Death in Dark Blue

by Julia Buckley

  We talked some more, asking after her family and about her plans for spring. Eventually Camilla thanked her for calling and promised to let her know if we had any more questions, or any updates, for that matter. Then we said our good-byes.

  Camilla studied her blotter for a moment, making mysterious notations with a ballpoint pen. She was a bit of a doodler. Finally, she said, “What kind of a man has all the money in the world and yet has not enough confidence to let his wife live her own life? What does he fear would happen if he let poor Victoria walk around or live on land? How do these odd notions become culturally embedded in oppressive men?”

  “Someday I would like to meet Nikon Lazos face-to-face and tell him what I think of him.”

  Camilla’s pen was busy in the corner of her blotter. “Be careful what you wish for,” she said, and when she looked at me her eyes were troubled.

  • • •

  BY THE AFTERNOON the snow was coming down in earnest. I stood in the front room and contemplated the growing drifts, wondering how difficult it would be to walk to Sam’s house.

  The scene just outside the living room window was peaceful and, for once, blessedly devoid of people. How nice it would be when Blue Lake returned to its natural serenity, with no press, no curious visitors, no murders, no Sam West stalkers, no manipulative bloggers . . . As if in response to my final thought, Ted Strayer appeared on the road in front of Camilla’s house, bundled in a winter coat, but bare-headed; he was walking north. The only thing in that direction was the road to the bluff path—the path from which Taylor Brand had fallen to her death.

  Strayer wasn’t in a hurry, but he was leaning slightly against the growing wind and marching determinedly upward. What could he possibly want up there, especially in this weather? I moved closer to the window, studying Strayer and his slouched posture. I pulled out my cell phone and called Sam. It rang four times and went to his answering machine; the same thing happened when I tried his cell. He was probably in conference with a client. Meanwhile Strayer disappeared from my line of sight.

  While I considered my options, another figure materialized on the gravel road, walking with a determined stride. It was Jake Elliott; I recognized his blue pea coat. Without further ado I grabbed my coat and a brimmed hat and donned them quickly. I tucked my phone into my pocket; if need be, I would have photographic evidence—of what, I didn’t know. I needed to see what would bring these two reporters out in what was fast becoming a blizzard. I knew the bluff better than they did, and thanks to Camilla’s curious dogs, that meant some side paths and hiding places from which I could observe the men.

  Camilla was still napping; I didn’t want to disturb or worry her. I waited until Jake Elliott disappeared on the path, and then I went out, moving down Camilla’s front porch on careful, booted feet. I pulled down my hat brim to help preserve my vision in the blowing snow. Testing for ice with careful footsteps, I moved through the yard and out to the gravel road, now swathed in white. I thought about trying Sam again or Doug, but I needed to know what this was first. If it was just another sharing of notes in an out-of-the-way place, then there was no point in dragging poor Doug Heller away from his office yet again. I feared I might somehow lose the men in the snow, and I really wanted to witness their confrontation, if it came. What did Jake Elliott want to see? What was Ted Strayer looking for?

  It was a steep climb up the bluff path, but it normally wasn’t much trouble for people used to taking it. Today, though, it was slick and treacherous, and as it wound around, providing a slightly obscured view of Blue Lake on one side and a steeply sloping bluff on the other, I found it intimidating for the first time. I couldn’t escape the reality that this was where Taylor Brand had walked, for reasons unknown, before she plunged to her death very near the house of the man she was seeking. Why, why had Taylor come up on the bluff? Why hadn’t she just stopped at Sam’s place and knocked on his door?

  A sharp breeze buffeted me and pushed me slightly to the left. I balanced myself against the trunk of a white birch. I was heading for a stand of pines where I knew I could observe without being seen; in addition, they would shelter me from the storm. Even if the men were in the pines, I could stay in the shaded protection of the low-hanging branches on the outskirts of the stand, while maintaining a view of the clearing at the center of the trees. The pines were ancient, and they towered like wintry giants, their tops invisible in the snowfall. People down in the town could see the tall trees from the road—one of the landmarks that showed them how to reach the bluff path.

