Stolen in the Night

by MacDonald, Patricia

  It was fascinating to Tess and repulsive at the same time. She used the copier for a few articles she thought she might want to read again, but overall she was disappointed. No new names from Lazarus’s life emerged or caught her attention. She was about to give up when she came across an interview with the Phalens, who had owned the Stone Hill Inn and had taken in the DeGraffs so kindly. Obviously the reporter was grasping at straws, trying to offer some new, human interest angle on a case that dominated the local headlines for weeks. The article was innocuous enough. Ken and Annette Phalen expressed sympathy for the DeGraffs and outrage at the crime. But it was the photo that accompanied the article that caught Tess’s attention. Tess xeroxed the article and then sat back down at the table, staring at it. Ken stood awkwardly on the front step of the inn while Annette and their toddler, Lisa, sat on one of the benches that flanked the front door. Lisa was struggling to get free from her mother’s grasp. Ken, unsmiling, was slouching, his hands in his pockets, his black hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. For a few minutes, Tess could not put a finger on why the photo seized her attention. And then, her eyes widened. She took out her black marker pen and began to draw on the xeroxed copy. She drew a pair of large, black-framed glasses on Ken Phalen’s face and stared at the result, her heart racing.

  Jake glanced over at his nephew, who had his forehead pressed against the window on the passenger side of the van. Leo was sitting straight up behind them, his furry head poking between them, panting.

  “Hey, Erny, tell your friend here to stop drooling on me.”

  Jake was rewarded with a smile. Erny immediately began to pet Leo’s furry ruff. “Good dog,” he said mischieviously.

  They were approaching an all-too-familiar landmark—a humble gray farmhouse sitting on a neatly kept acre of property. Jake wondered for a minute if he would feel any different today seeing that house, knowing what he now knew about the DNA results.

  Jake could easily have changed his route to avoid passing the Abbott place and thereby avoid being reminded of Lazarus Abbott and what had happened to Phoebe. Avoid remembering that it was his own fault that his sister had been unprotected when Lazarus Abbott tore open the tent and seized her. But there was no use in that. Fate, he thought, and no use crying about it.

  A black truck was approaching from the direction in which they were headed. As the driver signaled to turn into the Abbott driveway, Jake recognized Nelson Abbott at the wheel, wearing his John Deere hat and his customary scowl.

  Part of him wanted to point the truck out to Erny and say, “Your aunt Phoebe was killed by that man’s son.” It seemed as if the kid had a right to know that much about the family history. Jake could imagine the kid’s silent wide-eyed stare. But he decided against it, and, he realized with a mild feeling of anxiety, the DNA results had something to do with his decision to remain silent.

  Instead, he continued on the meandering back road until he came to the entrance to the Whitman farm. “This is it,” he said. “This is where we’re going.” Erny looked around as they turned down the driveway, which had been cut through acres of trees. Jake drove up and down several hills, past forest and field, past rock gardens and apple trees and rosebushes that were in the process of being wrapped in burlap for the winter

  “Welcome to how the other half lives, my man,” said Jake. “Quite a place, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Erny. “Who lives here?”

  “A guy named Chan Morris. He lived here with his grandmother.”

  “Is he a kid?” Erny asked.

  “No, he’s not a kid now. He was a kid when he moved here. When his parents died. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Did they die from drugs?” Erny asked thoughtfully.

  “Drugs? No,” said Jake, frowning. “I don’t know what they died of. I don’t really remember.”

  Erny turned his head and looked out the window silently.

  Jake glanced at him and suddenly realized that Erny was identifying with Chan, another child orphaned at an early age. That’s why he’d asked about the drugs—because that was what happened to his birth mother. Jake grimaced, remembering the awkward silence last night when Erny mentioned his birth mother and how she’d gone to jail. He flailed around in his mind for a change of subject. Looking out on his left, he noticed the large, algae-covered pond rippling in the breeze under the branches of some overhanging trees.

  “Damn,” said Jake in an overly loud voice. “I wish I’d remembered to bring fishing poles. We could’ve tried fishing over there.”

