The Seeker: A Mystery at Walden Pond
Page 29
He slowed the cruiser and pulled to the shoulder. “Joe’s in jail.”
“What?”
“He’s charged with the murders of Karla Steele, Patrick Leahy, and Mischa Lobrano. We found the child’s remains this afternoon.”
He was trying to trick me. He thought I’d jump to confess if Joe was in danger. “Joe didn’t kill anyone.” I could defend Joe without sacrificing myself.
“I know you were hiding the wine glasses to protect him, Aine. I know all about it.”
“What? There’s nothing to know. Joe didn’t hurt anyone.”
“It’s hard to accept, I realize you have feelings for him, but Joe isn’t the man we thought he was. I’ve defended him for a decade. Even though all the evidence pointed at Joe as Mischa’s killer, I couldn’t accept it. What we had was circumstantial. Not strong enough to send a man to prison. And now I have two more dead people.”
“Joe didn’t kill anyone.”
“It’s in your nature to defend him, Aine. But the evidence is too clear.”
“I’m not lying. He’s innocent.” I grasped the grill that kept me from climbing into the front seat. “He didn’t do any of this.” Instead of pinning the murders on me, Mischa loaded the blame on Joe. It was genius.
And completely evil.
Everything that pointed to me as the killer also pointed at Joe. And he had more motive than I to get rid of Karla and Patrick. The climax, the best, though, was Mischa’s body. I wasn’t even around when Mischa, the real Mischa, disappeared, so I couldn’t be a suspect. All along, Joe had been her intended target for the fall. Her plan was so much more complicated than I’d ever thought. She’d send Joe to jail to punish me, to break me, to push me to the action I had to take. Ultimately, she would destroy everyone I loved until I could stand it no longer and I took my own life.
The patrol car eased into a parking spot behind the jail. My heart fluttered like the Sluagh battering my windows.
McKinney opened the back door and gently helped me out.
“Are you arresting me?”
“Of course not.”
I balked. “I don’t want to go here.” Then I thought of Joe. “Is Joe inside?”
“He is. He’s asked to see you.”
I lurched forward. My limbs weren’t completely in my control. My brain ordered “walk” and my body pitched forward in staggers. Like I’d had a stroke.
Sympathy passed over McKinney’s face, and it angered me. “Take me to Joe.”
“We need to ask a few questions first.”
So that was the game. If I answered their questions, I could see Joe. If I didn’t, they’d keep me from him. “I have questions too.” I had to figure out how Mischa had unearthed the child’s body. The child whose name and image she’d stolen so she could trick me into being her foil.
“Where did you find the little girl’s body?” I wasn’t saying anything until he answered.
“In the Walden woods. Not too far from the entrance.” McKinney spoke cautiously.
“How did you find her?” I asked.
“Anonymous tip.”
“Someone came forward after a decade?” I didn’t bother to cover my incredulous tone.
He nodded.
I pressed. “And this anonymous person knew exactly where the body was buried?” McKinney was a trained lawman. Didn’t he see the caller was likely the killer and that Joe was just being set up?
“Exactly.” He hesitated. “The caller was a woman.”
“Really. A young woman?”
“Yes.” There was pity in the way he looked at me.
“And she knew where the body was. The exact location? How would she know?”
McKinney sat on the edge of his desk where he was within arm’s reach. “We figure Joe told her. Maybe confessed about killing the child.”
“Why would he, assuming he murdered the child? He was home free. Why would he tell anyone?”
McKinney’s voice lowered. “Pillow talk. Lots of criminals can’t resist telling a girlfriend. Some want absolution. Others brag. Joe is the absolution kind of man.”
“You think this woman was his girlfriend?” Jealousy was a wasp sting. “Who is she?”
McKinney looked at me. “The call came from your cell phone, Aine. Not an hour ago. You called and told us, and we found the body, all in fifteen minutes. He’d limed the body and covered it in plastic, which is why the cadaver dogs missed her, back when she first disappeared.”
I couldn’t quite process what he was saying. “My phone?”
“I expected you to deny it. But there’s no doubt.” He reached into his back pocket and brought forth my telephone. “I took this out of your purse when we picked you up.” He flipped to recent calls and showed me the number to the police department. “You did your best to disguise your voice.”
“I didn’t call you.” This was insane. “You punched in that number yourself, and now you’re trying to make it seem like I implicated Joe in the murders.”
“He doesn’t have to know, Aine. I won’t ever tell him. You did the right thing. I can sympathize with how hard it was. Even in all the confusion, you knew right from wrong. I think with professional help, you’ll be able to get through this.”
He signaled to a slender woman standing in the hall. She came forward. She held a clipboard and pushed her glasses up her nose.
