by Jan Neuharth
He waited until Manning stopped sputtering and had caught his breath, then plastered a fresh strip of duct tape across his mouth. “Be careful not to puke now. If you asphyxiate yourself, you’ll ruin all my plans.”
Thompson tossed the roll of duct tape on the developing table and crouched down next to Margaret. “It’s showtime,” he said, slicing the duct tape that bound Margaret’s feet.
Manning let his head drop to his knees. He tried to fight the fog that coddled his brain, but numbness sucked him toward oblivion. He was vaguely aware of Thompson hauling his mother to her feet and shoving her toward the door. Then darkness engulfed the room and he let it swallow him up.
CHAPTER
90
Abigale pulled around to the back of the house—her house—and parked as close as she could get to the mudroom door. Wind whipped rain in her face as she opened the driver’s door. She quickly slammed it, then tugged the back passenger door. “Come on, Duchess!”
Duchess trotted ahead to the house while Abigale scurried gingerly across the wet leaves on the stone walkway. Abigale fumbled to insert the key in the lock and the Lab nudged between her legs and the door, thumping her tail impatiently. “I know, just give me a second,” Abigale murmured.
The lock turned and Abigale stumbled over Duchess as they both tumbled into the mudroom. She shoved the door closed and flicked on the light switch. Looking down at her jeans, she saw that they were drenched. Just from the short jaunt to the door. She bent down and plucked a crimson maple leaf off the sole of her boot. She shucked off her rain jacket and tossed it over an empty hook.
The house was gloomy and had a musty, unlived-in smell. There was still an hour or so until nightfall, but the darkened skies seemed to ooze into the house, dimming every crevice. Abigale switched on lights as she headed toward her uncle’s study. She checked the front door just to make sure it was locked, that she hadn’t misread the blurry photo and erroneously assumed Thompson had a key in his hand. She even reached out and jiggled the dead bolt to satisfy herself it was fully engaged.
Faint traces of footprints crossed the oak flooring leading from the oriental carpet down the hall toward the study, as if confirming that was where Manning’s and Margaret’s meeting with Thompson took place. She switched on her uncle’s desk lamp and glanced around the room. Duchess sniffed the love seat and looked at Abigale with a pleading wag of the tail. “Sure, go ahead,” she said.
The Lab leapt onto the cushion and circled around for a comfortable spot. Abigale eyed her uncle’s desk and bookshelves, not really sure what she was looking for. Nothing seemed out of place. The file drawers were all closed. No papers were strewn around. Abigale’s hopes melted to disappointment. What had she expected? A note, telling her what had happened? Evidence of some kind of scuffle? It was ridiculous when she thought about it, to blame Thompson for Manning leaving town, for his drinking. Thompson had likely been dishonest about some things—maybe even cooked the books—but Manning’s troubles went beyond that. And the answer didn’t lie here.
She thumbed the switch on the desk lamp. “Let’s go, Duchess.”
Duchess plodded along at Abigale’s side, her tail drooping forlornly as if she sensed Abigale’s mood. But when Abigale switched off the foyer light and crossed the kitchen toward the back door, the Lab held back.
“Come on, girl.”
The dog just stared at her from the hallway.
“Duchess, come on.”
Duchess skulked toward her, stopping halfway across the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, girl?” Abigale walked over to the dog. “What is it?”
The Lab barked and bounded back to the hall. Abigale followed her and found her prancing in front of the basement door. What was she all wound up about? She bent down to pet the dog, then froze—Duchess’s paws danced impatiently amidst a blur of human shoe prints. She whirled around, following the prints with her eyes. How had she missed the parade of shoe prints leading back and forth from the basement door to the mudroom?
Abigale squatted down. The prints had a thick tread mark, like those from work boots or muckers. They were fairly large, possibly from a woman with big feet but more likely from a man. She peered closer and saw the smattering of paw prints. A shiver shot up her spine. Duchess’s paws should be dry by now. She reached down and smeared a fingertip through one of the fresher-looking shoe prints. It was still wet.
