Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Box Set

by S. W. Hubbard

  “I already told you that,” Ray protested.

  “Tell me again. I have a bad memory.”

  Ray hacked his smoker’s cough and spit an impressive distance. “We took the girl there and I helped Lorrie get her in. Then Lorrie went back to the cafeteria, and I went to get ready for Group Encounter in building three.”

  “Just what is it that happens in Group Encounter?”

  “It’s part of the procedure. A step they have to go through to get to Level Three.”

  Frank accepted this nonanswer for the moment. "How are you involved in it? I thought your job was transportation and security.”

  “Well, sometimes security problems come up in Group.” Now Ray’s smirk seemed positively gleeful. “They try to leave the room, run away from the group. I’m there to make sure they don't get too far.”

  “I’m sure you’re quite effective. Tell me, Ray, what happens if a kid puts up a fight?”

  “I could take on two or three at once, no problem.”

  "You ever put a kid in a headlock?”

  “Sure, if I have to. There ain’t a kid here who could win a fight against me. They all know that.”

  “Did Heather LeBron know it?”

  Ray’s smirk faded. “I never had any kind of fight with her.”

  "Not even when you were putting her in the isolation room?”

  “She put up a struggle against Lorrie. When I stepped in, she piped down.”

  “Because you hurt her?”

  “I didn’t hurt her. She took one look at me, she knew there wasn’t no point in fighting.”

  “So, was there any trouble at the Group Encounter?”

  “Nah, just some crying and carrying on. Nothing Steve and Randy couldn’t handle.”

  “The Pathfinders run these groups? How come Lorrie wasn’t there?” Frank asked.

  “Don’t know—you’d have to ask her that,” Ray answered with a leer, impressed with his own cleverness.

  “How well did you know Lorrie before you started working together?”

  “I used to hang with her and Chuck when they were married. After they broke up, it was hard. Lorrie’d complain to me about Chuck, Chuck about Lorrie. I got tired of hearin’ it from both of them. But working with Lorrie here—she seemed okay. She was really glad to have the job, worked hard at doing everything right. That’s why—” Ray trudged forward with his eyes on his work boots.

  “What?"

  "I’ve been thinking about it, and I can't make no sense of what happened in that isolation room.”

  You and me both, Frank thought.

  “I don’t see why Lorrie would run off, not when she needed this job so bad. Kinda makes me wonder if something happened to her.”

  Was that a note of concern, of empathy, coming from Ray? He obviously hadn’t heard yet about the disappearance of Lorrie’s kids, and Frank chose not to tell him just yet. “Was there anyone here who didn’t like Lorrie?” Frank asked.

  Ray shook his head. “Lorrie was quiet. She kept to herself.”

  “Let’s get back to the night Heather died. After the Group Encounter meeting, what did you do?”

  “Escorted the kids back to their dorms, then started my nightly lockup rounds. That’s when I discovered the empty isolation room.”

  “Between the time you left the dorms and the time you got to the isolation room, who saw you?”

  “No one.” Ray stopped walking and faced Frank with his hands folded across his chest.

  “So we only have your word that when you got to the isolation room it was empty and unlocked.”

  “Why are you trying to pin this on me?” Ray stabbed his finger at Frank’s chest. “You been ridin’ my ass ever since you took over as police chief. All I hear from you and Clyde Stevenson and Reid Burlingame is ‘Why don’t you get a job, Ray? Why don’t you clean up your act, Ray?’ So now I have a job, a job that pays enough for a man to live on, and you’re tryin’ to take it away from me.

  “I’ve been doing my work here real good—you can ask Dr. Payne. But when you want a fast way to say you solved this killing, I’m the first one you come after. Why don’t you look at that wuss Petrucci? He was always comin’ on to Heather. Maybe he killed her to keep her quiet about that—sexual mo-lest-tay-shun. Did you ever think of that?”

  They had reached building three, a one-story brick rectangle of newer vintage than the other buildings on campus. Ray pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.

