She hadn’t meant to sleep. She had simply closed her eyes to rest them. The next thing she knew, she was wide-awake, wondering where she was, then wondering what had awakened her. The rain was still drumming on the roof. She heard a twittering from the barn swallows. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness in the corners, and she could see the barn owl perched on a beam over the main part of the barn, looking like a lump of feathers. She heard a slight scratching that must have been caused by field mice. How pleasant it was here on the soft hay with the sounds and smells of childhood around her.
But what had awakened her? Dimly, she had heard a sound that didn’t belong. She listened, wide-awake now, her eyes and ears attuned to the quiet of the barn.
She heard it again, rusted hinges creaking. The sound didn’t come from the main door, through which she’d entered, but from the side door. She had a brief moment of panic when she wondered if Casey and Dojan and Junior knew about the side door. They must, she thought. Carefully, she rolled over onto her knees, helped herself up with her stick, so quietly she didn’t even disturb the swallows. She crept over to the edge of the loft and peered down into the darkness below. She could see a line of light on the barn floor that widened, then narrowed again. She heard a creak as the door shut, heard soft footsteps on the floor below. She could see the beam cast by a flashlight, could see it swing back and forth and stop when it picked out her footprints.
She had decided not to identify herself right away. Someone might just possibly have an innocent reason for being here. She didn’t think so, but she would wait to see what happened first. Her footprints had showed up in the flashlight beam, she knew. She couldn’t tell what sort of person was holding the light, man or woman. Would the person climb the ladder into the loft supposing that she was up there? She couldn’t hope to defend herself against anyone determined to hurt her. Yet she hoped the person would threaten her enough so she would know, and Casey would witness, without a doubt, that she had trapped the killer. She knew how a circus performer swinging from one trapeze must feel when he has only an elusive instant to catch a partner who has leaped confidently from the safety of another trapeze to his outstretched hands. Timing, she thought. She wiped her moist hands on her worn trousers.
The soft footsteps moved across the floor. Victoria could hear, but still couldn’t see, the person who was holding the flashlight. “Hello! Anybody here?”
Victoria began to tremble. It was not the voice she had expected to hear.
CHAPTER 34
The voice at the foot of the ladder was light and casual, entirely matter-of-fact, as if someone were stopping by a construction site to watch a concrete mixer at work.
It sounded so normal, Victoria wondered for a second if she weren’t mistaken. Sweat trickled down her back. This was not the way she had expected this encounter to be.
“Hello? Anybody here?”
Victoria made her decision. It would seem odd for her not to identify herself when her footprints so obviously led only one way. She called down from the loft. “Hello, hello, down there, Patience.”
Patience moved toward the foot of the ladder.
“Hello, Mrs. Trumbull.”
“Have you come to see what I’ve found?”
“Yes. When I heard you talking about evidence this afternoon, I decided I’d better have a look.”
She’s going to spoil everything, Victoria thought. Of course she would want to come by to have a look. Victoria debated about calling down to warn Patience about the trap that she hoped to spring. It might be better to wait until Patience came up to the loft. Then Victoria could enlist her to help with trapping the killer.
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Trumbull?”
Victoria suddenly realized with a jolt that she had guessed wrong. She could smell the fear scent of her own clammy sweat. “I wanted to check to make sure I was right about what I said this afternoon.”
“Are you sure now, Mrs. Trumbull? Have you found something up there?” Patience stood at the foot of the ladder, her face in shadow. Victoria couldn’t see her expression, but she could make out the dark costume Patience had worn this afternoon.
“How did you get here, Mrs. Trumbull? Did your granddaughter bring you?”
Victoria was not a good liar, so she said, truthfully, “I like to walk.”
“A long walk for a woman your age,” said Patience.
“This isn’t as far from my house as it seems by car.”
“I’m sure that must account for your extraordinary health,” Patience said pleasantly. “You don’t happen to have seen Chief O’Neill around, have you? I’d like to give her a copy of this afternoon’s program.”
“Not at the moment,” Victoria said, truthfully. “She told me she had paperwork to do this afternoon.”
“Interesting. I didn’t see the police car when I came by the station a few minutes ago.”
“I don’t know,” Victoria said.
There was a moment’s silence.
“What are you doing up there?” Patience looked up. “Have you found what you hoped to find?”
“To tell the truth,” Victoria said, “I fell asleep.”
“How pleasant,” Patience said. “In the hay, I suppose. Will your granddaughter pick you up?”
“She didn’t know I was coming here,” Victoria said. “She doesn’t get off work until six.”
Patience looked at her wrist. “It’s about half-past five now. Do you need help up there? I’d be interested in seeing what you’ve discovered.”
Victoria’s first reaction was panic. Then she thought about her trap. She hoped Patience wouldn’t smell her fear. She said, as calmly as she could, “That would be nice. It was more of an effort to climb up here than I expected. I wasn’t looking forward to coming down again.”
“You did it before, though, didn’t you, Mrs. Trumbull?” Patience tucked the skirt of her flowing black dress under her belt and put her foot on the first rung of the ladder.
