Eric pulled the spread away from Steve’s head. Rebecca was actually grateful to hear the boy crying. He was alive. She didn’t look at his face. Phil came stumbling forward, arms outstretched, and fell wheezing to his knees beside Steve’s pathetically twitching form. Eric groped in the man’s pocket, produced an inhaler, helped him use it. Dorothy hurried from the doorway and began swathing Steve in wet towels.
The wind was ice cold. No, Rebecca realized, she was wet. She was standing in a puddle on the spiky grass. Her eyes burned and tears ran grittily down her cheeks. Michael advanced on the shed, containing the fire, his face set in deep lines around the whiteness of his clenched teeth. She reached toward him. He was hurt. He didn’t see her.
She gasped and started coughing. Her lungs turned themselves inside out and yet still she was smothering in smoke. Her hands and feet tingled. The battlements of Dun Iain reeled above her.
Steve was crying, the pitiful, high-pitched mewl of a hurt child. Eric growled, a long way away, “I knew the kid was a walking disaster area. Where in God’s name was he keeping that gasoline?”
With a long shuddering inhalation Rebecca answered mutely, in a gas can… . Her thought detonated, spewing images into her mind. The milk jugs had been empty. The gas can had been full, the lid on tight. The fire had not been an accident.
Steve’s crying was absorbed into the distant sound of sirens.
DECEMBER
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rebecca took a deep breath. She was frequently taking deep breaths, as though she wore corsets like Elspeth and her lungs weren’t able to expand. Garden-variety stress, she thought. Maybe even hothouse-orchid stress. A few more weeks and she could go home.
Wherever home was. “Maybe I should move to Columbia,” she said. “Even though I’d miss teaching, it’d be easier to work on my dissertation there on the Missouri campus.”
“And make a clean break from Ray and Dover?” Jan replied. “Assuming he stays there.” She maneuvered the station wagon from its parking place, threaded her way out of the shopping center, and turned onto the street.
Rebecca sighed. “I’m surprised that finally making a complete break with him hurts so little. It’s simply a relief, one less thing to worry about.”
“Poor Ray. I remember when you thought he was Mr. Right.”
“There’s no such animal as Mr. Right.”
“Uh-huh,” Jan said sagely.
Rebecca made a face at her and turned to the window. Gray houses lined the gray street under a gray sky. Except for the red and white candy canes and gold tinsel affixed to the lampposts, Putnam was as colorless as an artist’s preliminary sketch. “At least with Ray gone we’ve eliminated one suspect. Not that he was a particularly viable suspect, I’ll admit. I was really embarrassed just calling Nancy in the departmental office at Dover to check on that phone message.”
“So someone did leave a message telling him to come here, that you wanted to get back together?”
“Nancy said it was a bad connection, but she doesn’t know my voice that well, anyway. Obviously it was our malefactor trying yet another way to get me out of Dun Iain. It’s frustrating that everyone around here appears so ordinary. If only someone would start playing with ball bearings or wearing a black hat, something to give us a hint.”
“Perfectly ordinary people can conceal all sorts of devious little quirks. Like my neighbor who was sweeping her driveway on Thanksgiving. She’s so afraid of germs she dips the phone receivers in Lysol, and then fusses at the telephone company because they won’t work.”
“You make these things up,” Rebecca accused her.
“Cross my Girl Scout cookies,” returned Jan.
The station wagon passed under the interstate and turned toward Dun Iain. Rebecca nodded toward the bags of groceries in the back. “Thanks for sacrificing your Mother’s Day Out to come shopping with me. I had to get away for a little while.”
“Keep looking over your shoulder?”
“You’d better believe it. But nothing’s happened since Steve’s so-called accident three weeks ago. It’s like waiting for a centipede to throw down a whole battery of shoes.”
“At least you’re letting poor Michael alone for a while.”
“Hey, he’s the only suspect who’s done anything suspicious!” Rebecca protested. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours,” said Jan. “And don’t you forget it.”
