Death Night

by Ritter, Todd

  “I know what Constance found,” Kat blurted out. “I don’t know where and I don’t know what it means. If I told you, can you keep quiet about it?”

  Intrigued, Father Ron dropped the mop back into the bucket. It sent up a wave of soapy water that splashed Kat’s pant legs. The priest didn’t even notice.

  “If it’s something that sheds light on the history of the town,” he said, “I’d feel obliged to tell the others.”

  “You can’t. Not just yet. So unless you promise to keep this between us, I can’t tell you.”

  “There’s always the confessional. That would guarantee my silence.”

  He was joking. Maybe. With his sly smile and serious eyes, Kat couldn’t tell. Either way, she briefly considered it. But going to the confessional meant descending the bell tower stairs, and she was still too tired from her climb up.

  “Constance found a skeleton,” she said. “A woman’s skeleton, to be precise. We don’t know how old it is or where it came from, but it was located in the museum when the fire broke out.”

  The mop, pressured by the extra weight a dumbfounded Father Ron was putting on it, slipped out from beneath him. It flopped out of the bucket and onto the floor, the mop head spraying water as Father Ron stumbled forward.

  “A skeleton?”

  “Yup. Dug up not too long before Constance was killed.”

  Father Ron knelt to pick up the mop, his legs shaking. Instead of standing back up, he took a seat on the floor. “Why would she do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat said, sitting down next to him. “There are a lot of things I don’t know, like if this was part of her research and if it had anything to do with her death.”

  “It’s just like I told you,” Father Ron said. “Someone wanted to keep it buried.”

  That seemed to be the case, but Kat still couldn’t understand why. It was an old skeleton, most likely from someone who lived in the village before Perry Hollow was founded. She couldn’t think of anything that would make its discovery so dangerous that someone would commit murder over it.

  “Do you recall Constance mentioning anything—anything at all—about a skeleton?”

  Father Ron shook his head.

  “What about burial grounds other than Oak Knoll Cemetery?” Kat persisted. “The people who lived here before the mill was founded had to bury their dead somewhere.”

  “Nothing,” Father Ron said. “Have you checked Constance’s office?”

  Kat climbed to her feet before helping the priest do the same. “I’ve looked through her papers and didn’t see any mention of a graveyard.”

  “What about the book?”

  “I found lots of books,” Kat said. “But nothing that looked important. Then again, I might have missed it. Most of what I saw is stuff only Constance would understand.”

  “Like what?”

  “Random documents. Loose papers. Names of people no one knows. You ever hear her talk about someone named Brad Ford?”

  Father Ron told her no. Just like all the others.

  “I also found some financial papers,” Kat said. “Those I could understand. Did you know the historical society was deep in the red?”

  “I did,” he said. “I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve spent quite a few hours praying about it.”

  “Why is that something to be ashamed of?”

  Father Ron lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Because I suspect He has more important things to concern Himself with.”

  He dropped the mop back into the bucket and headed toward the staircase, letting Kat go first. She took the steps slowly, making sure to grip the rough handrail the entire way down. That stairwell was not the kind of place where you wanted to lose your balance.

  “When was the last time you saw Constance?”

  “The night I was cleaning the museum. But I spoke to her on the phone last night.”

  “Before the Chamber of Commerce fund-raiser?”

  “Yes,” Father Ron said. “Sometime around seven. She told me she’d try to be there but that she had a lot of work to do. I assumed it was the kind of work she couldn’t talk about and said no more. I also assumed she wouldn’t be going to the party, so it didn’t surprise me when she didn’t show up.”

  They had reached the bottom of the stairs. Kat looked for Nick in the sanctuary, but it was empty. Peering out the open church door, she saw him sitting in the passenger seat of her Crown Vic, his face frozen in boredom.

  “Was there anything that happened at the fund-raiser that did surprise you?”

  “Other than the fact that people were surprised to see a priest drinking a glass of wine?”

  “Besides that,” Kat said. “Did you see anyone acting suspicious? I was told one of the town’s volunteer firefighters got a little drunk.”

  “I didn’t see that. The only thing I remember being unusual was that the fire alarm went off.”

  “Are you talking about the fire trucks on the way to the museum?”

  Father Ron shook his head. “No. The fire alarm went off inside the restaurant. It was a false alarm, but they still had to clear the place out.”

  Kat felt a renewed sense of energy buzz through her body. This was something new. Something that both Claude Dobson and Burt Hammond had failed to mention.

  “What time was this?”

  “Shortly before the museum fire. About fifteen minutes or so. A lot of us were still outside when the fire trucks went by. Because the restaurant was emptied out, the area around it was a madhouse. People spilling out into the street. Groups getting separated. It was pretty chaotic.”

  And, Kat thought, a pretty convenient way for someone to slip out of the party unnoticed and make a surprise visit to Constance Bishop inside the history museum.

  Maison D’Avignon looked like it had been plucked off the streets of Paris and placed in the center of Main Street. Café tables flanked the front door, which was painted a vibrant red. Boxes in the windows overflowed with flowers—daffodils and tulips in the spring, geraniums in the summer, robust mums at the moment—and ivy crawled up the walls. Atop the mansard roof was a weather vane in the shape of a snail, a nod to the escargots the restaurant served.

