused every now and then to take a picture of the trampled grass or the single rutted track of the garden cart. There was no other evidence as to who or what had been down the track.

  The forest opened up onto the red-washed remains of the old Haundenosaunee. Russ heard someone whistle. “Watch out for Count Dracula,” Eric said.

  “Is this it?” Hayes asked.

  “Yeah,” Russ said. “This is it.” They skirted the blank-faced wall of boxwood and approached the place where Eugene’s body had been found. Hayes and the technician began to set up a lamp on a tripod for photographs. Russ glanced up at the tower. When he had been here with Ed Castle, he had looked briefly for a sign that Eugene’s death might have been a cruel accident, but from the ground, the stone balustrades that bound the galleries and circled the top of the tower were aggressively intact.

  “Noble. I want you to circle the base of this thing, see if you find anything. Eric, you’re with me. Let’s take a look inside.”

  The men split apart, Russ and Eric going along a rough path toward the open tower door, Noble into the deep grass. Russ took the corroded handle and opened the tower door, creaking the hinges. He switched on his flashlight, throwing a bright circle on a bare flagstone floor, and moved from that to a flight of wooden stairs running up the inner wall. “Up we go,” he said. “Watch your step.”

  The treads creaked and groaned. Russ tensed with every step, ready to leap to the next step if the wood beneath his boot gave way. When they reached the first open landing, he leaned over the carved stone banister. Sergeant Hayes and the technician were hard to his right, just visible beyond the edge of the gallery.

  They mounted the next flight of stairs. They were circling around the tower, corkscrewing higher and higher. At the next balcony, they could see Noble below, methodically sweeping through the shaggy grass. Russ squatted down and examined the edge of the balcony and the floor in front of it. “Nothing,” he said.

  “It’s all stone,” Eric said. “You could go over it without a snag. Hell, those balcony rails are so low you could fall over just by leaning out too far.”

  Russ looked at him sharply. “You okay? With the height, I mean?”

  Eric jerked his chin up and down. “It’s not my favorite thing. I’ll be okay.”

  The third level held the surprise. Instead of the open interior of the first two stories, this one was bisected by a sturdy wall with a thick door, standing just ajar.

  “Jeez,” Eric said, reaching for the handle. “It looks like something out of Young Frankenstein.”

  Russ grabbed his wrist. “Don’t touch it. Prints.”

  Eric’s face flushed red. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “’Sokay.” Russ dug into his pocket for the pair of latex gloves Hayes had handed him and wrestled them on before tugging the door wide.

  “Holy shit,” Eric breathed. He paused for a moment before fumbling to switch on his flashlight.

  Russ’s first thought was Everything’s empty. The crumpled blanket, the husk of a backpack, the plastic sandwich wrappers littered across the floor. The smell of urine made him realize that not everything had been turned out and abandoned.

  He and Eric circled the floor, cataloging the apple core—“May be DNA on that,” he said—and the Thermos, which Eric unscrewed after putting his own gloves on.

  “Chicken soup,” he said, sniffing. “Cold.”

  Russ spotted the olive green balaclava, tossed near the door, and was about to bag it when Eric whistled.

  “What?”

  The younger man was on his hands and knees at the opposite side of the tower. “I think I’ve got some blood on the floor. A few drops.” He sat back on his calves and looked up at Russ. “What the hell was going on here, Chief?”

  Several possibilities came to mind. All of them were bad.

  He crossed to the stone banister outside the door and leaned over. “Hey!” He called. He was, he saw, directly over Jordan Hayes. The state trooper looked up, his face blurring in the swift-moving shadow. “We’ve hit the jackpot
. Get your stuff up here.”

  He stepped back and beckoned to Eric. “Let me have your radio.”

  The officer unhooked his radio and passed it to Russ. Russ keyed the mike. “Dispatch? This is the chief.”

  A squeal of interference and a swish of static. He glanced at the stone walls around him and moved to the edge of the banister. Beneath him, the evidence technicians were packing up. “Dispatch,” he said again. “This is the chief.”

  Harlene’s voice was faint but recognizable. “Go ahead, Chief.”

  “Who’s on duty at the station?”

  Static.

  “Come back?”

  “Tim Foster.”