Victoria wanted to call out. To Casey, to Dojan, to Junior. Please help me, she wanted to say. I’m not brave after all. But she held back. It was still possible she had been right, that Patience was not the killer. If so, it would be embarrassing for everybody if she sprang the trap too soon. And if she was dealing with the cold-blooded killer after all, she might alert her too soon. Either way, Patience would say she had come, as an interested town official, simply to see what Victoria had been talking about. She must convince Patience that she’d told nobody else, and that she’d come alone. She had to trust Casey, Dojan, and Junior to rescue her at exactly the right instant, neither before nor, she shuddered, too late.
She peered over the edge at Patience, who was on the third or fourth rung and climbing steadily.
“I played in this loft when I was a child.” Victoria hoped her voice didn’t sound as quavery as she felt.
“Interesting.” Patience looked up. Her head was below the level of the loft floor. “So you know this barn well.”
“There aren’t too many places left on the Island for barn swallows to nest,” Victoria said.
Patience was halfway up the ladder. Her intense eyes were level with the floor now. Victoria stepped back and picked up her lilac stick, which was lying against a stack of hay. She leaned on it.
Patience reached the top of the ladder and, holding the uprights, stepped onto the floor of the loft. Victoria felt the floor dip slightly under her weight. Patience was breathing heavily. She shook her loose black skirt down around her ankles, around the high black moccasins she wore. In the dim light of the loft, the effect of her pale face framed by her black hair above her black clothes was like a dream of a disembodied head floating in the hay-scented loft with the patter of rain on the roof. Victoria had an instant of terror, as if she were seeing a head on a pike.
Patience’s head looked around and spoke. “What was it you found up here, Mrs. Trumbull?”
Victoria stalled. “It’s interesting. I didn’t want to show it
to the police until I had another look.”
“What is it, Mrs. Trumbull?” Patience’s voice had an edge of irritation.
“I don’t think I should tell anyone but the police.”
“You’re being a tease.” Patience smiled and moved toward her. “I don’t think you found anything at all.”
“It won’t mean anything to anyone but the killer or the police.” Victoria leaned on her stick. She had gotten over the momentary fright, but it was replaced with a feeling of unreality, as if she were observing herself from above, playacting with a make-believe killer. She couldn’t quite convince herself it was real. Things would work out all right. Casey would come in time. Dojan wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She smiled up at Patience’s head, and Patience’s eyes stared back at her like the obsidian Indian tears her daughter Amelia had collected out West.
“We seem to be at an impasse,” Patience said.
“Impasse?”
“You aren’t going to tell me what you found?”
“I think the police need to know about it first.”
Patience stepped forward. “You haven’t told them yet ?”
Victoria inched back, toward the partly open window. “I intend to as soon as I get home.” She sensed her smile was annoying Patience, so she wrinkled up her face with a particularly irritating, she hoped, false smile.
“If you found nothing, Mrs. Trumbull, you should not bother the police with your fantasies.”
“I really mustn’t say more,” Victoria said, stepping back again as Patience moved forward. “By the way, I hadn’t realized you drove a red pickup truck.”
Patience stopped and took an audible breath. “What do you mean by that, Mrs. Trumbull?”
“Nothing, I’m sure. I saw a red pickup truck drive away from here the night Hiram Pennybacker was murdered.”
“You couldn’t have seen it.”
“Perhaps Elizabeth and I were mistaken,” Victoria said. “We both commented on that red pickup truck, but who knows?”
“You’re making that up, Mrs. Trumbull. You are lying.”
“I don’t lie,” Victoria said stiffly. “I think it’s time I left now. I have a long walk ahead of me. And I’d better see if I can climb down that ladder.” She smiled at Patience. “I may need your help getting down.”
She heard, rather than saw, the rustle of Patience’s dress, and she was aware that Patience had removed something from her pocket. This has to be it, Victoria thought. Patience moved toward her. Victoria backed up.
“What are you afraid of, Mrs. Trumbull?”
“Help!” Victoria called out. “Help!” Her voice sounded feeble to her.
“There’s no one to hear you, Mrs. Trumbull.” Patience held something between her hands. Victoria couldn’t see what it was, but she could guess. It must be a garrote, a wire Patience had used to cut Linda’s throat. She put both gnarled hands up to her wrinkled cheeks so her arms protected her throat. “This won’t hurt, Mrs. Trumbull. But it’s necessary. Perhaps you are faking, but I can’t take a chance. You seem to know too much. My grandmother taught me about power. I can’t have you robbing me of power now I’m so close. After all the work I have done.”
She moved forward suddenly. Victoria retreated, and fell into the hay behind her. She quickly lifted her arms again to protect her throat, and kept them there as Patience dropped to her knees. Victoria could see, now, that she held a shiny wire between her hands, as lethal as a knife.
Victoria’s mind raced. Where are they? This is that split second when I need them. The time seemed to move slowly around that split second.
“Help!” she cried out. She never realized how weak her voice was. “Help!”
Victoria saw the wire come nearer and nearer. She held her hands tightly against her face.
