The Hot Pink Farmhouse bam-2

by David Handler

  “Honey, I don’t believe this!” Bruce protested, aghast.

  Again Des found herself wondering whether his reaction was strictly for their benefit.

  “This whole scheme was Melanie Zide’s idea?” Soave demanded, glaring at Babette Leanse accusingly. “You had nothing to do with it?”

  Babette lowered her eyes. “I-I had the power to tell her no. And I didn’t.”

  “It means that much to you?” Des said to her.

  Babette looked at her blankly. “What does, trooper?”

  “The school. It’s worth ruining a man’s life just for the sake of a new building?”

  “Nothing is more important than our children’s well-being,” Babette replied with total conviction. “Colin was too bound up in local tradition to see that.”

  “And so you flattened him,” Des said.

  “Yes,” she admitted quietly.

  “The new school’s also pretty important to the future of The Aerie, am I right?”

  “One’s got nothing to do with the other,” Bruce argued hastily. “Not a thing.”

  “Really? That’s not what I’m hearing,” Des said.

  “Why, what are you hearing?” he demanded.

  “That you’d like to build a New Age retirement village on three thousand acres of prime farmland and forest adjacent to the river,” she replied. “That in order to lock up zoning and wetlands approval you’ve paid to play by donating the land and the design plans for this new school that you insist the town needs, even though a lot of people don’t happen to agree with you. From where I sit, Mr. Leanse, you’re the one who needs the new school.”

  “Our children need the new school,” Babette insisted. “Center School is unhealthy.”

  “And there’s no quid pro quo,” Bruce said vehemently. “That’s a lie. A vicious, evil lie. People repeat it often enough, they think it becomes the truth. It doesn’t. It’s still a damned lie!”

  God, they were cagey, Des reflected. From their lips it was impossible to tell truth from spin. Perhaps the two were one and the same to people such as these. Perhaps the whole cyber-romance scheme had been Babette’s idea, not Melanie’s. It wasn’t as if Melanie were around anymore to dispute her version of the facts.

  “I-I didn’t want Bruce to know about Colin,” Babette spoke softly. “I wanted this to be my own contribution. To accomplish something on my own.”

  “You accomplished something, all right,” Soave said to her coldly. “You placed yourself right in the middle of two murders.”

  “And a suicide attempt,” Des added. “Let’s not forget that.”

  “I shouldn’t have let it happen.” Babette’s eyes were beginning to shimmer, as if she might cry. “It was sneaky and wrong, just wrong. And I am deeply ashamed. But Colin did willingly engage in that pornographic online relationship. And he did leave smutty material on his screen for Melanie to see. That was his own doing. No one held a gun to his head. If he had behaved appropriately, then he would have had nothing to fear. He’d-” She broke off, her voice quavering. “Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. But it was an awful thing to do to someone, and I know it. I could have stopped it from happening, and I didn’t. And now I will have to accept the consequences.”

  Soave stared at her in disapproving silence. “Who shot Melanie Zide, Mrs. Leanse?”

  “I have no idea who, Lieutenant,” she replied. “Or why. Possibly Melanie got greedy. It was certainly like her to get greedy.”

  “Forgive me if I sound dense,” Bruce cut in, running a hand through his short, spiky hair. “But there’s one thing I’m still not getting…”

  “Which is what, Mr. Leanse?” Soave asked him.

  “This online lover of Colin’s,” he said slowly. “This Cutter fellow-just exactly who the hell is he?”

  CHAPTER 13

  There was so much sobbing coming from the other end of the phone that at first Mitch couldn’t even tell who the caller was. When he finally recognized the voice he laid down his fork and said, “Slow down, Takai. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Father!” she cried out. “I-I don’t know what to do or who to

  … I’m so sorry to bother you, but I-”

  “It’s okay, I’m not doing anything special.” In truth, he was busy wolfing down a third helping of Des’s remarkable Hoppin’ John. Des was still on the job. Bella had headed back to the Frederick House for the night and the Deacon had gone home. So had the helicopters that had been circling overhead for the past two hours, making him feel as if he were living in a war zone. “Just tell me what’s happened-is Hangtown all right?”

