I locked myself in my car and surveyed the parking lot. Nothing. I headed down the secondary road that led to the interstate. It was only three-thirty, yet dusk was falling. Trees and stone walls cast ghostly shadows along the road.
I looked in my side and rearview mirrors. As I pulled onto the near-empty interstate, all at once, there it was: a boxy, dark-colored car streaked with salt. It was too close, hovering, sliding from one lane to the next, almost passing me, then slowing and skirting to the other side.
I snapped into crisis mode and got ready to cope.
By touch, I found my phone, got my earpiece situated, and pushed the green button twice to redial. I got Cathy.
“Please tell Officer Brownley I’m being followed. She’ll want to know.”
“Who’s following you?”
“The same car. Dark. Salt-covered. No license plate in front. The driver is wearing a hat. Tell her it’s the same car and the occupant is wearing the same disguise.”
“I’m connecting to emergency response. . . .” After a moment, she asked, “Josie? Are you still with me?”
“Yes.”
My heart was in my throat choking me again. The car was tailgating so closely his vehicle appeared to be an extension of mine. If I slowed down, we’d crash. I speeded up, but the other driver paced me.
“Emergency is on the line. Go ahead, emergency.”
“Where are you, ma’am?”
“I’m on Route Ninety-five, heading toward the bridge to Maine,” I said. “I’m going to The Miller House.”
“Police are on the way,” the emergency responder said.
The car could hit me, I realized, little nudges to force me off the road, and then I wondered why it didn’t. I slowed down gradually until I was going only about forty, and at the last moment, with only yards to spare, I spun the steering wheel hard to the right and took the downtown Portsmouth exit.
The boxy car mimicked my maneuver, cutting off a sedan. The sedan’s horn blared and kept on sounding, echoing long after I left the highway. I raced along the service road until I came to the next entrance back onto the interstate and swerved on, the dark car close behind.
Think, I told myself. Damn it. Think. He—or she—isn’t trying to kill me. The other car is bigger and faster than mine, so if that was the driver’s intention I’d already be dead. Therefore he must want something else. What? To scare me off? I nodded. Or, I realized, more frightened than before, the driver wants to trap me for some reason.
I skidded as I sped onto the highway, then, when the car stabilized, remembered the police were still on the line. “Hello? Are you still there?”
“This is emergency response. You okay?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your current location?”
“I’m on the bridge. I’ll get off onto Route One-oh-three.”
I heard her relay my location to someone, her mike crackling with static.
The car tailed me the entire way to The Miller House. I snap-turned into the parking lot, parked any which way under a bright light, the boxy car blocking me in.
I grabbed the phone and my bag, tore out of my car leaving the door ajar, and ran up the path toward the restaurant. At a curve in the walkway, I ducked behind a dense growth of rhododendron to catch my breath and watch what would happen next. I clutched the phone to my chest, afraid my voice would carry, revealing my position, if I spoke.
The driver backed out, sending pebbles flying, and turned north, heading deeper into Maine.
“I’m at The Miller House. The car’s gone. It’s heading north on One-oh-three.”
“Copy that,” the voice said.
Within seconds, a state police patrol car, its red lights spinning, roared into the lot. I hurried back down the path to meet it, but before I’d taken more than a half a dozen steps, it backed out and went north. The police were in pursuit. The immediate crisis over, I felt suddenly overheated and I began to shake. I thought I might faint. I realized that I’d somehow lost the headset and put the phone to my ear.
“Josie?” Cathy said, sounding concerned, and I understood that she had remained on the line the entire time. “Josie? Josie, can you hear me?”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“Officer Brownley is standing by. Hold, please.”
A moment later, Officer Brownley said, “Emergency is off the line. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, and I realized that I was trembling. “It was pretty scary.”
“What are you doing? I thought you were in for the afternoon.”
She sounded confused, not angry, and I appreciated her restraint. I had expected to be reproached.
“It was stupid of me. I thought I’d be fine—a quick drive during the day. I’m sorry.”
“You’re all right and that’s the main thing. What are you doing at The Miller House?”
“I know . . . I mean . . . I’m just really sure—” I broke off, my words tangled in my tongue. I needed to show her, not tell her. “I need to show you something. Can you meet me here?”
“Yeah, okay. Half an hour.”
I hung up and paused, trying to still my throbbing pulse. As always when a crisis passed, I felt weak and ill, and anxious.
I reparked the car properly and headed inside. Betty, the hostess, was chatting with a waitress.
“I remember you,” she said. “How you doing?”
“Glad to be here. How are you?”
I wondered if my voice was quivering. I was breathing hard, standing with my back to the entryway wall for support.
“Same old, same old.” She paused and looked at me. “You okay?”
The waitress smiled at me, picked up an empty tray, and left. “See ya, Betty,” she said.
“More or less,” I replied, forcing a smile.
“So, what can I do for you today?”
“I forgot to ask you a question.” I took a deep breath for focus, dug the photo out of my tote bag, and handed it over. “Did you ever see this person with Rosalie?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, nodding. “They had dinner here lots of times.”
