Suspicious Origin

by MacDonald, Patricia

  To Ann, Mike and Barbara Chomko

  In thy face I see the map of honor, truth and loyalty.

  —William Shakespeare

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For patiently answering my questions, special thanks to Jay Bethel, fire chief and bluesman, and to the winter-worldly wise Janet Miller. For their efforts on my behalf: France desRoches, Michelle LaPautre, Jane Berkey, Meg Ruley, Peggy Gurdjin, Judith Curr, and that editorial angel on my shoulder, Maggie Crawford.

  Most of all, always, to my severest, dearest critic, Art Bourgeau.

  ATRIA BOOKS

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, or dead or living, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © Patricia 2003 by Patricia Borgeau

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-2358-5

  Atria Books is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Kevin Carmichael awoke with a start in his darkened bedroom and waited for the thudding of his heartbeat to subside. He couldn’t remember the nightmare that awakened him. It vanished when he opened his eyes. But from his years of prepping psychiatrists for court testimony he knew enough to trust the lingering feeling. The affect, they called it. An anxiety dream. He’d had so many lately. Over and over he dreamed he was trapped in a maze, meeting one dead end after another, hounded by a sense of futility.

  He glanced over at Caroline. She slept peacefully on her side, her abundant, caramel-colored hair spread in a thick tangle of curls across the pillow. He propped himself up on one elbow, reached over and gently brushed a few strands away from her forehead, so that he could see her face. In the dim moonlight, the vibrant peach and honey tones of her skin were faded to gray, but the hollow in her cheek was more pronounced than ever. With one finger he traced the taut, sinuous line of her back. She was an athlete, a lightning bolt on skis, religious with her workouts so that her body had the ideal proportion of muscle to curves. Gazing at the arch of her dark eyebrow, the sculpted curve of her lips, he was suffused with a familiar combination of tenderness and desire. She looked so serene, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She never looked that way when she was awake anymore.

  Kevin sighed and glanced at the clock. Twelve-fifteen. There was no way he was going to turn over and go back to sleep. He was as alert as if someone had thrown a bucket of water on his head. He could lie there, shifting positions until he either fell back to sleep, or he awoke his wife with his rustlings. Perhaps she would make a sleepy offer of a massage to help him get back to sleep. Perhaps the massage might lead to caresses and more. He’d never known a woman who stirred him the way Caroline did. Nor had he ever met a woman who could match him, need for need. From the moment they’d set eyes on one another, it had been chemistry, combustion. It was ironic, he thought, and maddening, that all their great sex was unable to satisfy her heart’s greatest desire. Specialist after specialist had confirmed that she could never bear a child.

  He sighed, and let her sleep. It would be selfish to disturb her.

  Carefully, Kevin swung his legs out from under the duvet, stuffed his feet into slippers and reached for his robe which hung over the end of their brass bed frame. He shivered as he pulled it on, and tied the belt. It was only early December, but the Vermont winter had definitely arrived, he thought.

  He tiptoed out of the room, and pulled the door closed behind him. He walked down the hall, passing Vicki’s room. There was a bar of light under her door. Someone else who was not sleeping. Serves her right, he thought. She was the one who had stolen their peace of mind.

  He went downstairs in the darkness and opened the kitchen door. Something dark and low to the ground rushed by him. “Good God,” he exclaimed and then, immediately, he remembered. Of course. Vicki’s cat, Kirby. Nothing would do but that she bring that flea-bitten furball with her when she moved in. And they had readily agreed to it. So far, they had agreed to quite a few things they would otherwise never have tolerated. Anything to keep her happy with them until she had the baby. Their baby. The baby she was going to let them adopt.

