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

by S. W. Hubbard

  Frank touched her arm lightly. “I suspect it’s not quite what you think.”

  Chapter 30

  Frank heard the music from out on the flagstone walk, even though the church doors were closed against the freezing air. He slipped inside the narthex and sat in an usher’s chair, listening. There was no need to interrupt Matthew’s lesson.

  “That was fantastic,” Oliver said. "You’ve obviously been practicing.”

  “You think T.J. would like it?”

  “I think T.J. would love it.”

  “What about that spot at measure 157?”

  Frank waited impatiently while they discussed some technicality involving key changes. Now that the music had ended, he was eager to start talking to Oliver. Finally Matthew emerged from the sanctuary with his backpack over his shoulder. The narthex was so dimly lit, he didn’t even notice Frank in the shadows and went out the door.

  Frank popped his head around the corner and saw Oliver with his head bowed over some sheet music. He spoke softly to himself. The notes on the page were obviously as riveting to him as the words of a best-selling novel. Estelle had read music in just that way.

  Frank knew he would startle Oliver, but there was some advantage in that. “Working on something for your own repertoire?”

  The sheet music flew out of his hands. “Geez, you scared me! How long have you been standing there?”

  “I caught the end of your lesson with Matthew. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  Oliver bent to retrieve the music. “Then you heard how good he’s getting. It's a pleasure to teach him.”

  “Takes your mind off what’s going on at the academy, huh?"

  Oliver’s head emerged from under the organ bench. "What is going on, Frank? Yesterday evening they announced that Paul Petrucci had been arrested for Heather’s murder. That can’t be right, can it?”

  “You tell me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What happened when you went to let Heather out of the isolation room that Thursday?”

  Oliver seemed to stop breathing for a moment. His eyes flicked back and forth, glancing at the door, the pulpit, everywhere but Frank’s face. “Lorrie’s back?” he whispered.

  “Yes. So why don’t you tell me everything from the point when you agreed to help Lorrie meet her boyfriend.”

  Oliver turned his back on Frank and began picking out a tune with one hand on the organ keyboard. “I felt so bad for Lorrie. She worked hard and never had a chance to enjoy herself. When she was on duty in the rec room in the boys’ dorm, we would talk a little. She used to sing in the church choir here when she was a kid. She has a nice alto voice.”

  Frank almost smiled. Typical that Oliver would be won over by a woman’s ability to carry a tune. Some men let their dicks lead them astray; Oliver let his ear do it.

  Oliver continued the story of how he'd agreed to cover for Lorrie while she slipped away early that night. His version matched hers in every detail.

  "Heather being in the isolation room kind of complicated things, but Lorrie gave me the key and I figured I could let her out at ten without anyone noticing.” Oliver’s long slender fingers endlessly picked out the same ten or fifteen notes as he spoke. “If Heather said anything about it, we figured no one would believe her since she had such a reputation for lying.

  “But when I got there, the door was ajar. I opened it up, saw the blood, saw the room was empty.” Oliver shuddered but his fingers kept playing. "I didn’t know what had happened.”

  That tune was driving Frank crazy. He reached out and removed Oliver’s hand from the keyboard. “You didn’t call for help?”

  Finally Oliver looked at him. “I know it sounds crazy. I still can’t believe I didn’t. But I panicked. I was worried about Lorrie and about myself, too. I knew we’d both be in trouble. Neither one of us could afford to lose our jobs, but especially not Lorrie. I thought I’d wait to do anything until I could talk it over with her. But then she never came back. I didn’t know what to think.”

  Oliver leaned forward, his face so close that Frank could see a loose eyelash on his pale cheek. He almost brushed it away as he would have done for Caroline when she was a child.

  “I understand your reaction at the moment, but you must have realized that your evidence would be important once the state police and I started to investigate.”

  Oliver squirmed and hung his head, looking no older than Matthew. “As I went back to my room that night, I saw Ray going into the main building doing the final security round of the night. I knew he would find the room and call in the alarm. So really, what could I add? Ray saw exactly what I saw, just a few minutes later."

  “What about the keys Lorrie gave you? Did you have them in your pocket all evening?”

  "W-e-e-ll, not exactly.”

  “Where exactly were they?”

  “Lorrie gave me her entire key ring, and it was big and lumpy. It jabbed into my leg when I was sitting in the boys’ rec room trying to read. So I took the keys out and laid them on the end table. Then the boys started a card game and wanted me to play, so I moved over to the card table, and the keys were left on the end table by the sofa. But they were still right where I left them at ten when I went to let Heather out, so I don’t think anyone touched them.”

  “Did you have your back to the end table while you were playing cards?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long did the game go on?”

  “An hour and a half.”

  Frank stared into the young man’s eyes. “This is important, Oliver—who entered and left that room while you were playing?”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and Frank saw his hand stray back to the keyboard. Then Oliver pulled it back, as if restraining himself from a security blanket. “As I remember it, there was a lot of activity that night. Steve Vreeland passed through twice looking for Mac. And Ray Stulke came in, because we’d been having trouble with a window that wouldn’t close all the way.” Oliver grinned. “Ray got it shut, no problem. Oh, and earlier, Justin Levine came in and asked to join in the card game, but the other boys wouldn’t let him.”

