Sam’s foot was resting lightly on Strayer’s chest. Now Doug bent over and hoisted him up so that he could put on the cuffs. “Ted Strayer, you are under arrest. I am charging you with the murder of Taylor Brand and the attempted murder of Jake Elliott. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
Strayer looked defiant. “I didn’t do anything! You can’t prove it!” He paused for a minute, then said, “What do you mean, ‘attempted murder’?”
Doug looked pleased. “Jake Elliott is alive and well, and has been kind enough to explain everything that happened up on the bluff.”
Strayer’s mouth stayed open; apparently he hadn’t realized that Elliott had survived his fall. “I want my lawyer,” Strayer bellowed, sounding petulant. “I won’t go anywhere with you until I get my lawyer.” Doug started dragging him toward one of the police cars, and Strayer yelled louder. “I want my lawyer!”
“Yeah, and I want you to shut up. We’ll probably both have to wait longer than we’d like,” Doug said, almost cheerfully. He stowed Strayer into the police car and turned to give Sam a thumbs up. “You ever think about law enforcement as a career?” Doug asked.
Sam laughed. “Not once,” he said.
“You should. I could use you on the force.”
Sam nodded. “Maybe just deputize me as needed.”
Doug waved to the cops who were coming back to their cars. “Get this guy to the station and I’ll meet you there,” he said. “Tobias, ride in back with him. He’s slimy enough to slip through the crack in the door.”
“That’s for sure,” I said under my breath.
Doug waved to us and said, “We’ll talk soon.” Then he was walking away, presumably toward his own vehicle, and the police cars pulled away from the curb, escorting Strayer to the Blue Lake PD and his temporary jail cell.
• • •
WE FINISHED OUR walk and then had our coffee at Sam’s place. “I hope you’ll stay tonight,” Sam said. “I find the house unbearably quiet when you’re not here.”
“Am I loud?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’ll call Camilla and give her a heads up.”
“And I’ll lend you some pajamas. Maybe you should—you know—leave a few clothes here, and toiletries and things. I can give you a whole room of your own to keep your things in.”
“Like some grand hotel,” I joked.
“I’ll even put a mint on your pillow.”
I kissed him. “We should talk soon about those notes you made after your dad’s phone call. We need to make a plan of investigation.”
He leaned his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. “We’re always making plans of investigation. I’m getting a little tired of mysteries.”
I covered his other hand with mine. “We’re getting there, Sam. We’ve made so much progress. We just need a little more—we’re on the verge of something. Even the reporters know it.”
“What?”
“Jake Elliott and Ted Strayer were talking about it in Bick’s Hardware. They said reporters have a second sense, and that they all know Victoria’s case will break open soon. They’re gathering in the water, waiting to feed.”
“Creepy, but somehow promising.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Can I tell you something? I’m a little scared.”
“Why?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen or talked to Vic. I don’t know her anymore; she’s like a woman from a dream. If somehow she materializes again, it will be more than disconcerting. I’ll be relieved, of course, knowing that she’s okay, but—who am I supposed to be to her? I don’t feel like anything but a widower. That’s what everyone assumed I was, for a year. What if she wants to be in my life?”
This was a fear I had harbored myself. A year with Nikon Lazos might certainly have made Victoria West more conscious of how good Sam West had been. What if she wanted him back? I wasn’t about to relinquish him, no matter how much I pitied Victoria and her baby. Did that make me a bad person? “I’ve had some similar qualms. But I think we should take things one step at a time. We have to make sure she’s safe. Everything else comes later.”
Sam nodded. “You’re right, of course.”
“But there is a complication.”
“Oh?”
“No matter what happens, you’re not going to be able to get rid of me.”
This made him smile. “Come on, princess. You can choose your favorite room upstairs, and you can fill it with all your choicest possessions.”
“Hurrah!”
He stood and held out his hand. “But you do not have a choice about which bed you sleep in. I’m afraid that’s nonnegotiable.”