  “Do you have keys for all the doors at the academy, Ray?”

  “No, I don’t have one for the isolation room. It’s got a Yale dead bolt. None of these keys are Yales—check it out.” He tossed the heavy key ring at Frank, who barely had time to catch it before it hit him in the face. But Ray was right—there were no Yale keys on this ring. Frank handed it back.

  “I got work to do, if that’s okay with you,” Ray said.

  Frank let him go without comment. Their conversation had raised more questions than it answered. Ray had no alibi for the time of Heather’s murder, but he had no motive either, other than his general attraction to violence. And Ray had touched a nerve. Was he more suspicious of Ray than of Paul Petrucci simply because he didn’t like the man? He had accepted Paul’s interest in Heather as well intentioned, but first Payne and now Ray seemed to think there was more to it than that.

  And with the concern Ray had shown for Lorrie’s safety, it was obvious he didn’t know where she and her kids were now, or why they were on the lam. Frank stared at the horizon. The view, beautiful even at this bleak time of year, barely registered. He saw instead the faces of Lorrie and Heather, each unhappy in her own way.

  FRANK CHECKED HIS WATCH—2:45, almost the end of the school day at High Peaks High School. He had just enough time to get over there and intercept Brad Fister before he got on the school bus.

  He watched the stream of young people pouring from the building, all so carefree. Certainly no one escorted them to meals and their classes, recorded their every indiscretion, locked them up at night. Yet were they all that different from the kids at the North Country Academy?

  Frank spotted Brad Fister’s tall, lanky figure loping toward the bus with his backpack slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Brad!”

  The boy paused and glanced around. A friend pointed out Frank, and Brad looked at him quizzically. Frank waved him over to the patrol car.

  “I need to talk to you for a minute,” Frank said. When Brad looked anxiously at the bus, Frank put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll drive you home. Get in."

  Looking as if Frank had offered him a ride on the wagon transporting prisoners to the guillotine, Brad got in the car. Frank leaned back in the driver’s seat, making no attempt to start the ignition. They sat in tense silence until Brad could bear it no more. “What’s this about?”

  “I think you know.”

  Brad began twisting the straps of his backpack. “No, I don’t.”

  The silence dragged on. Frank watched the last bus pull away. A few teachers trickled out of the building and walked toward their cars, peering curiously at the patrol car.

  “It's that trespassing thing at the North Country Academy, isn’t it? Why are we in trouble for that? We didn’t do anything.” A frown tugged at Brad’s handsome face and Frank could see the shadow of the six- year-old Brad, accused of tracking mud in the house.

  “Describe to me exactly what you do out there,” Frank said.

  Brad took a first pass at answering—they parked, they built a little fire to keep warm, they talked and ate some chips.

  Frank sat expectantly, waiting for the story to continue.

  “We listen to music on a little boom box.”

  Still Frank waited. Brad was a zookeeper flipping fish to a hungry seal. How many would it take until he swam away satisfied?

  “We smoked some cigarettes.”

  “We had a few beers ... once.”

  Frank stretched out his legs an
d checked his watch.

  “I hafta get home—I’m due to work at the hardware store this afternoon,” Brad said.

  “Well, then, you better tell me what I need to know, and we can get going.”

  “What? I told you everything!”

  Frank smiled and waved to Mrs. Carlstadt, the English teacher, as she walked by, then softly started to whistle “The Old Ship of Zion.”

  “This isn’t fair! I don’t know what more you want me to say!”

  Ah, fair—life was rarely fair, but Brad was too young to know that. Frank turned his head and smiled. “You do know, Brad, because you’re a smart kid. You don’t want to rat on a friend, and that’s admirable—but all bets are off now, son.” Frank sat up straight and leaned in dose to Brad. "Because someone’s been killed. Heather LeBron is never going to get her driver’s license, never going to wear a cap and gown, never going to kiss a boy again.”

  Brad’s hands gripped his backpack, his knuckles stretching the skin to white. “It has nothing to do with her,” he whispered.

