Blood Knot: a small town murder mystery (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mysteries Book 3)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “Why?” Rachel Portman sat forward. “We’re not bothering anyone. After that first time, we’ve been real careful to pick up our trash.”

  “It’s private property, Rachel. Dr. Payne doesn't want you there—you have to respect that.”

  Rachel took a breath, as if to argue, but Brad shot her a silencing look. Frank knew this argument didn’t hold much water with them. Like most locals, they felt that you ought to be able to walk across anyone’s property as long as you did no harm.

  “He feels your being there is a distraction to his students,” Frank explained. “They might want to come over and join you. And believe me, I don’t think you’d like that any better than Payne would.”

  Frank headed to the comfort of his home, only to find the phone ringing and the answering machine full of bear reports. He changed the message on his machine to direct everyone to call the DEC with their bear problems, then drove over to the Iron Eagle Inn, where he could count on finding some rational conversation with its owners, his friends Edwin and Lucy Bates. And where he might also run into Penny Stevenson, who, according to Doris, was staying there.

  He walked into the inn's wide entrance hall, which was empty except for the threadbare stuffed moose head that presided over the reception desk. A second later he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and looked up to see a thin little girl with brown hair, dressed in a woman’s heels, scarf, and sequined sweater and carrying a small wooden box.

  “Hi, Olivia,” Frank said. “Whatcha got there—a jewel box?”

  “It’s not a jewel box,” Olivia said with the exaggerated patience children use when the adults in their lives say something incredibly stupid. “It’s a reliquary.”

  “A what?”

  “Open it up.”

  Inside, Frank saw a slightly charred splinter of wood that looked like it must’ve been pulled from the ashes in the fireplace.

  "You know what that is?”

  Fairly certain “a chunk of burnt wood” was not the right answer, Frank said, “No, what?”

  “A piece of the one true cross. Today I’m a medieval queen. One of my knights brought this back for me from the Crusades.” Olivia clomped off to the kitchen, the scarf floating behind her.

  Frank followed and got there in time to see Edwin, his torso wrapped in aluminum foil, on his knees promising eternal loyalty, while Olivia dubbed him with an uncommonly long wooden spoon.

  “You may rise, Sir Edwin!”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty. Hey Frank, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Probably the clanking of your armor drowned out my footsteps."

  “Olivia and I have been playing Middle Ages all morning. Liv, why don’t you go tell Lady Lucille that the roast mutton and mead is ready in the banquet hall.”

  “That's the page’s job, not the queen’s,” Olivia complained, but she went.

  Edwin smiled as he watched her disappear up the back stairs. “She doesn’t miss a trick.”

  “So, she’s doing well?” The lilt in Frank’s voice gave away how badly he wanted to be reassured. He had put Olivia’s mother, uncle, and grandfather in jail, and convinced Edwin and Lucy to take the little girl in as a foster child.

  Edwin rocked his hand back and forth. “She has her moments. As long as we keep her distracted with games and reading and shopping, she’s fine. But last weekend Lucy and I were busy with guests all evening, and when we went to check on her at bedtime we found her crying in her room. She asks about her mom a lot.”

  Frank knew his worry about the little girl must be written all over his face, because Edwin abruptly switched gears. “We have a full house tonight, very unusual for this time of year. Three sets of parents visiting the North Country Academy because they’re thinking of sending their kids there. That place is going to be great for business.”

  “That's good.” Frank accepted the distraction Edwin offered; worrying about Olivia wasn’t going to change her situation.

  Watching Edwin bustle around preparing for lunch had an oddly relaxing effect on Frank. Despite the five cups of coffee he’d drunk over breakfast, he almost felt he could drift off here in the inn’s warm kitchen.

  “Here—taste this,” Edwin commanded, popping some unidentified morsel into Frank’s mouth when his eyes had drooped shut for an instant.

  “Aack! What is it?” Frank sat up, choking.

  “Stuffed mushroom caps. Jen made them—what, are they awful?”

  Frank chewed experimentally. “No, it’s okay. Just not what I was expecting.”

  Mention of Jen Verhoef, the woman who helped Edwin part-time in the kitchen, woke Frank up.