  “Okay. I want him to take Ed Castle’s statement on the events this afternoon at Haudenosaunee. And then tell Castle he’s free to go. With our thanks and apologies.” He thought for a moment. No, any apology from the department was as likely to land them a lawsuit as anything else. Better he apologize to Ed in person. “Cancel that last.”

  “No apology. Got it.”

  “I want you to call everybody in. Mark, Duane, everybody.”

  Even with the bad reception, he could hear the surprise in her voice. “What’s up?”

  He glanced toward the room behind him. Food. A toilet. Blood. “Damned if I know.”

  “Come back?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “I have—” The last word was swallowed in static.

  “Come back?”

  “I have a message from your wife. ‘Don’t forget you promised—’” A squeal of static wiped Harlene’s words away.

  He didn’t ask her to repeat. He knew what the message was. He stared down at Hayes, lifting his collection box on his shoulder as his tech tagged along with the light. This place would be dark within the hour. They had an unaccounted-for death in the morgue, an unaccounted-for woman somewhere out there, and an unaccounted-for assault suspect on the loose. If ever he should be on the job, it was tonight.

  He thought about what Linda had said, about her work. It’s my turn now.

  “Tell my wife I’ll be there as promised. Chief out.”

  He stood for a moment in the freshening breeze, the last of the sun-warmed air flowing toward the cold dark. At the mountains’ edge, the sky was enough to make a man believe in glory, red-orange and pink and lavender. It was going to be cold and beautiful tonight, no clouds, the moon one day from full.

  Too bad Eugene van der Hoeven and Millie van der Hoeven and Becky Castle couldn’t enjoy it. He closed his eyes briefly before turning from the beauty. Back to work.

  3:20 P.M.

  Once, Lisa Schoof had driven home drunk. She hadn’t been Lisa Schoof then but Lisa Bain, nineteen, partying all afternoon at Lake George and then setting off home because she had to work early the next morning. She had been muzzy-headed, happy, sailing along, until she saw the state trooper in her rearview mirror.

  Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, she had thought. She was going to get arrested. She was going to be disgraced, fined, lose her license, which would mean losing her job. The world narrowed around her. Some things faded away—the green of the trees, the other cars, the music on the radio. Other things sprang into terrible clarity—the lines painted on the road, the odometer, her rearview mirror. She drove for miles and miles, her heart pounding, all the time intensely aware of the lines, the speed, the cop car relentlessly behind her.

  She felt that way now, standing at the door with Kevin Flynn, watching her husband sitting in the front seat. Why wasn’t he getting out? Any moment now, Kevin was going to ask her what was taking so long, and then he’d walk over there and pull Randy from the truck, and then—

  Randy opened the door. He sauntered toward them, smiling, but Lisa knew it was a fake smile, knew this was a Randy she had never seen. His teeth glared in the sunlight, like the headlights of the state trooper in her rearview mirror, and as she looked away from his face, unable to bear the sight, she saw he had blood on his clothes.

  Blood. On his clothes. And he was walking toward her, saying, “Hey, honey,” walking toward her, and Lisa thought her driveway was stretching down one of those optical illusion tunnels in the Washington County Fair funhouse, stretching out forever.

  She heard Kevin Flynn breathe in, saw the rise of his starched tan uniform shirt, and between then and the moment he opened his mouth, she had time to think, Should I yell, ‘Run?’ If I knock Kevin to one side, will Randy have time to get away? But instead of ordering her husband to stop, Kevin said, “Hey, Randy. How you been?”

  “Been good,” Randy said, and he marched up the front steps one, two, three with his big fake smile and grabbed her hand, grabbed it. There was the real Randy, his hand shaking, holding on to her tight enough to break bones. He kissed her cheek casually. “Good hunting weather, I can’t complain. My buddy Mike took a buck.”

  “Good on you,” Kevin said, his voice betraying no suspicion, no reservations, no coolness.

  “I’ve been helping him dress it out,” Randy said. “He’s giving us some choice cuts, babe. Get out the grill, ’cause I have a hankering for Bambi burgers.”

  The men laughed. Lisa, squeezing against the pressure of her husband’s hand, was focusing too hard to join in. Was that a bruise on Randy’s face? A scratch on the back of his hand?

  “Hey,” Kevin said, “I stopped by because I wanted to ask you and Lisa if you saw anything suspicious when you were at Haudenosaunee.”

