Catherine changed her mind with the snow starting and went home instead. She wasn't far ahead of Anne, she thought.
Adam pulled Brad from the computer and took the keys for the four by four from the desk and drove out to the inn.
Anne cast a worried eye on the dark clouds before she left the parking lot and hoped she'd get back to Culver's Mills before the storm.
The inn sat at the top of a paved lane that wound up a long, winding hill. Halfway down the hill, the visibility dropped. The rear wheels skidded slightly as she went around a curve. Slower, she told herself. The road couldn't be more than a kilometer, she thought.
The snow fell faster, and the wind picked up. Faint tracks of a vehicle that went down ahead of her were all that marked the road. The edges blurred into the fields and forest beyond. Thick snow covered the red stop sign, but it was visible enough to tell her where the lane ended and the highway began.
She sat for a moment and breathed, loosening her grip on the steering wheel. The choice was either forward or turn around and go back up the hill. A left-hand turn took her onto the highway.
A Jeep or something like it loomed in her rearview mirror. Why did he have to be so close, she thought, angry at having another thing to worry about. She couldn't go any faster. The grill of the larger vehicle filled her mirror.
"I can't go any faster," she spoke aloud, frantically flashing her lights, trying to get him to back off.
As the cars rounded a curve, the Jeep pulled past, scraping the side of the vehicle, nudging her onto the shoulder. Anne lost control, as the deepening snow pulled the car's wheels. The car plunged off the highway and down a steep incline. She covered her face with her arms as the snow flew towards the windshield. A sudden stop inflated the airbag; the seat belt cut into her abdomen and chest. As she pushed the remnants of the deflated bag away from her face, her first thought was to turn off the motor.
Only the wind and the faint whisper of the falling snow broke the silence. The darkness overwhelmed her. Above the sound of the wind, she heard an engine roar into reverse. Maybe he hadn't intended to run her off. Perhaps she should switch on the light to show she was alive. But what, she thought frantically, what if he wanted to kill her? One person was already dead. A light flashed in her rearview mirror. He shone a flashlight towards her. Anne let her head fall back as the light hit her car. It played through the window for long minutes before it left her in darkness again. Not daring to breathe, she waited for the sound of the engine to reach her. He was gone. The darkness closed in again. She switched on the lights.
The cold crept into the car. She'd better turn on the engine. How much time had passed? She knew she drifted in and out. Did the battery have enough juice?
When she cranked the engine, the lights dimmed, and it didn't catch. She'd leave the lights on, she thought. Maybe someone would see her. It was so cold.
Adam and Brad drove along the highway to the inn road. They passed no one going the other way and found nothing by the time they reached the inn and found out Anne left as the snow began. A quick call to Catherine wasn't reassuring. Anne still hadn't returned.
They drove along the lane towards the highway in gathering darkness. There still had been no sign of Anne's vehicle when they turned from the lane to the main road. Brad used the searchlight on the shoulders.
"Stop, stop. Someone's gone over. I can see a light down the slope here," Brad shouted.
Adam slid down the slope. Behind him, Brad called fire and rescue. Ahead, Anne's head twisted, visible in the faint light from the dashboard. When he called her name, one hand gestured and fell. her hand.
He pulled at the driver's side door, but it was jammed. The passenger door opened and he crawled inside.
"Are you hurt?"
"From the seatbelt and airbag, I think. I have a headache, but I don't have any pains in my legs, and I can feel everything. I'm cold, Adam. Please get me out of here."
"Do you think, if I help you, you could crawl over the console?"
"I can try."
Anne lifted herself across to the other bucket seat.
"I won't be able to walk up. I feel too faint."
Anne's voice faded as did the color from her face. Adam scanned the hill for any sign of the rescue vehicles. The slope rose at a steep angle, rutted from the recent rains and deep with snow. The temperature was falling, and the wind was picking up. She was right. They weren't going to walk up without help.
Adam settled Anne back in the car and covered her with a blanket he found in her trunk along with candles and a shovel. He made a tent of the blanket and lit the candle. It would be enough to take the chill off. Anne drifted off to sleep. He woke her as he heard the sirens. She must have a concussion he thought.
With sirens wailing and lights flashing, the rescue vehicles drew up at the top of the hill. Two firemen and a paramedic descended the slope, the stretcher attached by lines to the truck above.
The paramedic checked Anne, collared her neck, and attached his monitoring equipment. She opened her eyes, answered his questions, and drifted away again. The team transferred her to the stretcher. Fifteen minutes later, Brad slid down to the demolished car as the ambulance left.
"Shine the light on the driver's side, Brad. Anne said someone pushed her off."
The front fender was crumpled against a tree. Black paint clung to the broken metal of the pale blue car. Brad scraped a sample into the evidence bag.
"She thinks it was a Jeep," Adam said.
"There only are about ten black Jeeps locally."
"If it is local."
"I'll put out an all points on a black SUV, likely a Jeep, with damage to the passenger side, possibly marked with blue paint," Brad said, as they reached the top and got back in the cruiser.
"Get me a list of local Jeeps, too."