  “No, he is not all right! He’s in one of his drunken rages. Totally out of control. And they’re not releasing Jim until the morning and I’m all by myself and-”

  “Wait, isn’t there still a trooper stationed there?”

  “He’s parked way down at the gate to keep the damned press out. There’s no one here besides me. And I just can’t handle him. H-he’s really scaring me, Mitch. I’ve never seen him this bad. Could you

  …?”

  “Don’t say another word. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He went right out the door into the darkness, jumped into his pickup and headed over the wooden causeway to Peck Point. It had gotten windy out, and a cold drizzle was beginning to fall. A couple of TV news reporters from Hartford were still huddled under bright lights at the gate, trying to hold on to their hairdos as they filed their stories on Melanie Zide’s murder for the eleven-o’clock news. He steamed right past them and got onto the Old Shore Road and floored it, heading north with his brights and wipers on.

  By the time he turned off of Route 156 onto Old Ferry Road the drizzle had become a hard, steady rain. There was no press corps clustered at the foot of Hangtown’s private drive at this hour. Only the one state police cruiser that Takai had mentioned, which sat there blocking the entrance to the drive, its lights on, its engine running, a lone trooper behind the wheel. Mitch pulled up and waited but the trooper wouldn’t budge from his nice dry ride, so Mitch had to get out and slog through the rain with his head down to tell him that Takai was expecting him. The trooper didn’t seem the least bit interested. He didn’t even roll down his window when Mitch tapped on it. Asleep. The big oaf was asleep.

  Annoyed, Mitch yanked open the guy’s door and-

  Out he tumbled, his weight bowling Mitch over onto the wet ground underneath him, the trooper staring right down at him with half of his head blown off and a look of blind terror on what was left of his face.

  Mitch let out a strangled cry and scrambled out from under him, shuddering with revulsion. Now he was seeing blood and more blood in the light of his truck’s beams. Some of it had gotten on him. And there was broken glass all over the dead man and the seat and the dashboard. Whoever shot him had fired right through the passenger-side window.

  Mitch stood frozen there, overcome by the shock and the horror of it. Briefly, he thought he might pass out. Dazed, he stumbled blindly away… And then… And then he started running, slipping and sliding on the wet leaves, falling, getting back up. Up the long, twisting dirt drive he ran in the black of night, hearing himself panting, his footsteps chunking heavily. Mitch ran and he ran. Past the totem poles made of personal computers, alongside the meadow filled with car parts, around the big bend toward Wendell Frye’s hot pink house. The place was ablaze with lights. Every light in every window was on. Mitch ran and he ran, staggering to a halt only when he’d reached Moose’s old Land Rover, which was parked right out front.

  He fell against it, gulping for breath, his chest aching, when suddenly Sam came lunging furiously at him from the front seat, throwing himself against the rolled-up windows, barking and snarling.

  Someone had locked Hangtown’s dog in the car, and the normally mellow German shepherd was totally beside himself, a hundred and twenty savage pounds of fangs and muscles. Mitch didn’t know why he’d been locked up. But he wasn’t going to let him out
. Not the way he was acting.

  The front door to the house was wide open.

  Mitch proceeded inside, calling out Takai’s name, calling out Hangtown’s name, listening, hearing nothing in response. No sound at all except for his own heart pounding in his chest. Dripping wet, he headed straight for the phone in the kitchen to call for help. Des. He would call Des. He picked up the phone and was starting to punch in the numbers when he realized it was dead. Nothing but stone-cold silence greeted his ear.

  The line was out. Someone had made sure it was out.

  Mitch did have a cell phone for emergencies, but in his mad haste he had left it in his truck. He was standing there in the big farm kitchen thinking seriously about going back for it when he heard the scream.

  It was a woman’s scream. A scream of absolute terror. No time for phone calls. Only time to do something. The scream had come from the direction of the living room. Mitch started that way… Only now he could hear footsteps running directly overhead. Doors slamming. A cackling of maniacal laughter. Another scream-this time it seemed to be coming from the basement.

