"What do you mean by 'tough'?" Glynis had asked him.
"I was reminded of it just today. Remember when, about half a year ago, Brant foreclosed on that harpsichord and dulcimer factory down by the canal?"
"Of course I remember. Afterwards Andre Gagnon shot himself. Roland Brant claimed he was sorry about the foreclosure. That he hadn't known Mr. Gagnon's wife was ill, only that the man had fallen months behind in his payments. And Brant told everyone that Gagnon killed himself because he was distraught over his wife's death."
"That's what Brant said," Cullen agreed. "I thought of it because I saw Gagnon's son in town today. Can't think of his name. Anyway, if you recall, the son at the time said his father's suicide was Brant's fault, and that he would—would get Brant! My God, Glynis, maybe that's it!"
"You think Andre Gagnon's son could have killed Roland Brant?"
"He sure as hell threatened to!" Cullen responded. "If he believed Brant was to blame for his father's death, I'd say he had a damn good motive, wouldn't you? And motive is what we've been looking for."
"But why now? Andre Gagnon died months ago. Why would the son—what was his name? Gerard! Why would Gerard wait until now to kill Brant?"
"The need for revenge can drive a man for a long time, Glynis. Maybe he had no opportunity before now. Or maybe he needed time to work out a plan. Who knows? But I think it needs investigating."
"Where does Gerard Gagnon live?"
"Don't know. Although somebody said he was out in the Montezuma—"
"The swamp? Cullen, that's the direction the girl was heading! But it could be just happenstance."
"And it could not be!" Cullen had slapped the reins over the horse's back. "I'd better call in that search party, and regroup it fast," he'd said. "But they can't go into the swamp at night, so the earliest we can concentrate the search there will be tomorrow morning. Maybe there's an outside chance that if we find Gagnon, we'll find the girl."
The girl again, Glynis now thought, as she carried the cup of tea up the stairs to her bedroom. After putting the cup down on her night table, and realizing that the room was as yet uncomfortably warm, she took off the undress and pulled a white cotton lawn nightgown from a bureau drawer. She couldn't remember ever before wearing something as lightweight as the lawn this early in the year. Since there seemed to be no air at all coming through the window that overlooked Harriet's garden, she opened the one on Cayuga Street, hoping to catch a cross breeze. But the night was still, as quiet and calm as death. Not a pleasant simile tonight, Glynis thought as she climbed into bed and reached for her cup. Her mind churned with questions, and without the chamomile she would never get to sleep. She drank some of the tea, then set the cup back on the table.
The moon was nearly full and climbing, its light streaming like cool white sunshine through the garden window. She turned down the wick of her lamp and sat back against the pillows, twisting her hair into its nighttime braid.
There were so many odd details that accompanied Roland Brant's death. How many of them were important to the murder, and how many were extraneous?
For instance, Roland Brant's library. Before she and Cullen had left the house that day, Glynis had gone back inside to see if the Millville Rose paperweight was still on Brant's desk. It was obvious the earlier clutter of papers had been hastily straightened, and the rose paperweight was gone. In its place sat the beautiful Baccarat crystal, its facets making it gleam under the desk lamp like an immense cut diamond. But where was the garish wax rose? And why had it been there in Brant's room to begin with?
And then there was the library's French door. She had looked at it again, and could not find a way—other than breaking one of the glass panes—for the bolted door to be opened from the outside.
She had sought out Clements to inquire about it, although she was rather intimidated by the large, heavy man. He had been in the parlor, admonishing Phoebe about ashes left in the marble fireplace.
Glynis had stood waiting while Phoebe protested.
"It's not my job!" she'd complained. "It's that witch's job to clean the fireplace."
"She's not here, so it's your responsibility," Clements said in a voice that carried cool authority. "Don't squabble about it. Just do it!"
Phoebe's face was flushed and angry-looking, but she got down on her knees and began to sweep out the ashes.
