The Sound of Secrets

by Irene Brand

  He dumped the ice into the sink and dropped the cups in a waste can. “Come into another room—I think you’ll like it there.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the bedroom area.

  “I really should be leaving,” she said, suddenly feeling ill at ease. Even though Drew was a cop and she had faith in him, the truth was that they barely knew each other and she’d be wise to keep her guard up. “I want to be home when my family gets back from the airport.”

  Perhaps sensing the reason for her hesitation, Drew turned her gently to face him. “I don’t want you to leave with a negative attitude. Trust me! This won’t take long.”

  She searched his eyes for a moment. She knew instinctively that her reaction to his plea for trust would determine their future relationship—for good or bad. She yielded to his suggestion by moving forward. He tightened his embrace briefly and released her.

  They walked down a short hallway facing a bathroom. Drew’s bedroom was to the left, and although it was as stark in appearance as the rest of the house, the bed was neatly made. Rissa experienced an inner sigh of relief when Drew turned toward the closed door to the right. He unlocked the door, turned on a light and stepped back for Rissa to enter first. To leave the simply furnished part of Drew’s home for his workshop was like entering a new world.

  The room was brilliantly lit with several strips of fluorescent lights. Numerous model airplanes hung from the ceiling. Shelves along the walls contained model airplanes of all sizes. A large worktable, holding a skeleton replica of an antique plane, dominated the center of the room. Speechless, Rissa pivoted and surveyed the room from all angles.

  Several dioramas depicted planes. One looked like a navy craft that had been shot down and was slowly sinking into the sea. Another plane had crashed in a desert area, so skillfully made that it seemed like the real thing. The room was a veritable museum.

  Drew watched her closely, apparently intent on her reaction. Rissa’s throat was so tight she couldn’t speak, but she held out her left hand, and he grasped it, squeezing so tightly that she almost cried out in pain. She wiggled her fingers and he relaxed his grip.

  “And you’ve done all of these,” she murmured.

  “Yes. This is the reason I haven’t made my house more livable. The other rooms are just a place to eat and sleep. When I’m not at work, I spend all of my time in here.”

  “I want to come back when I have more time so you can tell me about all this. But give me a brief tour now. How did you get interested in this hobby? How long have you been making planes?”

  Still holding her hand, he walked to one of the shelves and picked up a replica. “This is the first plane I made. It’s a World War II B-25 bomber.” With a faraway look in his eyes, he continued, “I only have one pleasant memory of my father, and this is it.” He handed the plane to Rissa and she held it as carefully as she would have a priceless jewel.

  He sauntered to the worktable, lifted a piece of sandpaper and applied it to the wing of the model on the table. As he sanded, he said, “My father bought that kit for me when I was ten years old during one of the periods when he was trying get clean. He helped me put the model together.”

  When he paused for a short time, Rissa said, “And you’ve enjoyed the hobby ever since?”

  He laid down the sandpaper, took the model plane from Rissa and put it back on the wad of modeling clay that held it in place on the shelf.

  “No. He was back to his old self soon after that, and I hid the plane away for years. When I was in high school, though, I took a hobby class in vocational training and my interest in planes revived. I didn’t have much room in my mother’s home, so I worked in an outbuilding and kept the models packed away. When I had a place of my own, I still didn’t have much room until I moved into this house. I didn’t need an extra bedroom, so I remodeled this room into a workshop.”

  “I’m really impressed with what you’ve done. Tell me just a few things before we have to leave.”

  “There are thousands and thousands of kits available—probably one or more for every plane ever made, so I knew I had to specialize. Most of my models are World War II vintage. I’ll just mention the ones hanging from the ceiling.”

  He pointed out and explained briefly the merits of a P-51 Mustang Glamorous Glen III aircraft. A P-51 Black Widow. A Japanese Zero Gray Saboru Sakai. A TBF-TBM-3 Avenger. A P-38J Lightning with Shark Teeth. And a P-40B Tomahawk.

