Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Box Set

by S. W. Hubbard

  Dawn studied Frank's face intently for a moment, then abruptly turned her attentions to Reid. “If this tragedy forces the North Country Academy to close, what will that mean to the town of Trout Run, Mr. Burlingame?”

  “It’s quite premature to be predicting tragedy, Ms. Klotz. I’m confident that Heather and Lorrie will turn up unharmed.”

  “Really? Considering that the person responsible for Jake Reiger’s death still hasn't been apprehended, I find your optimism rather surprising.”

  “An animal was responsible for Jake's death. And who says there’s any connection between the two events?” Reid demanded.

  Dawn merely raised her eyebrows.

  Reid rose from the booth and stood glaring down at the reporter. “No wonder the Beat has been involved in so many lawsuits—the paper clearly sanctions the reporting of unsubstantiated gossip. I’d verify my sources very carefully if I were you, Ms. Klotz.”

  “Will do.” She flipped her blond hair away from her face and went back to typing.

  “That woman is maddening!” Reid said as they walked down the steps of the diner.

  The "told you so” didn't need to be spoken.

  Frank focused on the state police cars parked in front of his office. It was time to review all they had and plan the next move.

  Chapter 19

  “Did you know that Heather LeBron had suicidal tendencies?”

  After brainstorming with the state police the evening before, Frank had decided his approach should be to come down hard on MacArthur Payne and try to scare him into being more forthcoming. Consequently, he had gone on the offensive the moment he walked into Payne’s office this morning.

  “Suicidal tendencies? Where did you hear that?"

  “I understand that she tried to take her own life twice at her last boarding school. Were you doing anything to safeguard her?”

  “At St. Bridget’s, she swallowed five over-the-counter sleeping pills. I don’t call that suicide, I call it a very long nap. Heather was constantly looking for ways to draw attention to herself. I suspect this is just another one of her stunts.” The bright morning sunshine seemed to have restored Payne’s confidence. Instead of the jittery and panicked man of yesterday, Payne now strode around the office with his customary arrogance.

  “Shedding your own blood hardly seems like a stunt, Dr. Payne.”

  “What if she didn’t actually shed it, Chief Bennett? What if the blood in that room was menstrual blood—have you considered that?”

  Frank recoiled in his chair. Menstrual blood? How had Payne come up with that? And yet, he might actually be right. It would explain the fact that the blood in the room was smeared, not spattered, and that there was no trail of blood down the hall. But if the forensics team hadn’t come up with that theory, how the hell had Payne?

  “Forgive me, Bennett; I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, I’ve been up half the night thinking about this and I finally had an epiphany. I’m quite sure I know what happened here on Thursday night.”

  “Well, I’m glad someone knows.” Frank stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. “Don’t keep me in the dark.”

  Payne perched on the edge of his desk, swinging his foot so that the tassel on his highly polished loafer danced. He leaned toward Frank. “The first thing you have to understand, Bennett: I have enemies.”

  “Oh?”

  “I used to own a school in Utah called the Langley Wilderness School.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “So then you know it closed amidst a scandal.”

  Payne had these moments of disarming honesty that threw Frank. Maybe that’s why he had accepted Payne’s explanations for what went on at the school—because when you most anticipated a lie from the man, he blurted out the truth.

  “I had a partner in that school. His name is Glen Costello. We parted on bad terms. I blamed him for the catastrophe of that boy’s death. Now he’s started a new school in Mexico, where he can get away with substandard conditions. He’s trying to compete with me; he can afford to charge less because his overhead is lower. But the one thing he can’t deliver is results. His students aren’t transformed; he doesn’t save lives. So he’s trying to drive me out of business the only way he knows how: by creating another scandal that will shut me down.”

  “Very interesting, Mr. Payne. Has your former partner been seen around Trout Run?”

  Payne held up a long finger demanding silence. "I believe he has planted a spy—an operative—inside the academy.” He said this with all the drama of James Bond revealing some diabolical plot, and Frank took it about that seriously.

  “And that spy is Heather LeBron?”

  “Of course not. Heather is just a tool. What does that girl want more than anything else in the world?

  “To get out of here?”

  “Exactly. So she is persuaded to stage this stunt in return for her freedom. She waits until she has her period, she dumps her milk on another student’s dinner, knowing she’ll be put in isolation, she defiles the room with her menstrual blood, and she is liberated.”

  “Wait a minute,” Frank said. “How did you come up with this? Why would Costello ask a young woman to smear her menstrual blood around a room? I mean, that’s ... gross.”

  Payne smiled slightly. “I suppose it does seem like a bizarre concept to you, but Glen and I think alike from spending so many years working with troubled teens. Using body, er, excretions is a very common way for these kids to act out. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve found written in feces. Believe me, the menstrual blood wouldn’t be a stretch for him.”

  Payne paced in front of Frank, elaborating on his theory.

  “Costello has probably given her enough money that she can hang out with drug addicts in some big city until she poisons herself with the stuff. And it looks like something terrible has happened to an academy student and I’m trying to cover it up. I can only imagine what filth he’s feeding to that Beat reporter—today's paper will be full of it.”

