House of Secrets - v4

by Richard Hawke

  Lillian remained silent. Christine waited for her to speak, not knowing what it was she expected the woman to say. She’d already said plenty. Perhaps the best thing would be for her to go completely mute for the remainder of her visit. It seemed to be Lillian’s specialty: open mouth, wreak havoc.

  As Christine stood bracing against the wind, a fresh thought popped into her head. More accurately, it erupted. Rising up from a place where in all likelihood it had always existed, merely waiting for its moment.

  “I’m not Whitney’s, either.”

  The words did not come out as a question. Christine’s voice was so small the wind nearly took them away. But Lillian heard them. Her hands came together, and she brought her fingertips to her lips.

  “Oh my God. It’s not just Peter. It’s me, too.”

  Lillian’s eyes closed. Her head tipped forward. It was impossible to tell if she was praying or presenting herself for execution.

  Megan Lamb would have preferred taking the Taconic State Parkway north and then cutting over to the west, but the first available cutover was well beyond her destination. Besides which, Megan didn’t much like the name of the cutover. Pudding Street. How much pedal to the metal could a person expect to use on something called Pudding Street?

  A call came over her radio as she passed the village of Yorktown. Megan lifted her transmitter and thumbed the switch.

  “I read. What’ve you got?”

  What they had was substantial. Robert Smallwood’s car had been located. Megan’s foot involuntarily squeezed down harder on the accelerator.

  “Where?”

  The car had been located on a residential street near the train station in the town of Huntington, on the north shore of Long Island. It had been parked legally, and it might have remained there unnoticed through the weekend except for part of a large branch on a nearby tree that had broken off during the recent storm and landed on the car’s hood. When the Huntington police showed up and ran the license plate number, bells went off in the system.

  Nice, Megan thought ruefully as she crossed the Taconic. An act of God. Everybody’s getting in on this one.

  Megan was told that there was no sign of Robert Smallwood or Michelle Foster. But the car was still being licked clean by the police. If the girl had spent any time at all in the vehicle, some trace of her would arise.

  The FBI was descending on Huntington. Immediate speculation was on the nearby train station. Abandoning his car within sight of the station strongly suggested that Smallwood had opted to continue on via the rails. This was not necessarily a good sign. If he was traveling with Michelle it was difficult to imagine the girl cooperating placidly with the stranger, especially after so traumatic an abduction. The only imaginable way it seemed Smallwood could have boarded a train in public view would have been if the child was locked away in a large roller or duffel bag of some sort. And if she wasn’t with him, where was she?

  Megan goosed the speedometer up another inch.

  She hit Route 9 and took it north. To her left, the Hudson flashed through the trees. Occasionally the trees opened up and the broad expanse of the river revealed itself. She spotted the Circle Line boat moving south, back toward Manhattan after its day trip upriver to West Point. Otherwise the river was essentially empty.

  The massive granite outcropping on which the West Point Academy was built came into view on the far side of the river. Most of the academy’s buildings were constructed of the same gray granite, which lent to the impression of an earth-forged fortress rising up from the bank of the river. The original West Point fortress had been built at this part of the river, where it narrows, making it ideally suited for wreaking havoc on unwelcome ships. Megan recalled hearing how chains would be stretched from the fortress to the far shore across the narrow portion of the river, submerged several feet so as to remain unseen. With a full head of steam — more accurately, wind — a ship could possibly overcome the chain and snap it. But traveling at more subdued speeds, the wooden hulls would experience serious damage. At the very least, the craft would be slowed down as it contended with the obstruction, making it an easy target from the rocks above.

  Across the river from West Point was the village of Garrison, a collection of homes cast so disparately about the woods as to barely qualify for the term village. Several artisans selling ceramics and watercolor renderings of the area occupied a few low-roofed buildings adjacent to the train station; this was the extent of commerce as far as Garrison was concerned. Only fifty minutes north of Manhattan by train, the rural suburb was light-years away by any other standard.

  Robert Smallwood’s grandmother lived in Garrison. She occupied a white neoclassical-style farmhouse dating back to the eighteenth century and located at the end of a quarter-mile unpaved driveway roughly three miles inland from the river. Following Judy Resnick’s instructions, Megan left Route 9 and began making her way along a narrow serpentine road leading up the steep hill next to the tracks. The hill was thick with trees, and a welcoming chill moved into the car the moment Megan began her ascent.

  Megan removed her sunglasses and tossed them onto the dashboard. She glanced at her gas gauge, making a mental note not to pass up the next opportunity for fuel.

  A call came in over the radio. It was Brian Armstrong. Headquarters was patching him through.

  “Where do we stand, Detective?” Armstrong asked brusquely. “What’s your progress?”

  Megan took a beat. Her natural response to the man’s curtness was not going to be helpful. Megan had her own experience with losing a partner in the process of a criminal investigation. By all available evidence, Agent Armstrong was conducting himself with a hell of a lot steadier hand than Megan had done under similar circumstances. A hell of a lot. Even though Megan’s experience was several years in the past, her default whenever the matter threatened to rise into her mind was to shove it back in the black bag and stuff it out of sight.

