Madeline Mann

by Julia Buckley

  I nodded. “He was, once. God, who would want to kill him?”

  Images came unbidden to my mind in answer to my own question. Jamie, haggard with resentment and frustration. The car that Jack and I had seen leaving Logan's right before we drove in. And Quinn Paley's living room, homey, fire-lit. One gun had been missing from the wall.

  seven

  There were two police detectives, a man and a woman. Both appeared to be in their thirties, and both projected the professional solemnity appropriate to their jobs. They shook our hands and introduced themselves: he was Detective Krosky, and she was Detective Perez. I got the impression that the two of them hadn't been partnered long, because they sometimes repeated one another's words, and I sensed a hidden battle for superior position.

  Detective Perez was fairly short, with dark hair pulled back in a no-nonsense pony tail. Her skin looked prone to dryness, and her face looked weary. Maybe she was sick of justifying her status in the department to male cops.

  She asked me why I'd been at Logan's cabin, and I described my visit to Jamie. “Actually it was my brother who mentioned Logan was missing,” I said. “He's in a band with Logan. I said I'd talk to Logan's wife, and Jamie said he might be out here, because apparently he'd come here before—without telling her, probably. I got the impression Logan didn't feel the necessity of informing his wife where he was at all times.” I tried to keep the disapproval out of my voice. Logan was dead, and I didn't want to speak ill of him. Not entirely.

  “So you came all the way out here on your own?” asked Detective Krosky, with obvious skepticism. He was a tall, husky man with a clean-shaven face and two chins. He wore a creaky leather jacket, which he did not take off during our interview. It almost concealed, but not quite, the sizable stomach above his Dockers, and I wondered if he left the coat on as a matter of course. His blond hair was cut in military fashion, and he smelled like smoke.

  “Well, no, I was with Jack here. And I also planned to write an article for the Webley Wire on tourism in the area.” I felt suddenly defensive, as though they'd accused me of murdering Logan myself.

  “And you never saw or spoke with Mr. Lanford?”

  “Logan Lanford?” I qualified. “No.”

  Detective Krosky stood near the bed, where my chocolate wrapper still lay like the evidence of sin. He stared down at it and asked, “Was there ever anything between you and Mr. Lanford?”

  “Romantically?” I asked. “No. I really haven't spoken with him at length in years. We went to high school together, and we were friends then. I recommended him for my brother's band, and he actually worked in the mayor's office with my mother for a while. I saw him once in a while there, and I was going to see him this Saturday at the music festival in Webley. I was going to listen to the band.…” I trailed off as I thought of Fritz's reaction to this sudden violence. Fritz had liked Logan.

  The two detectives exchanged a glance. I strove to convince them; I've always felt a need to impress authority figures. “Is there some reason why my note might be important?” I asked.

  “Not your note,” Perez said softly.

  I stared at some light freckles on her nose while I tried to figure out what that meant.

  Krosky bullied his way into the conversation. “He wrote a note for you. Apparently he was expecting you. And he made a reference to seeing you the other day.”

  I was dumbfounded by this information. “That's impossible. He must have been writing to someone else.”

  “It said, ‘Dear Madeline,’” said Perez apologetically.

  “I haven't seen or spoken to Logan since he was fired,” I insisted. “That was months ago.”

  The cops were starting to look like they whiffed the scent of a murderer. Jack stepped in front of me. “I can vouch for what she's saying. She's been confiding to me about how nervous she was about seeing Logan. She just wanted to do a favor for his wife.”

  “What did the note say?” I interrupted. “If you think it was for me, then I'd like to know what it said.”

  Again the two exchanged a glance, and Krosky nodded. Perez flipped open a little notebook and read, “Dear Madeline, I'm afraid I may have misled you the other day—”

  “What else?” I asked impatiently.

  “That's it,” Perez said, snapping shut her book. “There was no more. We were hoping you'd be able to tell us something about it. Since we have a note from him to you, and a note from you to him, both lying within feet of his dead body.”