“No, ma’am.” Good-natured, nonjudgmental Jan. Rebecca would’ve gone crazy without someone she could trust. And Peter, too; it was hard to believe she’d ever suspected him, even for a moment. Talk about paranoia.
“I’ve told myself over and over again,” Rebecca said, “that just because Michael has those clippings and that letter from John Forbes he’s not necessarily a thief or a terrorist. Maybe he had second thoughts and wrote to Colin to start the revolution without him. Maybe he’s up to something else entirely.” She sighed and pulled her coat more tightly around her. “No matter what else he is, he really is a historian for the National Museum. His superiors must’ve thought I was nuts, calling all the way across the Atlantic to ask about him.”
“And you still haven’t told Eric about the clippings and the letter?”
“No. It doesn’t seem fair to cause a confrontation on so little evidence. Not that Eric confronts. He slides.”
Jan’s brows rose, but all she said was, “Eric should understand better than anyone else the principle of innocent until proven guilty.”
“Proof,” said Rebecca. “That’s just it. Proof.”
The road was a strip of licorice between the gray fields on one side and the gray stone wall on the other. There was the graffiti-painted gap in the wall; Rebecca peered as it as they drove past. Tire marks. Well, the roadside was always crisscrossed with tire marks. If anyone had parked there and sneaked in to splash gasoline over the shed three weeks ago, those marks had long since been obliterated by rain, snow, and more cars.
“And what,” Jan asked, “does Michael think of your breathing down his neck waiting for him to prove something?”
“Not much. He stood there, every cannon loaded and run out, while I ransacked the place looking for something, anything he’d hidden. And then he let go with that blasted little smirk when I didn’t find a thing. Professionally I can’t fault him; cool competence all the way. It’s as if what he’s out to prove is that my suspicions are wrong. But if they’re wrong, why doesn’t he just say so?”
“Have you asked him?” Jan turned the car into the driveway.
“Not since the day I found the papers. Why bother? It’s no better than an armed truce around there as it is. Something has to give soon, or… .”
“Or what?” inquired Jan.
“I’d like to make something give.” In the last three weeks she and Michael had not only ignored the delicate subject of the papers, they’d never once acknowledged that delightful, disturbing moment of intimacy. If only she would wake up tomorrow and find it January third, Michael on his way back to Scotland and out of her life forever, she and Eric winging their way to the Caribbean for that casual, virtually meaningless fling… . Rebecca squirmed. Eric was fun to be with, no doubt about it. And yet she hoped he hadn’t put down any deposits on that cruise.
There was the castle, shouldering aside the grasping limbs of the trees. Its face was getting to be that of an old friend, the windows winking with puckish humor, the battlements edged with truculence.
Heather’s Datsun sat in the parking area. Dorothy had called in sick three times now— flu, she said— and of all the unlikely substitutes it was Heather who’d come after school to sweep and dust. In fact, there was the girl now, leaning against her broom like a soldier against his pike, eyeing the burned patch of grass and the blackened and boarded-up shed where Steve had been injured. She started at the sound of the engine and headed purposefully for her car.
Jan stopped her station wagon, got out, opened the rear gate. “Hello, Heather,” Rebecca said
.
“Hi,” the girl returned, putting her cleaning implements away.
“How’s Steve?”
“A lot better. His dad’s going to bring him home from the burn unit in Columbus tomorrow. He says he doesn’t want to see me. Not because he’s going to need some work on his face, he’s embarrassed he lost his hair.”
“Better his hair than his life! Hang in there, Heather. He’ll need you, you’ll see.”
Heather slammed the trunk lid and looked up, her shoulders curled shyly, her gaze between her black-rimmed lashes earnest and direct. “Miss Reid, Mr. Pruitt says you saved Steve’s life, yelling at him and keeping him from stepping into the shed.”
“Not necessarily.” Rebecca’s neck crawled. James had tried to warn her of the impending fire, she was sure of that much. What bewildered her was the flash of clairvoyance that had led her to correctly interpret his message. Maybe living among the odd resonances of the house had driven her slightly mad. As it had James himself.
