“He’s here?” Grace said.
Hammond glanced at her. “We have a matter to attend to. You’ll excuse me, I hope.” He clasped Ada around the waist. “Bentley has his daughter with him, dear. Maybe you could bring her outside for some treats while we finish up.”
Duncan watched them walk toward the house, Ada tottering on her high heels. Hammond guided her off the lawn and onto the stone path that led up to the deck. “I thought Bent wasn’t coming to this?” Duncan said.
“That’s what he said,” Grace said. “At the reunion, I mean.” Duncan saw a flicker of apprehension and realized she was remembering Angie. The image of Angie lying in the woods flashed into his mind again. That tongue. He shivered, remembering the woman he’d seen long ago in Sri Lanka. His memory of that exorcism ceremony was vivid. He could remember the electric atmosphere of it, the way his pulse had raced in his throat, how the hairs had risen on his arms. An elderly woman, a relative of the patient being exorcised, had begun convulsing, tense in her upright chair, the tongue dangling out of her mouth impossibly long. Everyone at the ceremony had claimed that was because a demon from the patient had entered her body.
“Another drink?” Duncan said, shaking off the image and taking Grace’s arm. “And then maybe we can leave.”
They crossed the springy grass to the bar and ordered their drinks.
“Who’d have thought—Frank Salgado?” he was saying, when he felt a tug at his sleeve.
“Hi!” Bent’s daughter, Janie, bounced up beside them, a lock of her dark-brown hair swinging over her shoulder, the last of a prodigiously frosted cupcake in one hand. Her eyes, large and slightly slanted, were raised toward him.
“Hey!” he said. He furrowed his forehead theatrically. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Janie giggled. “From the camp, silly!”
Duncan wondered how much she’d heard about Angie’s death. How well had she known Angie? Better not to ask.
“I bet you don’t know Grace,” he said, pulling Grace forward.
Janie giggled again. “Yes, I do! She sat with me!” She pointed a frosting-smeared finger at Grace and then Duncan. “You went to school with my dad.”
“No, not me,” Duncan said. “Just her.”
“My middle name is Grace,” Janie said.
“Really,” Grace said. Duncan sighed at her awkward expression. She must have barely talked to Janie when she’d babysat her at the camp. She always seemed to get tongue-tied around kids.
Janie helped herself to a chocolate tart. “I like these. But this is a boring party,” she said. “Do you want to play a game?” She caught Duncan’s wrist, her grip surprisingly strong for someone so ethereal seeming.
How simple life was for kids, Duncan thought. “Well, I don’t think we can,” he said, wiping a streak of frosting off Janie’s cheek with a napkin. “We have to be going soon.”
“Daddy said we’re going soon,” Janie said. “But he’s in there”—she jabbed her fingers toward the house—“talking and talking.”
6
GRACE
Sunday
Duncan seemed a little more comfortable about the job now after the informal context of the party, Grace thought, although he still kept rubbing his ring, the way he did when he was worried. She was glad Bent had called her a few days previously, to ask her to bring Duncan to the reunion—although she hadn’t told Duncan that. And Bent had been right, after all, to insist they go to the party. “Bent said they didn’t want you to quit before you started,” she said as Duncan pulled the Volkswagen into their driveway. “He was making a joke, but I think they really need you on board.”
“In Salgado’s place, apparently. Drowned . . . Can you imagine? You should ask your parents if they heard about that in the news in Sri Lanka,” Duncan said, opening his door.
Grace stepped out of the car, the driveway gritty under her bare feet. She was reaching inside for her shoes when she heard a car door click shut nearby, and then the sound of deliberate footsteps.
In the weak light seeping from their neighbor’s windows, she saw a tall figure looming.
“Detective?” Duncan said, sounding as surprised as she felt.
“Sorry to bother you both,” Mortensen murmured.
Grace glanced involuntarily at her watch. It was almost eight. Why was he here?
“I know it’s late,” Mortensen said. “But I wondered if I might have a word.”
“About Angie?” Duncan said.