  I pushed forward again, the snow needling into my face, and was rendered breathless by the wind, which blew into my throat. My feet seemed unconnected to me, cold and silent as they plodded through the snow, lurching me forward until I touched the first pine and inhaled its lovely fragrance. I moved into the shadow of what the locals called “The Big Three,” the first three pines that formed part of the stand. Instantly the pressure of the storm lessened and the noise did, as well. The pines, like three protectors, had brought me relief from nature’s onslaught. They had also brought me the view I sought. Tucked against the trunk of the second tree, I spied Strayer as he hesitated to leave the shelter of the evergreens and enter the blizzard once again. On our right was the best view of the town—a broad and spectacular vista of winter over the lake. On our left, the pines disappeared into nothingness as the bluff plunged steeply downward, revealing the stark beauty of rock and haphazard trees that grew sideways out of the hill. I spied a large bird’s nest in one of these happenstance growths, and I wondered if eagles had made it.

  Strayer spun suddenly around in the small clearing, which was its own silent, white world, and pointed at Elliott. “What’s up, Jake? You don’t like my journalism, but you’re following me for ideas?”

  Elliott stopped and folded his arms against his blue coat. “I don’t need ideas from you, Strayer. Some of us have authentic talent and real thoughts that don’t come from viewer comments.”

  Strayer shrugged, rubbing his gloved hands together. “So you came up here to insult me?” His teeth were chattering slightly.

  “I came here to find out why you were climbing up during a storm. What a strange thing to do. And being a good reporter, I thought I sensed a story there.” He moved forward slightly, putting only a few feet between him and Strayer. “You were talking weird in the bar last night; it got me thinking, so I figured I’d follow you. And just now, as I watched, I noticed a funny thing. It seemed like you were looking for something, Ted. At first I thought you might just be hunting for pinecones or some crazy thing like that, but then I realized that you were only looking back and forth in the last few yards. Right around the place that Taylor Brand fell over. So let’s have it—what do you know about her death?”

  Strayer frowned. “You’re making a lot of assumptions there, Jake. That’s not good journalism, at least not by your definition. Crap, it’s cold up here!”

  Elliott’s posture changed then; he straightened, and it reminded me of uncoiling, the way a snake would do. “You’re deflecting. What is it you don’t want me to know?”

  “Write your own story! Just leave me alone, Elliott. I’m sick of people talking down to me, telling me what scum I am. I provide for my family. You wouldn’t know what that’s like, having to provide for people.”

  “Sure I do. I have an ex-wife who likes expensive things. What were you looking for, Strayer?”

  Strayer’s face was hard to see at that distance, but he used broad enough body language that I could tell he was overcompensating, acting out a role of a man who is tired. “Not that this isn’t a super fun conversation, but I’m headed back down to a warm room and some hot coffee.”

  Elliott stuck out a hand, as though to bar his way. “You know what just dawned on me? You could be the one who pushed Taylor off the bluff. That would explain how you knew so much about the story and how you got details so quickly! You knew to
hang out at West’s house before any of the rest of us did! What happened, Strayer? Did she talk down to you, too? Did she call you scum? Did she tell you to stop stalking her and—oh my God.”

  Strayer’s body was still as death; he had stopped acting now, but his voice had some forced and brittle amusement in it when he said, “What now? You should write fiction.”

  “You were wearing that stupid orange press lanyard when I got to town, and then you stopped wearing it, but not before I saw that the ID was gone.”

  There was a short silence, and then Elliott said, “Did she rip off your ID, Strayer? Maybe when she fell?”

  The two men stared at each other for what seemed like twenty minutes in the charged and snowy silence. The moment felt so long that I started to wonder if I had imagined the whole exchange, and if the three of us were up here at all, in this dreamlike landscape where the wind buffeted the snowflakes all around the giant pines. I tucked more closely into my pine tree, suddenly fearful that they would both turn and point at me, like men in a horror story.