  Rissa exclaimed over each one, appreciating the talent he displayed.

  “Really, it isn’t hard,” he said modestly. “I buy kits that have all the parts. All I have to do is follow instructions.”

  “All the same, you must have an aptitude for this kind of work. And it must take a lot of patience.”

  “It’s therapy for me. I come here, close the door and forget my worries. We don’t often have to deal with crimes like the ones at Blanchard Manor, but still, detective work is demanding. I can get away from everything in here.”

  He turned off the lights and closed the door, leaving the pleasant, well-lit room to go back to the reality of his stark existence.

  “But is this all of your life?” Rissa said in bewilderment, wanting so much to understand Drew’s inner self. “You work and come home. That’s it? Don’t you have any social life at all? No community involvement? No friends? No dates?”

  With a sweeping gesture and a thin smile on his lips, he said, “This is it.”

  Rissa had always thought she had been deprived by a motherless childhood and without any affection from her father. But her life was wonderful when compared to Drew’s. She’d had Aunt Winnie and a grandfather to love her. She had five sisters for companionship. Now she had her circle of close friends in New York. Drew had nothing but his hobby—a fact that depressed her more than it should, especially since he hadn’t given her any right to enter his life.

  As they walked out of the house, Rudolph screeched, “Goodbye. Goodbye.”

  Drew leaned against one of the porch posts and looked toward the water below them. “You asked about dating. I’ve avoided relationships because I don’t intend to get married. It wouldn’t be fair to date someone and give her false expectations. Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose so,” Rissa said quietly.

  They drove in silence until they were a few miles from Blanchard Manor. Drew pulled to the side of the road and cleared his throat. “Since I’ve confided more to you this afternoon than I’ve ever told anyone, I might as well tell you the main reason I avoid women. Perhaps I shouldn’t talk to you about such a personal matter, but I want you to know.”

  Rissa had already heard more than she wanted to, but she didn’t comment.

  “When I was taking my physicals for the police academy, I learned that I’m sterile.”

  She cast a surprised glance in his direction.

  “I had mumps when I was a child, and as the saying was in our town, I had a ‘backset.’ I’ll spare you the plain facts, but it took several weeks for me to recover. I overheard my mother and another woman talking about how a backset with the mumps would keep me from fathering any children.”

  Rissa reached for Drew’s hand and held it tightly. Sensing that this revelation was difficult for him, she said, “You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “I want you to know. I figured it might be an old wives’ tale, so when I had that physical, I asked the doctor to check my sterility. He confirmed that I couldn’t father a child. Up until that time, I figured I’d get married someday, but after I learned about my physical problem, I didn’t think it would be fair to a wife.”

  Rissa heard the defeat in his voice and she prayed for the right words to speak, but she remained silent. If anyone ever asked to marry her, she planned on being upfront about not envisioning herself as a mother. However, Drew had made it plain several times that their lives were too diverse for more than friendship. Because he hadn’t given her any reason to be
lieve that he would want to marry her despite his physical problem, she didn’t feel inclined to tell him that she didn’t want children.

  Still trying to find words of comfort, she finally said, “I don’t imagine that would matter to any woman who really loved you. If you do fall in love, shouldn’t you let the woman decide?”

  He gave an impatient shrug and the melancholy on his face pierced Rissa’s heart.

  “I just don’t happen to see it that way. But that’s only one of my reasons for not marrying. I don’t have much to offer otherwise—no stable family background, no expectation of any wealth.”

  What else could she say? She’d probably already said too much. But a part of her felt like the subject remained unsettled between them.

  When he pulled into the circular drive at Blanchard Manor, Rissa said, “Thanks so much for taking me to your home and sharing your enthusiasm for building model airplanes with me. I’m sorry about what you’ve just told me, about your physical condition. But don’t worry—I won’t mention it to anyone.”