She seized a bag of groceries. Heather claimed another. Michael appeared at the far side of the lawn, attired in coat and wellies, and tramped forward to pick up the third. Rebecca went inside without waiting for him. Three weeks, and not once had they gone walking companionably together.
She was laying out the cat food when he came in, shed his coat, and revealed the T-shirt of the day. It was black, emblazoned with the legend, “I’m not stupid, I’m not expendable, and I’m not going”. A shame he hadn’t expressed that sentiment when he was offered this job.
“How’s the haircut holding up?” Jan asked him.
“Quite well.” Michael brushed self-consciously at his forehead. But, unlike Steve, he’d lost barely a quarter-inch of his hair. “Thank you kindly for trimmin’ it.”
“I wasn’t going to let all those burnt, frizzled ends fall into the cranberry sauce,” Jan told him.
Rebecca placed the teakettle on the burner and mopped at her own brow. The Thanksgiving haircut had started her and Michael talking to each other again after forty-eight hours of stiff silence. His pleas of “No so short” in response to Peter’s teasing threats had made them all laugh and had led Rebecca into the daredevil plunge of asking Jan to cut her hair as well. Symbolically cutting off Ray and her old life, probably. Now it was so much easier to care for, waving around her face instead of down her back.
Heather declined Rebecca’s offer of tea, murmuring something about a homework assignment, and Michael escorted her out. “Glad to see his hands are healed,” Jan said. “I felt so sorry for him, eating his turkey with those horrible blisters.”
A shame to see such fine instruments as Michael’s hands damaged, Rebecca had to admit. “The first time he picked up the pipes after the bandages came off, his fingers were so stiff he botched every tune. He stood there swearing and trying to do better until he was white from the pain. I was afraid he was going to faint. ‘A fine thrawn lad like yourself,’ I told him, and took the pipes away. Then he got huffy with me.”
“Of course he did. You threatened his manhood.”
Rebecca shot a sharp glance at her friend but Jan was discreetly folding a grocery sack. By the time the kettle whistled Michael had reappeared to make the tea. “How’d things go this afternoon?” Rebecca inquired.
“Found a mouse that had snuffed it beneath the dresser. Elspeth’s lavender was no bad after that.” He meticulously opened the new box of shortbread. “Thank you for the biscuits.”
Michael’s and Rebecca’s eyes met like swords raised in salute before a duel. One of his brows quirked upward and his mouth crimped into a speculative grimace. She tilted her head questioningly, and he looked away. “You’re welcome,” she said, picked up the teapot, and poured.
“You two have more nerve than I do,” said Jan, “working with ghosts.”
“The ghosts are no dangerous,” Michael asserted as he doctored his tea and turned to go. “The work has to be done.”
“It’s people who’ve caused all the trouble around here,” said Rebecca, but he was already out the door. “Case in point,” she added under her breath.
Jan opened her mouth, apparently decided not to comment, and ate a cookie instead. “Did Warren believe you when you said you’d seen that gas can full and capped a couple of hours before the fire?”
“It’d be a lot easier on him if the fire had been an accident. Awkward, isn’t it, that I happen to know it wasn’t?”
“So who do you think poured the gas out of the can? I assume it wasn’t Dorothy choosing a drastic way to prune Steve’s hair.”
“Dorothy smokes,” replied Rebecca. “She could’ve been the victim just as well, except she would’ve been less likely to go in the shed. You think I’m twitchy, she’s halfway round the bend. She knows more than she’s letting on.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Dorothy could’ve poured the gas,” Rebecca continued. “Or Michael. Or Phil himself, not planning to trap his own son. Or it could be Eric. Although I can’t see him sloshing gasoline around in those Italian shoes.”
Jan contemplated and ate another cookie. “Or the fire might have been set by one of Steve’s friends. Maybe Steve didn’t pay him for his last joint or something.”
“So person A covers up for person B, and person C helps person D, and here is person X that we don’t know anything about.” Rebecca glanced uneasily at the door. It was empty.
“Maybe the dog and cat are masterminding the whole scam,” said Jan. “Whatever the scam is.”