I slid into his arms. “I’m a terrible negotiator anyway.” Over his shoulder I could see the dark blue sky and a glimmering of stars, and I wondered if Victoria, wherever she was, could view the same sky and could sense that those visible constellations, like a glittering path, connected her to us.
19
Truth can come in an instant, and when one looks into Her eyes, one’s vision is forever altered.
—From Death on the Danube
FOR A COUPLE of days, life was as quiet as the snow that fell on Blue Lake. Later Camilla would refer to it as “the calm before the chaos.” Sam and I spent some peaceful times together, enjoying our new romance. Two days after Strayer was arrested, we had lunch with Doug and Belinda at Wheat Grass, compliments of Sam, who told Doug he far preferred him as a friend than as an enemy. Doug wryly agreed, and then, man-like, they made plans to watch a football game together the following Sunday.
Belinda and I sat to the side and talked about her research. She had continued to hunt out things for the London File, and had found some interesting biographical pieces on Victoria, Taylor, even Sam, but nothing that seemed advantageous to our quest. She had been looking at hospital birth records in hopes of finding a baby for Nikon Lazos, but so far she had not been successful.
The New York Times printed a front-page story written by Jake Elliott, who continued to convalesce in the hospital but had clearly been slaving away at his laptop. Camilla knocked on my door before I had even fully dressed, and came into my room to show me the paper. She lifted Lestrade and petted his fuzzy head while I read the article, my mouth hanging open in disbelief. The headline read “Hero, Not Villain: Sam West Saved My Life.”
Jake Elliott, in a surprisingly moving article, described his fall and his pain and torment in the snow. He described the way I looked when I ran to him, “like an angel of mercy in a white and uncertain world,” and how soon after Sam West had dropped his bag of groceries and run to his side, gauging his injuries and waiting for help while trying to soothe and distract him. The article was no less than a glowing tribute to both Sam and me. The last paragraph, however, castigated the society that was so willing to condemn Sam, and who treated him like an outcast when, in fact, there had been no evidence to do so. He wrote,
“Sam West lost his wife to an uncertain fate; soon after, he lost his friends, his home, and his reputation, thanks to the people who turned a cold shoulder to him in his time of need. This crime—which had many accomplices—was committed without any threat of punishment. Sometimes justice is not served. The miracle is that people like Sam West retain their strength of character no matter what the world throws at them.”
I finished reading and set the paper down on my bed. “Wow.”
Camilla nodded. “I had to run up here. What a good man Jake Elliott turned out to be.”
“Yes. Quite the opposite of Ted Strayer. God, when I think that poor Taylor spent her last moments with that horrible man . . .”
“Try not to think about it. One could go mad, obsessing over things like this. Focus on the good being done now—by Elliott, by Doug, by Belinda with her research.”
�
��Yes. You’re right.” I went to my closet and found a sweater to slip on over my shirt. In Blue Lake, one was best off dressing in layers. “I need to call Sam and ask if he’s seen this.”
“All right.” Camilla was looking at Lestrade, who was practically dozing in her arms. “I might sit here with your kitty for a moment. We have bonded over this good news.”
I smiled and patted her arm, then moved swiftly down the stairs and into the kitchen. I poured myself a cup of coffee and called Sam.
“Hello?” His voice rumbled in my ear in a warm and familiar way.
“Good morning. Have you seen the paper today?”
“The New York Times, you mean?”
“Yes! What did you think?”
When Sam finally spoke, I could tell he was smiling. “It felt damn good, Lena. Come celebrate with me.”
“I will, soon. Camilla and I have some work to do.”
He sighed. “Me, too, I guess. Nowadays I just want to hang around with you and not do my job. And I’ve been distracted by the letters, the e-mails, the phone calls—all from well-wishers.”
“There will be others. You’ll be drowning in acclaim.”