  “That’s okay,” said Erny, but there was disappointment in his tone.

  “No, you know what? I know a better place. Remember the lake near the mountain where we fished the last time? Well, maybe tomorrow I’ll take you over there and we’ll fish for a little while.”

  Erny looked at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah really,” said Jake.

  Erny smiled. “Okay.”

  Coming up over a final rise, they spotted the Morris house nestled in a natural valley. It was a huge Colonial-style house surrounded by trees and gardens.

  “Wow,” said Erny.

  “I painted that whole place,” Jake boasted.

  “Awesome,” said Erny respectfully.

  Jake pulled the van up in the driveway beside the house. He got out and opened the side door so that Leo could get out. Erny had clambered down on his side and come around the truck. “All right now, listen to me, you two,” said Jake. “You can run around here. There are fields and stuff. Rock out. Just…no going in the pond. I’ve heard it’s pretty deep. Have a good time. It’s gonna take me an hour or so to finish this.” Jake pulled a boom box from inside the van.

  “We can go anywhere?” Erny asked.

  “Don’t go so far that you can’t hear me when I call you. And when I holler for you I want you to come back. You got it? All right, scram.”

  Erny took off at a flat-out run with Leo chasing him, barking.

  Jake smiled, watching them disappear over a hill, and then he set his boom box down and snapped it on to his favorite oldies station. Jake retrieved his brush and can of white semigloss from inside the van. Then he unhooked the ladder he would need. He knew it was dangerous to do a job like this without another guy to spot him on the ladder, but all his guys were working at a new job. And he had to get this finished. The season for outdoor painting was just about done for. This was likely the last nice week they would have. Besides, Jake was not afraid of heights.

  He carried the ladder over to the side of the house where he needed to paint the third-floor trim and squinted up. It was so high up that it was hard to tell if the window trim had been scraped or not. He stuck a paint scraper and sanding block into his tool belt with the paintbrush. All right, he thought, let’s get this show on the road.

  Humming absently to the eighties tunes on the boom box, Jake scraped and painted, working without stopping, other than to occasionally climb down to move the ladder. When, after an hour, he finished painting the last windowsill and stuck the lid back on the can of semigloss, he felt relieved to have the job finished. While he had been working, the mild day had vanished. The sky was turning dark and the wind had risen.

  Jake descended the ladder slowly this time, holding on tightly because of the stiff breeze. As he carefully backed his way down and came eye level with the first-floor windows, he glanced inside. And then he stopped and looked again.

  A slight blonde woman he recognized as Chan’s wife, Sally, was sitting on the living room floor, propped against the sofa like a rag doll, her arms limp, her legs akimbo, her eyes glazed with pain. Jake hesitated. He didn’t want to be taken for a Peeping Tom, but the woman looked dazed, as if she needed help. He tapped on the pane and her vacant gaze traveled to the window.

  “Mrs. Morris,” he shouted over the noise of the boom box. “Are you okay? Do you need a hand?”

  She looked at him balefully, and for a moment Jake wished he had minded his own business. Then, slowly, she no
dded.

  “Okay. I’m coming right around.” Realizing she probably couldn’t hear him, he nodded and gestured toward the front of the house, to let her know his intentions. Jake quickly descended the ladder, went around the side of the house, and rushed up the porch steps. Just as he was opening the front door, he heard the sound of barking. He turned and saw Leo, barreling toward the house alone, barking a warning, like a canine Paul Revere.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tess thanked Chan for his help and left before he could suggest another, longer interview. Clutching the articles she had copied, and keeping her gaze lowered, she hurried toward the door of the newspaper office and nearly collided with a man who had reached it at the same time. “Sorry,” she murmured without looking up.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  Tess looked up at the silver-haired man who had spoken and blushed furiously.

  Ben Ramsey raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not tailing you. I swear.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” Tess said, feigning coolness as she opened the door to the vestibule and slipping outside. Ramsey caught the door and followed her through. She did not look at him, but started quickly down the sidewalk to the parking lot. Unfazed, he fell into step beside her. “I met a reporter here to do an interview about the case, actually,” he said.