  Kevin flipped on the kitchen light and looked around for the plate of brownies Caroline had made this morning. She didn’t usually make sweets, because she was careful about their diet. But she’d wanted to make something she could give to their neighbors, the Lynches, to thank them for watching the house and the cat last week, and she’d baked an extra batch for home. Kevin began to rummage in the cupboards, wondering where she might have put the brownies after dinner. He walked over and opened the refrigerator door. There was the brownie plate all right, the plastic wrap crumpled up at the halfway point across the plate. And nothing left but crumbs. Vicki, he thought furiously. That was typical. She’d polished off the food and left the empty plate right there in the refrigerator. Sometimes, he wished he could just throw her out, bag and baggage.

  Only a week ago, they’d returned from a wearying trip to Disney World. It had been no vacation for him and Caroline. Their idea of paradise was a hot tub after a day on the slopes. Not traipsing around in the heat from one silly ride to another with a pregnant teenager. But Vicki had never been to Disney World, and she wanted to go. That’s ridiculous, Kevin had protested when Caroline had told him what Vicki wanted. But Caroline had pleaded with him, that stricken, anxious look in her huge brown eyes which Kevin had seen so often since Vicki had answered their personals ad. “Loving couple can offer your baby a good home, and a comfortable, happy life.”

  He slammed the refrigerator door, and put the kettle on for a cup of tea. It would be better for him than brownies anyway. It would all be worth it when they got the baby, he thought, as he waited for the kettle to boil. And it wouldn’t be much longer until he’d be filing those adoption papers. Vicki was close to term. She’d moved in with them two months ago. Seems like a lifetime, he thought with a sigh.

  Kevin carried his steaming cup into his study down the hall and put his feet up on the desk, tilting back in his chair. He flipped his desk lamp on, but the first place his gaze rested was on the pattern of water stains on the walls, behind his framed university and law school degrees. His curmudgeonly mood returned. The Vicki effect, he thought ruefully. She had left the water running in her private bathroom when they departed for Florida. Zoe Lynch, the eleven-year-old girl who lived in the next house down the road, had been coming in to feed Kirby, and noticed the flood that had already seeped through the ceiling, down the walls and all through his books and papers. Luckily, she’d called her mother, and Greta Lynch had come over, turned off the faucet, and spent an entire day cleaning up the mess as best she could. If not for Greta, they might have returned to a house ankle-deep in water.

  Kevin caught a movement behind him out of the corner of his eye.

  He turned his head to see Kirby poised in the doorway, his yellow eyes glittering. I suppose I ought to be glad you’re here, Kevin thought. If it weren’t for Zoe feeding you, the whole house would have floated away. Kevin shook his head, and sipped his tea. Relax, he told himself. Try to relax. It won’t last forever. Once the baby comes, you and Caroline will have your life back. And your child. Vicki will have the money she wants, and she’ll be gone from here. You only have to be patient a little bit longer.

  But it was hard. Caroline had quit her job as a physical therapist so that she could ferry Vicki to and from
the doctors, and the childbirth classes, and wait on her hand and foot. Kevin’s income had diminished since they moved up here to Vermont, even though they had both agreed on the move. They had wanted to get away from his high-profile law practice in the city, with its attendant press coverage. Here they were anonymous. They could ski all they liked, and raise a baby in a healthier atmosphere. The practice would grow in time, but money was more of an issue than it used to be. Keep your eyes on the prize, he scolded himself. For Caroline’s sake. It would all be worth it when he saw her holding that infant in her arms.

  Kevin snapped off the desk lamp and returned to the kitchen, where he emptied his teacup and put it into the dishwasher. As he was about to turn and go back upstairs, he heard Kirby, mewing plaintively at the door off the enclosed back porch to be let out.

  “Oh, all right,” he said irritably. “But it’s cold out there.” Yawning, he stepped down and went to the door. The moment he pushed the door open, an acrid smell assailed him. Smoke, he thought. His next thought was of his own fireplace. They’d had a fire tonight. He had banked it before they went to bed. Could it have flamed up again? He closed the door and walked back through the house into the living room. A few embers sputtered in the hearth but that was all. Uh-oh, he thought. He opened the front door and stepped outside, shivering, to check around his house. The smell was stronger now, more pronounced, and as he looked out across the snow-coated field beside his house, through the border of bare trees he saw a brilliant red-and-orange glow in the spot where he normally could see the Lynches’

  farmhouse. “Oh my God,” he said aloud. He leaned across his porch rail, trying to get a better look. All he knew for sure was that something that appeared to be a fiery ball was blazing, visible between the bare branches of the trees that separated their properties.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. He rushed back into the house, dialed 911 and blurted out “fire” when the operator answered. He gave the address, and slammed down the phone.