  Frank was never one to subscribe to elaborate conspiracy theories, but if ever there was a time that he wanted to believe Payne, it was now. If the headmaster was right, Heather LeBron was unharmed and would stay that way as long as they tracked her down before she ingested too many drugs.

  “What about the attack on Jake Reiger? Is that part of this plot, too?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, Bennett.” Payne tilted his head and pursed his lips. “I’m not sure, but it’s possible, isn’t it? You see, when the boy in Utah died on the backpacking trip that Costello was supervising, I blamed him for not making sure everyone had enough water, and for not having first aid equipment to treat heatstroke. His defense was that nature is unpredictable—he couldn’t have known that the temperature would shoot up to ninety degrees in April. Staging this bear attack might have been his way of proving to me the unpredictability of nature.”

  “Killing Jake Reiger is a pretty harsh way to prove that lesson.”

  “Costello couldn’t have meant to kill him. Jake worked for us in Utah and got along with us both. No, it must be that Costello thought up the plan, but it was carried out wrong.”

  “By Heather, since she was on the camping trip, too?”

  “Exactly.”

  "And you think Lorrie is Costello’s spy, the one who put Heather up to this? She certainly needs money.”

  “Lorrie? No, she’s not smart enough. The spy is Paul Petrucci.”

  “So, what do you make of that theory?” Frank asked Meyerson.

  “It does explain a few things, but not everything. It’s worth running a test on that blood—I’ll get the lab right on it. How does Payne account for Lorrie’s disappearance?”

  “Says she freaked when she saw the room bloody and empty, and ran so she wouldn’t be blamed.”

  “You want to talk to Petrucci now?”

  Frank shook his head. “We have nothing on him—he wasn’t even on duty the night Heather disappear
ed. Might as well wait for the blood test results to come back. In the meantime, let’s do a little background check on Costello. And I want to talk to everyone who was on that camping trip with Jake Reiger.”

  IN ADDITION TO HEATHER, there had been five other students on the camping trip, as well as the Pathfinder, Steve Vreeland. Frank called them into the interview room one by one. The answers given by the first three were all the same: they had no access to the kitchen or the camping equipment; aside from their toothbrushes, journals, and clothes, Mr. Reiger and Pathfinder Steve had packed everything and distributed items for each of them to carry. Mr. Reiger had chosen the spot where they would pitch their tents, but the kids had set them up. No one could remember who had pitched Reiger’s tent; some said Steve, another speculated it might have been Justin. Everyone agreed Heather had been hopelessly inept with tent poles. They had gone to sleep after dinner and heard nothing until they were awakened by the sound of the bear attacking. They hadn’t noticed anything unusual about Heather’s behavior. She had complained the entire time, but that was par for the course for Heather. All of them had been forthcoming but ultimately unhelpful.

  Melissa Trenk, Heather’s roommate, was the fourth student to be interviewed.

  "Melissa, are you happy here?” Frank led off.

  The girl pulled back in her chair, as if the question were a large, ugly insect that had flown into her face. “I wasn’t sent here to have fun. I came to confront all the bad things I’ve done in my life and learn to accept accountability for the pain I’ve caused others.” Her eyes didn’t meet Frank’s as she spoke; she seemed to be looking right through him.

  What bad things had she done, what pain had she caused, Frank wondered? “How old are you, honey?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Why did your folks send you here?”

  “I was drinking, spending time with older kids who were a bad influence, not paying attention in school,” Melissa recited.

  “Some of the same reasons Heather was here, right? But you didn’t seem to get along.”

  “Heather didn’t embrace the program. She was resistant to change. Worst of all, she tried to ruin it for the rest of us. I’m trying to attain a Level Three, and Heather didn’t respect that.”

  “Heather was very troubled, Melissa. Did you ever try to reach out to her, help her?”

  "We all tried to help Heather in Group Encounter, by pointing out all the issues she needed to confront. But she refused to participate in a constructive way.”

  “Tell me more about Group Encounter. How does it work?”

  “I’m not in a position to explain the program. I haven’t completed it yet, so I don’t fully understand it.”

  “So, describe a group encounter session. What happens?”

  Steadfastly, Melissa shook her head. “That would be taking one element of the program out of context. You should ask Dr. Payne these questions.”

  “All right, I will. Thank you, Melissa, you may go.” Frank waited until she got to the door. “One more thing, did anyone here like Heather?”

  Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “I hated her. She wanted to keep me from attaining my goals. Most of the others felt that way, too. Except maybe ...”

  “Who?”

  “Justin.”

  JUSTIN LEVINE WAS THE fifth student to be interviewed. He slouched into the room and splayed himself across a chair, looking up at Frank with an expression finely crafted to conceal any glimmer of interest.

  “So, Justin, let’s talk about the night Jake Reiger was attacked by the bear.”

  For a split second the boy seemed curious, then he pulled his ennui back into place and drawled, “Talk away.” Frank led him through the same questions he’d asked the other students and got the same answers.

  “Did you set up Jake Reiger’s tent?”

