“Okay. I assume you’re headed to Connecticut next.”
“First thing in the morning. I’ve already got a flight out of Newark.”
“Good work,” Blacker said, even though he wasn’t the sort of supervisor ever to pay a compliment to a field agent for just doing what amounted to his or her job.
After she hung up the phone, Weaver spent several more hours studying the face in the copy of the picture she’d made before sending it to Washington. She made a mental note of his features, committing everything to memory, including the fact that his left arm was around his sister’s shoulder, suggesting that he might be left-handed. She studied every detail, right down to the way he parted his hair, even though the likelihood of such details being relevant after thirty years was low.
Then she fell asleep. But she dreamt of buildings on fire, a man in flight, and the Granger going down in the icy waters of the Arctic.
Weaver awoke the next morning in a cold sweat, wondering just how this case was going to turn out. . . .
TWO
Susan Weaver had been to New England many times in the past, but always during the lush summer season—a time of growth and self-surrender. Summer and winter are two separate worlds in New England, the one as bleak as the other is indulgent. But she hadn’t come to Waterford for the beauty, or the snow, or for the quaint antiquities of a small colonial New England town. Initially her main interest was the police station, but that was when she thought she was getting an early-morning flight. Delays at Newark, thanks to the weather, meant that she didn’t drive into Waterford until after dark. In retrospect, it might have been faster to drive all the way. Then again, the same weather that slowed air traffic probably would have made for a difficult drive as well.
After checking into a motel and getting a good night’s sleep, Weaver headed over to the police department, a building set directly across from a small patch of acreage commonly known as Jordan Village.
Weaver approached the desk officer in the lobby of the station house using the same story. She was an insurance investigator named Herbert, working on a claim involving a Daniel Levy.
But the chief of police only chuckled when he looked at her business card. After a few minutes he glanced over his desk at her and said, “So Blacky’s still using the Global Insurance Company routine?”
“I’m sorry?” she asked him cautiously.
Chief Wright stretched back in his chair, his elbow propped against the leather armrest, a fist pressed against the side of his cheek. He smiled. “Do you know how long I’ve known Simon Blacker? He used to work out of the Hartford office, you know. Heck, I’ve even worked for the Global Insurance Company myself, about nine years ago.”
Susan Weaver was speechless. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more, that her cover had been blown, or that Blacker didn’t warn her ahead of time that he knew the local chief of police.
“I have something for you,” the chief said, reaching down for the bottom drawer to his desk. “It’s the result of the fingerprint check on Levy,” he added, flopping a Federal Express envelope down in front of her. “Blacky called and asked me to give this to you, but I’ll save you some time. I knew Daniel Levy.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” He nodded. “Waterford is a small town, and the Levys date back about four generations here. Come on.” The chief rose to his feet. “Let’s you and I take a quick drive.”
“Where?”
“To the place where it all started,” he replied, reaching for his blue uniform winter jacket from the coatrack behind his desk. “It’s not that far.”
The chief’s white patrol car came to a halt next to a wooden bridge that led to Jordan’s Pond. As he stepped outside, reaching up to set his Smokey the Bear–like hat over his head, he surveyed the scene. Weaver followed his gaze and found herself looking, not with the eyes of a highly trained law enforcement officer, but those of a person simply appreciating the beautiful scenery: the distant snow-covered woods, the crystal reflection of the frozen waters from the sun.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Wright said, startling her.
“It certainly is,” Weaver said, regaining her composure. She needed to focus.
“Yep, hard to believe that some of the strangest problems this town has ever known could have started at a place like this.” Chief Wright tucked his left hand into the pocket of his striped uniform trousers and with the right arm pointed toward the center of the pond. “Right over there is where Dan’s sister, Nicole, nearly drowned. And after that, it was one thing after another. I was a rookie patrolman back then.” But then he finished his sentence by releasing a quick huff and a slow nod of the head, with the expression of a man whose thoughts were lost somewhere back in time.
“What sort of problems, Chief?” Weaver prompted.
“Well, for one thing,” he began, “there was the livestock found dead. Christ, torn to bits and half eaten. Then there was a murder.”
“Dr. Levy’s sister, Nicole?”
“No,” he quickly answered, and he appeared surprised. “A woman by the name of Margaret O’Brien. Happened just down the road at one of our local firehouses. Then there was a fire, and—waitasec, why would you think it was Nicole Levy?”
“Wasn’t she found murdered?”
The chief answered her at first by laughing, then said, “Well, then she’s one of the prettiest ghosts I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve ever actually seen a ghost, mind you.” He paused to study her reaction. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you’re disappointed to hear she’s alive.”
Weaver smiled. “On the contrary, Chief. It’s the first thing our source has been wrong about so far. In a weird sort of way, it’s good news.”
“’Specially for Nicole.” He eyed her suspiciously. “You know, Blacky never told me what all of this was about. He said I wouldn’t believe it.”
