by Kate White
“You wanna give me a hint?”
“I’d better wait. I don’t want to let a cat out of the bag if it’s the wrong cat.”
“Understood,” I said, though my curiosity was going to be eating me alive until dinnertime, to say nothing of my professional frustration that Alice had a hot lead and I didn’t.
I explained to her about the wine and asked if I could pick up a dessert instead.
“Don’t worry, I’m covered on the wine front. And dessert, too. Like I told you, we’re going to be carbo-loading.”
As soon as I was off the phone, I took a fast shower, blew out my hair with an extra glob of styling gel, and then did my makeup, doubling up on both foundation and mascara. Considering I’d packed light for the trip and had never expected to be on camera, I didn’t have a lot of outfit choices. I opted for a hot-pink short-sleeved sweater, black pencil skirt, and black knee-length boots.
At exactly noon, someone tapped on the unit door and after checking the peephole, I swung it open to find the videographer, Keith Windgate, standing there. He was probably in his late thirties, African-American, with dreadlocks and oversize black-framed glasses. He was dressed super stylishly in tight olive-green cargo pants, a cropped teal sweater, and a blue-and-green-plaid scarf double wrapped around his neck.
“Hey, Bailey, nice to meet you,” he said, smiling. His gaze shifted to my left as he took in the room. “They’re big spenders at Crime Beat, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, it was between this and the Four Seasons, but I’m a sucker for deer antlers. Do you want to come in and talk over the plan?”
“If you’re all set, why don’t we chat in the car? Thank God the rain stopped so we can shoot outdoors.” Keith used a finger to tug down his glasses and then peered over them. “What you’re wearing is great, by the way. It’ll look nice on camera.”
“Good, since I didn’t have many options. What location are you thinking of?”
“I drove up to Sunset Bay earlier and they’ve blocked off the road to the place where you found the bodies. So let’s go for Wheeler Road, near where Shannon lived. We can use the woods for a backdrop.”
“Sounds good. And once the camera’s rolling, I’m just supposed to recap the story from my point of view, right?”
“Right. Keep it casual, like you’re having a conversation with the viewer. When you’re done, I’ll ask you a series of questions so you’ll have a chance to cover all your bases.”
Once we were in Keith’s SUV, I directed him to Wheeler Road and we drove along slowly, looking for a spot to set up. As we passed by the Blaine house, I noted that there were three cars in the driveway, suggesting that family or friends had come to help. There was a boy’s bike lying in the well-landscaped yard, and my stomach twisted at the sight. It was essential to keep an emotional distance when reporting a story because otherwise the details could gnaw away at you, even clouding your judgment, but this case made it tough to do.
Finally Keith decided on a spot about two miles from the house. Stepping out of the car, I looked up to see big cumulus clouds nosing each other across the sky. More rain didn’t appear imminent, but the sun vanished at moments, making the dense woods look even more foreboding.
I narrowed my eyes, peering through the trees. I had no clue if we were close to where the earbuds had been found, but if Shannon had indeed been nabbed while jogging, it was probably from a spot like this one, with no houses nearby. Surely Shannon would have tried to break free. She might have even made it a few yards into the woods before he caught up with her again and dragged her back to his vehicle.
The shoot went better than I’d anticipated, in large part because Keith was so easy to work with. I recapped the case, describing what had transpired from the moment Shannon was reported missing and ending with the revelation about Amy and Page. When we were finished, I reviewed a few minutes of video with him and was relieved to see I didn’t look like I was speaking on a hostage tape.
“I’m sure Dodson will love this,” Keith volunteered.
“You won’t just put up the raw footage, will you?”
“No, no. I’ll create a timeline and intersperse pieces of what we shot with other material, like snippets from the press conference and photos of Shannon. I’m gonna work like crazy to have it up later today.”
I gave him a hand loading his equipment back into the SUV and then jumped into the passenger seat. My toes were damp and cold from standing in wet brush, but I was relieved to be done.