We let that irony sink in for a while. Then Sam said, “God, Lena. If we could just find her. I could have a normal life back. Do you know that once I was a relatively carefree guy? I did my job, came home at night, ate my dinner, watched TV, just like the average American. When Vic and I were breaking up, I was trying to reinvent myself. I had a new apartment lined up—it’s hard to find something good in New York City—and I was thinking of getting a dog or a cat. Some new companion to start my new life.”
“And it ended up being me.”
“Life can be kind sometimes.”
I looked out the window into Camilla’s snow-covered backyard. Blue Lake, pale and cold, twinkled icily in the distance. “What can we do? There must be a way. I mean, I found Victoria just by using search terms online. Then Belinda found Nikon the same way. This is just a big puzzle, and thanks to the Internet, that puzzle should be much easier to solve. This time we just have to find . . . a baby.”
“How does one search for a nameless baby?” asked Sam.
Even after we said our good-byes and promised to meet up later in the day, his question echoed in my mind. How could we search for the child? For certainly he or she was the key to this whole thing. If there was no record of Nikon marrying or fathering a child, then he had reason to keep those two things a secret. But could anything be kept secret in this new world of exposure? Did privacy really exist?
Normally that question would have depressed me, but now it excited me. I ran to the stairs, where Camilla was just descending, still holding a drowsy and very content Lestrade. “Lena, I think this is the first time I’ve spent time with your cat, and he is simply delightful. He reminds me of a cat I knew in London, long ago. He wasn’t mine, but he visited me every morning and we would have tea together. He even knocked on the door, if I wasn’t quick enough to let him in. Such a character. He belonged to a neighbor, I found out, but really he also belonged to me. His name was Biscuit.”
“That’s very sweet. Might I leave you two to your bonding and do a bit of Internet research? I’m feeling inspired.”
“Of course. Doug has received no updates, as I recall, and it doesn’t seem anyone has come close to solving our mystery. Go do what you can, Sherlock.”
I grinned and ran up the stairs to my room. Even after months with Camilla, I always took a moment to appreciate my space, my big comfortable bed flanked by large windows, and my beautiful dark wood desk, smooth and inviting as always. I ran to it and opened my laptop, almost falling off my chair in my haste to begin.
Belinda was searching databases, hospitals, public records, all for the mention of a child who might be linked to the name Victoria West or Nikon Lazos. She was the expert at doing that, and I would have no idea how to go about it. Instead, I wanted to pursue what Sam had said—that if I could just find mention of the baby, I might have the link I needed.
I began by Googling things like “Victoria West baby” and “Nikon Lazos baby.”
That didn’t turn up anything besides a few gossip sites which speculated, not about a baby but about where Nikon had been. One of them spoke of various big names, and devoted a paragraph to Lazos, which said, “Nikon Leandros Lazos, the handsome and eligible bachelor who had once been so prominent in the Mediterranean social scene, has kept a lower profile for the last few years. Rumor has it he has found the love of his life, although few people have spotted this red-haired beauty. Lazos seems to be lying low, occasionally vacationing with friends or taking jaunts on their yachts.”
Their yachts. Yes, that would explain the difficulty in finding him.
I tried searching “Lazos child, West child, Greek island child.” As I expected, they turned up nothing but seemingly unrelated results. I remembered what Belinda had said: “Someone out there delivered that baby.”
This gave me another idea. I searched “I delivered a baby for Nikon Lazos.” The results were disappointing; just a lot of pediatric sites and the occasional doctor’s personal experience blog, along with some of those harrowing “I delivered my wife’s baby on the expressway” types of news stories.
With a sigh, I stood up and paced my room for a while, appreciating the radiated heat and the plush Persian rug under my feet. I had a craving for some of Camilla’s tea, so I ran downstairs and poured myself a cup, then headed back. Camilla called, “Solved it yet?” and I laughed.