Glynis then stepped forward. "Clements, you told Constable Stuart that when you found Mr. Brant's body, the library's glass door was closed and bolted, is that right?"
"I have been giving that some thought, Miss Tryon, and I really cannot say with certainty that the door was bolted."
"You don't remember?"
"No; I don't. It ordinarily is kept bolted, but I may have done it myself after I found Mr. Brant... Mr. Brant's body. It had been a shock, naturally. I always check that the door is closed and bolted before I leave the room—as I did Sunday night—but it might have been that yesterday I did so without thinking."
Glynis could imagine doing something like that herself under duress, yet she'd had the distinct sense that Clements was lying to her. She thought it best, however, to abandon that tack for the time being, as the man was becoming irritated.
"Apparently Mr. Brant had been dead for some time when you found him, Clements. And yet it was early evening before anyone went looking for him?"
Clements gave her a curt nod.
"Isn't it odd that no one entered that room during the day?"
"Not at all odd," he answered briskly. "The hallway door to the library was closed, and I can assure you that no one would interrupt Mr. Brant at his work. It was not unusual for him to spend the entire day in there."
"Would that mean he was also accustomed to skipping breakfast and the noon meal?"
"Mr. Brant was accustomed to doing as he pleased. And, as you may have noticed, Miss Tryon, this is a large house."
In which to lose one's self was his implication, Glynis thought, and countered with, "But there are any number of people in this house, staff as well as the family."
"The staff does not roam the entire house at will."
He was clearly going to resist saying more, no matter how many ways she asked the same question. "Very well, Clements. But again, it's not possible for you to say with certainty whether or not that glass door was bolted when you found Mr. Brant's body?"
"That is correct." Clements gave Phoebe a quick glance, then turned his back to her and said in a slightly lowered voice, "In fact, I can recall several times when the door was left unbolted. Servants can be careless, Miss Tryon."
Glynis jumped at the sudden clatter of metal against marble, and looked past Clements to see Phoebe retrieving a short-handled shovel that she apparently dropped, spilling ashes over the hearth. She turned to glare at Clements's back, and then shook her head at Glynis.
"Perhaps while the maid is working, you might step into the hall," Clements said, taking her arm and propelling her out of the room before Glynis could resist. Once in the corridor, the man said, "I have things I must attend to, Miss Tryon. Will that be all?"
"Not quite," Glynis answered. She saw that the dark rings under his eyes were more pronounced than they had been the night before, and she wondered if Clements was losing sleep because he had felt genuine affection for Roland Brant, or because the disaster had occurred on his watch, so to speak. Or perhaps there was a less benign explanation.
"I have another question," she said to him. "It's about the paperweight, the Baccarat crystal one I just saw in Mr. Brant's library. It wasn't there last night." She wondered if Clements had been the one to find it on the hall table where she had left it.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Tryon, but it was there. That paperweight has been on Mr. Brant's desk for years, and I can assure you it has never left that room."
With some heat Glynis said, "And I can assure you it was not there in his library last night. I am absolutely certain of it."
Clements's eyebrows raised slightly as if
he was peering down his nose at her. In addition, his voice took on the tone of someone talking to a young and not very bright child when he said, "With all due respect, Miss Tryon, I have been employed in this house for many years, and that crystal paperweight has always been on Mr. Brant's desk."
Glynis doubted this was the time to accuse Clements of lying either to protect himself or someone else. Or of being so distraught over the discovery of Roland Brant's body that he truly hadn't noticed the crystal's absence. In which case, who placed it back on the desk?
"Will that be all, ma'am?" Clements replied, not bothering to hide a note of disdain.
Glynis sighed, feeling a sudden, unexpected sympathy for Phoebe. "Yes, Clements, that will be all."
He gave her a meager, very meager, bow and went off down the hall.
"Pssst!"
Glynis turned at the sound.
"Pssst!" hissed Phoebe again, standing in the parlor doorway. "C'mere!"