“He’s right, you wouldn’t,” she answered, raising an eyebrow. “But I can tell you this much: he put himself out on a limb by even telling you that I’d be coming here.” And, she thought, it would’ve been nice if he’d mentioned to me that he mentioned it to you.
The chief laughed, “That’s just like Blacky. Always living with his head in the lion’s mouth.”
Weaver turned to look at him, “Tell me, Chief, did you ever make an arrest of anyone for the incidents you mentioned?”
“Nope,” he replied, shaking his head. “But damn strange. Everything started shortly after Dan came home, and everything came to a screeching halt as soon as he left town.”
“Then he was a suspect?”
“Put it this way: We would’ve loved to have had a chance to question him. But he just vanished in January of seventy-one. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.” Then he paused for a second time to stare at her, eventually adding, “If you want my opinion, I think he flipped out down at that college he worked for. I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that he burned the place down, then came back home and freaked out again. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened to a guy in his position.”
At first Weaver only nodded her head, as if to agree with him, glancing out to the pond and surrounding woods. Then she asked, “Do you know where Nicole might be living now?”
“Sure do,” he said, then pointed a finger toward a row of buildings, about two miles away. “After her father died, she went to live with an uncle and aunt. Nicole runs a bakery and coffee shop in the village now. I’ll take you over to meet her, if you’d like.”
“Please.”
After a short drive the patrol car pulled in front of a place called Nicky’s Bake Shop. It had been converted from an old, late-nineteenth-century house—complete with white clapboard siding, black shutters, and powder-blue checkerboard curtains in the windows. If not for the sign, you’d think it was someone’s home. When the chief stepped through the door, he yelled over to a woman in a low, comical voice, “Hey, Nic, how about one of them cinnamon Danishes and a large hazelnut wi
th cream?”
A very attractive lady in her early forties turned to smile at him. “You want to live to retire?” She smiled. “A medium decaf with skim milk is all you’re getting. If you’re set on killing yourself, go do it somewhere else.”
The chief pulled off his hat and leaned over the glass display counter. “Nic, I’ve got a lady here who wants to talk to you. Maybe we could go back in your office.”
“Sounds serious,” Nicole replied, raising her graying eyebrows. “Am I in some sort of trouble?”
“A gorgeous woman like you? Never.” He smiled, then quickly turned more serious. He leaned over the counter even farther to whisper in her ear. “It’s about your brother.”
“Danny?” The expression on her face appeared shocked by the mention of his name. “What about him?”
Weaver finally spoke up. “Please, could we talk to you in private? It’s very important.”
Nicole’s voice grew subdued while she untied her apron. “Of course . . .” Then she motioned for them to step around the counter and back into the stockroom. The three took a seat around an old wooden desk, surrounded by the various smells of cooking supplies. After a few minutes of silence Nicole’s tearing eyes turned to stare at Agent Weaver. “What’s happened? Have you found him?”
Weaver reached down into her pocketbook for a black leather folder. “Nicole, I’m Special Agent Susan Weaver. I’m investigating the disappearance of your brother.”
“Really?” Nicole sniffed and wiped the tears away on her arm. “Why? I mean, why now after thirty years? Why has it taken you people so long to finally look for him?”
“It’s complicated,” Weaver said slowly. “So you haven’t heard from him?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s been thirty years since I heard anything.”
“When was the last time you heard from your brother?”
“He went to England shortly after Daddy died—I got a few postcards, but then nothing. Not a word.”
Weaver slowly turned to look at the chief, then back over to Nicole. “Would you happen to still have the postcards?”
Again, she shook her head. “Someone took them.”
“Took them?” Weaver remembered that Levy’s creation had supposedly tracked him to England via the postcards Levy had sent home. “Are you sure?”
“They were pinned to a wall in my old bedroom. Someone stole them—but the funny thing is, they left the pins behind. I always thought that was strange.”
“Was anything else missing?”
“Yes, my high-school ring. I reported them all stolen, though honestly I was more concerned about the ring. But they were never found.”
“Where were the cards from?”
Nicole squinted, as if trying to remember. “One of the pictures had a big stone building—I remember thinking it sounded like a Beatles record.”
“Westminster Abbey?” Weaver guessed, since Abbey Road was a comparatively new album in 1971.
“Yes!” Nicole’s face brightened slightly. “The other one was of Stonehenge.”
“That’s great, Nicole,” Weaver said with her best reassuring smile. “Just one last question. When you fell through the ice in the skating accident, who was it who rescued you? Did you know him?”
“No,” she answered, staring down at the floor, shaking her head. “But he definitely knew me.”
This seemed to take the chief aback. “What? Waitasec, Nicky, I was working that night. I was at the hospital when you were questioned. You never said that the guy knew you.”
“I’m sorry, Chief. It didn’t come to me till later. And then I didn’t think it mattered anymore. But he definitely knew my name. And there was one other thing . . . he knew Danny. I remember him mentioning the name Daniel—that’s what everyone called him who wasn’t family.”