  The passageways. They were in Hangtown’s secret passageways.

  He grabbed a flashlight from the counter and dashed into the living room, trying to remember which suit of armor activated which hidden door. And exactly where that damned trapdoor in the floor was. He was not anxious to take another wild funhouse ride down to the cellar. Bracing himself, Mitch took a deep breath and raised the right gauntlet of one of the suits… and the trapdoor immediately dropped open right next to his feet. Greatly relieved, he lifted the visor on the other suit, opening the bookcase next to the fireplace. He barged through it into the utter darkness of the narrow secret passageway, flashlight in hand, fingering his way along its damp, cobwebbed walls. His knees did not feel entirely normal. Rubbery was not normal. And the beam of the flashlight was beginning to flicker. The batteries were almost gone, and a horrified Mitch was suddenly realizing…

  My God, I have seen this movie a million times. There’s always a tight shot on the Amiable Boob who’s just trying to help out. And as he stupidly gropes his way along, the Drooling Madman jumps out of the darkness behind him with an ax and the audience sees him and the Amiable Boob doesn’t and… WHAM! Only I am NOT sitting safely in a darkened theater with a jumbo-sized tub of hot buttered popcorn in my lap. I am IN this. Moose and Melanie are really dead. That cop out at the gate is really dead. And, if I don’t watch out, I am really dead.

  Now the floor fell away before him. He’d reached the spiral staircase to the cellar. He went down slowly, the narrow wooden stairs creaking under his weight as small creatures skittered along the water pipes right near his head, squealing. Rats. They were rats. At the bottom of the stairs he reached a cement floor, the flashlight’s dimming beam falling on the slick catacomb walls. He inched his way forward, hearing footsteps running above him, alongside him, next to him. And cackling. He heard a man cackling. And now a woman’s voice was crying, “No, don’t! No!” Christ, where were they? And now, yes, he was in the wine cellar. He’d found the wine cellar. Fumbling for the light switch, he flicked it on.

  Nothing. No lights came on.

  Mitch waved the flashlight’s faltering beam around. The hidden cupboard in the wall, the one where they used to stash booze during Prohibition, was wide open. He searched the shelves in hopes of finding candles or matches. But he found nothing but dust. And now his flashlight was practically dead and he was going to be stranded down here in the blackness, blind and helpless, if he didn’t come up with a plan, and fast…

  The kitchen. There were kerosene lanterns in the kitchen. If he could just find that passageway that Hangtown had led him down… Yes, here it was. This one… Okay, good, and here was the other spiral staircase, the one that led up to that secret corridor behind the upstairs bedrooms. On the other end of that corridor was the old service staircase to the kitchen. It was a plan. He could do this.

  Mitch felt his way up the winding stairs from the cellar to the second floor in almost total darkness. His flashlight was barely giving off a glow now. Groping the wall for balance, he heard a door slam. And then Hangtown’s voice cry out, “You won’t get away from me! You will never get away!” And Takai shriek, “Father, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Both of their voices seemed only inches away from him. But all he could see was blackness.

  Where were they? Where?

  Now he stumbled. There were no more stairs. He had reached that narrow second-floor corridor. He’d forgotten just how low the ceiling was. He ran headfirst into the cobwebs, his face covered with them. A spider moved across his cheek en route to his mouth. He swiped it away, his skin crawling, and felt his way blindly around one sharp corner, then another…

  Until suddenly he came upon blessed, golden light. It was the secret doors in back of the bedroom closets. They’d been flung open, the bedroom lights flooding the passageway with illumination. Blinking, Mitch halted at the first room he came to and parted the clothing that hung there in the closet before him. The entire room had been trashed. Furniture was overturned, bedding strewn.

  Now he heard a tremendous crash from the room next door, followed by a shriek.

  And Takai was streaking down the narrow corridor toward him, her face stricken with terror. Takai’s white silk blouse was ripped to shreds, her gray flannel slacks torn at the knees. And she was limping. One shoe was off, her bare foot bleeding. “Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God!” she cried as she ran smack into Mitch, hugging and kissing him madly, hysterically. She was absolutely out of control, her breath sour and hot as she clutched him, great sobs coming from her throat. “You’re here! You’re really here! Oh, thank God!”