  Something flickered over Randy’s face, and for the first time, it struck Lisa that there might be a connection between Eugene van der Hoeven’s death and his presence there. She looked at him, this man she had known since she was in sixth grade, and wondered what he was capable of. If he could beat a woman into unconsciousness . . .

  “What do you mean, suspicious?” Randy asked.

  “Out of the ordinary.”

  “Nope. Nothing. Except that Lisa wasn’t there.”

  She squeezed his hand. “You forgot I told you you didn’t need to pick me up today, didn’t you?” she said, her teasing voice as fake as his smile.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “You didn’t see any other vehicles?”

  His hand went still in hers. “What’s this all about?”

  “Did you see any other vehicles? Any sign that anyone else was there?”

  Time slowed down again. She could see Randy’s mind working furiously, wondering which was the right answer. Kevin had said Randy was one of the last people to see Mr. van der Hoeven alive. The important thing was that he not be the last person to have seen him alive.

  “Oh, honey, it’s terrible,” she burst out. “Mr. van der Hoeven’s been killed!”

  Randy’s jaw dropped. He pulled his hand from hers and stared at her as if she had spoken Swahili. “He’s what?”

  At that moment, Lisa had never been happier. Whatever else he had done, Randy had nothing to do with Mr. van der Hoeven’s death. Suppressing her giddy relief made her voice shake, so it sounded as if she were trying to keep from falling apart when she said, “The police think it happened sometime after all the search and rescue team folks left. Were you there after everybody else was gone? If you know anything, it may help them find whoever did this to . . .” Her voice broke, of its own accord.

  “Oh. Wow.” Randy turned to Kevin Flynn, who had flipped open his little notebook again.

  “Did you see any other vehicles?” Kevin asked for the third time.

  “Yes,” Randy said. “They must have belonged to the search and rescue guys. I ran into Chief Van Alstyne, and he told me about van der Hoeven’s sister being missing.”

  Kevin went on with “Did you see Eugene van der Hoeven while you were there?”

  “I didn’t see anybody. I wandered around a bit, looking for Lisa. I yelled for her a few times, but nobody answered me.”

  “Randy!” Her indignation popped out, as if there were still a need to worry about what Mr. van der Hoeven would think.

  “Sorry, honey.” He
shrugged at Kevin. “If there was anybody in there, they were keeping quiet.”

  “Okay.” Kevin shut the notebook. “Thanks for your time.” He took a step toward his cruiser. Stopped. As if he had thought of something else. He turned to Randy. “Do you know a Becky Castle?”

  Randy was silent. He had recaptured Lisa’s hand and was squeezing it harder than ever.

  “There was a Becky Castle a few years ahead of us in school.” Lisa was amazed at how normal her voice sounded. If she lived through this, she was going to Hollywood, because she was one hell of an actress.

  “Castle,” Randy said. “Is she related to Ed Castle? I used to work for him. Last year.”

  Lisa cast about for a plausible question. “Is she a suspect?”

  “Oh. No. Just a thought I had.” Kevin’s eyes had gone unfocused. “Thanks,” he said vaguely.

  “Don’t forget to call Denise,” Lisa said.

  With a flush of red beneath his freckles, Kevin came back to earth. He mumbled something under his breath and waved before trotting to his car.

  Lisa waited until he had pulled up the drive and out of sight before she turned to Randy. “Inside. Now,” she hissed. “We have to talk.”

  3:25 P.M.

  Clare was trying to decide who Willard Aberforth reminded her of. He was tall, several inches taller than Russ, which put him in the six-and-a-half-feet and up camp. However, his bones and flesh were afraid of heights; he stooped forward, arms dangling, while his jowls and eyelids and earlobes sagged toward the safety of the ground.

  His face was all she could see, because Father Aberforth was in full clericals, black-swathed and white-collared, black shoes polished to a high shine, black jacket and black coat. He gave her a long once-over as she stood at the door, taking in her bean-sprout hairdo, her ratty thermal shirt, her stained pants, and her grimy sweat socks.

  “You are the Reverend Clare Fergusson?” he asked doubtfully.

  Sometimes, Hardball Wright drawled in her ear, the only option you have is to go straight ahead through the firefight. “Yes,” she said in her most chipper tone. “I am. Would you like to come in?” She stood to one side and opened her front door wider.