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

by S. W. Hubbard

  Frank let Levine bluster a while, and studied the man’s tie to pass the time. It was a nice shade of blue, with a dark gold pattern. He couldn’t even remember the last time he'd worn a tie. This one probably cost more than all the ties he’d ever owned, combined. He sensed Levine winding down and asked a question. “Why was Justin enrolled at the North Country Academy?”

  Levine’s tanned face contorted in a scowl. “He was expelled from the Collegiate School, one of the finest private schools in Manhattan. Now none of the others will take him, despite the fact that he had some of the highest scores ever recorded on the admission test. I was so pissed at him, I thought the North Country Academy might knock some sense into his head.”

  “And why was he expelled from Collegiate?”

  “Let’s just say he was displaying his entrepreneurial spirit in an inappropriate fashion.”

  “Dealing drugs, in other words.”

  Morton Levine smiled, revealing perfectly even, very white teeth. “I like you. You seem a little sharper than that state trooper over in Ray Brook. Look, Justin’s no angel, but there’s no way he was mixed up in what happened to that girl. He’s too smart for that.”

  “I’ve never known intelligence to exclude a person from criminal endeavors, Mr. Levine. The fact is, Justin ran away the night Heather LeBron disappeared. I was inclined to believe him when he said that was just a coincidence. Now, he disappears again the night her body was discovered. That’s stretching coincidence to the breaking point. I'm worried that he’s involved, and that his involvement could put him in some danger.”

  Levine eyed him in a manner that Frank imagined he’d used to assess adversaries across a boardroom table. Frank felt certain that getting this man on his side might help him solve the case, while having him as an opponent would lead to endless roadblocks.

  “Look, Mr. Levine. I’m not trying to pin anything on Justin, but it’s possible that he knows something about what’s going on at the academy, and that scared him into running. The best thing for all of us would be to find him. Let’s work together.”

  Levine nodded slowly. “But I'm not sure how I can help. Justin and I—" He looked away and cleared his throat. "Let’s just say we parted on bad terms. He wouldn’t come to me for help; too much pride.”

  “What about his mother?”

  “Not in the picture. She’s remarried and living in Italy.”

  “Who else would he turn to?”

  “He has an older cousin living in Boston ...” Levine offered hesitantly. Frank could see by the look on his face that this was a long shot, but he took the name anyway.

  “And you live in New York City—has Justin always lived there?”

  “All his life.”

  “He ever gone to summer camp?”

  "A week of chess camp at Princeton one year.”

  So Justin Levine, the smart-aleck drug dealer with a privileged New York upbringing, had made his way through the thick, unmarked forest behind the academy all the way to Keene Valley, and then escaped through the woods again a few days later—something didn’t add up. He had to have had help.

  “Does Justin make friends easily?” Frank asked.

  "Like that.” Levine snapped his finger. “I keep telling him, with your head for numbers and your schmoozing ability, you could be anything—an investment banker, a portfolio manager. Don’t screw it up.” He shook his head. “Kids. Whaddaya gonna do?”

  Frank offered what he hoped passed for a sympathetic smile. He had a feeling he knew who Justin Levine had last been schmoozing with.

  “Ray! Can I have a word with you?”

  The big man lumbering across the lawn of the North Country Academy stopped and turned slowly. When he saw who had spoken his jaw jutted forward, but he waited for Frank to catch up with him.

  "I don’t have much time,” Ray said, glancing at his watch. “I gotta be in building three in ten minutes.”

  “We can walk while we talk,” Frank said.

  Ray resumed his trek across the grass. A stiff wind blew his thinning hair back. Despite the cold, he wore only a flannel shirt. He flexed his massive hands, and the motion made his powerful biceps strain against the plaid fabric. Frank found it easy to imagine that arm squeezing the life out of Heather LeBron. It was harder to imagine why. Just typical Ray bullying, gone out of control?

  “Let’s go over exactly what you were doing between the time you and Lorrie took Heather to the isolation room and the time you discovered the room empty.”