  Kat didn’t give the restaurant even a cursory glance as she stood on the sidewalk in front of it, talking into her cell phone.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Nick said. “My watch is set.”

  He was currently in front of the history museum, ready to time Kat’s progress from one location to the other. The restaurant manager had confirmed Father Ron’s statement about the fire alarm. It had gone off at the tail end of the fund-raiser. At twelve-forty, to be precise. The fire at the museum was called in twelve minutes later. Kat’s goal was to see if someone could conceivably pull the fire alarm, walk to the museum, conk Constance Bishop over the head, start the fire, and then meet up with others in that amount of time. Deep down, she doubted it.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m going in three. Two. One.”

  Kat started off, going at the same pace as a speed walker. She knew running would be the fastest way to get there, but also the most conspicuous. A passerby would be less likely to notice someone speed walking up the street than sprinting. Especially if that person was dressed up for a formal function.

  The shortest route to the museum was to walk five blocks north on Main Street before cutting left and going four more blocks. After one block’s distance, she checked in with Nick.

  “How’s my time?”

  “One minute.”

  When she had traversed another block, Nick, like clockwork, said, “Two minutes.”

  A block a minute. Definitely not fast enough. Kat increased her speed, noticing a few strange looks from people walking in the opposite direction. She slowed down again, crossing the three-block mark five seconds before Nick called out the time.

  “Three minutes.”

  The key was to make good time on the approach to the museum. The way back was ma
de easier, thanks to the fact that by then the streets had been filled with people emptied out of the restaurant by the fire alarm. Rather chaotic was how Father Ron had termed it. Especially once the sirens of the fire trucks alerted them to the real fire. Someone could have left the museum at twelve-fifty and met others halfway without looking too suspicious.

  Kat finished the fourth block and started on the fifth. She was halfway over it when she realized Nick hadn’t called out the time.

  “How am I doing?”

  There was no answer.

  “Nick?” she said. “Are you there?”

  Still no answer. She glanced at her phone to see if they had been disconnected. It happened often in a town as remote as Perry Hollow. But the call was still going on. Kat could see the seconds ticking away.

  Something was wrong.

  “Nick. Please answer me.”

  She walked faster, unconcerned that her quickening gait would look out of place to others. She was jogging by the time she rounded the corner and veered off Main Street. Up ahead, the smoke-scarred roof of the museum popped into view four blocks away.

  When she was three blocks away, she caught sight of Nick, as well. He stood in front of the museum, phone clenched in a hand that dangled by his side. Instead of looking at his watch, he was studying something farther up the street.

  Kat squinted, looking past Nick and seeing what had caught his attention. It was the Sleepy Hollow Inn, situated just down the street from the museum. Smoke rolled out its open door and flames danced just beyond the first-floor windows.

  “Not again,” Kat murmured. “Please, not again.”

  The words on Constance Bishop’s hand zapped into her head. THIS IS JUST THE FIRST.

  She hurried up the street, flying past Nick, hoping against hope that her eyes were deceiving her. But she knew they weren’t. It was happening again. The Sleepy Hollow Inn was on fire, and in the queasy pit of her stomach, Kat knew it wasn’t an accident.

  NOON

  The smell roused Henry from his slumber. An acrid odor, it suddenly seemed to be everywhere. When he inhaled, it stung the insides of his nostrils. Still held in sleep’s grip, he couldn’t immediately place it. It was sharp. Bitter. Intense. Like he was standing too close to a campfire.

  Smoke.

  That’s what he was smelling. A lot of smoke. Somewhere very close by.

  He sat up and opened his eyes. The sting of the smoke made him close them again immediately. It was closer than he had first thought. It was inside the Sleepy Hollow Inn. Inside his room.

  A fire.

  The last remnants of sleep vanished from Henry’s brain as he pieced the situation together. The inn was on fire and he was still inside, stuck on the third floor.

  He jumped out of bed, wide awake now, his body a sparking jumble of hot-wired nerves. He needed to get out. Of the room. Of the hotel. And he needed to do it now.

  But first he had to assess the situation. How close was the blaze? What was his best escape route? Most important, how much time did he have left?

  Squinting through half-opened eyelids, Henry saw that a fair amount of smoke had infiltrated his room. It curled under the door before rising to the ceiling, where it collected in thick billows that rolled back down toward him. Its presence made him cough—deep, chest-rattling heaves that sucked the breath right out of him.

  He stumbled to the door, reaching blindly for the handle. It was hot to the touch but not so warm that he couldn’t twist it open. Then it was into the hallway, where the smoke was as gray and impenetrable as an English fog. Henry pulled the collar of his T?shirt over his nose and mouth before moving down the hall, desperately searching for an exit.

  There wasn’t one. Henry realized that as soon as he reached the stairs. The smoke was worse down there, rising through the narrow stairwell like it was being funneled through a chimney. Leaning over the banister and peering into the gloom, he could make out the searing orange glow of flames.