  Instead, in total silence and without warning, Ted Strayer rushed forward at remarkable speed and barreled into Jake Elliott, pushing him backward and over the bluff before Elliott could say a word or raise a hand in his own defense. In an instant Elliott was simply gone, and Strayer stood alone, panting and clenching his gloved fists. He only turned because of the sound that pierced the air, high-pitched and horrified. At first I thought it was the eagle, returning to her nest and finding human intruders, but when Strayer turned with a murderous expression I realized that the screaming was coming from me, and that this was a horror story after all.

  17

  She had only one lucid thought as she faced a man whose eyes were hard with malice and whose gun was pointed at her chest: I never said good-bye.

  —From Death on the Danube

  MY MIND WAS completely blank, and for a moment, I think Strayer’s was, too. He regarded me from fifteen feet away, panting with exertion and adrenaline, and the moment seemed to hang suspended. Then he was in motion, rushing toward me, and my feet responded, pumping back down the path the way I had come, convincing me that in that direction lay safety. I would have screamed if I had not needed all of my breath for the exertion of running at top speed. I didn’t dare glance down the bluff to see its steep decline, or to glimpse the roof of Sam’s house far below.

  Sam. If only he had been home when I called. Instead, I was in a white, swirling maelstrom with a madman. Occasionally I could hear his muffled footfalls behind me and I had the terrible sense that he was closing the distance between us. I rounded a bend and saw a giant elm that Camilla’s dogs liked to sniff; they often paused in its shade to cool themselves before continuing up the bluff. With some primordial instinct, I dove at the tree and began to climb it. Strayer had no weapon; if I were above him, my brain told me, I would have an advantage. He could try to pull me down, but I could kick him from a height.

  I had not climbed a tree since my childhood, but even in my winter gear I moved nimbly up through the branches, spurred by terror. There was always the hope that Strayer wouldn’t see me and run right past.

  He stopped, though, right at the foot of the tree, and said, “Come down, Lena. I’ll come up and get you if I have to, but I’d prefer that you just come down so we can talk.”

  “Talk about what?” I almost screamed. “How you murdered Taylor Brand? How you just killed Jake Elliott in front of my eyes?”

  Strayer shrugged. If my eyes didn’t deceive me, he looked merely regretful, as one does when his library book is overdue. “What could I do? He accused me of murdering Taylor. He was wrong, of course. I did no such thing.”

  “Of course,” I said. I felt oddly detached from our conversation, as though I were wrapped in cotton, or talking to him through a thick door. “You are innocent, so you had to kill Jake to prove that. I’m sure the jury will agree with you, Strayer.”

  He ran a hand over his sopping wet hair, dislodging some snowflakes. “Okay, fine. He figured out the truth. I did walk up here with Taylor, okay? I told her she had to see the view. We had argued that morning, because she suspected me of stealing her postcard, and I finally convinced her that I didn’t. I said, “Let’s bury the hatchet; I’ll show you a view like you’ve never seen before.”

  “But why kill her?” I said. “Even if she found out you stole the postcard, so what? You could just give it back.”

  Strayer nodded, still with that fake regret. “Yes, I could. The problem was that Taylor was here, with a giant clue, and she intended to solve the Victoria West disappearance with the help of Sam West. And then in an instant my two most lucrative stories would simply dry up. I’ve built a career on Victoria West alone; Sam West’s miseries were icing on the cake. And without her little clue, this could potentially drag on for months, years. I can’t have someone marching into town and shutting down the gravy train. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Lena.”

  From my high branch, he looked weirdly truncated, planted there in the snow, his glasses wet with condensation. It was then I realized he wasn’t a man at all. He was without conscience—a weird by-product of a greedy and shallow society. He was a monster of the modern age, and he had killed two people without apparent remorse.

  Something dawned on me then, as I faced the fact that Strayer was without morals. “You shot Sam’s window out. You did it yourself, to create your own story. You’re evil.”

  He shrugged. “It got me a lot of readers. It was news.”

  “Yellow journalism.”

