The soft pink glow of dawn filtered through the drapes and through Katie’s closed eyelids. She opened her eyes just long enough to see Jonathan’s navy topcoat hanging on the hall tree beside her paint-spattered smock, and closed them again.
She was on the cot, lying naked beneath the blanket and afghan.
Vaguely she remembered Jonathan carrying her here sometime during the night. She had no trouble at all, however, remembering their lovemaking, and, despite a mild, wine-induced headache, she stretched lazily, languidly. The rich aroma of coffee wafted invitingly to her.
Katie smiled dreamily.
Darker thoughts prodded her consciousness, threatening to rip open her magical cocoon of love, to expose her to harsher realities. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. Not yet. Not yet.
Voices down by the lake. Men shouting to one another. Urgent, excited sounds.
Katie felt cold in the hollow of her stomach.
At the sound of Jonathan coming into the room, she opened her eyes. He hesitated in the doorway, steam rising up past his face from the two mugs of coffee he held. One look at him and Katie knew. All the good feeling drained from her. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she sat up and accepted the coffee he handed her. Though she steeled herself for the bad news, at the same time she clung to a thread of hope. Maybe she was reading him wrong. She couldn’t bring herself, however, to ask the question aloud. It wasn’t necessary.
“They’ve been dragging the lake for the last hour,” Jonathan said. His eyes shifted from her to his coffee mug. “They—just found him.”
A small sound escaped Katie. Her magical cocoon exploded into darkness.
He sat down heavily beside her and closed his hand over hers. They sat like that for several minutes, not speaking. Then Katie heard herself say, “He couldn’t swim, you know. Jason was afraid of the water.” Why wasn’t she crying? Maybe there were no tears left.
Jonathan nodded, still staring into his coffee. “He was—uh—fully dressed. Whoever dressed that—thing and hung it in the cellar must have broken into his apartment first.”
“Murder,” Katie said simply.
“We don’t know that. They’re combing the grounds for clues, tracks…” His voice faltered. “The bank is slippery from all the rain. He could just have fallen in.”
Katie looked at him. “You don’t believe that.”
“No, I guess I don’t.” He frowned into his coffee mug as though it had suddenly been transformed into some foul-tasting brew, and set it on the floor. He released her hand. “You’d best get dressed. There’ll be questions. There’s hot water if you’d like to bathe.”
She needed him to hold her, needed that badly, but he’d thrown up a wall between them. She sensed his withdrawal. He’d been caring, but in the way of a doctor toward his patient. She felt hurt and confused, but she would not reach out to him. She had her pride. Where was your pride last night?
Her clothes were neatly folded on the chair by the fireplace. She asked him to please pass them to her. He did.
“I’d like to be alone now.”
“Of course,” he said kindly, and left the room.
***
An aproned Rose Nickerson stood at the kitchen counter peeling apples for pies and turnovers for the church bake sale. And though her practiced hands worked deftly, her mind was on Betty Martin’s visit.
Rose knew, though Betty didn’t say so, that she hadn’t been at all satisfied with her explanation of why Billy and Rachael had high-tailed it home, scared half out of their minds, and it bothered Rose. The incident with the truck, she supposed, was a reasonable enough explanation, yet why wasn’t it holding well in her own head? Though she wasn’t much for visiting, never had been, she felt she knew these people, knew their children. Hadn’t she lived in this house for over forty years, ever since Harvey had built it for her when she was a young bride? Not once in all that time had there ever been any trouble with the neighborhood children. Not even a soaping of her windows, that she could recall. Maybe because she always handed out generous treats, she thought smiling to herself. She enjoyed the children coming to her house on Halloween night, and was sorry she’d missed Rachael and Billy. And sorrier still about what had taken place in her absence.