  Rissa was alternately distressed and happy when she considered the unforgettable afternoon she’d spent with Drew. She didn’t want to answer any questions about where she had been, so she was relieved that she had gotten home before her family, who arrived soon afterward.

  It hadn’t been long since Rissa had seen her youngest sister, Juliet, but she still hurried to meet her in the lower hall and give her a hug. In Rissa’s opinion Juliet was the beauty of the family. Tall and graceful, she had long, platinum-blond hair, green eyes and fair, delicate features. Rissa had always heard that Juliet looked like their mother, and now that she had seen her mother, she recognized the close resemblance.

  Juliet wore a cosmic-palette jacket with all the colors of a rainbow, a white cotton interlock T-shirt, and crosshatch jeans with sequined floral embroidery on the back pocket and lower leg. The jeans were belted with a mesh sash twinkling with coppery discs. Looking at Juliet’s trendy, casual clothes, Rissa was pleased to realize that their father hadn’t dampened Juliet’s free spirit when she’d started working at Blanchard Fabrics.

  Ronald didn’t come home for dinner, and the four sisters and Winnie enjoyed a pleasant meal. Aunt Winnie and Portia had filled Juliet in on the details of the pending funeral on their way from the airport, but Winnie had forbidden any mention of the situation as they dined together.

  Soon after dinner, all of them retired to their individual rooms and the house was quiet. Drew hadn’t returned and another officer kept vigil in the hall below.

  Rissa couldn’t sleep because her mind was on the afternoon with Drew. She knew so much more about him now than she had known twenty-four hours earlier. In fact, she probably knew more about him than anyone else did. Was there any particular significance in that fact?

  Could it mean that he suspected that she might have romantic feelings for him and wanted to warn her off because he wasn’t interested in her? Or could it mean that he shared the same feelings that she harbored in her heart for him? If that was so, did he think it was only fair for her to know his physical limitations before their relationship intensified?

  Because she was feeling cold, Rissa put on a pair of knit pajamas, slipped under the covers and turned out the light. She didn’t want to keep Portia awake, and if she did leave the room, she could put a robe around her pajamas. After a half hour, it was obvious she wasn’t going to sleep. She missed Drew and the security she felt when he was in the house. She realized that their nightly meetings had been the stimulant she had needed to endure the past few days.

  She tried to focus on all he had going for him, but all she could think of was his defeatist attitude. He needed someone to love him and prove to him that he was important, but was she the one?

  She was still awake when she heard Ronald’s Jaguar pull into the driveway. A few moments later, she sighed with relief at the sound of her father’s heavy tread as he climbed the steps. In spite of the police protection, she’d been afraid to leave her bedroom, but now that her father was home she felt safer. Although she harbored a suspicion that he might have killed her mother, she would never believe that he would harm one of his daughters. She recalled that as a child, she’d always felt protected when he’d been in the house. But her sense of security disappeared when a warning voice whispered in her head, “Don’t forget whoever killed your mother also shot at you.”

  Rissa put on her slippers and robe, opened the door quietly and eased out into the corridor. She didn’t want to disturb the cop in the main hallway so she padded softly toward the smaller staircase that led toward the backyard and the kitchen. She hadn’t wanted much dinner and she was hungry. Andre always kept a plate of snacks available, and she thought a glass of milk and a cookie or two might help her fall asleep.

  At the foot of the steps, she pulled back the curtain from a window and peered outside, wishing she dared take a walk. Today had been balmy, the first mild day Maine had experienced. Even the ocean breeze had been calm and warm. She lifted her hand to turn on the hall light to guide her to the kitchen when she heard a conversation outside. She became instantly wide awake.

  The voices were muffled, but she moved close to the door and pressed her ear against the upper frosted-glass panel. She couldn’t tell if the conversation was between men or women.

  The tone of one voice was completely foreign to her, and she believed it was a woman talking. The other voice seemed somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t hear enough to be positive. The speakers sounded as if they were several yards from the house, and to hear more easily, she decoded the security system, slid the dead bolt and turned the doorknob quietly. When the conversation continued, she cracked the door about an inch to hear more distinctly.