  Megan asked, “You’ve heard about the car?”

  “Roger. Got that one. Looks like he got straight on the first available train out of there.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Not yet.”

  “The conductor?”

  “I said not yet.”

  Megan took a beat. “What are you thinking about Michelle? Do we see Smallwood dragging her around with him onto a train?”

  There was a crackle over the radio. “I don’t,” Armstrong said. “We’re going with the Foster girl being kept somewhere. I think Smallwood is traveling solo.”

  “Shelter Island? She could still be there.”

  “We’ve got a team out there. We’re combing the whole island.”

  Megan backed off the accelerator to better navigate an S curve, just missing an oncoming car by several inches. The blare of its horn faded quickly. Armstrong continued.

  “We’re looking for freshly dug holes. It’s sandy enough soil, a man Smallwood’s size could make quick work of it.”

  “I don’t like it. It’s missing logic. Why would he kill her?”

  “It’s what killers do.” Armstrong did little to mask his sarcasm.

  Megan pressed. “He’s not killing merely to kill. He had a specific reason for going after his cousin. On some level the woman pushed a major button.”

  “And Marion Mann?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she pushed the same button. I’m just saying Michelle Foster was taken for a reason. It has to do with the senator. That’s his target. Michelle is simply the means.”

  There was a pause on the radio. “Look, I don’t want to think she’s dead, either. Another option is that he stashed her someplace else before going out to the island and now he’s heading back to her.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him when we find him.”

  “Shit!”

  Megan slammed on the brake. The rear of the car fishtailed as a zigzag of rubber appeared on the road.

  “What happened?”r />
  “Nothing. I just missed a turn,” Megan reversed the car and took a left onto another country road, in accordance with her instructions. “Look, I’m heading for a talk with Smallwood’s granny. It was she and her husband who bought the Shelter Island place way back when. According to Smallwood’s aunt, he and his grandmother always got on well together. She says the grandmother speaks his language. Maybe she can shed some light on his thinking.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Megan had no choice but to drive more slowly. The narrow road was little more than a series of blind curves.

  “By the way, I’ve got a name to pass on to you,” Megan said. She gave it to him. “A buddy of Smallwood’s during high school and possibly into college.”

  The radio crackled again. “Cole. Yeah. I got that one already. But thanks.”

  “Good. Anything come of it yet?”

  “Negative,” Armstrong said. “Mr. Cole’s a goner. He died three years ago. A lover’s quarrel. In this case, a boyfriend.”

  “Cole was killed?”

  “Yeah. His boyfriend shot him.”

  “Whoa.” Megan braked and let the car drift to a stop. She couldn’t follow Judy Resnick’s directions and keep up this conversation at the same time. “Where’d you get this?”

  “One of Smallwood’s old high school teachers. She seemed up on all the alumni news.”

  Megan realized she was staring out the windshield at a deer. The animal was standing just off the roadway in a clearing no larger than a child’s wading pool. The deer was stock-still, its large black eyes fixed on the motionless vehicle.

  Armstrong continued, “Apparently Cole’s boyfriend shot the guy while he was taking a bath.”

  Megan jerked in her seat, and the deer’s head jerked up. “A bath?”

  “Yeah. Cole was blown away while he was taking a bubble bath, then his boyfriend turned the gun around and offed himself. Right there in the bathroom. At least it was easier to clean up for everyone else.”

  Megan was barely hearing the agent’s ramblings. She was peering out the windshield, tracking the deer’s brilliant white tail end as the animal bounded deep into the trees.

  “He’s here?”

  Christine was holding on to her mother’s arm to steady herself while she wiped the wet sand from her feet and put her shoes back on. The two had reached the end of the beach.

  “He is,” Lillian said.

  “How do you know?”

  “How do you think I know, darling? I called him before I left Denver and asked if he could come up to see me. He told me his brother and the family are away on vacation and that the house is empty. With all that’s going on with him right now he thought it would be a perfect time to slip away.”

  Christine darkened. “What you’re telling me is that you tricked me into coming out here.”

  “Let’s not start that. You and I both agreed this was the only place where the jackals couldn’t follow us.”

  “You tricked me,” Christine said again. “Why did you call him in the first place?”

  “Don’t be so mean, Chrissie. I called the man because I wanted to see him while I was East. Simple as that. I do have that right, do I not?”

  Christine had an urge to take off running across the sand and plunge into the chilly water. “Of course you do,” she said evenly. “What I’m asking is why you felt compelled to drag me into your little reunion.”

  “No one’s dragging you anywhere.”

  “Does he know that I’m here?”

  “He knows I was hoping I’d finally find the nerve to tell you all this. We discussed it at length when I spoke to him from Denver. He said that with all his current hullabaloo he was not so impressed with my timing.”

  Christine was surprised to hear herself laugh. “Timing has never exactly been your strong suit, Mother.”

  A light twinkled in Lillian’s violet eyes. “There are some who would argue that point, sweetheart.”

  As the two approached the massive stone house, Lillian explained to her daughter that it was Chris Wyeth who had informed Whitney that he wasn’t Peter’s biological father.