  “Love that press coverage,” she said grimly. “Good for business.”

  He ignored the implied criticism. “I thought you would be avoiding the press.”

  “I was looking something up in the archives,” she said.

  “What were you looking for?” he asked.

  Tess sighed. Why should his persistence surprise her? He was a lawyer, after all. Persistence came with the territory. “It wouldn’t interest you,” she said.

  “Actually, if it’s about this case and Lazarus Abbott, it would interest me very much,” he said seriously. “I thought a lot about what you said when I met you at the campsite the other day. The fact that you still believe you were right in your indentification. I mean, you seem to be a very intelligent, observant person. Maybe it’s not as simple as a case of mistaken identity.”

  Tess did not want him to know how much she had thought about what he’d said during that conversation. She thought about the photo in her pocket of Ken Phalen, transformed by a pair of drawn-on glasses. “Or maybe it is,” she murmured.

  Ben Ramsey squinted at her. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  Standing there on the sidewalk, Tess could feel the warmth of the springlike day seeping into her. Ramsey’s concerned expression, and his broad chest and shoulders were magnetic. She was tempted to lean against him. Tess shook her head. “Look, I can’t talk to you about this. You’re the Abbotts’ attorney. You just won the victory of a lifetime for them.”

  “For Mrs. Abbott,” he said. “Only for Mrs. Abbott. Mr. Abbott was not equally fond of me. In fact, he told me, on one memorable occasion, that I could ‘stuff my bill where the sun don’t shine.’”

  Tess smiled in spite of herself. “Well, it seems now that Mr. Abbott is one of Lazarus’s biggest supporters. And among the latecomers rallying to the cause is his nephew, the police chief, who thinks I lied to protect my deviant father,” Tess said in disgust.

  Ben Ramsey shook his head. “Well, that’s just insulting.”

  Tess felt grateful to him for saying that. “Yes, it is.”

  “So what was it that brought you here today?”

  “I shouldn’t be talking to you,” she said. “We’re adversaries.”

  “No, we’re not,” he said seriously. “We both want to know the truth.”

  Tess met his gaze and thought that if he was lying to her, he was the best liar she’d ever seen. She felt as if his eyes were drawing her to him, speaking silently to her in a secret language known only to the eyes. “I don’t know,” she demurred.

  “I know how much fun it is to search through that pile of old papers,” he said wryly. “I spent some time doing that myself, trying to get a clue as to what happened. I had a sneezing fit. Several of them, in fact. What about you? Did you find anything?”

  Tess hesitated. “I’m very mixed up at this point,” she admitted. “When I came here this morning, I had a theory. Something my son said to me got me thinking.”

  Ramsey did not even smile. “What? What did he say?”

  His open, interested gaze made her feel safe, as if he were an ally. And part of her really wanted to tell him, but she knew better. It was time to terminate this conversation, she thought. Don’t start romanticizing this guy, she thought. That is dangerous. He is not your friend. “Nothing important,” she said dismissively.

  Ben noticed her change of attitude. “You know, I understand why you wouldn’t trust me, but I probably know this case better than anyone in this town right now,” he said. “And I can tell you that it became more than just a job to me. I’ve studied that trial transcript a thousand times looking for that missing piece of information that would explain what really happened. I’d be very interested to hear your theory.”

  Just as she was about to shake her head and hurry away, Tess suddenly realized that this might be an opportunity, and that Ramsey might be just the person to talk to after all. She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Do you still have a transcript of Lazarus Abbott’s trial?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Do you think I could take a look at it?”

  “Well, if it would be of use to you, sure.”

  “Great. Could I get it now?” she asked.

  “If you don’t mind coming with me,” he said.

  “To your office?” she said.

  Ramsey grimaced. “Tess. Can I call you Tess?”

  Tess nodded.

  “I’m Ben,” he said. “Call me Ben. Look, I know this doesn’t sound too professional, but…I have to be honest with you. I just…um…got a pup, and I have to go home and deal with him.”

  “A pup?” she said, surprised.