  “I already told you that,” Ray protested.

  “Tell me again. I have a bad memory.”

  Ray hacked his smoker’s cough and spit an impressive distance. “We took the girl there and I helped Lorrie get her in. Then Lorrie went back to the cafeteria, and I went to get ready for Group Encounter in building three.”

  “Just what is it that happens in Group Encounter?”

  “It’s part of the procedure. A step they have to go through to get to Level Three.”

  Frank accepted this nonanswer for the moment. "How are you involved in it? I thought your job was transportation and security.”

  “Well, sometimes security problems come up in Group.” Now Ray’s smirk seemed positively gleeful. “They try to leave the room, run away from the group. I’m there to make sure they don't get too far.”

  “I’m sure you’re quite effective. Tell me, Ray, what happens if a kid puts up a fight?”

  “I could take on two or three at once, no problem.”

  "You ever put a kid in a headlock?”

  “Sure, if I have to. There ain’t a kid here who could win a fight against me. They all know that.”

  “Did Heather LeBron know it?”

  Ray’s smirk faded. “I never had any kind of fight with her.”

  "Not even when you were putting her in the isolation room?”

  “She put up a struggle against Lorrie. When I stepped in, she piped down.”

  “Because you hurt her?”

  “I didn’t hurt her. She took one look at me, she knew there wasn’t no point in fighting.”

  “So, was there any trouble at the Group Encounter?”

  “Nah, just some crying and carrying on. Nothing Steve and Randy couldn’t handle.”

  “The Pathfinders run these groups? How come Lorrie wasn’t there?” Frank asked.

  “Don’t know—you’d have to ask her that,” Ray answered with a leer, impressed with his own cleverness.

  “How well did you know Lorrie before you started working together?”

  “I used to hang with her and Chuck when they were married. After they broke up, it was hard. Lorrie’d complain to me about Chuck, Chuck about Lorrie. I got tired of hearin’ it from both of them. But working with Lorrie here—she seemed okay. She was really glad to have the job, worked hard at doing everything right. That’s why—” Ray trudged forward with his eyes on his work boots.

  “What?"

  "I’ve been thinking about it, and I can't make no sense of what happened in that isolation room.”

  You and me both, Frank thought.

  “I don’t see why Lorrie would run off, not when she needed this job so bad. Kinda makes me wonder if something happened to her.”

  Was that a note of concern, of empathy, coming from Ray? He obviously hadn’t heard yet about the disappearance of Lorrie’s kids, and Frank chose not to tell him just yet. “Was there anyone here who didn’t like Lorrie?” Frank asked.

  Ray shook his head. “Lorrie was quiet. She kept to herself.”

  “Let’s get back to the night Heather died. After the Group Encounter meeting, what did you do?”

  “Escorted the kids back to their dorms, then started my nightly lockup rounds. That’s when I discovered the empty isolation room.”

  “Between the time you left the dorms and the time you got to the isolation room, who saw you?”

  “No one.” Ray stopped walking and faced Frank with his hands folded across his chest.

 
; “So we only have your word that when you got to the isolation room it was empty and unlocked.”

  “Why are you trying to pin this on me?” Ray stabbed his finger at Frank’s chest. “You been ridin’ my ass ever since you took over as police chief. All I hear from you and Clyde Stevenson and Reid Burlingame is ‘Why don’t you get a job, Ray? Why don’t you clean up your act, Ray?’ So now I have a job, a job that pays enough for a man to live on, and you’re tryin’ to take it away from me.

  “I’ve been doing my work here real good—you can ask Dr. Payne. But when you want a fast way to say you solved this killing, I’m the first one you come after. Why don’t you look at that wuss Petrucci? He was always comin’ on to Heather. Maybe he killed her to keep her quiet about that—sexual mo-lest-tay-shun. Did you ever think of that?”

  They had reached building three, a one-story brick rectangle of newer vintage than the other buildings on campus. Ray pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.

  “Do you have keys for all the doors at the academy, Ray?”