“You missed them by no more than fifteen minutes,” he’d told her as he explained rather sheepishly what had happened. It had surprised Rose to hear that Rachael and Billy were playing around in the truck, with Billy sitting boldly up in the cab. It didn’t sound like them. She’d always found them to be lovely, polite children, even a little on the shy side. But he’d been so sincere in the telling. It had, in fact, been his sincere manner, which had persuaded her to hire him in the first place—that and his charm, she supposed. Rose began slicing the apples into the uncooked pie shells and thought about that day nearly three months ago now that he’d stood in her doorway, cap and suitcase in hand, and told her he was a writer and needed a quiet, private place to work. He offered to do odd jobs in exchange. She had to admit she’d quite enjoyed the thought of having a real writer living in her house. When she showed him the attic room, he said it suited him just fine, and when she quoted him the meager wage she could afford to pay him, he didn’t bat an eye, just smiled and said that would be fine, too.
Odd, Rose thought as she bundled up the peelings in newspaper, that I never hear any typing coming from up there. But perhaps he wrote in longhand.
Rose carried the small bundle toward the garbage can by the back door, glancing out the kitchen window as she did. She stopped there and adjusted her bifocals.
He was busily raking leaves down by the path, wearing that old faded army jacket, head bent to the task. He was a good worker; she had no quarrel with that. Nor that he made his own hours and came and went as he pleased. For all she knew, he might even have another job he went to. Now that she thought about it, she realized she really knew very little about this stranger who shared her house.
Had she made a mistake?
A woman alone couldn’t be too careful.
Yet he did seem a sincere fellow.
Rose moved from the window and dropped the bundle of apple peelings into the garbage can. “What do you think, Harvey?” she said aloud. “Should I have another talk with him, spell it out that he’ll just have to watch himself with the neighbors? Or do you think I should let him go?” Harvey was dead seven years now, of a sudden heart attack, and Rose had never stopped missing him. Talking to him comforted her, as did believing he heard every word she uttered, and even that he offered Rose advice in his quiet way.
At the sound of her voice, Tiger came trotting into the room, his big, yellow eyes looking questioningly up at Rose. “No, I wasn’t calling you, Tiger-poo,” she said, laughing, bending to gather the now loudly purring cat up in her arms. As she scratched beneath his chin, Tiger arched his neck and closed his eyes in ecstasy. “What a baby you are, Tiger-poo,” she laughed again. “What a big, old baby you are.”
It was that moment that Harvey spoke to her—not in a human voice—but in a voice similar in a way to her own inner one. But there was no mistaking it was Harvey she heard. No mistaking at all.
“Get him out, Rose!” Harvey said. “Get him out of your home, now!”
Gooseflesh rose on her bare arms as Tiger let out a soul-chilling howl and sprang from her embrace.
***
“Dr. Shea tells us you were a close friend of the deceased.”
“That’s correct,” Katie said with outward calm. She was sitting in a worn, overstuffed chair in the parlor, dressed in gray slacks and a white blouse, her face bare of makeup. Her hands, folded in her lap, clenched at the reference to Jason as “the deceased”. The policeman was the same one who’d been here before. His voice was no longer skeptical, but hard as the steely eyes nearly lost in puffy folds of skin surrounding them. In the midst of pacing the floor in front of her, he fired off a question like a bullet from a gun. “How good, Miss Summers?”
If she were not so sick at heart she mig
ht have laughed at his posturing. Instead, she said, “Very good, as Dr. Shea has already told you.”
He was standing before her, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at her as if they were in a courtroom, and he was the supreme judge. “We found fresh tire tracks—large tracks, probably a truck—on the property. And erratic footprints, both leading down to the lake. It’s clear to me that whoever was behind the wheel chased your friend down until there wasn’t any place for him to go but into the water. Mission accomplished, the vehicle in question sped off.”
His words drew a picture in Katie’s mind that made her want to cry out. It was as if the nightmarish experience of Jason’s childhood had returned to claim him. She nodded her head involuntarily, wanting to, but unable to deny the sergeant’s horrible conclusions. “How can I help you, Officer?” she asked.
“Do you think you can move it along?” Jonathan asked.
