“Let’s start at the beginning,” Curtis said. “I ran some background checks on you today. Your mother changed her name when she moved to Pennsylvania, but her old name was Henshaw. Lucy Henshaw. Frank Porter was your biological father, wasn’t he?”
Logan nodded, slumping in his seat.
“Yeah,” he said reluctantly. “When I was nine or ten, my mom told me everything about him, but she didn’t want to hear from him ever again. After she died, I decided I wanted to see him. To confront him about the way he let his family treat her, about never trying to find us, never spending a penny on child support or anything like that. That was the real reason I came to Maplewood. But then I met Hailey, and suddenly it wasn’t as important anymore. He wasn’t important. Only she mattered, and I didn’t want to ruin our life together by stirring up old trouble. It was easier to pretend he was a nobody, just another middle-aged white guy on a power trip.”
“And he didn’t recognize you?” Curtis asked.
Logan shook his head. “No. He never had a clue. I told Hailey all about it, and together, we decided it would be best if he never knew. He didn’t like me anyway, from what little contact we had. It seemed to be working fine for us, for a while.”
“What changed?” I asked. “Did you realize he was filthy rich, and all his money was just one paternity test away?”
That came out rather splenetically, but I was still struggling to maintain composure. Even if Logan were telling the truth and he wasn’t about to attack me for exposing him, the terror I’d felt had been very real.
“I told you, it wasn’t like that,” Logan said, turning to me. “I couldn’t care less about him or his money.”
“And yet, you came to his cottage on the night he died,” Curtis said. “Is that right, Mr. Davis?”
Logan sighed again and ran his hand through his hair, dislodging his hat. For a moment he looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten it was there, and then he took it off. With his hair in disarray, his receding hairline was even more pronounced, and now I could definitely see the familial resemblance in his features.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “I was here that night. I was telling the truth about being up in St. Albans though. I was on my way back home when I decided to drop by and try to convince Porter to change his mind about those permits for the workshop expansion.”
“And you thought a raging storm was the perfect backdrop for a social visit?” I asked.
Curtis shot me a quelling look and turned back to Logan.
“When was that?”
“About 8 p.m. on Tuesday. I went up the lane through that shortcut straight to his cottage, but when I got there, he was already dead.” He looked from Curtis to me. “You got to believe me. I would never hurt Frank. I would never hurt anyone!”
Curtis took out his little notebook and wrote something down.
“What exactly did you see?” he asked.
“I pulled over in my pickup and got out,” Logan said, bunching the hat in his hands. “There was no light in the front windows, but it was late, and the weather was foul, so I figured Frank must be home. I walked up to the porch, and then I saw him, just lying there. There was this awful gash across his head, and all that blood…” He swallowed. “As soon as I saw him, I knew he was dead.”
“Did you check his pulse?” Curtis asked.
Logan shook his head.
“No, but I did come close to see if he was breathing. He wasn’t. I was too afraid to touch him, to tell you the truth.”
“Did you notice anything else when you approached?”
“I saw the shovel lying next to his head, and it had blood on it. I knew right away someone must have hit him over the head with it. So I backed off and got out of there as fast as I could.”
“Was there anyone else there? Inside the house, or walking close by? Another car, perhaps?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you get help?” I asked while Curtis wrote it all down. “Call 911, something?”
“Are you kidding me? I knew how it would look if they found me there. It’s what you’re thinking right now,” Logan said, half plaintively, half accusingly. “That I had an argument with the old man and whacked him. And if the police got wind of us being related, that would clinch the deal. I figured if nobody saw me there, none would be the wiser, and it wouldn’t matter.”
“Were you the one leaving me those anonymous messages?” I asked. It was a long shot, but I pushed anyway since the notion of so many people traipsing through the woods on the night of a raging snowstorm and not bumping into each other was beginning to border on ridiculous. “The smashed window, the knife?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” Logan raised his eyes from his hands and looked between us again. “I didn’t do it, and I didn’t kill Frank. You gotta believe me. He was already dead when I found him.”
There was a definite edge of desperation to his tone, and when he locked his gaze with mine, his eyes were pleading, but I couldn’t tell whether his obvious distress was the result of a guilty conscience or an innocent one.
Despite my earlier snide remarks, it wasn’t my place to rule one way or another, so I hung back while Curtis asked him some more questions.
The sound of a police siren coming up the road made Logan sit up and fall silent. I went over to the door to admit two state police officers.
Both Logan and Curtis rose to their feet.
“I’m sorry, but I had to call in the state police,” Curtis said to Logan. “I believe it’s in your best interests to cooperate with the investigation, but I also think you should probably retain legal counsel at this point, Mr. Davis.”
Logan nodded, looking more and more dejected by the moment. He didn’t resist when the policemen cuffed him and led him outside after reading him his rights, but just as they crossed the threshold, he turned to us.
“Please tell Hailey I love her, and that I’m sorry I did something so stupid. But she should also know I’m not a murderer. I could never do that to her. I just couldn’t.”