  Mitch could hear glass being smashed in the next bedroom, heavy footsteps thudding on the floor. “Where are you, princess?!” Hangtown roared. “I’ll find you! I’ll kill you!”

  “What’s happened?” Mitch demanded, shaking Takai by the shoulders. “Tell me!”

  “Where’s your gun?” she sobbed. “You must… you’ve got to shoot him!”

  “I have no gun. Try to get a hold of yourself. What’s going on?”

  “He’s gone c-completely mad!” Takai managed to get out. “First he shot the cop at the gate. Now he’s trying to shoot me. He’s been chasing me all over this crazy house. H-he has the Barrett, Mitch. That giant shotgun he used on Moose.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Hangtown’s footsteps were coming closer now. “You can’t get away from me!”

  Takai let out a scream. Mitch grabbed her by the hand and yanked her roughly back down the corridor into the darkness.

  “Mitch, I can’t see!” she protested breathlessly, stumbling against him as they descended the spiral staircase blindly.

  “Just hold on to me,” he whispered, Hangtown’s footsteps growing fainter as they escaped farther back down into the blackness, Takai’s slim hand cold and clammy in his. “He shot Moose, is that it?”

  “Yes, Mitch. God knows why. He loved her. He needed her. He…” Takai’s voice trailed off in the darkness, her breathing shallow and uneven. “He keeps mumbling something about his damned will, of all things.”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t know. He’s making no sense… God!”

  “Do you know where he keeps it?”

  “What difference does that make? We have got to get out of here before he kills us both!”

  “My truck’s down at the gate. So is my cell phone, I’m afraid. Your phone is out.”

  “I know-he cut the outside wires. And stole my cell phone out of my shoulder bag.”

  “Does he keep his will in that wall safe in the living room?”

  “I think so,” she replied, as they inched their way down the staircase, step by step. “But I don’t know the combination. No one does, except for Father.”

  “Okay, that’s not a problem.”

  “Are you saying he told you the combination?”

  “He didn’t
have to-I know how his mind works.”

  “I’ve known that awful man my whole life and not once have I known him. How can you even say that?”

  Because he was certain, that was how. In fact, Mitch had never been as certain of anything in his whole life.

  They reached the passageway at the bottom of the staircase now, standing there in the blackness as Mitch tried to regain his bearings. “I don’t suppose you can find your way back to the living room from here, can you?”

  “With my eyes closed,” she replied. “We used to play down here when we were kids.”

  Now she was the one leading Mitch. Slowly and surely, she led him back through the darkness of the catacombs toward the rickety wooden staircase. Up they climbed, back toward that secret doorway next to the fireplace, back into the living room. They stood there hand in hand, blinking from the lights. Listening for Hangtown. Hearing only silence. Takai suddenly becoming aware of how revealing her torn blouse was. She folded her arms primly in front of her exposed, taut left nipple, her bare shoulders scratched and bleeding, one cheek scraped raw. Her bare foot still oozed blood.

  Mitch started toward the big rolltop desk over by the windows and pushed the button under the center drawer, triggering the panel of bookcases that hid the wall safe. “The combination will be taped underneath one of the other drawers,” he told her.

  “How do you know that?” Takai demanded, sticking close to him.

  “Because that’s where it is in every old movie I’ve ever seen-more important, he’s ever seen.”

  “Make it fast,” she said urgently. “We’ve got to get out of here before he finds us.”

  Quickly, Mitch knelt before the desk and started yanking out its drawers, dumping their contents out onto the floor and flipping them over, one after another after another… until, sure enough, there it was, on the underside of the bottom left-hand drawer, scrawled in pencil on a piece of masking tape: R16-L18-R26-L08.

  Mitch tore it off and headed for the wall safe with it, Takai gaping at him in amazement. After spinning the dial a couple of times he carefully entered the correct combination, paused and yanked the safe open.