"What is it?" asked Glynis, not often being summoned this way.
"That old buzzard," Phoebe stated, looking down the hall. "He's full of himself, he is. But that door you asked about? The one in Mr. Brant's library?" Here Phoebe began to reach for her handkerchief and Glynis feared a repeat performance of her sobs.
"Yes, Phoebe," she had said quickly, "what about the door?"
"It was always bolted. Always. Even during the daytime. Mr. Brant, he gave strict orders—said if he ever catched anyone leaving it unbolted he'd fire 'em on the spot!"
Glynis thought about it, and then had asked, "Phoebe, did you by chance find that crystal paperweight on the hall table last night? And put it back in Mr. Brant's library?"
The woman had given her a cunning look. "I ain't telling."
Glynis, having taken a last, long swallow of tea, now placed the cup on her night table and lay back against the pillows. Phoebe was an unreliable source, and was probably vindictive enough to contradict Clements no matter what he said. Even so, he might have deliberately lied about the door being occasionally unbolted, thinking he would protect members of the Brant family by making it look as if an intruder had been the killer. As he perhaps lied about the paperweight.
If the outside door had been bolted, then whoever killed Roland Brant might have been someone with whom he was familiar, thought he had no reason to fear, and readily admitted to his library. He could have seen a stranger through the glass and refused him or her admittance.
Glynis now agreed with Cullen; it was hard to imagine a thief risking discovery in that long hallway in order to rob the safe, providing the thief even knew where the safe was located. Erich had said, however, that property deeds and banknotes were missing. But had they been stolen? Or was their disappearance intended to make it look as if murder was incidental to theft; that Roland Brant had caught a thief in the act and been overpowered? And had it been meant to cover a crime that had sprung from a more sinister motive?
Glynis, by now tossing fitfully in her bed, recalled the curiously small amount of blood that had been present when the body was removed and the Persian rug lifted. Neva had said she couldn't give any reason for that until she'd done the autopsy. There could be a logical explanation: a single thrust of the knife would have caused a large amount of blood only if the knife had been withdrawn. And it hadn't.
Glynis lay staring up at the intricate shadows of tree branches playing over the moonlit ceiling. She wondered if she was focusing too much on the details entangled in Roland Brant's murder. Thus missing the forest for the trees. But there were other seemingly peripheral things that still nagged at her.
Erich's wife, Tirzah, had indicated that she wanted the house sold. This would seem to suggest that she knew Roland Brant had made a will, and that her husband would inherit the bulk of what must be a considerable estate. It might or might not have been common knowledge among the other family members. Neither Glynis nor Cullen had asked about that, but they should have. The estate, or the knowledge of who would inherit it, could be a motive for murder. For instance, if the house was sold, how would Helga Brant fare? The law of dower provided that a widow was entitled—with or without a will—to one-third of her husband's real estate, but didn't specify which one-third. So Mrs. Brant might possibly stand to lose her home.
And why had Derek Jager been there the previous Sunday? Cullen had said that when he questioned Jager and Erich further, both said that Jager had stayed for only an hour. But he could have returned later that night, been admitted through the outside door, and then killed Roland Brant.
Glynis suddenly thought of the question that Bronwen had put to Elise Jager: Is Mr. Jager in town? While in retrospect it was an interesting question, what had Bronwen in mind when she asked it?
Derek Jager had been a business associate of Brant's, but he was probably not the only one, so why did Erich allow the man free access to his father's private papers? Or did Jager just steal secretly into the library and begin a search for the mysterious names? If indeed it was names for which he had really been searching. Jager had lied when saying he had learned of Roland Brant's death in the Syracuse newspaper. As Cullen had later pointed out, the Syracuse paper had not received the story in time to carry it in that morning's edition.