“When? Do you remember?”
She pursed her lips, thinking, then tapped the photo as she remembered. “Yup. That’s right. Last summer.”
I knew it! I thought, elated. The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle snapped into place. “When did they stop coming together?”
“Let me think.” She paused, still staring at the photograph. “It was an unusually cold day. They had a kind of fight. It was right around Labor Day. Mid-September, maybe.”
“Nothing lately?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely, and extended a hand.
We shook, then Betty tilted her head and grinned. “You’re as persistent as a cat tracking a mouse. Bet it makes you one hell of an antiques appraiser—am I right?”
I smiled back. “My dad always called me stubborn. I guess that’s the same quality as persistence, just wearing jeans instead of a dress, huh?”
She laughed and told me to come back for dinner sometime. I promised that I would.
I was jump-out-of-my-skin excited. I’d wanted to check with Betty before reporting my conclusion to the police for the same reason that I’d wanted to call Aaron before reporting that Lesha might have committed fraud. Going into any situation ill prepared when you don’t have to, when relevant information is available for the asking, is just plain stupid. Except that someone in a dirty car had been waiting for me outside—maybe—so my effort to avoid one stupid event exposed me to another. I walked into the lounge, inordinately relieved that the end was in sight.
I ordered hot tea, and settled in to wait for Officer Brownley. Just after four, the first wave of after-work revelers started arriving, and their presence was reassuring. There’s safety in numbers, I thought. If not safety, at least there’s comfort.
When Officer Brownley arrived about twenty minutes later, the first thing I noticed
was her expression. She was visibly concerned.
“Did they catch up to the car?” I asked.
She shook her head. “They lost him.”
I nodded. “No surprise, I guess.”
“No. There are lots of turnoffs.” After a pause, she added, “You ready to fill me in?”
“Yeah. The bottom line is that I know who killed Rosalie—and I think I know how you can prove it.”
“I’m listening.”
“Give me a break, Charlie!” a man said, laughing as he sat at the next table.
“Never!” Charlie replied, joining in with a low rumbling “ha-ha-ha.”
“Not here,” I whispered.
“Where?” Officer Brownley asked.
“Heyer’s. Let’s go.”
“What’s at Heyer’s?”
“Proof.”
“You can ride with me,” she said, standing up, “and fill me in en route.”
I followed her outside, trying to think of how to explain, of what to say to clarify the morass of details and unrelated facts into a cohesive whole. As we approached her vehicle, I hesitated.
“I can drive myself,” I said.
“We could use the time to talk.”
I shook my head. “It’s too complicated. I’ll explain later—after we ask Gerry Fine a question.”
“What question?”
I shook my head again. “You’ll see. His answer will tell you most everything you need to know.”
She watched as I got situated behind the wheel, and I could tell from her expression that she was tempted to insist on answers, but had decided to let it ride. I smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. She didn’t smile back, but neither did she frown. She was withholding judgment, and I thought, I won’t let you down.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I
’m not walking in that door until you tell what you’ve got,” Officer Brownley said, pausing at Heyer’s entrance.
“Chief,” I said, lowering my voice as if someone might overhear us. “I’ve got Chief. And I’m pretty sure that I know where there’s evidence that will point to the killer.”
“Come on, Josie. Tell me what evidence. Now.”
I took a deep breath and started to fill her in. Before I got three sentences out, she stopped me and called for backup.
“You and I will go see Gerry,” she said, intense but not mad. “But after that, we wait for the backup. And you will do exactly as you’re told and only what you’re told. Got it?”
“Got it,” I concurred, grateful she was in charge.
“Josie!” Gerry called as we approached. “Come on in, doll. Officer, you too.”
We sat as instructed in chairs on the far side of his desk.
“So, what can I do ya for?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve got a kind of off-the-wall question.”
“My favorite kind. Let her rip.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong . . . do I remember you saying that Ned came from aristocracy?”
He roared with laughter, then slapped his desk. “Aristocracy?” he repeated as if the word was the punch line of a hysterically funny joke.
Officer Brownley and I waited for him to speak.
“Oh. God! Don’t look at me like that, you’ll set me off again. Every time I think of it, I can’t stop laughing. That was a joke, Josie. I josh him all the time about it. He’s got Injun in him, and he’s always bragging that he’s descended from an Indian chief. Indian chief, my ass. Ha! More like he’s descended from the guy who sold Manhattan for twenty-four bucks and a handful of beads.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” I stood up. “That’s it.”
“That’s all?” he asked, surprised.
“Yup. You know me. Get it done and I’m outta here.”
“You betcha, doll. You’re high class all the way.”
Officer Brownley and I returned to the front. Una looked at us curiously.
“How’s things?” she asked.
“Good, good. Listen, we’re waiting for some of Officer Brownley’s colleagues. We’ll be over there, okay?”
The phone rang, and she nodded as she picked up the receiver.