Keith dropped me off at the Breezy Point, where I noticed that the white Camry was still in its spot, though it now had a black Beemer cozied up next to it. Since management seemed to be spacing out guests in the nearly empty motel, I wondered if the jogger might have an afternoon visitor.
Back in my room, I stripped off my boots and set them to dry by the heating unit. I helped myself to the second slice of pizza, which I’d left congealing on the dresser, and began reviewing my notes in my composition book from earlier this morning. Something seemed to be tugging my attention back to them.
As I reread what I’d scribbled down, I realized what was calling to me: a comment Kelly had made about all the recent deaths in her family—her father, her cousin, and now Shannon. J.J., I recalled, had mentioned the cousin, too. A guy named Destin, whom Shannon apparently had been very close to. I probably should have checked him out earlier.
I dragged my laptop to the center of the desk and typed “Destin,” “Lake George,” and “obituary” into the search bar. Within seconds, I found a link to an obituary for Destin Michaels, who had died last year, at the age of thirty-three. That would make his birth date right around Shannon’s, and they’d probably bonded as kids, particularly if Shannon had never felt close to Kelly.
There was no cause of death listed. That could reflect the family’s desire for privacy, but it could also be a red flag, an indication that the reason was not one they wanted to broadcast to the world.
It didn’t take me long to unearth the truth, though. It was in the Post Star’s coverage, topped with the headline: “Police Investigating Apparent Drug Overdose Death in Lake George.” Destin Michaels had died from an overdose of the prescription painkiller oxycodone, which was the generic name for OxyContin. The fourth such death so far that year, the paper pointed out.
For the next three seconds, I thought I finally had the link between Shannon and the two campers. Kayla had stressed that Amy didn’t do drugs because she’d lost a friend to an Oxy overdose—maybe that friend had been Destin. I quickly realized how totally dumb I was being. Amy’s friend had died more than ten years ago.
And yet there was a link of sorts, and one probably worth noting—as links so often were. My old buddy Buddy always adhered to what he liked to call “Einstein’s Law of Two or More.” If something turned up at least twice in the universe, it was begging for your attention and you were a fool not to take note.
This was the second time drugs had come up, the third if I counted what I’d read last night about the busts on Route 149. Maybe, despite everything Kayla believed, Amy and Page had been caught up in the drug world, and it was there that they’d crossed paths with their killer. A serious user. Or dealer. One who also happened to be a psychopathic murderer.
But then how did any of that tie in with Shannon? She was a mom of two who had little in common with young single women like Amy and Page, at least on the surface. I couldn’t picture her ever setting foot in a shit hole like Muller’s.
But, of course, over the past couple of decades, countless ordinary people had become addicted to painkillers and now bought them illegally or moved on to heroin. It was possible that Shannon had been prescribed painkillers for an injury, perhaps a running-related one, and had become dependent without either Cody or J.J. being aware. That could have led her on a search for illegal drugs, which in turn placed her into contact with the person who had killed Amy and Page.
I didn’t have a hint of evidence, of course, so for now I tucked
the idea into my back pocket.
Though it was a little early to write my post, I went ahead anyway, since I had the time and I could always update it if news broke later. I wished I had more to say, but right now things were in a state of limbo. With any luck, the forensic examination of the three bodies would soon produce compelling evidence and law enforcement would begin to close in on the killer.
And that would mean I’d have plenty of reason to stick around Lake George.
I wasn’t ready to leave, I realized. Yeah, I was kind of sick of antlers and birch bark and recycling the same clothes, but I loved being a daily reporter again, chasing leads and seeing what surprises might be waiting at the end. Finding the bodies had shaken me, but it had been gratifying to know that I had played a role in the discovery, that Shannon’s family at least knew her fate and wouldn’t have to spend the rest of their lives haunted by uncertainty. It even gave me a weird satisfaction to know that the killer had chosen me to share with.