The sergeant shot him a look of annoyance. Then he cleared his throat and returned his attention to Katie. “Do you happen to know anyone—friend, co-worker—who drives a truck?”
“No, I…”
“Take your time, Miss Summers. Think hard. It could be important.”
Important? Was anything important anymore? Jason was gone. Dead. She supposed she would just have to accept that. As she’d had to accept that her father was gone. And Todd. And Aunt Katherine. Even in an ironic way, her mother.
“Joey Smith sometimes drives The Coffee Shop van,” she said. “To deliver take-out orders, or run errands for Mrs. Cameron, the owner.”
Interest glinted in the small, icy-gray eyes, and at once Katie felt guilty. “But he wouldn’t be the…”
“We’ll decide, Miss Summers.” He smiled to take the sting from his words. “If madmen always looked like madmen, they’d all be locked up. Our job would be a whole lot easier. Now, let’s get back to this Joey. You say he works at The Coffee Shop. That’s on Cavendish, isn’t it? You’re employed there yourself?”
She nodded.
He scribbled in a small black notebook. “Anyone else?”
“What?”
He looked up from his notepad. “You know anyone else who drives a truck?”
“Oh. No, I—well, Charlie Black has a truck. He lives about three miles from here. He owns a wood lot, which has provided my Aunt Katherine, and now me, with fuel for many years. When my aunt died, he simply carried on. I’ve had no reason to be anything but grateful. Anyway, the man is in his seventies.”
“He live alone?”
“His wife passed away years ago.”
“Does he have access to this house?”
“He has a key to the cellar. He’s had one for as long as I can remember. But anyone intent on getting in here wouldn’t need a key. The windows fit poorly, and the locks on the doors aren’t that secure. It’s an old house.”
“Maybe you oughta consider moving. Doesn’t sound too safe for a woman alone.”
“This is my home. I’ll decide if I’m to move. And when.”
“You know a Peter Machum?”
The questions caught her by surprise, which she understood at once was meant to. She had a sinking sensation she knew where this was leading. Jonathan was right about one thing: Sergeant Miller was a son-of-a-bitch.
“Yes, I know Peter Machum. He’s a—he was a friend of Jason’s.”
His grin edged very close to an out-and-out sneer. “Jeez, you never know, do you? You couldn’t tell by that one. A lawyer, too. I guess it can’t hurt the investigation to tell you we found a letter in Belding’s wallet, in the plastic part where decent people usually keep pictures of their wife and kids. It was from this Peter Machum—a pretty cozy letter considering it was from one man to another.”
Katie said nothing.
“You know this Jason Belding was a faggot?”
Katie’s cheeks burned with anger. “Yes, I knew Jason was homosexual.”
“And you two were good friends.”
“I’ve already told you that.”
“But you didn’t tell me how good.”
Katie could only look at him as her thin veneer of calm began to peel away and a trembling began deep within her.
The sergeant’s voice grated on. “Maybe Belding swung both way.
Maybe the boyfriend didn’t like you two being so cozy, and maybe he got a little jealous and…”
Jonathan suddenly sprang between them, towering over the policeman. His mouth was a grim line. “And maybe you’re over the line. I hate like hell to interrupt this class act of yours, Sergeant, but you seem to have forgotten Jason Belding is the victim here—as is Miss Summers.”
Sergeant Miller stood his ground. “And you seem to forget, Doctor, that you’re treading dangerously close to obstructing an officer in his line of duty.”
“I doubt that your duty includes obnoxious and inexcusable behavior. Any further questions will have to wait until tomorrow, I’m afraid. And you can bet your badge, Sergeant, I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure you’re not the one asking them.”
“It’s all right, Jonathan,” Katie said. The interruption, and maybe the passionate defense, had allowed her to regain a little of her composure. “Let him ask his questions. I want them to find whoever did this as much as anyone. Maybe more.” Except for Peter, she thought suddenly. Oh, God, she would have to get to Peter before someone else did—before he heard it on the news.
“Are you sure?” Jonathan asked anxiously. “You don’t have to subject yourself to this, you know.”