  “Jen’s not going to leave you to work in the kitchen of the North Country Academy, is she? I hear they pay big bucks.”

  Edwin laughed. “No, Jen’s too much of a smart aleck to succeed over there, and she knows it. From what I can tell, Payne hired the perfect person for his needs.”

  “Mrs. Pershing? You know her?”

  “When I advertised for help here, I got applications from everyone in the North Country who ever boiled an egg. Helen Pershing applied and she did have experience working at the Sunnyside Cafe, but I didn’t click with her. She was so timid. You have to be able to yell at each other to work together in a kitchen.”

  “I'd say you got what you asked for, in spades. Seems like Jen’s always telling you that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”

  Edwin laughed. “She keeps me honest. I'm glad it worked out for Helen at the academy. When I told her I wasn’t going to hire her, she burst into tears—she was so desperate for a job.”

  Frank felt an uneasy twinge. Edwin had verified what he suspected when he’d met Helen Pershing: She was too intimidated by Payne to speak openly in front of him. Maybe he should stop by her house for a chat before he finally signed off on Rusty’s theory.

  “So, are you excited about the new library Clyde is financing?” Edwin asked, as he dropped a handful of what looked to Frank like grass clippings into a big bowl of salad. “Clyde has asked me to be on the board of directors.” Edwin had been an English professor before losing his tenure bid had forced him into a new career in innkeeping. He was constantly bemoaning the lack of a bookstore or library in Trout Run. "Penny Stevenson recommended me—you know, she’s staying here the weekends that she comes up to help.”

  “Really?” Frank said. “She’s here now?”

  Edwin didn’t seem to notice the hopeful note in Frank’s voice. “No, she left a little while ago. Lucy had a long chat with her last night. Apparently Penny’s not that happy in the city. She’s working as a librarian in a big ad agency, helping the creatives and the marketers with their research. She thought it would be a good way to meet people, but she’s says all the men are shallow and the women are catty.”

  Frank prowled around the kitchen, opening containers and jars in a quest for cookies. "Still, she can’t possibly want to move back here?”

  "Why not? The Adirondacks are full of people who’ve dropped out of life in the fast lane. I think she’s testing the waters. And Lucy’s scheming to entice her with eligible men.”

  Frank paused with a snickerdoodle halfway to his mouth. “Oh? Like who?”

  Olivia chose that moment to bound back into the kitchen with Lucy. She plopped down at the kitchen table and began banging her plastic cup. “Where’s my mead? I want mead!”

  “Get it yourself, Queenie,” Edwin answered. “The vassals have all gone back to the village.”

  Olivia got a big jug of apple juice from the fridge and lugged it back to the table, but it was too heavy for her to pour.

  Lucy came up behind her and put her hands over Olivia’s to steady them. Together they poured the juice, and after the cup was filled, Frank noticed Olivia sink back into Lucy’s arms for a moment. Then she snapped back into character and raised her cup high.

  “The finest mead in all the kingdom!”

  Lucy surveyed the piles of chopped vegetables on the cou
nter. “What’s all this?”

  “I’m testing the recipe for the soup you wanted for your dinner party—roasted red pepper and corn chowder with andouille sausage,” Edwin said.

  “Yuck!”

  “Relax, Olivia, this dinner is for grown-ups only.” Lucy assured her. “Edwin and I, Penny and her friend Janice, whom she used to work with at North Country Community College, Bob Rush, and you, Frank, if you’re free. It’s the Thursday after next.”

  “Sure, I’ll come,” Frank agreed. “I'm always up for a party.” Especially one with Penny. But as he sat in the kitchen watching Olivia, Edwin, and Lucy continue their medieval drama, his contentment gradually ebbed away. Lucy hadn’t recited the guest list in the proper order. The couples she hadn’t specified were Edwin and Lucy, Penny and Bob Rush, himself and Janice. He and this friend of Penny’s had been invited to make the Penny-Bob setup less obvious. He would have a ringside seat at Lucy’s matchmaking extravaganza. He could hardly wait.

  Chapter 9

  “Are you still screwing around with those damn reports?”