  “Tell me about it anyway.”

  Chapter 25

  Once the cork had been popped, information flowed out of Brad Fister like cheap champagne. According to Trout Run’s favorite son, Justin Levine had mastered getting out of his locked room shortly after he arrived at the academy, but the knowledge didn’t do him any good because he couldn’t figure out a way to get back to civilization. Then one night he noticed the campfire that Brad and his friends made at the edge of the campus, slipped out of his room, and introduced himself. He filled the kids with stories of how he was being horribly abused, and they hatched a plot to help him run away. The night of Heather’s murder, Brad met Justin at the big rock by the stream and drove him to Keene Valley, then gave him a sleeping bag and showed him a place to hide out until the Trailways bus came the next day.

  Up to that point, Brad told the story without hesitation. Then, he turned away from Frank and stared out the passenger side window at the now empty school parking lot.

  “But Justin got picked up by the police in Keene Valley,” Frank prompted gently. “So you tried again?”

  Brad nodded. "Justin was totally prepared—we already discussed a backup plan if the first plan failed. Security was tighter after what happened, so Justin couldn’t use his old trick to get out of the dorm. For the new plan to work, he said we needed to create a distraction.”

  "The fire,” Frank said. “But how did Justin set it? I thought all the kids were in their rooms when it broke out.”

  “They were.” Justin’s words came so softly, Frank was certain that he’d spoken only because he saw his lips move.

  “You set the fire?”

  "Yes." Brad’s upper lip trembled. “I guess you have to arrest me now, huh?”

  Man, this kid had a ways to go before he could run with the academy crowd. “Look, Brad, the most important thing is that we find out who killed Heather and what happened to Justin and Lorrie. If you help me by telling me everything you know—and I mean everything—I’m sure we can work out some restitution plan for the fire.”

  Brad looked like he’d been promised a puppy if would agree to take the trash out every night. “Really? You mean I won’t have to go to prison?”

  “I doubt it. Just tell me what happened.”

  The faucet turned on again. “You know, the academy students all wear khaki pants and green T-shirts or sweatshirts with the school logo. Justin gave me his sweatshirt the first time he tried to escape. When we got picked up, no one noticed he was only wearing a T- shirt. So, the afternoon of the second escape, I slipped onto campus wearing the school sweatshirt and a pair of khakis. Some new students had arrived that day, and if anyone on the staff stopped me, I was supposed to say I was one of them. But no one did stop me, and I hid behind the Dumpsters until dark.”

  Brad told that part of the story eagerly, proud of his cleverness. But when he got to the part where he’d actually committed a crime, he spoke more reluctantly. “Then I slipped up to the back of the administration building, went in and poured the gas around those classrooms and lit it. Pretty soon, the alarm went off and everyone started running around. After they checked Justin’s dorm, all the teachers left that building except Oliver Greffe. Then I used my grandfather’s tools to dismantle the lock on Justin’s window and spring him. We put it back together so no one would be able to figure out how he escaped.”

  “So that’s why the tools were missing from the library,” Frank said. “Now, where’s Justin?”

  Brad’s clear blue eyes opened wide. "That’s the problem. As I was putting the last screw in, we heard someone coming across the lawn. We each ran in different directions, and I never got to give Justin the stuff that he needed.”

  "What stuff?”

  “A little cash, some food and water, a sleeping bag, warm clothes, and a map. The plan was for him to camp in the woods until one of us could find a way to drive him to Albany to get on the train. Going back to Keene Valley was too risky.”

  "But without supplies ...”

  Brad gnawed on his thumbnail. “I don’t see how he could make it. He doesn’t know anything about the backwoods. I’ve gone back to the big rock at night several times, looking for some sign of Justin, but there’s never anything there.”

  FRANK SAT IN THE STORE with a cooling cup of coffee, mulling over Brad’s information.

  “My kids have been kidnapped and you’re just sitting here on your fat ass!”