Was this about the voicemail message? Grace’s heart began to thump. What if he said something to Duncan? What would she say?
“Just some routine inquiries,” Mortensen said. “Some clarifications.”
We could just say we’re too tired, that it’s too late, Grace thought. But Duncan slung his suit jacket over his shoulder and said, “Come on in, please.”
Inside, Grace watched Mortensen sweep his eyes around the living room, at the books that overflowed off the IKEA shelves onto the old kilim rug, the magazines strewn across the glass coffee table, the Sri Lankan batik wall hanging, and the framed sketches of woods she had drawn for Duncan.
Mortensen set himself in the striped armchair by the sofa and slid his notepad out of his jacket pocket. It was going to be fine, Grace reassured herself.
“Was Angie . . . Did you find something?” Duncan said, leaning forward from his position on the sofa.
“The medical examiner ruled that Ms. Osborne died of a heart attack,” Mortensen intoned. “This is not about Ms. Osborne.” He adjusted the collar of his shirt. “Per se. There were some details we were just following up on. Regarding the gunshots.”
Grace perched on the arm of the sofa, relieved. He wasn’t here about Angie. No need to worry.
“You went hiking that morning, I believe you said, Dr. McCloud?” Mortensen said, his eyes on Duncan’s tanned forearms, exposed below his rolled-up white shirtsleeves. At the reunion, Mortensen had called Duncan “Mr. McCloud,” Grace remembered. Had he done some research on Duncan? On her?
“But I was back well before lunch,” Duncan said, his voice rising a little. Mortensen was putting him on the defensive, Grace thought. She saw Duncan frown as he said, “The shots were in the afternoon.”
“You said earlier that you returned from the trail with your husband,” Mortensen said, turning to Grace. “But Dr. McCloud mentioned he hiked alone.”
“I slept in,” Grace said, trying to keep her breathing even. When she’d woken up and heard Angie’s message, she’d jammed her feet into her sneakers and run out to the trail in a panic, terrified that Duncan would run into Angie on his own.
“When I woke up, he’d already left for his hike. I thought I’d see if I could join him. I didn’t go very far. I met him coming down the trail, and then we went back to the pavilion together.”
Mortensen’s eyes ran over her and then fell to the notebook in his hand. “The shots were fired, you both said, early in the afternoon.” He consulted his notebook. “Around one thirty. Who was with you at the time?”
“I was at the buffet table in the pavilion,” Grace said, remembering how she had jumped, splattering curry on her sweatshirt. “Only the kid, Janie, was there.”
“I was just going to get more plastic cups from the kitchen building,” Duncan said. “For beer.”
“You two weren’t together?”
“Not when the shots were fired,” Duncan said. “A bit later, we both sat down to eat at one of the tables outside the pavilion.”
“How much later?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. He took off his glasses and polished them on his shirtsleeve. “Maybe fifteen minutes? Twenty? I had to find the cups and take them to the keg by the pavilion, and then I served myself from the buffet.”
“Who was around when the shots were fired?”
“I couldn’t see,” Duncan said. “You probably heard. It was very foggy at the time. The fog started just before lunch. We could barely see a couple of feet.�
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Mortensen turned to Grace. “Did you see who was around at the time of the shots?”
Grace shook her head. “Janie and I went out to a table. Then Duncan showed up. And later, Mo and Marla.”
“We were all there when we heard the scream,” Duncan said.
“How much later was that?”
“Maybe an hour,” Grace said.
Mortensen flipped the pages of his notebook and scanned his tiny handwriting. “And all of you know each other from high school?”
“Most of us,” Grace said.
“There were a few spouses and kids,” Duncan said. “My connection’s only through Grace. Although I am about to start working with Bentley Hyland.”
Mortensen scrutinized Duncan. “At Cinasat Pharmaceuticals? My report . . . I believe it was mentioned . . . that you and your wife are college professors?”
“I’m a former professor,” Duncan said, turning the ring on his finger. Grace’s heart sank at the sadness in his voice. “I just signed on to a new job at Cinasat. I begin tomorrow, actually.”