Then there was the girl Tamar. The unknowns surrounding her became darker and murkier with every step: her inability or refusal to speak; her relations with a father who had sold her into servitude, and with a mother who had taken so long—or so it seemed to Glynis—to find and free her; and, of course, her untimely disappearance. If the girl hadn't murdered Roland Brant, why had she run away? Unless she had witnessed his murder, seen his killer, and thus feared for her own life.
And what about Gerard Gagnon's threat?.... Glynis moaned, and rolled onto her side; she would never sleep if she continued this speculation. She closed her eyes, determined to also close her mind.
And heard an eerie sound outside the garden window.
It began softly, scaling upward, not in volume but in pitch, to a long preternatural howl. The hair at the nape of Glynis's neck rose, until she identified it.
The call of a wolf. Jacques Sundown's clan spirit.
16
For, lo, the winter is passed; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
—Song of Solomon
Glynis had to struggle upright through a tangle of sheets before leaving the bed and going to the window. The grass below and the garden beyond merged into a wide, pale river of moonlight flowing over and around the shapes of trees and shrubs. For a brief moment, she thought she saw in motion a low-slung creature of silver and black, flecked with white, with eyes that glinted like ovals of gold. It streaked into the shadows, and then, standing there beneath her window, was Jacques Sundown.
She turned back to the room, searching in the relative darkness for her silk undress. Finding it, she slipped it on and made her way out of the bedroom, flinching at the creak the door made as it swung open. Before she descended the stairs, she paused outside Harriet's bedroom and listened for the steady breathing of sleep. When she heard it, she went down the stairs and followed the moonlight flooding through the kitchen windows. She turned the key in the lock of the door, went down a few steps, and walked toward the tall man who stood waiting. He never changed, she thought. Never. The glossy black hair brushing his shoulders, the coppery skin, the high cheekbones and strong features; the half-Iroquois, half-French blood that made him a loner, moving to his own rhythm with the litheness of a mountain cat, the swiftness of a wolf. Those who threatened him learned that, like the cougar and the wolf, he could be deadly.
Cullen had often said that Jacques was silent and distant.
Not always, Glynis knew.
She didn't speak until she was within a yard of him. "I heard you were in town, Jacques."
"You weren't."
"No, I was out at the Brant house. Roland Brant has been murdered."
"I know. Word gets around."
She waited, not asking why he had come, or for how long he would be there. Over the years, she had at last begun to understand his ways.
He, too, seemed to be waiting; the flat, brown eyes looking down at her as if they had just happened to meet on Fall Street, although that would change.
When the tension between them had stretched to the breaking point, he said, "I can't be here long."
"I thought as much. Word gets around."
She caught the trace of a rare smile before he extended his hand and took hold of her wrist, his eyes in the moonlight beginning to warm. "We can't stay here."
"Harriet's asleep."
He started to lead her across the grass, saying, "You know the rules."
She pulled back, stopping them. "Since when have rules applied to you?"
"There's always been the one, says you can't be seen with me. Not at night. Not if you want to stay in this town. I expect you want to do that. He paused, and then added, "When you don't, let me know."
As they began to walk again, Glynis felt herself slipping on the damp grass. "My feet are bare," she said.
Jacques cast a swift glance around, then continued to scan the yard while he reached for her, sliding one arm around her waist, the other under her knees, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a sack of feathers to carry her over the grass. His long strides took them past the garden and Glynis could see, hidden among the pines at the rear of the yard, his black-and-white paint horse. The scent of lilacs and lavender drifted sweetly across the quiet air, and moths fluttered over night-blooming moonflowers.
"So much for rules," Glynis said when he lifted her to the horse's back. In a single fluid movement, Jacques vaulted behind her onto the paint, his eyes undergoing the strange alchemy that turned them from brown to the gold of the wolf.
"Nobody to see us," he said, turning the paint in the direction of Black Brook. Glynis knew where he was headed. It was a short distance, less than a mile; from there could be seen the reservation where he had lived.
Must the Maiden Die Page 17