  I shrugged. “I don't know what to tell you. I can explain my note; I have explained it. I can't explain his. Maybe he knows another Madeline.”

  Krosky made a snorting noise, but Perez raised her eyebrows. This hadn't occurred to them, what with the matching notes; that seemed sloppy to me. Suddenly Perez looked like she was ready to wrap things up. Krosky looked ready to cuff me and read me my rights.

  “So basically you were just here doing a friend a favor, is that right?” asked Detective Perez.

  “That's right. And I really didn't accomplish much. All I can tell Jamie is that I got here in time to find out that he was dead.” I felt rather rude saying the last word, as though I'd said something about nudity. I made a mental note to cloak it in a euphemism if I had to mention it again.

  Jack interrupted. “I'm afraid we can't help you much. We've only been in town a couple of hours, and we only spent a couple of minutes at Mr. Lanford's—”

  “There was a car!” I shouted, remembering.

  “Excuse me?” asked Detective Perez.

  “When Jack and I found Logan's, there was a car pulling out of the, uh—opening. That's how we found the driveway in the woods. It's kind of hard to spot from the road—”

  “Can you describe the car?” interrupted Krosky, getting out his own little notebook with a hint of enthusiasm.

  “Uh…” I looked at Jack. He shook his head. “It was a dark color—maybe black or blue or brown.”

  “And?” Krosky looked at me with something like scorn. I was just another dumb witness now.

  “That's about it. We weren't really paying attention. But it proves he had a visitor, and if you figure out the time of death, it might correspond pretty closely to the time that the car was there—maybe around five-thirty.”

  “And the time that you were there,” Krosky said drily, putting his notebook away.

  “Well…” I wanted to protest, but there wasn't much to say. All we saw was a dark car. It was about as much proof as the black car with the blue sticker. The black car that I'd seen in the rest area an hour outside of Saugatuck. The car that fit the description that Sunil had given me, and that bore a bumper sticker from the Webley mayor's office. Where Logan had worked until just a few months before.

  Detective Perez was watching my face. “Was there something you wanted to add?” she prompted encouragingly.

  What could I tell them? That we saw a car well out of town that was also dark-colored, and therefore might have been driven to Logan's cabin so that its occupant could kill Logan? There was nothing close to a theory there, or anything resembling evidence.

  Or should I tell them that Logan's four-year-old son thought he might be staying with someone named Quinn Paley? He obviously hadn't been at Paley's when he died. Should I admit that I'd trespassed on Quinn Paley's property and seen that a gun was missing from his gun wall?

  “No,” I said. “I guess that's about it.”

  The police left, but not before we got the full flavor of their disappointment. It was almost as effective as one of my mother's award-winning guilt trips.

  “If you think of anything else,” Detective Perez said, handing me her card. I noticed that Krosky gave a card to Jack, as if not to be outdone.

  eight

  Thoughts of a romantic evening with Jack went out the window, and we spent a grim rest of the night struggling with our own thoughts about frail humanity.

  The following morning, after a lovely basket breakfast, which we ate in bed, we opted to ret
urn home, but only, I told Jack, after I got a look at Quinn Paley and saw his reaction to the news about Logan's death. We wrote a message of mixed thanks and condolence for Wick, asking him to contact us with funeral arrangements, and left it with the innkeeper, whose name was Midge. We then piled back into the car, with Jack at the wheel. I decided to write up Wick Lanford's two inns for my article in order to placate Bill, my boss. What I really wanted to research now was not the perfect vacation, but the murder of a local man.

  I wasn't sure if I'd remember how to reach the cabin from where we were, so I asked for directions from Midge and found, once in the car, that things were easier to locate in daylight. The Paley cabin, upon examination in the light of day, wasn't as fancy as the Lanford one, but it was attractive, located on a high hill in a vast expanse of jeweled forest just south of Saugatuck. I wondered how many acres this man called his own. He must have money too; it would be the reason Logan had wanted to find him. Why Logan needed money was the real question; obviously his struggling family wasn't the concern. Perhaps he owed a bookie, or a drug dealer, or something.