  “Come down, Lena,” he said. It was terrifying, how normal his voice sounded. It implied that he didn’t feel the weight of his sins, but also that he was ready to wait all day if necessary.

  “I won’t.”

  “Then I’ll climb up. But if I do, I won’t be gentle. I’m going to drag you out of that tree, and I’m going to hurt you, Lena. It would be better for you if you came down of your own accord. Taylor never had a moment’s fear—well, a couple of moments. She did scream when I pushed her, but it was such a short scream. Seconds only, and then it was over. I spared her a terrible death.”

  And in that surreal moment I was transformed. It was not fear coursing through me, but anger—perhaps even hatred. Ted Strayer had ruined lives—Taylor’s, Jake Elliott’s, Sam West’s, and he was taking responsibility for none of it. Again, my feet seemed to be working independently of me as they found the right branches and led me out of the tree. Strayer waited, his face patient and pleased.

  When I reached the bottom he started to say something—a mundane comment with a touch of condescension, and I slid off my gloves, tossing them aside an instant before I dove at him, channeled my anger, and launched a right-handed punch at his face, which made satisfying contact with his cheekbone. His glasses flew into the snow near the edge of the path, and he turned slightly blind eyes to me, clearly surprised and, for the first time, angry. “That was unnecessary!” he yelled, holding his face with one hand.

  I put up my fists, ready to hit him again. The snow burned my eyes and made me blink at Strayer, who was trying to find his glasses with one eye while keeping the other on me.

  This seemed to be my opportunity to get away; he probably wouldn’t chase me until he could restore his sight. I backed away, testing my theory, and I saw that he was torn between chasing me and finding the security of his vision. He squinted at me with his myopic eyes and I saw that he would never make it back down the path without his glasses.

  Feeling a spurt of triumph amidst my terror, I ran.

  At the bottom of the path I ran toward the trees behind Sam’s house while I dialed my phone. This time I called Doug. “Doug Heller.”

  “Ted Strayer just killed Jake Elliott and he’s chasing me!” I yelled.

  “Where are you, Lena?” His voice was clipped and a bit frightened.

  “Sam’s house. Right behind. Oh
God, I see Elliott now. He’s moving. He’s alive! But he’ll need an ambulance. I don’t know where Strayer is. We were up on the path.”

  “Look now. Tell me if you see him.”

  I turned and studied the cliff path. “I don’t see him. He was behind me, but he lost his glasses. No, wait. There he is.”

  “Can he see you?”

  I ducked behind a tree and lowered my voice, studying Strayer as he staggered down the path. “No. He’s not even looking over here. He’s moving down the pebbled road. He’s past Sam’s now and still walking.”

  “Wait there. Be sure he’s gone.”

  “He’s out of sight now. You can get him, Doug. He killed Taylor and shot Sam’s house. He admitted them both to me. He’s crazy.”

  “Hang up. I’ll be right there. See what you can do for Elliott and get Sam to help you.”

  I clicked off the phone and stumbled through the snow to Elliott, who was gray with pain but still managed to smile at me. “Lena. The goddess emerges from the storm.”

  “Are you badly hurt?”

  “This big-ass snow drift probably saved my life, but my leg—” he winced in pain. “Pretty badly broken. Distract me, or I’ll go insane.”

  I knelt next to him and poked and prodded the rest of his limbs while trying not to look at his left leg, which was twisted in a way it shouldn’t have been. “I’m so glad you’re alive, Jake. I was there—I saw what he did. I didn’t have even a second to help you.”

  “God. Listen, if I pass out, you should know—to tell the police. Strayer and I had a drink last night at the bar on Kelter Street. He was talking weird, going on and on about how these Blue Lake stories were a gold mine, and how lucky he was to have ‘hit the Sam West vein’ because it was setting him up for years to come. He’s always been a braggart—oh God, that hurts—but this was something different. He was talking about Taylor Brand without even a gleam of regret. I said that he was feeding off of human misery, and he looked at me with total incomprehension.