  The fire danced across the first floor, a wall of flame where the front door should have been, officially blocking his most obvious escape route. It was now aiming for the second floor. Flames crawled up the walls and climbed the staircase, slithering up it step by terrifying step.

  Henry had no choice but to retreat. He hurried down the hallway, the heat of the flames below reaching out to him and making beads of sweat pop onto his skin. Back in his room, he closed the door and looked around, desperately trying to plan his next move.

  The towels Lottie Scott had delivered earlier sat on a chair near the door. Henry grabbed one and stuffed it under the door, trying to block more smoke from entering the room. Next, he ran to the room’s only window. Opening it would clear out the remainder of the smoke and buy him some time.

  It wouldn’t budge, not even after Henry yanked on it with all the strength he could summon. The window was locked. Or it had been sealed shut. Or it was too weathered and warped to move. Whatever the cause, it didn’t matter to Henry. He just needed to get it open.

  He returned to the chair, lifting it by the seat back and charging toward the window. The chair’s legs smashed through the glass, letting in desperately needed air. Henry felt it immediately. Cool and fresh—a balm for his smoke-scarred lungs.

  Gulping it down in deep breaths, he continued to push the chair through the window, breaking away all the shards of glass that clung to the window frame. He gave the chair one last shove before letting go, watching it sail out the window and disappear from view.

  Leaning on the windowsill, Henry pushed his entire upper body out the window. His room was located in the rear of the building, overlooking a small courtyard that was mostly dirt. The ground was about twenty-five feet below. Maybe more. It was hard to tell from that height. Making matters worse was the fact that his room had the bad luck to be situated over a set of concrete steps that led to the inn’s basement. Not only did they add more distance between him and solid ground, but they also provided a hard and potentially deadly surface on which to land if he was forced to jump. The chair hadn’t survived the fall too well. It was now in pieces—mere splinters of wood scattered on the steps and surrounding sidewalk.

  A jump would be risky.

  Not that Henry had much of a choice. The fire had reached the third floor. He could hear it consuming the floor and walls just beyond the door. A horrible crackling sound, it made him want to cover his ears.

  The smoke, too, had increased. The towel under the door had managed to block a lot of it, but smoke still seeped in. Henry saw wisps of smoke insinuate themselves into the room and twist their way toward the ceiling.

  He turned his attention to the window again. He heard sirens, somewhere distant but getting closer. Fire trucks. The fact that they were on their way offered no relief. Surely they’d be at the front of the building. He was at the back. No one would know he was still inside.

  He looked down, seeing that smoke was pouring out of the basement door. The fire was there, too. Sharp licks of flame shot out of the door, stretching as far as they could reach before retreating. Yet another reason why he couldn’t jump. He’d literally be leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  An earsplitting creak rose from just beyond the door. It quickly became an equally loud groan, followed by a crashing sound that made Henry’s heart race even more.

  The floor in the hall had given way.

  The building was crumbling around him.

  Henry eased himself onto the windowsill, legs dangling inside the room, upper body outside of it. Gripping the window frame for support, he leaned backward and looked up. The roof began several feet above him. There was about five inches of overhang from which rain gutters hung. If he stretched, there was a good possibility that he could reach it and pull himself onto the roof.

  Again, it wasn’t an ideal situation. Henry had no idea what he’d do once he was on the roof. But he had no choice. Not with more smoke seeping into the room. Not with another horrible crashing sound coming from j
ust outside his door.

  Henry lifted his right leg, bending it at the knee until the bottom of his shoe was touching the windowsill. He did the same with the left. Then he started to rise slowly, gripping the window frame the entire time.

  Soon his head was past the window, moving beyond it. Then his shoulders. He could no longer see what was going on inside the room, but he could certainly hear it. More crackling. More creaks. More noises of a building falling to pieces all around him.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard the door to the room bending from the pressure. The sound was ominous—a deep groan of wood being stretched to the breaking point. Accompanying it was a series of pops as the door started to splinter from within. Soon it would burst open, letting the flames and smoke flood the room.

  Henry was fully standing now, balanced on the windowsill. Looking up, he saw the overhang of the roof, just within arm’s reach. He stretched out a hand, his fingertips scraping along a shingle before slipping off.

  The sudden movement threw off his balance, and for a terrifying second Henry thought he was going to tumble from the window ledge. He grabbed the rainspout that hung from the roof, bending it as he tried to regain his composure.

  Below him, the room was quickly filling with smoke. It puffed out the open window in gray tendrils that twisted around his body. It was hotter down there, too. Henry could feel the heat from the fire on his legs and feet.

  He reached for the roof again, the palm of his hand pressing into the stubble of the shingles. This time, his fingers stayed. Now his right hand was on the roof. His left still gripped the edge of the window.

  It was now or never.

  Henry took a deep breath as he let go of the window frame. He raised his left hand above his head, reaching for the roof. He touched it, slipped, touched it again. Now he was stretched over the open window like a shade that had been pulled tight—both hands on the roof, both feet on the windowsill.

  A loud crash echoed through the room. The door. Finally giving way and sending a blast of hot air rushing toward him. Henry pulled himself upward, legs now dangling, as a tide of fire and smoke rolled past him out the window.