  Then he ran to the foot of the stairs. “Caroline,” he screamed. “Wake up. There’s a fire.”

  “What’s…whatsit… Kevin,” she mumbled, calling back to him.

  “It’s a fire,” he cried. “It looks like the Lynches’ house is on fire. I’m going over there.” Not waiting for a reply, he doffed his slippers and robe and jammed his feet into some boots by the door. Then, grabbing his parka off the coatrack in the foyer, he burst out the door and began to run across the field, stumbling on the patches of icy grass in the dark, pulling on his coat as he went.

  Chapter Two

  Ray Stern and his wife, Annabel, walked out of the Coleville Public Library, stretching and rubbing their backs. “They ought to replace those folding chairs if they’re going to show double features,” Ray grumbled. They were part of a very small audience that had come to watch a double feature of Eric Rohmer movies, Pauline at the Beach and The Green Ray.

  “But it was wonderful,” said Annabel, her eyes shining. “I haven’t seen those films since I was a student. Rohmer is just brilliant. A man who truly understands women.”

  “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it,” said Ray, even though his eyes were weary from reading the subtitles and the films of the venerable French director were altogether too talky and slow moving for his taste. It was their twenty-third wedding anniversary, and Annabel had chosen a hamburger and foreign films at the local library over an expensive dinner at some fancy inn. Ray always liked to oblige her wishes for celebrations.

  “It wasn’t too much Eric Rohmer for you was it?” Annabel asked.

  “No, no, not at all,” said Ray. After a long marriage, Ray understood enough about women to know when to keep his opinion to himself. Years ago, when Ray had met Annabel, she was an art student at NYU, here in Coleville on a ski vacation. She’d fallen in love with Ray, and the Vermont landscape. After twenty-three years here, Annabel did fairly well selling her landscape paintings, while Ray was the local chief of police. Meanwhile, their only child, Natalie, was back in New York City, studying in a premed program at Columbia.

  Annabel tied a scarf over her copper-rinsed curls. “Brrr… It feels like snow. Did you hear the weather report?”

  Ray gazed ruefully at the ring around the moon. He’d grown up here and he loved the sight of Mt. Glace and its neighboring range towering over the main street of their tourist town. He loved all the little shops and cafes on Main Street that catered to the skiers through the long winter season. It was great to live in such a scenic place, with its brief but gloriously green summer, and its breathtaking fall foliage. But sometimes, he had to admit, he got weary of the constant snow. Here it was, not yet Christmas, and they’d already had several snowfalls. Business depended on it. The season required it. But for his part, Ray always found he’d had enough of the white stuff by January. He secretly dreamed of retiring to Florida, at least for part of the winter. “Who needs a weather report?” he said. “It’s always predicted.”

  “Come on now, Ray, don’t be like that,” Annabel chided him. “Everything looks so beautiful in the snow.” Annabel, a city girl, never tired of the harsh Vermont winter. She scoffed at the “snowbirds” who fled to Florida at the first sign of snow, which was why Ray kept his “warmer climate” yearning a secret.

  They arrived at their car and Ray opened the door for his wife. Annabel slid into the front seat and looked at the dashboard clock. “It’s after midnight,” she exclaimed. “I had no idea it was so late.”

  “You and I are getting wild in our old age,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat and turning on the ignition. He winked at his wife. “Maybe we ought to go home and get even wilder.” Almost the moment the words were out of his mouth, there was a squawk from the police scanner on top of the dash.