“What was that about? Aristocracy?” Officer Brownley demanded in a low voice as soon as we sat down in the far corner.
I took a deep breath and turned to her. “Ned is my secret admirer. I know it.”
“How?”
“It was the bell that got me thinking.”
“What bell?”
“That’s why I wanted you to come here,” I explained. “Ned has a cuckoo clock in his office.” I dialed my voice mail and handed her the phone. “Listen.”
“And from that you concluded Ned is the secret admirer?” she asked, handing me my phone, her tone indicating that she thought I was batty. “Don’t get me wrong. I hear the bell, too. But surely it’s not all that unusual. Lots of people have cuckoo clocks.”
“Not like this one they don’t.” I described the bear and how he strikes an old-fashioned triangle with a tiny metal rod.
“My idea is that you stand near his clock as it clangs and listen to the voice mail. You’ll hear what I’m talking about.”
“And this Ned guy is going to allow us to come in his office and stand by his clock?”
“I thought you could just do it as part of your investigation.”
“You thought wrong. You’d better have something else up your sleeve.”
“I do,” I said, swallowing dismay. “A couple of things. One is, I think he’s the man Rosalie called Chief.”
“How so?”
“Once I recognized the background noise as the clock, of course I thought of Ned because I’d just heard it in his office. It got me thinking about him. And I remembered two things—one, that Gerry had made that aristocracy crack, and two, that Ned had a bear tooth necklace hanging in his office suite.”
Officer Brownley frowned.
“You don’t know what that means, but I do, and I should have realized its significance sooner,” I confessed. “Back before guns, it was hard to kill a bear. Only the bravest warriors could do it. Ownership of the teeth proved the accomplishment. Think about it—are you going to put your hand anywhere near a bear’s mouth while it’s alive? I don’t think so.”
“So . . . ,” she said, her brow furrowed, “I don’t get it.”
“An Indian hunter who succeeded in killing the bear would typically string the teeth on a leather thong and present it to the leader of his tribe, the chief.” I shrugged. “Get it? Chief!”
“Maybe he just bought that necklace.”
“Absolutely. It doesn’t matter whether it’s from his family or not, or even if it’s genuine or not. Just like it doesn’t matter if he is, in fact, descended from a chief or not. All that matters is that he considers himself connected to a chief. That’s why I wanted to ask Gerry that question in your presence, so you could hear the answer. Ned says he’s descended from a chief. From that fact alone, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he’d like to be called Chief as a pet name.” I shrugged. “I saw him the other day standing in a diner looking for all the world like Napoleon. He’s definitely the kind of man who’d like to be called Chief.”
“What else?” she asked, still dubious.
I leaned in toward her and spoke softly. “Last summer Ned and Rosalie were an item.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He and Paige knew each other.”
“And you know this . . . how?”
“She was with me today. They greeted one another.”
“So maybe they met at a Christmas party or something.”
“No. It was more than that. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it was a greeting of people who knew each other.”
“What else?”
“I showed Ned’s photo to the hostess at The Miller House.”
“Just now? You shouldn’t be interviewing witnesses!”
“I wouldn’t call it interviewing exactly. I’m h
elping!”
She didn’t argue the point, but from the look in her eye, I couldn’t delude myself that I’d convinced her.
“You brought me here to listen to Gerry’s answer to that question and to stand by Ned’s cuckoo clock. Do I have that right?”
I swallowed, aware of how lame it sounded. “Yes.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes. But I think you’re going to get mad at me.”
She half smiled. “Heck of a time to start worrying about that.”
I met her eyes and was reassured by their twinkle.
“I’m pretty sure that the murder weapon is in his office.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Another detail you decided to keep to yourself?”
“I just realized its significance today.”
“What is it?”
“Ned’s walking stick. It’s made of apple wood and it’s varnished, just like the splinters in Rosalie’s scalp.”
“How do you know about apple wood and varnish? That information hasn’t been released to the public.”
I stared at her, stricken. My foot was in my mouth. I couldn’t reveal my source, and I didn’t know what to say. Officer Brownley’s eyes stayed on my face and I felt myself begin to blush. She’s going to think Ty told me, I realized in a panic, and I couldn’t allow that. “A reporter told me in confidence. I don’t know who told him.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
She took in a breath that went all the way to her kneecaps. “A leak in the department is serious, Josie.”
I didn’t reply. Anxiety was pulsating through my body and I felt sick.
“I need to make a call,” she said. “Wait here.”
She didn’t seem angry exactly, just shocked and surprised.
“You okay?” Una called.
“It’s been a long day.” I leaned back and closed my eyes to avoid having to field further questions. I wondered where Officer Brownley had gone.
Ten minutes later, she reappeared. “I called for an emergency search warrant, and the judge granted it,” she announced in an undertone. “It’ll be here soon. Until then the backup team is going to stay out of sight and you’re going to tell me everything you know. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve been helpful. But if evidence isn’t legally obtained . . . ,” she said, letting her voice trail off, “well, it’s worse than doing nothing at all.”
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