There was one more reason I didn’t want to pack up and leave. I still felt a burning need to know who had killed the three women. I glanced up at the flyer with Shannon’s photo hanging above my desk. It had started to curl inward on both sides, almost obscuring her face. I snapped off a few pieces of tape and used them to make it hang straight again.
Just as I started to close my laptop, I spotted an email from Jessie. She would definitely be driving south on the Northway tomorrow and was hoping we were still on for lunch. “You bet,” I wrote back, and suggested a restaurant with an outdoor deck I’d spotted in the village.
It was 6:20 and finally time to leave for Alice’s. I threw on my jacket and punched my feet into the slightly shrunken boots by the heater. I was looking forward to dinner, and I even caught myself humming as I slammed the unit door shut. Both the Camry and Beemer were gone from their spaces, but no sooner had I noted that fact than the Camry pulled into the parking lot and jerked to a stop. Two seconds later the blond jogger emerged from the car, dressed in jeans and a fitted brown leather coat. This time she caught sight of me and drew back in surprise. She definitely recognized me and seemed startled to find me twenty feet away from her.
“Hello again,” I called out.
She assessed me warily. “You’re staying at this motel?”
“Yes, I’ve been here all along.” I took a couple of steps in her direction. “I’m sorry if I startled you the other day. I’m a reporter who’s been covering the Shannon Blaine case—the woman I mentioned to you—and you looked like her from the back. It threw me.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “I heard about that woman later,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
“My name’s Bailey Weggins, by the way. After I realized you weren’t Shannon, I worried about you being out on that road alone. I even stopped by the motel you said you were staying at to make sure you made it back okay, but the owner said he didn’t have any guests fitting your description.”
“The Lake Shore? I was there. But my friend checked us in, and the owner hadn’t seen me yet, I guess.”
I’d edged over a few more feet and was now fairly close to her. She’d blown out her hair in long, pretty waves, and she was wearing about twenty-five minutes’ worth of makeup, including enough lip gloss to slow down any vehicle attempting to cross from one side of her mouth to the other.
“Why’d you switch?” I asked, curious.
She shook her head in disgust. “I finally did meet the owner, and he gave me the creeps. Every time I came out of the room, he seemed to be staring out that plate-glass window, eyeing me.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Dobbs had spent more than his fair share of time watching Shannon Blaine from the same spot. I made a mental note to ask Alice more about the guy since she was the one who had initially interviewed him for the Post Star.
“It was probably smart to trust your gut,” I told her. “Especially in light of everything that’s going on.” I reached in my bag for a business card and handed it to her. “Just in case I can ever be of help.”
This was the moment when she might have introduced herself, but she chose not to.
“Thanks, have a nice evening” was all she said. At the moment at least, she was an under-the-radar kind of girl. Well, that was fine by me. I was about to enjoy a night of blissful carbo-loading.
I started to say goodbye and caught myself. “Oh, by the way. The night you checked in, did you have any reason to stop near my door? Unit seven. I thought I heard someone out there.”
“Uh, yes, sorry. When I got out of my car in front of my room, I thought I’d left the key in the office. I started to walk back there and was digging in my purse at the same time. I finally figured out I had the key all along.”
So it sounded like the night manager’s take had been right.
“Oh, okay, thanks. Have a nice evening, too.”
The sun had set by now, but I found Alice’s road easily enough, grateful for my car’s GPS since the sign was partially obscured by a leafy branch. It turned out to be a dirt road, lined close to the edge with trees, not unlike the one leading to the retreat center in Sunset Bay. By this point, I’d let my curiosity unfurl about whatever Alice had stumbled on and deemed “scary.”
I passed three homes as I bumped down the road, all of them tucked into the trees on the right. Finally Alice’s house materialized at the very end. I wouldn’t have called it a cabin as she had. It was a nice-size house, painted a rustic brown and sporting a peaked roof. The downstairs glowed with warm, amber-tinged light.