  It was the third time on this completely uneventful Monday that Frank had snapped at him, and even Earl’s Zen-like patience had its limits. “How come every time you’re in a bad mood, you yell at me for stuff that doesn’t even matter?”

  “I am not in a bad mood.”

  Earl turned his back and resumed his methodical typing.

  Frank watched him. You had to admire Earl’s absolute refusal to get into a pissing match. When he was right, he knew he was right, and that was enough for him. Frank would keep on arguing, even when the debate was entirely internal.

  Which explained his foul mood. His bad temper had escalated every time he launched a new assault on the thorny issue of Edwin and Lucy’s dinner party. The show in which he had a walk-on part as the elder statesman, the benign old uncle. The party that revolved around Penny and Bob.

  Why did it bother him? Edwin and Lucy were always so generous—he should be pleased they included him in this gathering. And he knew they liked Bob Rush. Let Lucy play matchmaker if she wanted—why should it concern him? Penny was a big girl; she could make her own decisions. Not that she’d chosen very well the first time around...

  That was it, he decided. He just didn’t want Penny to be hurt again. The poor kid had been through enough. Could a romance with Bob Rush really lead anywhere? Sure, he was good-looking, and about the same age as Penny, and they’d both gone to Ivy League schools, but still, Bob was so, so ... so what? What the hell was it about Bob that he didn’t like?

  Other people, whom Frank liked, liked Bob—Reid, Edwin, even Earl. So why didn’t he? The misunderstanding during the Janelle Harvey investigation–surely it was time to let go of that? He made up his mind. He would be nicer to Bob Rush. He’d start by going to the hymn sing next Saturday. He wanted to hear Matthew play, anyway, and he’d compliment Bob on it on the way out the door. It wouldn’t kill him.

  Earl crossed the room and silently dropped the completed reports in Frank’s in-basket.

  "Thank you, Earl.”

  Earl merely nodded.

  Amends must be made. He began by telling Earl about the events of Saturday evening and Sunday morning—his reception at the North Country Academy, his encounter with Ray Stulke at the Mountainside, his talk with the trespassers. “So I'm wondering what Ray does at the academy,” Frank said. “Do you think his job could possibly be bringing kids there by force, or was he blowing hot air, as usual?”

  “I asked Ray what he would be doing there, but he wasn’t too loquacious,” Earl said.

  “Too what?"

  “Loquacious. That means talkative.”

  “I know what it means,” Frank said. “I’ve just never heard you use that word before.”

  Earl pulled a paperback book from his desk drawer: Pump Up Your Vocabulary in 30 Days. “I'm using this to prepare for the vocabulary section of the police academy test. It’s the only part that could trip me up. Every day I have to use five new words three times, to burn them into my memory."

  “What are your other four words for today?”

  “Culminate, penultimate, debacle, and lachrymose.”

  “Okay, repeat this three times: ‘Doris’s penultimate dye job culminated in a debacle that left her lachrymose.’ “

  “Wow, you’re good, Frank. No wonder you passed your academy exam on the first try.”

  They were back on good terms. “Anyway, get back to telling me about Ray’s job at the academy. Is he one of these so-called Pathfinders?”

  “I don’t think so—I think what he does is different from Lorrie’s job. Lorrie says her job is to watch her group of five kids.”

  “Watch them do what?”

  “Everything—eat, go to class, study. A staff member is with them every minute of the day. She says it’s like being the mother of a toddler. You have to watch them constantly and correct them every time they do something wrong. That’s why Mr. Payne figured she’d be good at the job. Because she has little kids."

  "Yeah, but Lorrie’s not so good at watching little kids,” Frank said. “That’s why she lost custody of hers. Does Payne know that?”

  Earl waved away this objection to his cousin’s competence. “Payne says she’s been doing a good job keeping track of the transgressions and the points.”

  “What points?”

  “Whenever the kids do something wrong, she writes them up in her book for a transgression. Then they lose points. They need points to work their way up to the next level. At every level, they get a few more privileges. Like on Level Two, you can get one call a month from your parents, and you can stay up an extra half hour to read. It’s hardest to get from Level One to Level Two. Then when you get to Level Three, you become a Pathfinder yourself for a while, until you graduate.”