Then back I went, braced by a sip of sugared Earl Grey. I tried to imagine that I was the doctor, telling my story. I typed “I delivered a baby on a yacht moored off a Greek island.” I laughed at the ridiculous search term, but I clicked enter and scrolled through the results, which were again useless. Most seemed to be about doctors or hospitals, and some seemed to be from Greek travel sites, many of which used alluring language to try to earn a click-through. I scrolled through pages and pages—perhaps a hundred entries—and then decided to give up. One last title caught my eye, though. It was another medical page, what seemed like a professional blog, called Obstetrics Today. The search had brought up an interview on the site titled “Dr. Ian Foster Discusses His New Practice, His Favorite Deliveries, and the One That Got Away.”
I clicked on this and saw a picture of a fiftysomething man in a white coat, smiling charmingly at a camera for his professional photo. The interview, in a Q and A format, asked him about his life, his schooling, his first practice, his most difficult times. I scrolled toward the bottom of the interview, to the question “You recently had an interesting experience while on vacation in Greece. Can you tell us about that?”
Foster’s response followed, and it was long. I took another sip of tea, then began to read.
Yes, it was interesting. I was vacationing in Crete, taking some much-needed family time. One night we were sitting outside a café with a view of the ocean. It was spectacular, with just candlelight and a stunning view of the stars. I was sipping ouzo and looking at my wife, and she said that the Greeks believed strongly in presentiments, and she was having one. Something was about to happen.
I laughed and reached out to muss her hair, and moments later someone was touching my arm. It was a local man who had been asked to seek me out; he said that a gentleman’s wife was having a baby, and he heard that a specialist was staying at the hotel. This wasn’t surprising, since the town seemed to run on gossip, but there were medical facilities available on the island, which I told the young man. He said that the man had been most insistent, and that he was willing to pay any price to have the American look at his wife. My own wife began to feel urgent, telling me that I had to go, because what if there was a woman in distress?
I agreed to go with the young man, promising my wife I would text her when I got to my location. To my great surprise, I wasn’t led to one of the whitew
ashed cottages that dotted the coast, but to a giant yacht in the harbor. The thing was massive, and I felt like I was stepping into a fairy tale when I walked up the gangplank with my anonymous guide. I made sure to text my wife my location before I climbed aboard, although I never felt that I was in any danger.
My heart started beating rapidly, and I felt a bead of sweat run down the back of my neck. I reached for my teacup and realized that my hands were shaking. I put it down without drinking and continued to read.
Once I got to the room where the woman was in labor, I almost laughed aloud. They didn’t need my services at all. The man had paid for every modern medical convenience, and he had created an entirely sterile room, complete with ultrasound machine and all medical necessities for his wife, who looked comfortable enough, even after several hours of labor. There were several paid nurses on hand who were quite competent, and the young woman had already been administered an epidural. I said as much to those assembled—that they clearly didn’t need my services and that everything looked excellent. But the woman asked them all to leave and then clutched my arm with a frightened expression and begged me not to go.
The article ended there, with a note that said “Like this sample and want to read more? Subscribe to Obstetrics Today!”
“Agh! I screamed. I jumped out of the chair and dove for my purse, which sat on a table by my bed. My hands were shaking as I fumbled for my credit card and ran back to the desk. “Please be her, please be her,” I murmured. I went through the tedious process of entering my name, my address, my credit information, and committed to paying fifty dollars for a year’s subscription to a magazine I would never read.
I clicked “no” under the question “Are you a physician?” and submitted my information, ready to scream with anticipation. Finally a little box appeared, thanking me for my subscription. “Click here to continue reading,” it said. I moaned and clicked the box.
At the time I chalked this up to nerves. It was her first child, she said, and she wanted everything to go well. She kept asking me if the baby was all right, that she loved her baby without even seeing him. It was very sweet, and she was a remarkably lovely woman, with reddish-brown hair and green eyes. It’s the look in her eyes I can’t forget, though. Something indefinable that was a combination of loneliness and despair.
Death in Dark Blue Page 21