“Good girl,” Abigale murmured, throwing an arm around the dog. Duchess let out a shrill bark and nudged the door with her nose. “No,” Abigale whispered. “Shhh, take it easy now.”
She jumped to her feet, her heart pounding in her ears. Should she go down there? A voice in her head screamed for her to call 9-1-1. She glanced at the bottom of the door. No light shined through the strip. Whoever belonged to the shoe prints had to be gone. But someone had been down there. Recently. She eased the door open and peered down the steps into blackness.
Duchess stood statue-still and cocked her head, listening. Abigale brushed her fingertips across the dog’s silky ear. “Do you hear anything, girl?” Duchess looked up at her and whined.
Abigale sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go,” she said softly. She tugged on the cord that hung from the wall, bathing the stairwell in light. Slowly, she lowered her foot to the first step. Duchess leapt past her, toenails skittering across the cement stairs. “Easy,” Abigale called in a loud whisper. “Wait!”
Duchess skidded to a stop and stared up at her. Abigale’s boots tapped quietly as she hurried down the stairs. The stairwell bulb flooded a path of light a few feet from the base of the stairs. Beyond that was inky darkness. She remembered being down there as a kid: she and Manning used to play “rock, paper, scissors” to settle who would dash into the blackness and pull the next light cord. She doubted Manning was truly afraid of the dark, but she was. And, sometimes, he would wait until she was swallowed by the shadows and then let out an evil shriek. She always knew he might do it—and she swore that she wouldn’t react—but no matter how much she steeled herself for it, she invariably jumped and screamed.
Abigale pushed into the dark, wishing Manning was with her now. Duchess pressed against her leg as they inched forward. Abigale’s arms stuck straight out in front of her, blindly feeling for the dangling cord. Her fingertips brushed it but batted it away. Damn it. She groped the air and finally wrapped her hand around it.
She squinted against the sudden light, orienting herself. The basement was as she remembered it. The long center room was empty, except for a pile of outdoor furniture stacked along one wall. Her uncle’s workshop was at the far end. Her eyes stopped at a door in the shadows next to the workshop. That was new since she’d last been down there. She looked down at the cement floor. The shoe prints were less noticeable than on the floor upstairs, but she saw a faint trail leading through the dim light toward the unfamiliar door.
“Come on, girl,” Abigale murmured to Duchess. Every nerve in her body seemed on fire as she neared the door. She balled her hands into fists to stop the trembling. The door fit snugly against the frame and had a metal threshold across the bottom. No way to tell if a light was on inside. A dark bulb was mounted above the door frame, reminding Abigale of a signal outside a darkroom. She grasped the handle, half-expecting it to be locked, but the knob turned easily in her hand. Abigale pushed gently and the door swung open.
Muted light spilled onto a cement floor and the stale scent of booze tickled her nostrils, reminding her of a fraternity house on a Sunday morning. Was this some kind of liquor cellar? She groaned. Of course. Uncle Richard used to store the alcohol for hunt events down here. He must have decided to build a special room for it.
Relief and disappointment collided and Abigale slumped against the door jamb. Now the shoe prints made perfect sense. Smitty or someone else had probably been restocking unused boxes of liquor from the races. Or Uncle Richard’s memorial service.
Abigale heard Duchess whine inside the room and she
groped along the interior wall for a light switch. Her fingers fumbled across a small picture frame, knocking it off kilter. She slipped her hand higher, frowning as it bumped another frame. Why would Uncle Richard hang pictures on the wall of a storage room? She stepped into the room and squinted at the wall, catching the outline of a switch-plate cover. She flicked on the switch, then blinked rapidly as she stared at a wall of her framed photographs.
She sucked in a breath and spun around. It was a darkroom. Abigale stepped forward and ran her hand along the cool edge of a shiny new developing table. Guilt washed over her. Uncle Richard must have built the darkroom for her. And she’d never come back to visit. She fingered a roll of duct tape that lay on the table as she glanced around the room at the professional developing equipment.