Weaver thanked Nicole for her time, and the chief also made a few friendly remarks, which helped put her more at ease than Weaver’s questions had. Once they reached the patrol car outside, the chief turned to Weaver.
“What do you think, Agent Weaver?”
“Right now, Chief, I’m not at liberty to say.” She left it at that, even though, in truth, she had no idea what to make of what she’d learned—yet. Part of it was because of information she couldn’t share with the chief, and part of it was because she still had at least one more trip to take.
Finding St. Michael’s Church proved both easier and harder than Weaver had anticipated. Salem, Massachusetts, is a city well-stocked in churches, and she thought she’d have an endless search. However, it proved easy enough to locate. Getting there, however, which seemed easy on the map she’d purchased, took longer than anticipated due to the number of streets that turned out to be one-way or did not quite connect with cross streets the way the map indicated. When she finally pulled up alongside the church, she was disheartened to see that the place was all but a bombed-out shell. The cemetery had been maintained over the years—some of the graves looked fresh—but the church itself had, from the looks of it, been done in by a fire some time ago.
Sighing, she got out of her rented car and removed the camera from her purse. At the very least she’d get some pictures. And maybe I can track down whoever’s maintaining the cemetery.
Once she took a few shots of the façade, she moved to the remains of the church’s interior. She forced her way through the scorched oak doors and found herself in a grim, dark, forbidding place that had become the domain of rats and insects.
An aura of dread surrounded the place, and the light that streamed down from what was left of the roof gave her no comfort whatsoever. What had been a gentle New England breeze outside was amplified by the holes in the walls and ceiling into whistling winds that seemed to whisper a dire warning.
Susan Weaver felt very cold—and very alone. She lifted her camera to her face, wanting to take the pictures and get the hell out of here.
Moving around the church’s interior proved to be much easier said than done. It was virtually impossible to navigate what was left of the fieldstone church. There were piles of rubble everywhere, and Weaver tripped and fell twice. But when she fell for the second time, she happened to glance over to her right, finding what she suspected to be the burnt remains of the altar, the phrase Burn in Hell spray-painted in red over the stone wall. Just below the graffiti she saw two pieces of wood tied together, forming a cross, intentionally hung upside-down. As she clambered to her feet and took a picture of the cross, she wondered if it had truly been Satan worshipers who placed that symbol there or, more likely, some pranksters had put it up as a goof. That sort of vandalism was common, particularly in a place that was as much a religious hotbed as Salem, which had at least as many pagans and Wiccans as members of more “traditional” Judeo-Christian faiths.
Satisfying herself that she had recorded enough of this horrid place, she went back to the doors, intending to check the cemetery.
As she walked out the door, a voice from the street said, “It’s not for sale, you know.”
She glanced over to see a very old man staring back at her. The face was cracked and weathered, and his back was hunched, the weight of his upper body supported by a walking cane.
“I’m sorry?”
“The property,” he replied, his old lips trembling. “I can tell you right now, it ain’t for sale. You’re wastin’ your time.”
“Do you own the place?”
“No, but I maintain the graveyard,” he said, and Weaver had to contain a smile. Guess I won’t have to work too hard to track him down, then.
The old man went on. “You know how many people come by here all the time asking after it? Well, it isn’t available. So you may’s well just leave now.” He punctuated his words with a wave of his walking stick toward Weaver’s car.
She reached into her pocketbook and took out one of the phony business cards. “I’m not interested in buying the property, sir. My name is Nancy Herbert, and I work for Global Investigations.”
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br /> The old man took the card she proferred. Scowling, he said, “Insurance, huh?”
“Yes, we’re investigating a very old claim about which some new information has come to light. If you maintain the cemetery, you might be able to answer my questions.”
“S’pose I might. Tell you what, I was just about to get myself a cup of tea. Why don’t you join me?”
“I’d appreciate that very much, Mr.—?”
“Name’s Heiman, Frank Heiman. Come on, I just live across the street. Best commute you can ask for,” he added with a smile that made his face look only a little less sour. “Besides, I don’t get that many visitors. Only the mailman and the guy who reads the meter come around anymore.”
“What about visitors to the cemetery?”
“I only deal with the graveyard when it’s closed. Some funeral home deals with all the burials and the like. I just make sure that the grass stays mowed, the hedges stay clipped, and nobody makes off with the crosses and statues and such.”
“Does that sort of thing happen often?”
“Not really.” As they crossed the street to the small town house where he kept his apartment, Heiman proceeded to tell her some of the neighborhood’s history, about the people who once lived in each of the houses nearby. “I don’t know most of the new people,” he finished as they settled in the modest one-bedroom space on the town house’s first floor. Weaver sat on the black-and-white couch while Heiman went to the kitchen. “Seems like folks just don’t want to get to know their neighbors anymore,” he said as he prepared the tea. “They just go on about their business and don’t care about anyone, except themselves. But there was a time when everybody knew the people next door—not anymore.” He shook his head sadly. “You ever noticed that about people nowadays?”
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