  “Why not?”

  “They said he cheated. We were playing blackjack and Justin could count cards.”

  That figured, another skill to add to Justin’s dubious resume. “Did Justin stay in the rec room after you turned him away from the game?”

  “No, he made some wisecrack about our playing, then he went back to his room.”

  “Was that the last you saw of him that night?”

  “Hmm. Now that you mention it, he did come back in right before lights-out to see who had won.”

  “What about Steve Vreeland? You said he came in twice—how much time passed between visits?”

  “I’m not sure—maybe an hour.” Oliver paused for a moment. “You mean you think Justin or Steve could’ve borrowed the keys, gone to the isolation room, and brought the keys back again?” Before Frank could answer, Oliver continued, “Oh, wait! That was the night Justin ran away, the first time.”

  “Exactly. And when we brought him back and questioned him, we let him go because he convinced us that his running away had nothing to do with what happened in the isolation room. But we didn’t realize he had had access to the keys. The keys were missing—we thought they were still with Lorrie. And now Justin is gone again.” Frank stood up and glared down at Oliver. “Your information changes everything.”

  He got back to the office as Doris was ending a phone call. “He just stepped out for a minute. I’ll send him over as soon as he gets back.”

  “Send me over where?”

  “To the Rock Slide. There’s some problem with a customer who’s giving the girls a hard time and won’t leave.”

  “Threatening them?”

  The uncertainty etched on Doris’s face indicated that she had once again failed to obtain complete information from a caller.

  Frank pivoted and headed out the door with a sigh
. He was eager to act on this new information, but it would only take a few minutes to check on the situation at the Rock Slide. Better safe than sorry.

  The ride to the sports equipment store was quick— in less than ten minutes, he could see the bright yellow coils of climbing rope that festooned the porch outside the log cabin-style building. There were only two cars in the parking lot. One was the old Volvo station wagon driven by the two sisters who worked there; the other must belong to the irate customer. At least he wouldn’t have to settle this in front of a crowd.

  He walked in and immediately saw a young man with a stony expression sitting in an Adirondack chair. Standing behind the counter looking equally grim were the two sisters, whose names he could never keep straight. Frank glanced from the man to the others and had a “what’s wrong with this picture” moment. For the man in the chair was none other than Pathfinder Steve Vreeland.

  “Hello, Steve, ladies. What seems to be the problem here?”

  “I’ve been cheated,” Steve said in a flat voice.

  The girls immediately began jabbering in response, interrupting each other in their eagerness to tell Frank their side of the story.

  "He’s trying to make a return without a receipt.”

  "He mighta bought it on sale—”

  “He wants his money back, but we can only give store credit.”

  “Without the receipt we can’t—”

  As the girls’ voices grew shriller and louder, Frank saw Steve’s lips move but no sound came out. He thought he might be counting to himself.

  Finally they paused for breath and Steve spoke again in that uninflected tone. “The merchandise still has the tag. It has never been used. I paid full price. The receipt must have fallen out of the bag.” He kept his eyes focused on a display of ice crampons as he talked.

  Frank could see why this debate had reached a standstill. By asking a few questions of both parties, Frank determined that Steve had paid by credit card, got the girls to look up the transaction, and had them credit Steve’s account. It seemed to him that reasonable people could have figured that out without the help of the police, but he’d seen more trivial matters escalate into violence. And in truth, the sisters at the Rock Slide had done him a favor. He wanted to talk to Steve Vreeland, especially in light of what he’d learned from Oliver and Greta Karsten, and Payne wouldn’t willingly give him the opportunity to see the young man on campus.

  Frank held the door of the store open and ushered Steve out to the parking lot.

  “Thank you for your assistance." Steve gave a curt nod and headed toward his car.

  “Say, do you have a minute?”

  Steve paused and turned slowly.

  “Do you remember a kid named Tristan Renfew from your days at the Langley Wilderness School?”

  Frank thought he detected a slight break in Steve’s wooden demeanor. The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down before he answered. “I knew him. He’s dead now.”

  “Committed suicide, I believe?”

  Steve stared at the Rock Slide’s hanging sign, which creaked in the stiff breeze. “It was an accident.”

  “He died in an isolation room, just like Heather, didn’t he?”

  “Paul Petrucci killed Heather. Nothing like that happened to Tristan.”

  “What did happen to him?”

  “He refused to accept the program. He resisted it, and his resistance brought him down.”

  Frank felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold, gray weather. How could Steve be so utterly unsympathetic to another young man whose troubles must have been so similar to his own? He had completely bought into the notion that Tristan’s horrible death was his own fault.

  “Did you spend much time with Tristan in the weeks before his death?”

  “I participated in all the encounter sessions to help Tristan admit his transgressions and accept accountability for his actions.”

  Did you ever notice that you were pushing the poor kid right over the edge? But Steve wasn’t the one to blame; he hadn’t been calling the shots.