“I see,” Mortensen said, looking him over. “But you knew Mr. Hyland previously.”
“I only met him briefly when I interviewed,” Duncan said. Grace could hear that this line of questioning was making him a little uncomfortable. “Grace didn’t keep in touch with him, so I didn’t meet him before.”
“The others you did know?”
Duncan nodded. “Sure. Over the years, a little. What is this all about? What were the shots . . . Why are you asking? Are they connected to Angie’s death? Did something else happen?”
“Based on the medical examiner’s report, it is not a criminal matter.” Mortensen’s voice was stiff. “The shots are. This is not deer season. Hunting is illegal,” Mortensen said. “We are investigating that . . . and a related matter.”
Duncan opened his mouth to say more, but Mortensen turned to Grace. “How well do you know your classmates—Mr. Hyland, Mr. Hashim, Mrs. Muller, Mr., er, Watanabe?”
Grace frowned. He was being too opaque with these questions. “Very well. I’ve known them all since high school. Seventh grade, when I started going to the school. They were at the school longer than me, although obviously, they’re not Sri Lankan. Kids from all over go there. Mostly diplomats’ kids, but not only.” She hesitated, wondering how much to say. “We all went to college here in the US. I didn’t really stay in touch with Bent after my second year in college, in Chicago.” Duncan was looking at his fingernails. “The other three I’ve kept in touch with all along, although I don’t see them much. Just emails or calls once in a while. With Mo and Marla, occasional visits.”
“What do you know about their work?”
“What do you mean?” Grace said, confused. “Who?”
“All of them,” Mortensen said.
“Mo is a real estate developer in Philadelphia. Suki manages a comic book store—in Boston. Marla used to be a math teacher in South Jersey, but now she doesn’t work. Bent is a VP at Cinasat. Why does what they do matter?”
“These are routine inquiries, Dr. McCloud. We just need to know how well you know them.” He paused, contemplating his notes. “Have any of them started a new job recently, or had any problems at work?”
“Nothing I know about,” Grace said. “Mo said he’s having some problems with a building he’s leasing to some pharmaceutical company. And Marla stopped working. For the pregnancy. Why is this related to anything?”
“When’s the last time you talked to any of them, before the reunion?”
He could bring up Angie’s call any minute, Grace thought. “I don’t remember exactly,” she said, rising. “Look. It’s getting really late. I have work in the morning, and Duncan is starting a new job tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Mortensen said, rising to his feet, his face inscrutable. He paused in the act of tucking the notebook in his pocket. “Did you, by any chance, see Mr. Hashim with a gun?”
Grace stepped back. What was he talking about?
Duncan’s mouth had fallen open slightly. “Mo had a gun?”
“I doubt that,” Grace said. She paused. “Do you mean if we ever saw him with one, or at the camp?”
“At the camp,” Mortensen said. “Did you know he purchased bullets in Ridgeville?”
“Whoa,” Duncan said.
“What? You mean like for hunting?” Grace said.
“Two different kinds of bullets. For a rifle and a handgun. Have you ever seen him with a gun, Dr. McCloud?”
Grace stared at him, confused. “No. I . . . I mean, he could have guns, right? People do.” Now that she thought about it, it seemed like something he would have done in the old days. Buy a gun. Or two. Just for the hell of it. But Mortensen was making it sound more sinister.
“Why in Ridgeville?” Duncan said.
“That we don’t know,” was all Mortensen said. Then, after a pause, “What about Mr. Hyland and Mrs. Muller. Did they have guns there?”
“Are you kidding?” Grace said. “Bent had his daughter with him. And Marla certainly didn’t go out there hunting. She’s pregnant! Seven months!”
“Of course, I’m sure she wouldn’t,” Mortensen said. “This is just routine, you understand. Simply a matter of getting corroborating information. I didn’t mean to alarm you.” He slid the notebook into his pocket as he glided toward the door.