“I know. But it’s okay.”
He nodded. To the sergeant he said, “Speed up your questions, then. And use a little care in asking them.”
The man appeared totally undaunted by the attack, although when he began to speak again, both his manner and his tone of voice had softened considerably. He was almost pleasant.
“This Charlie Black,” he was saying, “he any relation to the Blacks who used to own most of the land around here? Goes back a bit before your time, though,” he said, scratching absently at his head beneath the police hat.
“Yes, he is,” Katie replied, recalling her aunt telling her about Black Lake being named for the Black family, and that Charlie was the last living member. They’d been farmers. She related what she knew.
“Yep,” the sergeant said, hitching up his pants. “Biggest farm around way back then.” His eyes narrowed at her. “Tell me a little more about this Joey Smith.”
At some point during the questioning a part of Katie seemed to detach itself, hearing the dialogue and watching the scene unfold as if viewing some macabre play.
“It’s a place to start,” he said. “It’s possible the person responsible—that’s if the drowning wasn’t accidental, mind you— which I doubt—is someone you know. Or at least someone who knows you. There could be some small incident, something that seemed insignificant at the time, but that could prove important now.” He tossed Jonathan a challenging look. “Maybe the good doctor here might even help in that area. Maybe he could even put together—what do they call it?—Oh, yes, a psychological profile of the man we’re looking for.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help, of course,” Jonathan said. “But there’s not always the domineering mother in the background, Sergeant. Or the brutal father. Sometimes there is just—evil.”
After a long silence, Sergeant Miller turned impatiently from Jonathan, grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like freakin ’ witch doctor.
At last, all the questions asked and answered as well as she could answer them, the policeman left, and she and Jonathan were alone. Katie dragged herself out of the chair and wandered into the studio where she watched through the glass doors opening onto the balcony, as two men in white coats fitted what she knew to be Jason’s body into a green bag, which looked horribly like a garbage bag. As one of the men began to zip it up, Katie jerked her head away.
“You mustn’t stay here alone tonight, Katherine,” Jonathan said. “Is there some
one who could stay with you? What about Drake Devlin?”
The suggestion struck her like a blow to the heart, and she felt her remaining calm threaten to slip away. No, dammit! No, she would not let him see her cry. “I’ll be fine. Please don’t worry about me.” As Katie followed him out the door into the bright sunshine, fresh pain washed over her. The perfect autumn day seemed somehow a final betrayal to Jason.
Halfway way down the steps, Jonathan turned. “Oh, by the way, Devlin called while you were upstairs. He was quite concerned about you.”
She hadn’t heard the phone ringing. She must have been in the shower.
“I identified myself this time,” he added with a faint smile. “He hung up before I could get his number. But I expect you know it anyway.”
“Yes,” she lied. “Did you tell him…?”
“He already knew. Heard it on the radio.”
Suddenly she did not want Jonathan to leave. She did not want to be alone. “Will you be going back to the hospital?” She had dismissed his remark about no longer practicing psychiatry. “I imagine your patients must be feeling neglected by now.”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you. I’m not seeing any patients, except on an emergency basis. I’ve taken a year’s sabbatical. You will call Drake Devlin—ask him to stay with you?”
Not trusting herself to speak, she could only nod. Jonathan came back up the stairs to where she stood holding the door open. He cupped her chin in his hand, tilting it upward so that she was forced to meet his eyes. “About last night,” he said softly. “Don’t make more of it than what it was, Katherine. You were distraught. You needed someone. I was there, that’s all. No one but you and I need ever know. Somehow I don’t think—Drake would understand.” The gesture, the words, the half-grin seemed to mock her.
Fighting tears of pain and humiliation, she said, “I’ll call him the moment you leave.”
Alone now, Katie tracked down Peter Machum in New York. She dialed the number of the hotel. When she hung up, she hoped she would never have to do anything so difficult again in her life. But at least Peter hadn’t had to hear the news through the media.
Listen to the Shadows Page 14