  Justin shrugged. “I might have helped. I got mine up right away, then I helped the others. I like setting up the tents—reminds me of building with Legos when I was a kid.”

  Frank observed Justin closely. His helpfulness provided a great opportunity to spread the bacon grease, but he didn’t seem the least bit nervous about admitting he might have handled Reiger’s tent.

  “Did you notice anything unusual about Reiger’s tent?” Frank asked. “Was it stained in any way?”

  Now Justin seemed more alert, although his nonchalant pose hadn’t changed. “I said I wasn’t sure if I put up Reiger’s tent. I know I put up one yellow one, and his was yellow, but so were two others.”

  Frank nodded and moved on. “And how did Heather behave on the trip?”

  “God, she never stopped bitching and moaning. It was so irritating, especially since she wasn’t even supposed to be on that trip.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  “She wasn’t scheduled to go until two weeks later. But the campout earns you five points, and she needed points to be able to audition for that play. So Mr. Petrucci finagled it so she could be on the earlier trip.”

  “Heather told you this?”

  “Nah—I overheard Petrucci and Reiger making the deal. Petrucci had a thing for Heather.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  Justin waved his hand. “Not a sex thing. He just fell for her ‘I’ve had a pathetically deprived childhood’ routine, that’s all.”

  “Was Heather a special friend of yours?”

  Justin looked as if he’d caught a whiff of something rotten. “Hardly.”

  “Some of the other kids seem to think you were close.”

  “Well, Heather might have considered me her special friend, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.”

  Another rejection for Heather. Frank continued asking questions about the position of the campsite and how much of the attack Justin had seen. The boy was sitting up straighter now, and Frank saw shrewd intelligence in his eyes.

  "You think there’s a connection between what happened to Jake Reiger and what happened to Heather, don’t you?” Justin asked.

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know. But now I really wish I’d made it onto that bus in Keene Valley.”

  Chapter 20

  Although the long day of interviewing hadn’t produced any concrete results, Frank left the academy feeling slightly optimistic. It was possible that Heather had been encouraged to pull a stunt in the isolation room, and that Lorrie was either in on it or had fled in a panic. If so, the whole mess would be resolved sooner rather than later, because he didn’t think either one was clever enough to remain on the lam for long.

  Frank decided that attending tonight’s hymn sing and pie social was the best way to project an air of confidence that the problems at the academy would be cleared up shortly. He arrived in time to see Matthew Portman’s siblings, Rachel, Clarice, and Ernie, file into the Fellowship Hall. Their father, Henry, was nowhere in sight.

  He chatted with a cluster of men at the back of the hall, made sure Reid and Ardyth noticed his presence, and followed Mary Bixley into the kitchen to find out exactly where she planned to place her pie on the buffet table. On the way out of the kitchen, he eavesdropped on Bernice and Helen Meisterson.

  “That Lydia has her nerve. She’s in there barking out orders like the kitchen belongs to her alone. Imagine telling me my lemon meringue doesn’t need to be in the fridge!”

  “Calm down, Bernice. You can’t really blame her. Ardyth is busy out front, and Lydia took up the slack.”

  “Humph. I tell you, we wouldn’t have these power plays if Pastor Bob would just get married. It’s the minister’s wife’s job to be in charge of all the social events.”

  “So true. But Bob’s been here for three years, and he hasn’t shown the slightest interest in any local girls.”

  Bernice scowled. “Mighty slim pickins there. But you know who would be perfect.. .” She leaned toward her friend and whispered.

  Helen’s face lit up as Frank slipped past them. “You’re right! Penny Stevenson would be marvelous for Pastor Bob!”

&nb
sp; So, even the old biddies saw Penny as the perfect match for Bob. He must be the only one who couldn’t make the connection. He shook his head. Penny pouring tea at the annual Presbyterian women's luncheon—that, he’d pay money to see.

  Suddenly the lights flickered and the fluorescent tubes on the right side of the Fellowship Hall ceiling went out, while the adjacent kitchen was plunged into total darkness. After a split second’s stunned silence, a high-pitched cacophony broke out.

  “Oh, no!”

  “Who plugged both coffeepots into the same outlet?”

  "Lucille, why did you turn on the microwave when the coffee was still perking?”

  “I didn’t know that I shouldn’t.”

  “Everyone knows!”

  Frank unclipped the flashlight from his belt as he made his way to the basement stairs. Passing the kitchen, he called to the ladies to unplug the coffee. As he made his way across the dank basement toward the circuit breaker, he could clearly hear the ladies above, still clucking.

  “What was the big rush to warm up that apple crisp? The coffee needs to finish first. I told her ...”

  The breaker box was on the far wall. He soon passed all the way under the kitchen and the ladies’ voices receded. He shone his light ahead and saw the box, with two circuits tripped. He flipped them back and waited for a second to make sure they wouldn’t trip again. As he stood in the absolute silence of the basement, two new voices began speaking above him.

  “Tell Dad he can relax. We don’t need the money anymore,” a woman said.

  The voice, young and edgy, was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  “What do you mean? You’re not going to give up and let the bank take the house, are you?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom, we’re not moving in with you.” The note of bitterness was unmistakable.