  “A puppy. He’s only ten weeks and he’s at that stage where he’s kind of…high maintenance. Well, you know. You have a dog.”

  Tess realized after a moment’s confusion that he was referring to Leo. “It’s not my dog,” she said.

  “Oh. I thought…”

  “Leo belongs to my mother.”

  “Well, in any case, I have to run home for a few minutes. It’s only about ten minutes from here. And I’m coming right back…”

  “I can’t wait,” said Tess stiffly. “I have to get back.”

  “No,” said Ramsey. “You don’t understand. The trial transcript is at my house. I meant, do you want to ride out there with me?”

  “To your house?”

  Ben raised his black eyebrows apologetically. “I’m sorry. I have to go. It won’t take long.

  Tess hesitated, knowing she wanted to agree to it.

  “Come on,” he said.

  The road to Ben Ramsey’s house wound through the woods and around Lake Innisquam. Tess caught an intermittent glimpse of the sun gleaming on the waters of the lake. In the car, they hardly spoke at all. His house, when it appeared, turned out to be a good-size fishing cottage built in view of the lake. “This is it,” he said.

  He got out and walked up to a screened porch that wrapped all the way around the house. He opened the door and called out to her. “Come on in.”

  Tess stopped to take in the view. The mild, clear day and the dark water of the lake, its surface silvery from the sun, made her want to kick her boots off and wade in. Instead, she followed Ben up the walk to his house. She opened the screen door and heard him inside, murmuring endearments while a dog yipped delightedly. The house had four long windows and a door that opened out onto the screened-in porch. She could see him in the living room, sitting on a hooked wool rug in his good suit, while the pup, newly released from its crate, leaped happily at him, licking his face. Tess walked into the house.

  “Yes, yes,” he was saying. “I’m
glad to see you, too. And we have a guest. Scout, meet Miss Tess DeGraff.”

  Tess reached down and stroked the puppy’s silken fur. “Hello there, Scout,” she said. “Call me Tess.”

  “All right. I’ve got to take you out,” said Ben, rising to his feet. He lifted a leash from a hook beside the fireplace and bent down to put it on the dog’s collar. Then he handed it to Tess. “Here, hold this a minute.”

  Tess took the leash but was about to protest when she saw that he was rummaging through the papers on a desk in the corner. “Here it is,” he said. He brought the thick bound sheaf of paper with a plastic cover over to Tess and handed it to her. “I’ll trade you,” he said, gesturing to the leash. Tess handed the pup’s lead to him.

  “Sit down and have a look through it, if you like,” Ramsey said, indicating the sofa. “We’ll be right back.”

  “Can’t I take it with me?” Tess asked.

  “You can,” he said. “I just thought you might be impatient to have a look.”

  “It’s true. I am,” said Tess. She sat down on the sofa and opened the document, wondering if she’d find any clues that the best legal minds might have missed. She heard Scout yipping cheerfully and rustling in the leaves outside as she read over parts of the sentencing phase of the trial. After a few minutes, she looked up from the transcript, ruminating about what she had read, and her gaze scanned the comfortable living room. She noted that the well-maintained house had a rustic look, but it was a city person’s idea of rustic. It was tastefully decorated—everything was coordinated in shades of forest green and wine, plaids and muted prints perfectly matched. She recognized furniture, cushions, lamps, and even the rug from catalogues that she received herself at home in Washington. It was as if everything in the house had arrived, at great expense, by UPS.

  Tess remembered Jake’s saying that Ben was a widower and that this had been his and his wife’s vacation home. There were definite signs that a man now inhabited the place alone. For one thing, she thought, a woman probably would have set that dog cage somewhere other than the living room rug. On the oak dining table in front of the long windows was an empty mug, still stained with coffee, a crumb-covered plate, piles of mail, and a heap of newspapers with the Stone Hill Record on top. The fireplace was filled with cinders, as if no one ever thought to clean it. A canvas jacket hung over the back of one of the dining room chairs. On the mantel, beneath a framed map of New Hampshire, was propped a small oil painting of a woman with her face partially turned away from the artist. Tess peered at it curiously.