  "Sounds reasonable. But she must not be too popular with the kids.”

  Earl shrugged. “I don’t know, but she and Ray both say they like working for Dr. Payne. And the pay is good, too—fifteen dollars an hour.”

  “Where does Payne get the money to pay everyone so well? Even fancy prep schools run on a pretty tight budget.”

  “Payne charges fifty thousand dollars a year for each student,” Earl said.

  "Get outta town! How do you know that?”

  "Lorrie saw a stack of letters going out to parents who asked for more information.”

  “And how many kids are enrolled there?”

  “A hundred and twenty-five right now, and more are due in this month. Lorrie says there’s room for four hundred.”

  “That’s twenty million dollars! My God, I didn’t realize how much was at stake.” Payne had a lot to lose if there was a taint of scandal around his school. But Trout Run stood to lose, too. If enrollment really did get up to four hundred, even more teachers and cooks and Pathfinders would be hired. And all those parents must come up to visit, which would mean rooms rented at the Iron Eagle and the Mountain Vista, meals eaten at Malone's and the Trail's End. He was due to talk to Rusty later today, but the tenuous confidence he’d felt on Saturday was ebbing away.

  “What do you think of this idea of Payne’s that a previous camper dumped his bacon grease, and Reiger happened to pitch his tent over it?” he asked Earl.

  “It’s possible ...”

  From the way Earl dragged out the word, Frank could tell he didn’t think it was very probable.

  “What makes more sense is that hunters dumped the grease there.”

  Frank sat up and paid more attention. “You ever hunt bear?”

  “Once or twice, with my cousin Donald. It used to be a lot easier to hunt bear in these parts. Some hunters would hang out by the town dumps and pick off scavenging bears. It was illegal, but plenty of people got away with it. Now the open dumps have all been closed, so sometimes hunters resort to bear-baiting with bacon grease to increase their take.” Earl held his hands up. “Not that Donald would ever do that.”

  Frank grinned. “O
f course not.” Suddenly he felt better. Earl's explanation made a lot of sense, much more sense than either Rusty’s or Payne’s. It paid to talk things over with the kid. He would bring this idea to his meeting with the DEC this afternoon. In fact, now that the initial shock of the attack had worn off, he wouldn’t be surprised if Rusty and the other officers had already come to the same conclusion.

  “I’m surprised people are that keen on hunting bear,”

  Frank said. “What do you do with it after you’ve killed it? You can’t eat bear meat.”

  Earl looked as if Frank had claimed the world was flat. “Of course you can—it makes real good chili. And there’s a lot of fat on a bear. You can use that like Crisco. My great-grandma Gert fries up homemade donuts in bear fat.”

  Frank felt the morning’s coconut cruller do a backflip in his gut. “What did your great-grandfather die of?”

  “Stomach cancer. Why?”

  “Never mind.”

  Frank set off on the morning patrol, turning right out of the parking lot on his usual loop: through the center of town, out to the Mountain Vista Motel, around through Crescent Ridge, past the lumberyard, and back down across Stony Creek.

  Today he varied his route a bit, turning left, then right onto the Upper Crescent Road. He hadn’t been up here in a while; he wondered if the McIlroys still kept their flock of sheep. Cresting the hill, he came upon a little country cemetery—twenty or thirty granite and slate headstones cocked at crazy angles by the passage of time. He slowed and looked out across the valley: In the foreground, a creek small enough to step across meandered through a rocky meadow. A few sheep, fat in their winter wool coats, browsed lazily. The outline of the Verona Range, hazy on the horizon, marked the boundary of this little world. Sometimes it seemed the best views in the Adirondacks belonged to the dead.

  Down the road from the grazing sheep, an odd little house crouched. If the home had been situated on top of the hill, its occupants would have enjoyed the same stunning views as the inhabitants of the cemetery. Instead, Katie and Paul Petrucci had built their house into the side of the hill, with windows on only two sides. A sliding glass door faced south, but opened onto a six- foot drop. Obviously they’d never gotten around to building the porch it should have led to.