  He pushed aside his half-eaten sticky bun and looked with displeasure into the contorted face of Chuck Betz. Frank prided himself on keeping his weight at 170 pounds—there was nothing fat about his ass—but he willed himself to be patient.

  “We’re doing all we can to find Lorrie and the kids, Chuck. We feel they must be nearby. Without money or credit cards, she can’t have gone far. If you would be less antagonistic, she might come back willingly.”

  “Oh, so now it’s my fault that that crazy drug addict has stolen my kids!” Chuck threw some bills at a frowning Rita Sobol behind the cash register and grabbed the pack of Marlboros she offered in return. There was no denying the fact that, on paper, Chuck was the victim here—a custodial parent whose kids had been taken by the noncustodial parent. But the truth encompassed a few more shades of gray. Chuck was a jerk and a bully, Lorrie was a frightened woman who loved her kids, and the biggest danger to everyone lay in not knowing why she was on the run. Was it simply another round in their endlessly troubled custody dispute, or did it have something to do with the murder of Heather LeBron?

  “When was the last time you spoke to Lorrie, Chuck?” Frank patted the chair next to him.

  “You were there—at her great-grandmother’s birthday party.”

  “And you didn’t say anything more to her after that night that might have provoked her into taking the kids?”

  Chuck tore open his cigarettes. "There you go again—blaming me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said with exaggerated courtesy. “ ‘Provoked’ was a poor choice of words. I meant, did the two of you have any further arguments that might have given Lorrie the notion to take the kids?”

  “Nothing,” Chuck said.

  “What about your mother? Did Lorrie have an encounter with her in the days between the party and the morning she took the kids?”

  “None of us heard from her after she dropped the kids off the night of Grandma Gert’s party. So far as we knew, she was planning on picking them up again on Tuesday, her regular visitation day. And then she pulls this stunt at the bus stop.”

  Frank didn’t like the sound of what he was hearing. If Chuck could be trusted—an admittedly big if—Lorrie had no personal reason to run. Which meant her disappearance had to be linked to Heather’s death.

  When Frank got back to the office, he dropped into the chair in front of Earl’s desk. “We need to talk about Lorrie.”

  Earl lifted his head slowly from the paperwork he’d been completing. “What about her
?”

  "She and the kids are still missing, or had you forgotten?” Frank’s vow to be understanding went out the window. If Earl was going to play at being clueless, he was going to come down on him hard.

  “I’ve been doing all I can, but I can’t find her. No one’s heard from her.”

  “So you say.”

  Earl sat up straight and thrust his chin out. “That’s not fair! I’m trying hard. I told you I'd share any information I turned up, but there hasn’t been anything yet. I can’t help that.”

  "How stupid do you think I am?” Frank’s voice rose with Earl’s show of defiance. “Lorrie doesn't have any credit cards; her bank account’s been frozen; there’s an APB out on her car. Now, you tell me how she’s surviving unless someone in your family—maybe even you—is supporting her.”

  Earl jumped out of his seat. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. Was Earl out-and-out lying? Maybe not, but he was probably being willfully blind to what his relatives were up to.

  “I gave you your chance. I’m putting the state police back on the search for Lorrie.”

  Earl had crossed the room to the office door. “Well, go ahead and see where that gets you. Nowhere!" He slammed the door behind him.

  Frank yanked it back open and yelled after him, “You’ll never get into the police academy if you’re charged with harboring a fugitive!”

  Chapter 26

  “I want to talk to you about Petrucci.” Meyerson started talking before he was all the way into Frank’s office. “I’ve caught him in a major lie.”

  The papers Frank had been reading slipped from his hand. “Really?”

  “On the night of Heather LeBron’s murder, he was not home all night with the wife and kiddies. He bought gas at the Stop’N’Buy at ten p.m.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. The Stop’N’Buy market and gas station was at least seven miles from Petrucci’s home, and directly on the way to the North Country Academy. “What does he say about it?”

  “Said he forgot that he ran out to get gas that night.”