  “No, I don’t have one for the isolation room. It’s got a Yale dead bolt. None of these keys are Yales—check it out.” He tossed the heavy key ring at Frank, who barely had time to catch it before it hit him in the face. But Ray was right—there were no Yale keys on this ring. Frank handed it back.

  “I got work to do, if that’s okay with you,” Ray said.

  Frank let him go without comment. Their conversation had raised more questions than it answered. Ray had no alibi for the time of Heather’s murder, but he had no motive either, other than his general attraction to violence. And Ray had touched a nerve. Was he more suspicious of Ray than of Paul Petrucci simply because he didn’t like the man? He had accepted Paul’s interest in Heather as well intentioned, but first Payne and now Ray seemed to think there was more to it than that.

  And with the concern Ray had shown for Lorrie’s safety, it was obvious he didn’t know where she and her kids were now, or why they were on the lam. Frank stared at the horizon. The view, beautiful even at this bleak time of year, barely registered. He saw instead the faces of Lorrie and Heather, each unhappy in her own way.

  Frank checked his watch—2:45, almost the end of the school day at High Peaks High School. He had just enough time to get over there and intercept Brad Fister before he got on the school bus.

  He watched the stream of young people pouring from the building, all so carefree. Certainly no one escorted them to meals and their classes, recorded their every indiscretion, locked them up at night. Yet were they all that different from the kids at the North Country Academy?

  Frank spotted Brad Fister’s tall, lanky figure loping toward the bus with his backpack slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Brad!”

  The boy paused and glanced around. A friend pointed out Frank, and Brad looked at him quizzically. Frank waved him over to the patrol car.

  “I need to talk to you for a minute,” Frank said. When Brad looked anxiously at the bus, Frank put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’ll drive you home. Get in."

  Looking as if Frank had offered him a ride on the wagon transporting prisoners to the guillotine, Brad got in the car. Frank leaned back in the driver’s seat, making no attempt to start the ignition. They sat in tense silence until Brad could bear it no more. “What’s this about?”

  “I think you know.”

  Brad began twisting the straps of his backpack. “No, I don’t.”

  The silence dragged on. Frank watched the last bus pull away. A few teachers trickled out of the building and walked toward their cars, peering curiously at the patrol car.

  “It's that trespassing thing at the North Country Academy, isn’t it? Why are we in trouble for that? We didn’t do anything.” A frown tugged at Brad’s handsome face and Frank could see the shadow of the six- year-old Brad, accused of tracking mud in the house.

  “Describe to me exactly what you do out there,” Frank said.

  Brad took a first pass at answering—they parked, they built a little fire to keep warm, they talked and ate some chips.

  Frank sat expectantly, waiting for the story to continue.

  “We listen to music on a little boom box.”

  Still Frank waited. Brad was a zookeeper flipping fish to a hungry seal. How many would it take until he swam away satisfied?

  “We smoked some cigarettes.”

  “We had a few beers ... once.”

  Frank stretched out his legs and checked his watch.

  “I hafta get home—I’m due to work at the hardware store this afternoon,” Brad said.

  “Well, then, you better tell me what I need to know, and we can get going.”

  “What? I told you everything!”

  Frank smiled and waved to Mrs. Carlstadt, the English teacher, as she walked by, then softly started to whistle “The Old Ship of Zion.”

  “This isn’t fair! I don’t know what more you want me to say!”

  Ah, fair—life was rarely fair, but Brad was too young to know that. Frank turned his head and smiled. “You do know, Brad, because you’re a smart kid. You don’t want to rat on a friend, and that’s admirable—but all bets are off now, son.” Frank sat up straight and leaned in dose to Brad. "Because someone’s been killed. Heather LeBron is never going to get her driver’s license, never going to wear a cap and gown, never going to kiss a boy again.”

  Brad’s hands gripped his backpack, his knuckles stretching the skin to white. “It has nothing to do with her,” he whispered.

  “Tell me about it anyway.”