*
“You all right?” Curtis asked, turning to me as soon as Logan was out. His eyes raked me up and down as if searching for hidden injuries, and I flushed self-consciously, unused to being the object of such intense concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “In retrospect, I might have overreacted a bit, and I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have freaked out. Honestly, I’m in awe of the way you handled the situation.”
My own character, Owen Graves, would have come bursting into the window, guns blazing. But that just went to show how different real life was from fiction, and I was grateful for Curtis’s levelheadedness—and for the fact that no one had gotten hurt.
“I’d rather prevent a confrontation than escalate it,” Curtis said. “Especially when it involves people I care about.”
My cheeks flushed hot. At a loss for words, I merely nodded, not trusting myself to say anything in response.
The moment stretched as we just stood there, looking at each other as if for the first time. In a sense, it was, at least where new appreciation was concerned.
Finally, Curtis nodded to the open door, through which I glimpsed a state patrol car idling, its lights still flashing.
“I should go with Davis now. They’ll be taking him to the station in St. Albans for questioning. You’ll be okay here on your own?”
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll talk with you later. Will you be coming to the festival tomorrow night?”
Despite my promise to Mayor Hartwell, I wasn’t actually planning to go, but saying “no” to Curtis was a whole different matter. I would probably have said “yes” if he asked me to go diving in an ice hole in Speedos.
Okay, the last thing I needed was the mental image of Curtis Monroe in a pair of Speedos while talking to him.
“Definitely,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“See you ther
e, then,” he said and walked out the door.
From the front window, I watched him get into the police car with Davis and the officers. When the car disappeared from view around the bend, I sagged against the wall as all the tension of the past couple of hours (was it just a couple of hours? It felt like ages of the world had passed) left my body.
“Oh, for the love of God,” I muttered when my gaze fell on the study window. Logan had torn off the boards but never had a chance to finish the job, and now the window stood open, still missing a pane.
If I didn’t want the place to freeze over during the night, I had to board the window shut all over again until I found some other handyman to fix it.
Logan’s toolbox was still sitting on the floor, so I picked up a hammer, put on my coat, and got to work.
The cold wind blowing from the lake went a long way to calming me down. By the time I finished nailing the boards back over the window frame, my teeth were chattering, but I also had a much firmer grip over my senses.
I still had a hard time believing Logan Davis could kill his estranged father for his money. Granted, we were hardly close friends; in fact, I was sure he’d been going to attack me not that long ago. And even if I was wrong about that, I barely knew him, and even the closest people could sometimes surprise you in horrible ways. And yet, I was having a hard time reconciling his earlier attitude with that of a cold-blooded killer. Maybe, had this truly been a crime of opportunity, I could picture Logan blowing a gasket and hitting Frank with whatever came in handy, if Frank had made some nasty comment about his wife or his business.
But this hadn’t been a crime of passion. The killer had stolen a shovel from my cabin—a shovel that had been tucked out of sight for years—several hours, perhaps even a day before it was used to end a man’s life. And the only thing that had saved me from being charged with the murder was Curtis happening to be with me at the time it was committed. If this wasn’t premeditated, I didn’t know what was.
Was Logan truly that devious? After all, he did hide the fact that he was related to Porter—but then again, it wasn’t something I would have advertised either.
Either way, this didn’t concern me anymore. The whole matter was now in the hands of the authorities, who had to be much more equipped to handle it than someone like me, who couldn’t even claim the title of your average amateur sleuth.
What I could do, however, was focus on the upcoming Christmas festival. It sounded like the kitschiest thing ever, but all of a sudden, I couldn’t wait to be there.
Chapter Twelve
I wasn’t entirely wrong about the festival, but, kitsch or not, I had to admit the village of Maplewood had really gone all out for the celebration.
I left my car at the town hall parking lot and walked to the village green, which was decked out with lights and streamers hanging between the trees and the lampposts. Thankfully, it promised to be a beautiful night after the streak of bad weather the week before.
The festival had begun at noon on Friday, but I only arrived at about 4 p.m., when it was already dark, and the entertainment was in full swing. A band was playing in the central gazebo, and food stands stood in a wide circle around it, interspersed with game stalls and craft tables for the kids. Several long tables held rows of cakes and cookie plates for the bake sale, right next to the Maple Raffle booth.
A sizable crowd had gathered, milling around the stalls, and children ran around, chasing one another between the tables set up on the grass.
“Declan!” a woman’s voice called behind me as I was getting a cup of apple cider from one of the stands.
I turned and came face to face with Janice. She wore a hot-pink barrette that matched her puffer coat, and her eyes gleamed with excitement behind the rims of her glasses.
“It’s so good to see you out and about! I wasn’t sure you were going to come.”
“I hope I don’t come off as that much of a recluse,” I said jokingly, although she wasn’t wrong in her assumptions.
“I’m sure you’re just shy, dear,” Janice said earnestly and patted me on the arm. “But I do hope you’re having a nice time.”
“I am. Everything looks lovely, really.”
“Can you believe Logan Davis is actually Frank Porter’s son?” she asked with absolutely zero transition. “Now that I think of it, he does look a bit like Frank, doesn’t he? But hindsight is always twenty-twenty, am I right? And him being arrested, as well! The state police came for him when he was over at your cabin, I hear?”