Rebecca laughed, but there was an edge in her laughter. “You know what it is. Money— the artifacts and the treasure. Someone’s willing to go to drastic lengths to keep the state and the museum from getting them.” She replenished her cup and stared into it without drinking. The castle was even quieter than usual, the gloomy afternoon pressed like foam packing against the walls and muffling the clink of the dishes.
Rebecca jerked herself to her feet. “Come on upstairs and I’ll show you that letter James wrote to Katherine Gemmell.”
“Ah yes. Dorothy as scam mistress.”
From the upper stories emanated a faint strain of music; Michael, after asking very politely, had this morning borrowed Rebecca’s tape player and was now playing a Silly Wizard album. “Pretty song,” said Jan as they crossed the landing into the Hall. “I like the line about ‘kiss the tears away’.”
“Very romantic,” Rebecca told her, “even though it’s a cheerful ditty about a young couple drowning in a shipwreck.”
With the chandelier and the drop light both shining, the Hall wasn’t too dim. The brass implements on the fireplace were a bit tarnished. Not that it mattered, they’d belong to someone else soon.
Jan pulled a chair up to the row of boxes while Rebecca knelt on the floor and opened the closest one. “I looked at the letter again several days ago, wondering whether the issue was worth pursuing. I did try to get Dorothy talking about her family, but all she wanted to tell me was how her grandkids played chipmunks in a church pageant.”
“I asked Margie about Dorothy’s maiden name,” said Jan.
Rebecca looked up. “Not Brown, or you would’ve called me.”
“Sorry. It was Norton.”
“Rats.” Rebecca moved to another box and continued to dig through the diaries. “So much for that bright idea.”
“But if Dorothy isn’t Katie Gemmell’s daughter,” asked Jan, “why did she shy away like that when you showed her the picture?”
“Galvanic reaction?” Rebecca sat up, peeling bits of black paper from her palms. “Darn it, I know I put it in here somewhere.”
“Maybe Mr. Brown was Katherine’s second husband,” Jan suggested. “Dorothy’s father was her first husband, somebody Norton. I know I’m constantly getting hung up over some of Peter’s cousins who have yours, mine and ours families.”
“There’s a thought. Do you suppose Louise would know?”
“No harm in asking her. Or we could go down to the Bureau of Rec
ords in Columbus and look up Dorothy’s birth certificate.”
“Yes!” Rebecca brightened, then dimmed again. “But it might be a wild goose chase, and I have so much work left to do.”
“I can’t decide that for you.” Jan glanced at her watch. “You’ll have to show me the letter some other time. I have to get back to being a mother before they throw the munchkins into the dumpster behind the church.”
“But it’s right here,” insisted Rebecca, peering at the label on the box. The tea gurgled in her throat and she sat back on her haunches. “Jan, it’s gone. Someone’s taken it, and the photograph, too.”
“Maybe someone just put it back in the wrong place. Here, let me help.” Jan went down on her knees and opened another box.
“No one knew they were here but Dorothy and me, and I’m not even sure she saw the letter. I never told Eric or Michael or Warren or anyone about that letter— I didn’t know whether it was important, or who I could trust.”
Jan’s mouth tightened. “Rebecca, calm down.”
Rebecca forced a deep breath into her chest and started methodically working her way through the boxes. Fifteen minutes later she said, “Okay. That’s it. The letter and the photo are gone.”
“They sure are. I’d say that answers your question.”
“It’s important enough for someone to steal. So I guess we have a date with Louise, right?”
“How about tomorrow afternoon? My shift at Golden Age starts at one.”
Rebecca pulled herself up, helped Jan to her feet, and scooted the chair back under the table. “I can’t go off and leave Michael alone again. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to the state to give him free rein.”
“Bring him along. We’ll sic Mrs. West on him again. Or you could even tell him about it and put those tartan brain cells to work.”
“But he’s a… ” Rebecca began, and then shook herself, trying to seize some kind of logical thought. “Of all the suspects he has the least reason to have taken that letter. Everyone else has been in this area for years. Even the sheriff. Unless Michael’s got such a heck of an elaborate scam going… . “Logic, she reminded herself.
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