“Aine, this is Dr. Marshall. She’s a psychiatrist. She’s going to help you.”
The enormity of Mischa’s calculations unfolded like a tsunami, wiping out all of my hopes and plans. Joe was accused of murder—by Mischa pretending to be me—and I was headed for a long tenure in a mental institution. If Mischa couldn’t have me, I’d be locked up. She’d found my phone in my purse when I’d dropped it to chase after her. She’d seen the opportunity and seized it. She’d framed me as the person who sent Joe to prison.
“I didn’t call you,” I insisted. He wouldn’t believe me, but I had to try. “It was Mischa.” That got their attention.
“A dead child can’t use the phone. You know that, Aine.” Dr. Marshall came at me as she spoke. “We’re going to work to help you reconnect with the real world. Dead children don’t make phone calls.”
“Not Mischa; the ghost child. The other one. I don’t know her real name. She uses the image of Mischa. She’s a demon. Ask Father O’Rourk. I told him about her today.”
“I spoke with the priest,” McKinney said softly.
“He can’t do that! It’s forbidden. It’s sacred what I say to a priest. Only between us.” Every single person I’d trusted had betrayed me. This was exactly how Joe must feel. I had to tell him I hadn’t done this. I couldn’t have. He’d never told me where the child was buried because he didn’t kill her.
“Father O’Rourk didn’t violate the confessional.” McKinney put a calming hand on my back. “He would only say you were greatly troubled. It was Mrs. Leahy who told me. She saw you in the church and went back. She overheard what you said to the priest.”
“She eavesdropped on a confession?”
His gaze shifted to the psychiatrist.
“I have to talk to Joe. I’m not saying another word until I do.”
McKinney glanced at the shrink. She shook her head slightly.
I gave them no warning. I went for her. She had no right to determine my fate, to decide I couldn’t see the man I loved. My fingers laced in her dark brown hair and I jerked savagely. She shrieked in fright and pain.
McKinney’s arms wrapped around me, restraints I struggled against but couldn’t break. He didn’t say a word, just let me wear myself out. The doctor scooted to the closed door and backed up against it.
“She should be sedated,” she said. “She’s a danger to herself and others.”
“Aine,” McKinney whispered in my ear. “You’re making it so much worse on yourself.”
“Let me see Joe.” I grew perfectly still and limp. “I promise I’ll do whatever you say if you let me see him. Just for a few minutes.”
“I tried to tell him last night. I tried to warn him about Mischa. He wouldn’t listen.” I had to make Joe hear me. I’d figure out a way to prove his innocence. If it took me the rest of my life, I would. But I couldn’t be locked up. “Chief, give me five minutes. I can prove I’m not insane and that Joe didn’t kill anyone. I know it sounds crazy, but there is something, someone, out there who killed the little girl, Karla, and Patrick. This same entity killed my aunt Bonnie and meant to pin the blame on Thoreau.”
I shouldn’t have said the last part. Before I brought up the town celebrity, the chief was at least listening. “Dorothea told me about your obsession with Thoreau. He was to be your dissertation topic, I believe.”
“I don’t care about that. Please, let me talk to Joe.”
McKinney’s palm centered my back. “I’ll take you to the cabin to gather a few of your things. We have a lot of decisions to make. I want to help you, Aine. Your aunt said she wasn’t in a place to offer assistance. She said you were on your own.”
I heard everything he said, but I didn’t care. I’d never counted on the Cahills to save me. Quite the opposite. But I had to find a way to prove Joe’s innocence.
Under the chief’s guidance, I preceded him out the door and to the cruiser. I slid in the front seat before he could protest. Without argument, he drove to the inn.
“Who’ll help Dorothea?” I asked him. “Patrick’s gone. Joe’s gone. Now I’ll be gone.”
“I’ll check on her. I think she may sell the inn. She has family in Florida. A better climate for her. Patrick’s death is too much for her. I hate to see it happen, but she should go.”
“Can I tell her good-bye?”
“She doesn’t want to see you, Aine. She said she’d box up the rest of your things and send them to your family.”
“Where will I go?”
“Boston University Medical Center, for an evaluation. From there, probably the Massachusetts Bayside Institution. It’s a top-notch facility. Dr. Marshall has evaluated your medical record. She’s talked with Dorothea and your adviser at Brandeis. He said you were a student with a lot of potential. Anyway, we’ll see how your treatment goes.”
“And Joe?”
“Dr. Marshall said I shouldn’t lie to you. That the plain truth is the best thing. Joe’s in for a tough time. He’d likely be remanded and stay in jail until his trial. Massachusetts doesn’t have a death penalty. Life without parole.” His tone was carefully neutral.