Adam picked up a vehicle at the station and drove to the hospital. Anne had been admitted for observation. Her eyes were closed when he walked in, but she opened them and smiled up at him.
"Thank you. You saved my life today."
"You're welcome," he said, "but it was my deputy who saw your lights."
"I appreciate you staying with me."
"No trouble, ma'am. How are you feeling?"
Adam smiled down at her. He was a little alarmed at her color. She was pale, to begin with and now looked ashen against the white hospital sheets.
"Headache, nausea, sleepy. About what you would expect. They are coming to get me for a cat scan in a minute. Adam, what do I know that anyone would want to kill me for?"
"It must be in those files you have been working on."
"I haven't found anything yet."
"Someone thinks you have or you might. Who knows you're helping me?"
"The whole diner. One of the twins called out to me this morning, asking was I helping you. I am sure my face gave me away before I could shush him. I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. You're the one in danger. I'm leaving someone outside your door until you are released."
"Thanks, Adam."
Anne squeezed his hand and went back to sleep, only to waken with a startle that shook her body as she relived the impact. Perhaps she should go home, she thought, as she drifted into sleep again.
Chapter Twelve
Sunday promised a peach of a day: crisp air, bright blue skies, with the temperature rising into spring range. Adam drove out to the hospital to see Anne. A two-story, red brick structure built around an atrium replaced the Victorian mansion plus additions that served the town up until two years before. Anne's room was on the second floor.
"Come in, Adam. I've found an old friend. Brad Murdock, Adam Davidson."
"Old friend?" asked Adam as he shook Dr. Murdock's hand.
"Yes, we trained together for a year in Toronto."
"Anne and I were gossiping about old times, Lieutenant. I've got rounds, Anne. Could we have dinner before you leave town?"
"Sure, I'd be happy to. I'm being discharged," she said, tu
rning happily to Adam.
"Good, Brad will drive you home."
"I can take a taxi."
"No, I don't want you alone. The twins promised to stay on guard all day."
"All right. I'd hate to disappoint the boys. You think it was deliberate?"
Anne clutched at her blanket as she watched Adam's face.
"It looks like it from your car. Do you remember who was at the diner yesterday morning?" he asked as he pulled a chair up to the bedside.
"No one I knew except Dougal and Peg. Maybe they would remember. One guy stared at me after Dougal spoke."
"What did he look like?"
"Short, stocky, muscular, red hair, clean shaven. That's about all."
"Good, I think I can place him."
Brad knocked at the door and came in to take Anne home.
Adam drove out along County Road 11 to the Beauchamp home. The family lived in the area for many generations. They, too, claimed ancestry direct from France, not through Quebec.
What was it with these people? What difference did it make if a man made a detour before he settled in America? Come to think of it, this family claimed some sort of French nobility too. Not too many princes settling around Vermont border towns in the 1700's.
Adam stopped in front of one of the few stone houses in that part of the state, a square, two-story building with deeply-recessed windows and a bright blue door. It was early for calling on a Sunday, but a barking dog and the pealing of the doorbell brought a sulky maid. A Vermont girl by her accent, she hadn't quite acquired the correct manner for opening the door.
"Lieutenant Davidson, Culver's Mills Police," Adam said as he displayed his identification. "Could I speak to Mrs. Beauchamp, please?"
"None of the family's finished breakfast, yet."
Apparently, this meant a mere policeman couldn't disturb them.
"You best tell Mrs. Beauchamp I'm here."
Adam's official manner and tone brought an immediate response. The young girl left him twirling his hat in the hallway. This house had been altered, opened up, painted light colors. There were several bright but obscure, at least to Adam, modern paintings on the wall. Maybe Erin could tell him what this decorating style was supposed to be.
"Mr. Davidson, could you follow me?"
The maid showed him into a corner room. Three women around a table set in a bay window. He knew Mrs. Andrea Beauchamp, a tall, thin, silver-haired woman with large brown eyes and a prominent, slightly hooked nose. The two people with her were quite a bit younger, both girls, granddaughters maybe.
"Good morning, Detective."
They met when burglars struck the house, several years before.
"Good morning, Mrs. Beauchamp."
"Would you like coffee?"
She indicated a seat at the end of the table.
"Yes, thank you, ma'am. "
Mrs. Beauchamp introduced her granddaughters, Claire and Cecilia, home from university. Both girls had their grandmother's dark hair and large eyes.
"Mrs. Beauchamp, have you heard about Jennifer Smith's death?"
Her composed features didn't change in their expression.
"Yes, what a tragedy. She was helpful to me in researching my husband's family."
"Had she finished?"
"She had barely started. Of course, we have some family records, but the early ancestors left little."
"Any surprises?"
The coffee here was perfect too, he thought as he waited for her reply.
"Surprises?"
"Anything you hadn't expected to find. Anything embarrassing—you know—a horse thief or a Canadian or something?"
"Good heavens, no. Why do you ask?"
There was a genuine surprise in her voice.
“We discovered Jennifer had unexpected income. We wonder if she tried to blackmail some of the people she worked for."
"Certainly not us. After all, one lives in the present, not the past. If she had suggested such a thing, I would have called you immediately."