After parking my car next to the red MINI, I hurried up the short flagstone path. Once I was within a few yards of the house, I could see through the windows that the ground floor had an open design plan, with the kitchen and dining areas closer to the front and the living space at the back, facing the lake. There seemed to be a patio running along there, illuminated from lights attached above.
The dining table wasn’t set, but I remembered that Alice had said we’d eat on the screened porch if the weather obliged. It was farther back on the left, I noticed, though Alice hadn’t flicked those lights on yet.
Mounting the front steps, I heard music and smiled to myself. So Alice was a Brandi Carlile fan, too. I went to reach for the handle and discovered that the door was actually open several inches. Alice might be in the shower or getting dressed, I realized, and had left it open in case she didn’t hear me from upstairs.
“Knock, knock,” I called out, stepping into the kitchen area. There was nothing simmering or braising on the stovetop, but a dozen red potatoes rested on the counter, along with a luscious-looking homemade pie, which explained why the air was redolent with the smell of apples and cinnamon. It was slightly chilly inside, I noticed, probably from the door being left ajar. I pushed it closed behind me.
I shrugged off my jacket and hung it on a peg by the door.
“Alice?” I said, my voice raised. When she didn’t answer, I lowered the volume on the iPod speakers on the counter and called her name again.
There was still no response, but a sound emanated suddenly from the front of the house, a whoosh and then a snap, like someone flapping a piece of wet laundry. I took two steps toward it but the sound ceased. Then started again. Stopped. Started again. What the hell?
I was halfway across the dining area when the source of the noise swooped above my head. A freaking bat.
“Shit,” I yelled, ducking. The bat vanished back into the living area, only to sail through the room again seconds later, this time smacking into the window and dropping with a sad little thud to the ground.
I backed into the kitchen and jerked open the door to a narrow closet next to the fridge. There was a corn broom inside and I grabbed it, then flung open the kitchen door. Using the broom, I nudged the bat toward freedom. The second it reached the threshold, it unfurled its wings and went airborne again.
I slammed the door and spun around. “Alice,” I yelled again, this time even louder than before. Had the bat freake
d her out so that she’d hightailed it upstairs for cover?
After wandering into the living room, I spotted the enclosed staircase to the second floor and, leaning into it, called Alice’s name twice more. Not a peep. My heart was beating a little faster than normal by this point. I pivoted toward the front of the house and peered out to the patio, which was aglow from the overhead lights. She had to be outside.
I opened the rear door and stepped onto a flagstone patio. Bordered in front by a low stone wall, it sat atop a small embankment and ran the width of the house. The lake stretched out below, black except for the shimmering reflection of light on the water closest to shore. Alice was nowhere to be seen, and the only sound was from the water lapping below.
I glanced to my right. A set of stone steps descended from the patio to the lake, illuminated by metal light fixtures with tops like mushroom caps. I took a step in that direction, and my eye caught sight of a stemless wineglass sitting on the ledge of the wall to the left of the steps. It still held a splash of white wine. Had Alice set it there and gone down to the lake?
My stomach tightened. Something was off.
I grabbed hold of the black wrought iron railing and began to descend the steps. I was halfway down when I heard a rustling noise from above me. I spun around, my heart ricocheting against my chest.
“Alice?” I called out.
No. The sound, I realized, was the wind shaking the tree leaves above me. I turned my attention back to the steps. Squinting, I saw that they ended about twenty feet below, though the only light, I realized, was coming from above. It was hard to imagine that Alice was down there in near darkness, and yet the wineglass suggested she might be.
I took two steps down. And two more.
And then I saw her. She was sprawled facedown on the dirt, a few feet from the start of a wooden dock. Her legs were splayed and her body inert. She was wearing dark pants and a thick burnt-orange sweater.
“Alice!” I yelled, and tore down the last steps.
I crouched beside her. With the little bit of light that reached us, I could see that the left side of her face was actually pointing out, toward the left. Her eye was closed. I laid my hand on her sweater and shuffled it back and forth, trying to rouse her.