Abigale heard the clink of glass and she peered over the table. Duchess’s tail swept across an overturned bottle of booze as she nosed around the cement floor. Abigale crouched down beside the dog and grabbed the bottle. The stench of whisky almost took her breath away. The bottle was half empty, but the cap was screwed on tight. So where did the smell come from? She rocked back on her heels and fingered a splattered stain on the cement floor. Whisky. And it was damp. Someone—Manning?—had been drinking in here. Not long ago.
Manning’s slurred speech rang in her ears, his illogical comments. Had he lied to her about going to Pennsylvania and been holed up here the whole time? Getting drunk? If so, where was he now? And where was Margaret?
She thought back on that afternoon’s phone conversation. Manning had said something about developing pictures. When she’d asked him if he’d been drinking, he’d said, “Develop your pictures.” He must have been talking about this room. But that suggested he wanted her to come here and find him. Her earlier suicide fears tumbled down on her.
“Oh, Manning,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
Duchess looked over at her and wagged her tail, then went back to nosing eagerly around a thick beam that ran from floor to ceiling. Abigale frowned. What was that? She scooted over next to the dog and picked up a tangled mess of duct tape that lay on the other side of the post. It was sticky, but not tape-sticky. Something was smeared on it. She held it closer—and snatched her hand away as if it had burned her. The tape was covered with blood.
Abigale jumped to her feet. “Come on, Duchess. Now!”
Something had happened in this room. Something bad.
Abigale punched 9-1-1 on her cell phone as she raced up the stairs to the kitchen. She stumbled over her words as she tried to explain the nature of the emergency, then finally shouted that someone had broken into the house, figuring that would bring a patrol car quicker than a missing-person call. She jabbed the key to disconnect the call, then called the hunt kennels.
Smitty answered, and she said, “It’s Abigale. Have you heard from Manning or Margaret?”
“Not a lick,” he drawled. “They still not back from Pennsylvania?”
“No, and something’s going on. I’m not sure what, but I found something in the basement. I called 9-1-1, but can you come over here?”
“Of course.” Smitty’s voice darkened with concern. “Where are you at? Margaret’s?”
“No, I’m at Dartmoor Glebe.”
“Just sit tight. Doug’s here with me. We’re on our way.”
CHAPTER
91
The remnants of the sandwich Thompson had for lunch roiled in his stomach as he maneuvered the truck and trailer around the tight turn onto Snake Hill Road. He’d encountered only a handful of vehicles since leaving Dartmoor Glebe. Too bad one of them was Doug Cummings. Not that he was all that worried about it. He’d waved casually at Doug and their vehicles had slipped past each other on the curvy two-lane road like oil through water, each disappearing into the storm. Later, after the BMW was found in Goose Creek, the memory of seeing Thompson driving down Foxcroft Road would probably be the last thing on Cummings’s mind.
Water sluiced down the pavement as the rig lumbered up the steep incline. The back entrance leading to the stables at Coach Farm was just another hundred yards or so on the left. Once he turned in there, he’d be home free. He knew the Petersons were at a carriage-driving competition in New Jersey. And if anyone did happen to be around, he’d just say he’d come to pick up the carriage Richard had loaned them. He’d say Margaret had sent him—she wouldn’t be around to contradict him—then he’d hem and haw a bit, and decide against loading the carriage on the trailer in such bad weather. He could even feign concern that Margaret would be irked with him for disobeying orders. Anyone who knew her would likely sympathize with him.
The thought of Margaret tied up in the cargo area behind the seats of the BMW pleased him. She’d been compliant, almost submissive, when she was in the basement, but when she’d seen the BMW inside the carriage trailer she had started kicking and struggling like a feral cat. It had probably hit home, the inevitability of what he was about to do.
Margaret’s outburst had caught him off guard; even with her hands bound she’d damn near slipped out of his grasp. Not that she’d have made it very far, but still, timing was everything, and if Smitty or Michael or someone else had driven up the drive just at that moment and seen them struggling in front of the house he’d have been screwed. He’d hauled her right back into the trailer and ended up knocking her out to get her in the back of the BMW.