Patience let go of a handle on one end of the wire to tug Victoria’s hands away, but before she could grasp the wire again, Victoria’s hands were back, her arms a barrier against that shiny wire. It is the end, after all, Victoria thought. Something had happened to Casey. Casey would come, but it would be too late. There would be no doubt about the killer. Victoria thought about her little joke only an hour before. But I don’t want to die. I want to be around to see what happens next.
She felt the wire press against her arms, felt Patience tug her arms again.
“You can’t fight me forever, Mrs. Trumbull. You’re an old woman. You don’t have much time left, Mrs. Trumbull. Take your hands down. It won’t hurt you, I assure you.”
Victoria felt the floor yield beneath her, heard a howl that sent prickles down her back. Patience was lifted up, and her screams joined the howl, wild animal sounds, the likes of which Victoria never wanted to hear again.
Victoria felt more movements on the floor. She had closed her eyes with Patience’s scream. Now she opened them again and saw Casey and Junior Norton.
“Put her down, Dojan,” Casey said. “Put her down. Victoria’s safe now. I’ll cuff her. Put her down.”
Junior bent over Victoria, his drooping eyes concerned.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Trumbull?”
“Of course,” Victoria murmured, sitting up. She turned over so she could get to her knees. Now that it was over, she started to tremble. The trembling extended from her stomach, where it started, to her arms and legs and hands. Her teeth chattered.
“Dojan, help me get Mrs. Trumbull down that ladder. She’s had a tough time.”
Junior retrieved her walking stick, and she took it in shaking hands. “You are one hell of a brave woman,” he said.
“You heard me call out?” Her teeth were chattering so that she could get only one word out at a time.
“Everybody in West Tisbury must of heard you. They probably heard you up to Alley’s.”
“Get Victoria down safely, Junior. Then come back for this…” Casey jerked her head at Patience, whose face still looked disembodied. She writhed and spat. Casey had handcuffed Patience with her back to one of the barn’s upright posts, hands behind her. Together, Junior and Dojan carried Victoria tenderly down the ladder.
“I’ll get you for this, Victoria Trumbull!” Patience screamed. “I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do on earth.”
CHAPTER 35
The northeast wind swirled rain around the front of Alley’s store. It shook early-changing leaves onto the road, where they lay flat and yellow and slick.
Joe parked his pickup across the road in the usual spot under the elm, tousled Taffy’s ears, settled his cap on his forehead, and darted across the road, looking both ways.
“Nasty day,” he greeted Lincoln Sibert, who was sitting on the bench next to Donald Schwartz. “Where’s Sarah at?”
“Who knows? Lotta stuff going on up to Aquinnah.”
“What’s the latest?” Joe asked.
“You heard what happened yesterday?” Lincoln said.
“Couldn’t tell much from the scanner. Something over to Burkhardt’s place, I take it.”
“Here she comes now.” Donald looked up as a Jeep pulled into Alley’s parking place. He stood up. “May as well spring for a cup of coffee.”
Sarah, covered by an oversize yellow foul-weather jacket, dashed from her car to the shelter of the porch. She threw back her hood, unzipped the jacket, and shook off the beaded rainwater.
“Ugly out there. Where’s Donald? I thought I saw him.”
Donald appeared at the door with two steaming cups. “You don’t take cream or sugar, right?”
“Right. Thanks.” Sarah reached for the paper cup and took a sip. “Ugh!” She made a face. “This stuff must have sat all afternoon.”
“Grow hair on your chest,” Joe said.
Lincoln moved to give Sarah room on the bench. She sat next to him and her yellow slicker dripped water onto the slats of the bench and the porch floor beneath.
“So what’s happening?” Joe said after everyone had settled back into position—Joe leaning against the porch post, Lincoln next to S
arah, and Donald propped against the rusty red Coke cooler.
Sarah studied her fingernails, which she’d recently painted black. “The usual,” she said brightly.
“Oh shit.” Joe turned his back to her and spat off to one side. “Ain’t you cute.”
“All we know is what we hear on the scanner,” Lincoln said, “and that’s not much. Something big must of happened last night. Nobody’s saying a word.”
“Well.” Sarah drew out the word. “I guess you heard Mrs. Trumbull almost got killed?”
Joe stopped chewing. “No shit! The old lady?”
Sarah nodded.
“What happened?” Lincoln crossed one ankle over the other, and put his hands in his pockets.
“She set a trap for the killer and caught guess who?”
“Come on, come on.” Joe gestured with both hands.
“Patience.” She looked around at the three men who were frozen in position. “Patience VanDyke. Tribal chair.”
“Yeah, yeah. We know who she is,” Donald said.
“Patience?” Lincoln said.
“She killed Burkhardt?” Donald asked.
“Burkhardt and Hiram. And Linda.” Sarah smirked with satisfaction. “And almost got Mrs. Trumbull.”
Lincoln uncrossed his ankles. “Why?”
“I always thought she was a nasty bitch, but I didn’t see her killing anybody,” Donald said.
“Well, she did.”
“What for? She had everything going for her.”
“It looked that way. Only she was stealing from the tribe to buy all that property, like millions of dollars. She lined up everybody who owed her little favors and they were all ready to vote in favor of a casino.”
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