We drove past the inn and through the woods until we came to the cabin and pulled to a stop. The sun was gone, but light still lingered in the sky. Granny Siobhan had called this time the gloaming. She’d said it was when spirits woke from their slumbers to prepare for the night’s work.
“Aine.” McKinney tapped my shoulder. “You don’t have a lot of personal things here. I’ll box up your computer and books. They won’t let you have that for the first few weeks. You pack your clothes and personal things.”
“I know you think you’re helping me, but you aren’t.” I tried to sound reasonable, but he ignored me. I noticed the cabin door ajar. It would be freezing inside. Colder than out here. And darker.
“Wait here and let me check inside,” McKinney said. “I don’t think Dorothea would leave the door open.” He got out of the car and left me sitting.
His boots echoed on the small front porch. Gun drawn, he entered the cabin. I opened the car door and eased my feet to the ground.
McKinney reappeared in the doorway and motioned me inside. “Get some things and let’s go back to the jail. I’ll let you talk to Joe.”
There was no point arguing. I did as he told me. On the porch, I paused for a moment. “I’m not lying,” I told him. I reached into my pocket for the scrap of paper, but it was only dust and lint. It was gone, evaporated like the rest of Mischa’s lies.
“The lab tested the glasses you were burying. Since we knew we were looking for strychnine, it was a simple procedure. There was evidence of the poison in one glass. Joe’s fingerprints were on both of them.”
“My prints were on the glasses too. Joe was always at my cabin and we often drank wine. So I’m not the best housekeeper. He didn’t kill anyone, chief.”
“I wish I could believe you,” he said. “Joe is like a son to me. It’s hard for me to accept what he’s done—and that he’s fooled half the town for ten years.”
“Maybe it was me,” I said.
“If I didn’t believe Joe guilty, I’d never have locked him up.” He pointed to the car. “Let’s go, Aine. Dorothea said to leave your keys on the doormat.” He went down the porch, loaded with boxes he began to stack in the trunk.
I pulled the cabin and inn keys from my pocket and dropped them in the center of the O in WELCOME. A roughened edge of paper caught my eye and I pulled it from beneath the mat. The handwriting was fluid and clean. I recognized it. Bonnie’s.
The dead are liars, Aine. Never listen to them.
I tucked the page in my jeans pocket.
Back in the car, McKinney circled and headed slowly through the woods.
A flash of red followed us on my side, deep within the dusky shadows of the trees. Mischa. She easily kept apace of the patrol car.
This wasn’t over. I wasn’t beaten. Whatever happened to me, I wasn’t dead. I didn’t belong to her.
Not yet.
Acknowledgments
Writing is a strange, solitary job. Writing scary stories is a journey not for the faint of heart. There are too many times when my dogs bark at something outside the darkened window or a bottle brush limb scratches across a screen that I become frightened. Runaway imagination. But I love stories with a little chill. I love the sense of something behind me, half-hidden in the shadows. Watching. Delicious.
This book takes place at Walden Pond, but not the real Walden Pond of 2014. My Walden lingers in the past and in my imagination. It is a place haunted by many things. One autumn I went to visit a writer friend of mine, Kristine Rolofson, in Rhode Island. It was the perfect fall weekend that we never see in the Deep South—leaves in burnished red and gold, blue sky, crisp air. Kristine is a generous tour guide and took me all around her neck of the woods.
We went to Walden Pond and the Alcott house and the whaling villages. It was fascinating to learn about a way of life as alien to me as living on the moon. Never in a million years did I dream I’d be visited by a story in this setting. And yet, here it is.
Understand that I’ve taken great liberties with Thoreau and the area. The story demands certain things, and the past isn’t around to defend itself. So I used it to my advantage.
Aside from thanking Kristen and husband Glen, who shared their love of their home area with me, I want to thank Suzann Ledbetter for her skillful eye on story. Dean James, sometimes you are struck with genius in helping me untangle the snarl. This was one of those times. Jennifer Haines Williamson, you have a good eye for story. Also thanks to John Kwiatkowski and my generous pre-readers who gave me good feedback. Several northern readers were very helpful with climate and geography.
It is a joy to work with Pegasus Books. Maia Larson is an editor that any author would kill to work with. Claiborne Hancock makes each writer feel like a valuable part of the team. The book cover and interior design—this is what the printed book is all about. Thank you Michael Fusco and Maria Fernandez.
I can’t imagine the long, long journey of writing and selling a book without agent Marian Young on my side. Of all the doubts a writer can have in this crazy business, her integrity and classiness are never in question.
And I want to thank my family and friends. Some of them don’t like to be scared, and they read the book anyway. They whined a good bit, but they read it, and I was deeply gratified that I disturbed them. Thank you all.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic
or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by R. B. Chesterton
Interior design by Maria Fernandez
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