Manning, on the other hand, hadn’t even put up a struggle once it had registered through his drunken fog that he had a gun barrel pressed against his neck. Of course, Thompson had counted on that. He knew even the most belligerent assholes could be overpowered if they were drunk enough. A lesson he’d learned from his stint as a waiter at an off-campus pub during college.
Thompson drove up the narrow gravel lane to Coach Farm and stopped the rig in front of the barn. So far, so good. No vehicles in the courtyard. Barn doors closed. No light peeked through the cracks. The place was deserted.
He snapped his waxed barn coat all the way up to his neck and patted his pocket to make sure the magnetic hunt logo he’d taken from the truck’s passenger door was still there. If anyone saw him hiking back up the road after he sent the BMW into Goose Creek, he’d say a tree branch had brushed the logo off the door when he’d made the turn onto Snake Hill Road. That he’d seen it in the side mirror, didn’t want to risk stopping the rig on the road, yada yada, had walked back to look for it. But if luck kept going his way—and no reason it shouldn’t—he wouldn’t encounter anyone. No one would be out and about in this weather if he didn’t have to be.
An excited calm slithered through Thompson. He’d make it back to the truck unobserved, wait for the 9-1-1 call, and be the first responder. Make sure he was all over the scene, the bodies, to explain away any evidence that might be found that linked him to the accident. Same reason he’d shown up at Longmeadow, gone up in the stewards’ stand when the call about Richard came in. Being an EMT had its advantages.
Thompson smirked, thinking about how Manning had accused him of being stupid for handling Richard’s wallet after the dog dug it out of the bushes. Quite the opposite, actually. Nice how that had worked out.
He’d be even more thorough this time. Scour the darkroom from floor to ceiling. Mop his shoe prints off the kitchen floor, the hallway. Wash the tire tracks out of the trailer. Not that he expected anyone to have reason to search any of those places. But he wouldn’t leave anything to chance.
Thompson jammed a baseball cap on his head and swung the driver’s door into the rain. Time to get the show on the road.
CHAPTER
92
Smitty and Doug arrived at the house in less than five minutes, dashing through the rain toward where Abigale stood waiting at the mudroom door.
“What’s going on?” Smitty asked as soon as he ducked through the door.
Abigale quickly told them how odd Manning had sounded when she’d spoken with him on the phone, that she was pretty sure he was drunk. Then she relayed what s
he’d found in the darkroom. “If Manning was hiding out down there—drinking—that’s one thing. But there’s blood.”
Doug and Smitty exchanged a glance. “Okay, show us what you found,” Doug said.
“You go on,” Smitty said. “I’ll wait up here for the deputy and bring him on down when he arrives.”
Abigale showed Doug the bloody duct tape first.
“Is this where you found it?” he asked, taking a pen from his pocket and turning the tape over to examine it.
“No, it was over there.” Abigale pointed at the floor-to-ceiling support post. “I picked it up, just thinking it was trash, then dropped it when I realized there was blood on it.”
Doug glanced at the post, then slowly eyed the rest of the room. His gaze lingered on Duchess who had followed them downstairs and was busily sniffing around the utility sink in the corner, her nose stretched out as if trying to capture a certain scent. Doug reached the sink in three strides and leaned over the basin. “There’s more duct tape in here.”
Abigale rushed to his side. Several tangled strips and one balled-up wad of tape littered the sink basin. Doug lifted one long strip gingerly with his pen.
Short strands of wispy gray hair dangled like spider legs from the tape. Abigale felt as if someone had socked her in the stomach. “That looks like Margaret’s hair.”
“Yeah.” Doug dropped the tape back in the sink and gave her a look that left little doubt what he was thinking.
She shook her head. “No. I know what you’re thinking. Manning would never harm his mother.”
“I don’t think he would either, Abigale, but we have to consider the possibility. You yourself said you could tell something wasn’t right with Manning when you talked to him. And given the blood—” he shot a look at the sink—“and Margaret’s hair…”