7
DUNCAN
Monday
Duncan leaned back in his chair, trying to appreciate the room before him. It was certainly nothing like his small, disheveled office at St. Casilda College, which had had mismatched bits of furniture and ratty blue carpeting that the harried janitorial staff rarely vacuumed. Here, the floor was charcoal-colored hardwood. On one side, two gray leather armchairs stood on a sternly patterned rug, which was shot here and there with flammeous streaks. The silver-gray wood of his desk was so smooth that he couldn’t help running his hands over it. And he could always spin around in his desk chair to look out the picture window at the expanse of lawn below.
He needed to get some of Grace’s sketches in here, he thought. He found the large black-and-white photographs on the walls, of shadows snaking across sand dunes, too forbidding. He would have preferred photographs of woods. In high school, he had spent many Saturday mornings in the foggy woods near his house, away from his mother’s suffering and the cloying smell of grease his father brought back from work. It had been in the woods that he’d first dreamed up a new vision of his life, a life that moved beyond grease into the kind of worlds Ms. Logan, his former teacher, had described to him.
He wondered again at the number of light fixtures in the room. There was enough light in the room with just the two bright lamps standing like sentries in the corners. What darkness was there for all the other lights to fight? A lamp on the coffee table. Track lights across the ceiling. A chrome desk lamp peering at his computer screen. A shaded bulb suspended above his chair. He shrugged, sighing. It was a room designed for nighttime work. That probably meant long hours would be the norm.
“Come in,” he called, hearing a knock.
Bent slipped in, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “Settling in?” His eyes were a little bloodshot, Duncan noticed, the skin under them puffier than it had been during the weekend.
“It’s a good office,” Duncan said. “Not really what I’m used to.”
“You’ll be happy to have got out of your college,” Bent said. He settled in one of the two wooden chairs in front of the desk. “It was going under, anyway. Those old buildings are all falling to pieces. They’ll never find the funds to renovate.”
Bent spoke as if he knew a lot about St. Casilda. Duncan wondered if Cinasat had done some research, to find out if it was true that he had been laid off because of financial exigency. There was no need to feel bothered by that, he decided. Companies probably did routine checks of employment history.
“You had a good time at Hammond’s, yeah?” Bent said. “I dropped by for
a few minutes. On the way to my ex-wife’s . . . Janie’s mother’s house.” He adjusted the sleeve of his pinstriped shirt. It was rolled up, exposing a sprinkling of light hair and an elegant gold watch. “Hammond mentioned you knew Frank Salgado . . . Did you . . . Were you in touch with him recently?”
Duncan shook his head. “I just met him a few times, way back when I was working in Sri Lanka. He wasn’t exactly a friend. He didn’t think I should be studying Sri Lankan rituals. Because I’m not Sri Lankan.” He shrugged. That was something he’d struggled with once. Being an outsider. Now he’d come to terms with it. “What happened to him?”
“We don’t know the details,” Bent said. “An accident. They think he’d been swimming. He drowned, apparently. Tragic.” Bent shook his head. “He would have kept working for us, I’m sure.”
“What was he doing for you?” Duncan said. “Something related to rituals?”
“Mostly he helped us find local contacts,” Bent said. “And he worked on the initial phase of . . . It won’t make much sense to you yet. I’ll explain more later, yeah? First we need to get you started.” He rubbed his eyes. He looked tired, Duncan thought.
“Are you dealing with everything okay?” Duncan said. “The weekend . . . It was hard enough on Grace, even though she hadn’t seen Angie for decades.”
A grimness slid over Bent’s face for a second, but then he brushed his hand across his face as if to fan away the memory. “Let’s not go into it,” he said. And then, “I’m flying down to Texas tomorrow. Angie’s parents’ place. The funeral’s on Wednesday morning. A memorial service. The body was cremated, you know.” His eyes passed over Duncan and came to rest on the chrome pen holder on the desk.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Duncan said. “The loss for all of you.” He watched Bent pull the pen from the holder. He started twirling it in his fingers, turning it around and around with practiced skill. “All Grace wanted to do was get back to work. Her way of dealing with the loss. I think she feels guilty.”
The Mask Collectors Page 4