  Annabel shook her head and sighed. “I don’t think so…”

  Ray listened to the scanner with a frown. “Fire,” he said to Annabel, who was looking at him inquiringly. “Brightwater Road,” Ray said. “There’s some mighty expensive property out there. I’d better go.” After all these years, they took such spontaneous changes in plan in stride. While Coleville was peaceful, and relatively free of serious crime, there was always some emergency for the police chief to attend to. “Shall I drop you at home?” he asked.

  “That’s the other direction. I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Ray, backing out of his parking space and turning the car in the direction of Brightwater Road.

  “You know, I think the Lynches live on Brightwater,” said Annabel thoughtfully.

  Ray frowned. “Alec Lynch? The snowmobile dealer?” he asked. “I guess he could afford it.”

  Annabel rolled her eyes. “That’s for sure. Why is it that everything that ruins the countryside is so profitable?”

  Ray shrugged. Annabel was more passionate about ecology and her adopted state than Ray, a native, was. “He’s a good businessman.”

  “I don’t know him. I do know his wife,” said Annabel.

  “Who’s his wife?” Ray asked. “I don’t think I know her.”

  “Yes you do. Greta. She works in Dr. Farrar’s office.”

  “Ah,” said Ray. Dr. Farrar had been their daughter’s pediatrician and her role model. Now in her fifties, Dr. Farrar was a married woman who managed to raise two children, while keeping a thriving medical practice. She’d even been kind enough to write Natalie a recommendation for Columbia. Of course it had been the rare occasion when he’d been the one to take Natalie to the doctor. That had always been Annabel’s department. “I’d probably know her if I saw her,” Ray said.

  “Greta’s a blond. A real beauty. One of those women who always looks great, even without makeup.”

  “You know I never look at other women,” Ray said solemnly.

  “Right,” Annabel said, and then a worried frown replaced her smile. “She’s a lovely person. They’ve got a little girl, too. I hope it’s not their house.”

  As Ray pulled up to the address, A
nnabel looked up and let out a cry of horror. This was no small kitchen fire. The rambling, wood-frame farmhouse was being consumed on one side by the raging blaze. Sirens were wailing as ambulances and fire companies from neighboring towns arrived on the scene. Two of Ray’s patrolmen were already there. The Coleville Fire Department’s two pumpers were rigged up and pouring water onto the flames as trucks from other towns pulled up and dumped their loads of water into a drafting tank. The WGLC newsvan was already parked there and Dean Webster, the station’s irritatingly eager young reporter was in the midst of the emergency personnel, while Jeff Herrick, his seasoned cameraman, dutifully shot video.

  “Stay here,” Ray ordered his wife as he jumped from his car and ran closer. He looked around for Jim Shepard, the fire chief. Like all the other firefighters in Coleville, Jim was a volunteer. In his everyday life he was a pharmacist, who worked at the local Thrift Drug. Ray hoped he wasn’t inside that blazing house.

  “Chief,” called out Sam Boudreau, one of his rookie officers.

  Ray approached the uniformed man, gesturing toward the fire. “Make sure you and Porter keep all these people out of the firemen’s way. And don’t let anybody near that house.”

  “We’re doing it,” said Sam. “We’re telling everybody to back up.”

  “Good. I hope there’s nobody inside,” said Ray.

  “They went in to search,” said Sam.

  “Do we know who lives here?”

  “The snowmobile guy. Alec Lynch. And his wife and kid.”

  “Jesus,” said Ray, “is that somebody screaming?”

  “Look,” Sam cried.

  The windows were ablaze and black smoke poured out the front door of the house. The intensity of the blaze seemed to be much greater on one side. A fireman, wearing a yellow helmet and a gas mask that made him look as if he had an insect’s eyes, materialized in the doorway, backlit by flames, holding the limp, pajama-clad body of a young girl in his arms. EMTs rushed forward and lifted the girl out of the firefighter’s arms, wrapped her in a blanket, and started to run with her toward the open doors of a nearby ambulance.