  When we reached the end of the sloping driveway, we saw a sporty black car at the side of the house.

  Jack whistled. “Corvette,” he said. “Brand new.”

  “Money,” I said.

  Jack, manlike, went straight to the car when we got out. He walked around it, looking ready to kick the tires and ask about mileage. He was barely suppressing his drool.

  I tiptoed to the porch. The growling was there again, but it wasn't as frightening to me in the daylight. I moved casually, as though I intended to knock on the door, but I leaned over and stole a glance through the window. The gun was back in place.

  A man came out and caught me peeking. He was youngish, maybe thirty-two or -three, and handsome in a woodsy sort of way. He had a beard and messy hair that somehow looked attractive. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt, like the Brawny man, and his expression was a mixture of amusement and resentment. He held a steaming mug in his hand. “Can I help you?” he asked, in a way that I translated to mean, “What the hell are you doing looking in my window?”

  I stepped forward. “Sorry. I wasn't sure if anyone was home.” I gestured toward the window. “And Jack got distracted by your gorgeous car. My name is Madeline Mann, and I was in town looking for Logan Lanford—”

  “He's over at his dad's cabin. Back toward town a ways—you know how to get there?” he asked me, looking me up and down in a way that made me blush. Jack, the protector of my virtue, was still salivating over the car.

  “What does she get up to?” Jack called.

  The man on the porch kept his eyes on me. “Hundred twenty,” he said.

  “Are you Quinn Paley?” I asked him.

  “That's me. Madeline. Funny, I never heard that name mentioned by Logan.”

  I had backed toward the steps, and he followed me, which I found intimidating.

  “No. We actually haven't seen each other in a long time.” I made eye contact with him, trying to assess whether he knew more than he was letting on. His eyes were rather blank, perhaps from tiredness. He looked as though he'd just rolled out of bed.

  “So why are you looking for Logan?” he asked, making his way past me, on down the steps and toward his garage. “Excuse me, I have to feed my dogs. You can come along if you've got more questions.” He took a sip of what I guessed was coffee and set the mug on the ground. He disappeared behind a door.

  I followed him, looking around me and admiring some late-blooming flowers next to the garage, something orange and pretty. There was another plant there too, one that looked familiar. My mother knew the name of every plant in the world, and I envied that knowledge. I was starting to become more curious about things like that: plants and birds and whatnot.

  Quinn Paley broke into this reverie on nature when he emerged with a bag of dog food the size of me. It must have been nearly empty, because he held it effortlessly. “Back here,” he said.

  I followed, and Jack followed me. “I was looking for him because he'd gone missing. From our town. His wife didn't know where to look—”

  Unexpectedly he started laughing. “She should know,” he said. “She married him.”

  I didn't know what that meant. I watched as two large and horrible Dobermans behind a wire fence loped up at the sight of the food. My evil friends from the night before. They were all muscle and teeth, and they seemed to be sniffing the air, perhaps for a scent of my blood or Jack's. “Nice dogs,” I lied as I watched him go within the pen and pour the kibble.

  “Yeah. Killer and Rambo,” he said affectionately. “They do a great job. I haven't had any problems with people trespassing. They might come this far, but the dogs don't let them get any farther.” He seemed pleased about it in a fatherly way, as though the dogs, now slobbering into their food bowls, had gotten good grades on their report cards.

  “You're worried about trespassers?” I asked, looking around at the forested land.

  He looked toward me—rather angrily, I thought. “Everyone is worried about trespassers. It's a violent world.”

  “Yes. We've recently learned that,” I said.

  Quinn Paley looked at me, then at Jack. Men looked to men when they couldn't understand women. “Why's that?” he asked.

  “Were you with Logan last night?” I asked him.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “When did you see him?”

  He stiffened, and his dogs looked up, alert, ready to eat me if necessary.