  In the quietness of the night, although she didn’t recognize the speaker, she plainly heard the words, “Are you sure she didn’t recognize you?”

  A guttural voice said, “My face was covered the whole time, and it was dark in the room. You worry too much.”

  A soft gasp escaped her when she tumbled to the fact that they were talking about her. The voices ceased abruptly and Rissa heard nothing more. Surely they couldn’t have heard her. Was this another one of her delusions?

  Too scared to move at first, she knew she had to return to her room. If the two people thought they had been overheard, she was in danger. Still being cautious, and in spite of her trembling, she latched the door and bolted it. She ran up the steps and into her bedroom. Her heart was racing, and groping in the darkness, she found her way to a chair.

  TWELVE

  Although she had taken her antidepressant after dinner, Rissa searched her purse for the medication. The psychiatrist had told her it was all right to take a double dose of the medication if she felt she needed it. She’d never been under such stress, and she hoped the tablets would calm her until she could decide what to do.

  When she pulled two bottles of medicine out of her purse, Rissa paused for a moment. Had that first bottle been in her purse all along? Her mind was definitely playing tricks on her.

  Rissa walked quietly to her bedside table for a glass of water to wash down the two tablets. To give time for the tablets to take effect, she walked quietly to the window that faced the backyard. She took a quick, sharp breath and shock spread throughout her body. Someone was walking through the yard toward the bluffs. Could this be one of the people she had overheard outside the back door?

  Determined to find out who was loitering on the property at night, Rissa grabbed a flashlight and her cell phone and headed downstairs. Belatedly she thought it might have been a good idea to awaken Portia and tell her what was happening, but she didn’t want to upset the household unnecessarily. She stepped outside cautiously. She peered into the quiet darkness for several minutes. Seeing no one, she headed toward the cliff. She was convinced the person had taken the trail along the bluffs.

  Realizing that someone needed to know what she was doing, Rissa paused near the gazebo and dialed Drew�
��s number. He answered sleepily on the second ring.

  Aware that someone might be listening, in a muted voice, she said, “I overheard two people talking outside the house tonight, and I think they were talking about me. One of them just now walked across the yard toward the bluffs. This may be the breakthrough we need. I’m going to follow and see who it is.”

  “No! No! Go back in the house,” he ordered. “It isn’t safe for you to be out.”

  She hung up. Refusing to heed Drew’s warning, conscious only of the fact that she might be at the point of finding out who had murdered her mother, Rissa ran across the vast lawn toward the bluffs.

  Partly from exertion but mostly from excitement and fear, Rissa hurried up the steep incline, thankful that it was a clear night. The revolving light from the lighthouse on the point of land opposite the bluffs provided enough light to find her way without using the flashlight. She tried to walk quietly and cringed each time she dislodged a rock that hurtled down the cliff.

  She didn’t see anyone ahead of her, and although she paused occasionally to listen, Rissa couldn’t hear any footsteps on the trail. Anxiously, she wondered if she was hallucinating again and had imagined that someone had walked into the woods.

  When she reached the highest point of the bluff, Rissa moved into the shadow of a tree and peered anxiously around her. The flashing light from the tower illuminated the bluffs for a short time—long enough for Rissa to see that the area was empty. Could the unknown individual have known that she was following?

  Silence loomed around her like a heavy mist from the ocean. With the next illumination from the lighthouse, Rissa’s eyes swept the pinnacle. The foolhardiness of her action stunned her. There were dozens of places where someone could be hiding—rock outcroppings, large tree trunks and underbrush. For all she knew, someone might be on a ledge below the precipice. Why hadn’t she listened to Drew’s insistence that she was in danger and wait for him?

  She walked closer to the precipice and stopped again. All was silent except the crashing of waves on the uneven coast. The only thing to do was to call Drew and tell him she was going back to the house.