  Christine asked, “But why in the world would he tell him?”

  “It’s another long story.” Lillian slowed her steps. Her eyes cast about the large silent house. “Whit and Chris have such a peculiar history. The news about Peter was a large part of why your… why Whitney dropped his plans to run for the White House that year. Why we took off for En gland.”

  “Was he separating you from Chris?”

  Lillian considered the question. “Honestly? There was nothing to separate at that point. Anything between Chris and me was long over by then.”

  “So why did he tell him?”

  “It just came out one night when the two were together. Whitney was being Whitney, and I think Chris had just finally had enough of him.”

  “That’s one very serious sucker punch.”

  They had stopped some fifty feet from the house. In the subdued light peeking in through the thick pine cover, the structure lacked definition. Moss and lichen tempered the stone, giving the place a sense of something that had risen up gradually from beneath the ground. Christine turned to face her mother.

  “So then, what about me? I’ve always been Whitney’s little princess. He was always smearing me in Peter’s face. When he learned the truth about Peter, he must have immediately asked you about me.”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. He must have at least suspected.”

  The breeze was stirring the pine trees and Lillian hugged herself against its sudden chill.

  “Whitney could not get me pregnant, darling,” Lillian said flatly. “It’s… this is a horrible thing to tell you. He was never tested for this, at least not in my time with him. After Peter was born, trust me, I felt so guilty, all I could think about was bearing Whitney his own child. But it just wouldn’t happen.”

  “So you turned back to Old Faithful.”

  Lillian’s shoulders sagged. “Please. Don’t be like that. I didn’t turn back to Chris simply to get pregnant.”

  “But that’s what happened.”

  “Yes. That’s what happened.”

  Lillian reached out to touch her daughter, but Christine stepped clear.

  “But when Whitney learned about Peter, he must have suspected me as well.”

  “Of course he did. Whitney asked me point-blank if the same was true with you. And I denied it. I’m a good liar when I have to be. I said you were his, Chrissie, and that there was no question about it. He wanted to believe me. Deeply. That’s the thing. When a person wants to believe a lie—”

  She cut herself off. A light had come on over the front door. Lillian gazed up at the buttery glow, then turned a beatific face to her daughter.

  “Oh, look. I think someone’s home.”

  Doris Smallwood was hanging Japanese-beetle traps around her vegetable garden when Megan pulled in next to the elderly woman’s eleven-year-old Plymouth. The sense of a property slowly losing the long battle against overgrowth of ferns and wildflowers and tall grass was mirrored somewhat in the image of the property owner herself. Doris Smallwood wore her body heavily. The nest of frizzled gray hair could have been a bramble of untouched weeds. She was dressed in a pair of faded khaki shorts, a worn blue oxford shirt, and a pair of red rubber boots. Not that Judy Resnick would have thought to warn Megan — and certainly hadn’t — but the detective nonetheless wished she had been prepared to encounter a woman who stood easily over six feet tall, even bent as she was with the gravity of her eighty-three years on the planet. As Megan killed the engine and got out of the car, the large woman made her way over from the far side of the garden, wielding one of the yellow traps as if it were an old-fashioned train lantern.

  “Lost?”

  “Mrs. Smallwood?”

  The woman nodded and Megan shut the car door.

  “I’m Detective Lamb with the New Yo
rk City Police Department. I’d like a little of your time, if I may?”

  “New York City?” The mocking tone was only slightly disguised. “That’s quite a wrong turn, Miss.”

  “No wrong turn.” Megan said. “I’m here to talk with you about Robert.”

  “Robert?”

  “Your grandson.”

  “I know who Robert is.”

  Megan sensed that she was on delicate ground. “It’s very important, Mrs. Smallwood. I don’t know if you’ve been following the news. This concerns the daughter of Senator Foster. She’s missing, and we have reason to believe your grandson has information on where she might be. Time is of the essence, ma’am.”

  “You don’t have to ‘ma’am’ me.”

  The phaser was definitely set on hostile. Doris Smallwood lifted the yellow trap. “You want to help me with this?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s for Japanese beetles. You ever seen those? They’re no bigger than your little fingernail. Copper-colored. Real shiny. You could mistake them for good brass buttons. Except brass buttons don’t eat holy hell out of leaves and vegetables. I’ve got to hang one up in each corner of the garden.”

  “The fact is, Mrs. Smallwood, I need to locate your grandson right away,” Megan said. “I don’t really have time right now.”

  The large woman continued to ignore her visitor’s urgency. She held up the trap again. “You see, there’s a plastic bag goes with each of these. Black bag. By midsummer there’ll be over a thousand of the beetles in each of the bags. What you do is you pour sex scent in there. They can’t help themselves, they dive in and then just start piling up on top of one another. The ones down below suffocate. The ones on top gradually sink down below.”

  Megan sensed she was being toyed with. “Could we maybe go inside, Mrs. Smallwood? Or have a seat out here somewhere?”

  Doris Smallwood stared at her for several seconds. “You help me hang this one, and we’ll have your talk.”