  “I don't know you,” he said. “And you appear out of nowhere asking me questions about Logan. Why do you think I'll tell you a God-darned thing?” he asked.

  “Logan is dead,” Jack said. “Murdered.”

  Quinn picked up his bag of dog food and held it against his chest in a defensive posture. “What did you say?”

  “He's dead,” I told him. “It's important to know when you saw him yesterday, when he was still alive.”

  Some of the fight seemed to leave him, and his eyes looked more tired than before. “We had lunch.”

  “When did you leave him?” I persisted.

  “I dunno. Maybe about two or three. It was a late lunch, kinda. We hung out, had some beers and brats. Right in town. Then I dropped him back at his place. I didn't go in, I had stuff to do.” He began walking toward his garage with the bag. “Murdered. Shit,” he commented.

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Paley?” Jack asked in a friendly tone.

  Quinn looked defensive again, but not as much so as before. “I'm between jobs,” he said. “I've got some money from when my dad died. It keeps us above water,” he said.

  “Us?” I asked, looking pointedly at the new ’Vette.

  “Me and my sister. Fawn.”

  They really were creatures of the forest, I thought, suddenly wanting out of the dimness of all these trees, lovely as they were. “Your sister told me yesterday on the phone that you hadn't seen Logan,” I said, remembering.

  He disappeared momentarily to stow the food back in the garage. He emerged and said, “Maybe she didn't know he was in town. I might not have mentioned it to her.” He was lying, that much was obvious, and I thought Jack noticed it too. We followed him back to the porch, where he retrieved his coffee.

  “You'll want to go to the police,” I told him. “You may be the last person who saw Logan alive.” I let the words hang there, suddenly full of implication. A girl came out on the porch, a girl in her late teens or early twenties. Last night she had seemed golden in the light of the fire, but today she seemed colorless. She was pale with pale hair, like a creature that had never seen the sun. She was tall and well built, and she wore shorts and a T-shirt despite the crisp October air.

  “You need to come in, Quinn,” she said to him, avoiding my gaze.

  “Why?” he asked dumbly. He didn't see that she was throwing him a lifeline.

  “You just need to,” she said impatiently. “I got something I need your help w
ith.”

  Quinn shrugged at us and headed up the steps. “I'll be sure to call the police,” he said, and with a wave he disappeared behind his door, which fell closed with a slam.

  “Yeah, so will I,” I muttered.

  Jack and I got back in the car.

  nine

  I couldn't get over the fact that Logan had been writing a note to someone named Madeline. Had it really been a note for me? I hadn't exchanged a significant sentence with the guy in years, and yet he had written, “I'm afraid I misled you the other day.” The other day. What had happened the other day? Did that mean yesterday? Two days ago? The last I'd spoken about Logan was with his wife, Jamie, and Logan hadn't known about that. And of course I'd talked with my family about him when Fritz told me he was missing and gave me the tape. The tape, I thought. “The tape,” I said aloud.

  “What?” asked Jack, his eyes on the winding road.

  “It's got to be the tape!” I yelled, opening the glove compartment and rummaging around inside. Jack had messed it up with his music, and at first I feared the tape was gone, but finally I found it, marked with Logan's own distinctive printing. “Jack, we have to play this,” I said. I held it out with a trembling hand. “I think Logan left a message on it.”

  Jack understood at once, and wordlessly he ejected one of his own tapes from his machine. I plugged in Logan's and pressed play.

  At first we only heard music. It was the Eurythmics’ “Who's That Girl?” Logan and I had been considered very retro with our music. We graduated from high school in the late 1990s, but the songs we liked were definitely ’80s in flavor. I listened to the powerful voice of Annie Lennox, waiting. I had no idea what I was waiting for, and I was just starting to think that I was a bit nuts when the voice of my late friend Logan Lanford filled our car and filled my eyes with tears.

  “Hey, Madeline. You're probably wondering why I'm ruining this great tape, compiled so lovingly by you and me.” Jack and I stared at each other. Jack looked questioning.