“Right.” How on earth had she managed to ferret out these kinds of details? “I invited him to repair my window.”
“I don’t know what Commissioner Monroe is thinking,” Janice said disapprovingly. “I don’t care whose son he is, that boy wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Remembering the image of Logan looming in the doorway with a chisel in his hand, I wasn’t so quick to agree with her.
“He wasn’t charged with anything yet. They only took him in for questioning. I’m sure Curtis won’t let anything happen to him if he’s innocent.”
Her severe expression morphed into a mischievous grin.
“Curtis, huh?”
“Uh…” I cast about for a way to remove my foot out of my mouth, but she waved me off.
“Don’t worry, dear, your secret is safe with me.” She winked.
“Right.” I wondered how Curtis would feel when he found out the whole village knew the grumpy writer from New York thought about him that way. “Thanks.”
“Anyway, I’m so glad I ran into you. There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Janice said, and I tensed. “How about setting up a book signing for you? I know Brandy from Books and Hooks would love to host a little event for you in her store. We could have tea, and sandwiches, and maybe you could read—”
“Books and Hooks?”
“Yes. Half of it is Brandy’s bookstore, and half of it is her husband Khalid’s fishing tackle shop. He also offers guided fishing trips in the summer, and she makes commemorative photo albums with those vintage-looking covers. So, Books and Hooks.”
Clearly, I hadn’t explored Maplewood as well as I should have.
“I’m not sure my stuff is quite the thing for the local crowd,” I said and then winced at how condescending that sounded. “Wait, that came out wrong. What I meant—”
“I know what you mean, dear.” Janice motioned me to walk with her, and I complied, sipping the cider as I strode beside her. “But it would allow the people around here to get to know you better, and vice versa. I think it could be a good chance for you to introduce yourself, be a good neighbor. People are curious, after all.”
Whatever happened to that peace and quiet I’d come here to enjoy? It seemed as if instead of my lonesome retreat, I was sinking deeper and deeper into the local social pool. Then again, I should have known that was going to happen when I decided to snoop around and actually talk to people instead of shutting myself off from the world in my makeshift Fortress of Solitude.
“I guess we could do that,” I said reluctantly. Of course, I’d done book tours and press releases and book signings for my series before, but usually Alexis handled all the details, and all I had to do was show up, offer a strained smile, and shake a few hands.
“Wonderful! I knew you’d agree, Declan. You’re such an amiable young man. Now, here’s my number.” She slipped me a folded piece of paper, which I automatically tucked into my coat pocket. “Give me a call, and we’ll arrange everything.”
I processed the compliment and the fact that Janice had so effortlessly roped me into agreeing to make a public appearance as we went up to the food stalls on the opposite side of the green. One of them was decorated with arches wrapped with mixed garlands of maple leaves and holly boughs, tied with red ribbons.
“Oh, look, Martha is selling their maple syrup candy,” Janice said. “Come, you must try it. Their syrup is the best in the county.”
I followed her to meet Martha, wh
o stood behind rows and rows of baskets filled with cellophane-wrapped candy and leaf-shaped souvenir bottles of syrup. She was bundled in a faux-fur leopard jacket with a matching hat. Despite her polite smile, I couldn’t fail to notice deep circles under her eyes and the way her gaze darted over the crowd even as we greeted her.
“Is everything all right, darling?” Janice asked with concern after she offered us complementary candy. “Evan isn’t here with you today?”
Martha shook her head and shifted from foot to foot.
“He had some work to do on the farm,” she said.
“So Evan is going to miss the festival.” Janice clicked her tongue. “That’s too bad.”
I examined the beautifully wrapped gift baskets, almost tuning out their conversation. Should I get Curtis a Christmas present? Was this a thing people did, or would that feel weird, considering we hadn’t even been on a proper date yet?
“Wonderful to see you having a good time, ladies,” George Hartwell said with a wide smile as he came up to the stalls. “And you, too, Mr. Kensington. I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves.”
Martha murmured in assent while Janice hastened, with her usual vivacious enthusiasm, to assure the mayor that this was the loveliest festival she’d ever been to. I hung back a little, allowing Hartwell to bask in the praise.
William Atwood, the town manager whom I’d met that fateful day at the diner, accompanied the mayor and shook my hand when he spotted me. Unlike Hartwell, he was frowning with a slightly harrowed look in his eyes, but I could imagine being in charge of a three-day shindig in the middle of the village would put an undue amount of stress on anyone.
“Great turnout,” I said to him, nodding to the crowd. “Everything looks so well organized.”
His gaze swept over the people gathered on the village green.
“Folks come from all over the county for this thing,” Atwood said. “Have been every year. Hopefully, next year we’ll be able to make it even grander with the new theme park being erected.”
“So soon?” I asked.
Atwood shrugged. “I can’t see why not, now that no one can sabotage the project. Meaning no disrespect for poor Frank, of course. Awful, his own flesh and blood offing him like that.”
In the Winter Woods Page 12