"And your children?"
Adam knew the girls' father was a proud man.
"Jennifer reported to me."
She waved away the suggestion.
"What about the cousin in Montreal who started the inquiry? Didn't she report to her?"
A slight frown flickered on the old lady's face and was gone.
"I don't know to whom you refer. I only started with Jennifer two weeks ago. If she was working on our family for someone else, I didn't know about it."
"The woman's name is Nicole Bouchard."
"She's a cousin, but I haven't spoken to her in a long time."
"Is Mr. Thomas Beauchamp here, Mrs. Beauchamp?"
"No, he's in New York for the week. I can't believe any blackmailing has gone on in my family. None of us would stand for it. Is that all?"
"Yes, ma'am." Adam knew when enough was enough. "I'll call back to see your son."
Adam called at the Culvers but found no one at home, not even the quiet housekeeper who wanted to talk to him. Maybe they all went to church, he thought.
At the station, Pete was in, filing a report on his Burlington interviews. He stayed overnight at his brother's because of the storm. The Culvers' alibis were good, at least the Burlington part. Careful Pete checked at the restaurant.
As for the Utronskis, they hadn't seen any of Jennifer's money. They lived a modest lifestyle in a quiet suburb. The husband taught at the local college; the wife was a nurse who worked part-time. They had a mortgage, drove cars that were several years old and sent their kids to public school. Pete felt they could eliminate them as suspects.
It was Brad's day off, but he too plodded through the files, trying to recover more of Jennifer's work.
Adam sat back in his office chair, throwing paper balls at his wastebasket, trying to sum up and get some kind of picture of the case. So far, they placed no one at the scene, save that anonymous grey car. No one admitted to being worried about Jennifer's research. No paper trail led to the money in the safety deposit box. He still needed to talk to Davis again. That lawyer was so slick he'd slide in his own footprints. Maybe Anne could find something more in those files. He needed to talk to the teller in the bank in Burlington. Did Jennifer stay with the relatives when she went down to deposit the money or in a hotel? If at a hotel, did anyone meet with her?
"Boss." Pete was calling him.
"What?"
Adam brought his feet down off the desk.
"I'm going home unless you need me."
"No, go home."
As far as Adam could tell, it was going to take days of work to try and make a connection between Jennifer and whomever she was bleeding for money, one of whom who may or may not have murdered her. Pete might as well start again tomorrow.
Adam went out to Catherine's to talk to Anne. Maybe the ancestor-trolling did hold the answer to the crime. He found Anne and Catherine in the garden, shaking heavy snow from evergreens and checking buds on the crab apples. He happily accepted an invitation to stay for lunch. He hoped it was Catherine's well-known Sunday brunch.
As he tucked into eggs Benedict, Georgia ham and homemade scones, he questioned Anne again about genealogy research.
"If you were researching the Beauchamps, how would you start if you wanted to find blackmail material?"
Anne stopped eating her eggs to give the question her attention.
"That's not something I had given much thought to before I came here. But I've thought that if you started with the family's own history or legend, you check backwards in the way we do in genealogy. For example, the Beauchamps have lived here for two hundred years, about seven generations. The first two or three should be obvious and clear, but I would look for birth records, marriage certificates, and death records starting at the grandparents. Do you know anything about them?"
Anne picked up her fork again.
"Here's the hard copy of Jennifer's research. It starts with the cousin in Montreal. She didn't have a sepa
rate file for Mrs. Beauchamp."
"Yes, you see this cousin claims to be the daughter of Andrea Beauchamp's husband John's brother Peter. So her grandparents on her father's side would be the local ones here. They were called Andre and Marie. Marie was a Canadian from Montreal. Her surname was Cloutier. Now that is an old Quebec "pur laine" name. It looks like she was born there in 1901. If so she might be listed in the census of 1901.
"How do you know there was a census in 1901?”
Adam was curious that she would be so sure of the year.
"A census in Canada is taken every ten years on the ones—1851,61,71,91,01,11. I would check in the 1901 and see if I could find any record. If I couldn't find her in the census, I would send for a birth record. The death record here would give her birth date."
Anne looked longingly at her cooling eggs.
"Why so much checking."
"It is important to be sure people were identified, especially if you put the information in the public domain, on the net. Many people use it, including the Mormons for religious reasons, and it's got to be correct."
"How much further back can you go?"
“The Beauchamp's family goes back four generations beyond that, so I would check as much as I could. For example, I found an old diary at the library that belonged to a woman named Beauchamp. I believe she was connected to the local family, but I would do more checking. I would also make sure all the children were accounted for with birth or baptismal certificates. If I wanted to blackmail, I would look for other things as well. Family gossip, local gossip, items in newspapers. She may have started with someone local who could tell her old stories. Do you know anyone like that?"
"A few, starting with Peg Watson and Ada Warren."
Adam swallowed the last bit of coffee, said his thanks and left. Anne looked at her hostess who was bringing her eggs to replace the ones that had gone cold.
"I hope Ada's had her lunch," Anne said.
Murderous Roots Page 6