  “What about Jake Reiger—was he involved in Tristan’s, uh, treatment?"

  “He was Tristan’s interventionist.”

  “His what?”

  “He led an intensive one-on-one intervention to try to bring Tristan in line with the program’s goals."

  “Obviously he failed.”

  Steve’s hands clenched and he rubbed his right thumb and forefinger together over and over. “Why are you asking all these questions about Tristan and Jake? Paul Petrucci killed Heather, and he must’ve set up that bear attack, too. None of this has anything to do with Tristan Renfew. He had an accident.”

  “The night that Heather was taken to the isolation room, did you visit the boys’ rec room?” Frank asked.

  Steve appeared relieved to have left the subject of Tristan Renfew. “Yes. I was looking for Mac. He wasn’t there; he was in the girls’ dorm.”

  “But you went back to the boys’ rec room again.”

  Steve continued to stare straight ahead, his eyes not quite focused on Frank. “Yes. It's not entirely appropriate that Oliver participates in the boys’ recreation activities. I wanted to be sure he implemented the proper lights-out procedure.”

  “Did you happen to notice a set of keys lying on the end table by the sofa?”

  “Keys? What keys?”

  “The keys to the isolation room. They were lying there that night. Several people had access to them. Someone used them to go and kill Heather.”

  “Paul—”

  “I doubt it.” Of course, Paul had his own key to the isolation room, but Frank was interested to see Steve’s reaction without that piece of information.

  For the first time in their conversation, Steve’s eyes met Frank’s. “What’s going on? How could what happened to Tristan and Jake and Heather be connected?” There was a rising note of hysteria in Steve’s voice. “Paul’s the one who killed Heather. He did it because he hates Dr. Payne and he wants to make the school look bad. He knows Dr. Payne is going to fire him as soon as he can find a replacement. So Paul wants to see us fail.”

  Frank could believe Paul hated Payne and wouldn’t mind discrediting the school, but he couldn’t imagine him sacrificing an innocent child to ruin the academy. But what if Paul had hatched some plan with Heather and Justin that went horribly wrong? Could one of them have killed her accidentally? But it still didn’t make sense.

  “I'd be more likely to buy this idea that Paul killed Heather if the body hadn’t been hidden,” Frank continued. “Why not leave it there to be found right away if the point was to create a scandal?”

  Steve just stood there, glowering.

  “Moving Heather’s body was very risky. Paul didn’t have a reason to take that risk. And now I know that you and Justin Levine had access to those isolation room keys.”

  Frank’s words wrought a bizarre change in Steve Vreeland. His eyes bulged, his fists clenched, and his breathing came in short, raspy puffs. He looked to be holding in enough steam to blast himself clear to Lake Champlain.

  Finally, he blew. “I hid Heather’s body!”

  Chapter 31

  “I was scheduled to help Randy with Group Encounter after dinner,” Steve said. “I realized I didn’t have the notebook in which I record transgressions. I had been showing it to Mac earlier in the day, and I forgot to get it back from him.” He looked down at his clasped hands. “It was very careless of me.

  “First I looked for Mac in the boys’ dorm, but he wasn’t there. I went to check his office. He wasn’t there either, but I saw a light shining into the hall upstairs. There would be no reason for a light to be lit on the second floor of the admin building at that time, so I went up to check.”

  Steve shut his eyes. A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. He took a deep breath before continuing. “The light was coming from the open isolation room. Heather was in there. The room was covered with blood. I ran to her. She was warm.
I couldn’t see where the blood was coming from. I checked her pulse. I couldn’t feel anything.”

  Frank watched him. Most people showed signs of stress when they recounted finding a body; some even became physically ill. Steve spoke like a soldier reciting name, rank, and serial number.

  “I started CPR, but in a few minutes I could tell that it was useless. She was dead.” Steve clenched his teeth; the tendons in his neck grew taut. “I couldn’t believe that stupid bitch had killed herself.”

  Frank drew back. He’d been in interrogation rooms with gang executioners and cop killers, but this guy scared him as much as any hardened con. “You made the decision that she couldn’t be saved yourself? You didn’t call for help?”

  Steve’s face regained some of its former impassivity. “I’m very well trained in first aid. I could see there was nothing more to be done. The important thing became how to protect the academy. Mac couldn’t afford another scandal. I moved Heather’s body to the crawl space behind classroom 210. My intention was to leave it there temporarily until I could bury it in the forest. I planned to go back to the isolation room and clean up the blood, so it would look like Heather had simply run away.” Steve frowned. "Of course, an escape wasn’t good either, but it was better than a suicide. Heather’s parents would believe she’d run away, with her history.”

  “How did you know how to access that space behind the classroom?” Frank asked.

  “Ray Stulke showed it to me when he first started working security. He noticed the little removable panel that had been put in. He said it must be in case there was ever trouble with the pipes or wiring, but that a kid could hide in there. He wanted us Pathfinders to be aware.” Steve bobbed his head in approval. “Ray is very attentive.”