  Chapter 25

  Once the cork had been popped, information flowed out of Brad Fister like cheap champagne. According to Trout Run’s favorite son, Justin Levine had mastered getting out of his locked room shortly after he arrived at the academy, but the knowledge didn’t do him any good because he couldn’t figure out a way to get back to civilization. Then one night he noticed the campfire that Brad and his friends made at the edge of the campus, slipped out of his room, and introduced himself. He filled the kids with stories of how he was being horribly abused, and they hatched a plot to help him run away. The night of Heather’s murder, Brad met Justin at the big rock by the stream and drove him to Keene Valley, then gave him a sleeping bag and showed him a place to hide out until the Trailways bus came the next day.

  Up to that point, Brad told the story without hesitation. Then, he turned away from Frank and stared out the passenger side window at the now empty school parking lot.

  “But Justin got picked up by the police in Keene Valley,” Frank prompted gently. “So you tried again?”

  Brad nodded. "Justin was totally prepared—we already discussed a backup plan if the first plan failed. Security was tighter after what happened, so Justin couldn’t use his old trick to get out of the dorm. For the new plan to work, he said we needed to create a distraction.”

  "The fire,” Frank said. “But how did Justin set it? I thought all the kids were in their rooms when it broke out.”

  “They were.” Justin’s words came so softly, Frank was certain that he’d spoken only because he saw his lips move.

  “You set the fire?”

  "Yes." Brad’s upper lip trembled. “I guess you have to arrest me now, huh?”

  Man, this kid had a ways to go before he could run with the academy crowd. “Look, Brad, the most important thing is that we find out who killed Heather and what happened to Justin and Lorrie. If you help me by telling me everything you know—and I mean everything—I’m sure we can work out some restitution plan for the fire.”

  Brad looked like he’d been promised a puppy if would agree to take the trash out every night. “Really? You mean I won’t have to go to prison?”

  “I doubt it. Just tell me what happened.”

  The faucet turned on again. “You know, the academy students all wear khaki pants and green T-shirts or sweatshirts with the school logo. Justin gave me his sweatshirt the first time he tried t
o escape. When we got picked up, no one noticed he was only wearing a T- shirt. So, the afternoon of the second escape, I slipped onto campus wearing the school sweatshirt and a pair of khakis. Some new students had arrived that day, and if anyone on the staff stopped me, I was supposed to say I was one of them. But no one did stop me, and I hid behind the Dumpsters until dark.”

  Brad told that part of the story eagerly, proud of his cleverness. But when he got to the part where he’d actually committed a crime, he spoke more reluctantly. “Then I slipped up to the back of the administration building, went in and poured the gas around those classrooms and lit it. Pretty soon, the alarm went off and everyone started running around. After they checked Justin’s dorm, all the teachers left that building except Oliver Greffe. Then I used my grandfather’s tools to dismantle the lock on Justin’s window and spring him. We put it back together so no one would be able to figure out how he escaped.”

  “So that’s why the tools were missing from the library,” Frank said. “Now, where’s Justin?”

  Brad’s clear blue eyes opened wide. "That’s the problem. As I was putting the last screw in, we heard someone coming across the lawn. We each ran in different directions, and I never got to give Justin the stuff that he needed.”

  "What stuff?”

  “A little cash, some food and water, a sleeping bag, warm clothes, and a map. The plan was for him to camp in the woods until one of us could find a way to drive him to Albany to get on the train. Going back to Keene Valley was too risky.”

  "But without supplies ...”

  Justin gnawed on his thumbnail. “I don’t see how he could make it. He doesn’t know anything about the backwoods. I’ve gone back to the big rock at night several times, looking for some sign of Justin, but there’s never anything there.”

  Frank sat in the Store with a cooling cup of coffee, mulling over Brad’s information.

  “My kids have been kidnapped and you’re just sitting here on your fat ass!”

  He pushed aside his half-eaten sticky bun and looked with displeasure into the contorted face of Chuck Betz. Frank prided himself on keeping his weight at 170 pounds—there was nothing fat about his ass—but he willed himself to be patient.