A Dark and Twisting Path

by Julia Buckley

  “Nice. The love for classics—and the knowledge of Greece—runs in the family. At some point they can call his father to clarify some arcane detail. They’ll need him to help them solve the mystery.”

  She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “Because by that point they will have stumbled on something ancient—something that a murderer has already killed to protect.”

  “Or maybe to keep from the public eye. The murderer has his reasons why some antiquities should remain buried.”

  Camilla looked back at my chapter and nodded at the screen. “When they take the taxi together from Athens, she should confide something in him. Something that’s been bothering her, perhaps, or something that brought her to Greece in the first place.”

  “Her own father died before he could take her here. He had asked her to go for years, and then he passed away unexpectedly. She feels remorse; she cannot take this journey with her father, and now she must make it alone, as a pilgrimage.”

  She sent me a shrewd look. “That will work. For her, a theme of loss. For him, a professional compulsion. For them both, a mystery that will bind them together.”

  “Oh my gosh! That sounds like the back cover copy!”

  “This is good, Lena. I like it.”

  “Me, too. And I like you, writing partner.”

  She smiled, then yawned suddenly. “I might need some more coffee. I’m afraid I didn’t sleep well last night, even with brave Sam in the house.”

  “Were you worried?”

  She shrugged. “Not really. But my mind will try to work out puzzles, and my brain kept insisting to me that the dead mailman and my broken door are somehow connected. For the life of me I can’t imagine how. If this is a puzzle, we have the pieces from opposite corners, but no other pieces to work with.”

  I leaned back. “How can we get those pieces?”

  “I truly don’t know. I feel a bit at a loss. In the past, we always had something to work with.”

  “Well, we have some things—we have the recording of the intruder in Sam’s place. We have a phone call from Eddie Stack. We have the knife that was stolen. We have the weird note that was sent to me. We have the bearded man; I have to assume Doug and Cliff will find him soon.”

  “And we have a little piece of a blue jean material, with blood on it, compliments of my dogs.”

  “Surely they can do something with that? Some sort of DNA test?”

  She shrugged. “I trust Doug and Cliff to do their professional best.” She stretched. “I do apologize for all my rude yawning. Let me get that coffee. Would you like some?”

  “No, thank you. For whatever reason, I slept well.” I blushed slightly as I said it, but either Camilla didn’t notice or she was too polite to comment. “Camilla, there is something I’ve been pondering.”

  “What is that?”

  “Well, Sam asked yesterday—why you? Meaning me. And that is a good question. If someone out there is randomly targeting Sam and wants to get revenge on him through me, because I’m his girlfriend, I guess I get that. There have been pictures of the two of us in the paper.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if this is Nikon, and his motive is that he somehow blames Sam for the loss of Victoria, then why would I be involved? Unless he knew that I was the one who found her?”

  “But he couldn’t know. The articles in the paper only said that Victoria was found because of the Blue Lake police and the invaluable aid of some Blue Lake citizens. Or it might have said ‘women.’ I don’t recall.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. I purposely asked Doug to leave me anonymous. So why would anyone link me to the rescue of Victoria?”

  Camilla tapped her fingers on her desk blotter, thinking about this. Then she said, “Doug left you anonymous—but Sam didn’t! Remember, in the interview with Jake Elliott? He said you were a primary reason why Victoria was found. He said he was grateful to you and that you had found a link that no one else had, something like that.”

  “And now that I think of it, Ted Strayer named me, too.” I had tried not to think much about Ted Strayer, the evil tabloid reporter. “And back in winter, when the press first swarmed around us, Sam said something about me being the one who ‘saved’ him. I guess I just lost track of who said what because I tried not to focus on the press coverage.”

  “Yes, there was so much going on, especially once you and Sam became a public reality.”

  “We were suspicious that Nikon had something to do with Eddie, and the Arthurian sword, but—I guess I was trying to believe these notes were something else. Something less sinister. I suppose that was naïve.”

  “Don’t worry over this, Lena. It could drive you crazy. Wait until Doug and Cliff unearth enough for us to really sink our teeth into, and then we will find this person and send them to jail. Meanwhile, we have a beautiful book in the works. Now, coffee.”

  She left the room, and I realized I felt better. Camilla had a gift for doing this—taking my worries and dissecting them until she lifted some of the burden from my spirit. Now I looked over our notes with a feeling of euphoria and a sense of irony: while I hated the thought of unsolved mysteries floating around us in real life, I loved the ones that we were creating for our fiction.

  This book, I knew, was going to be good, and this time I would have a large part in its creation.

  9

  “We’ll need to call my father,” he told her as they bent over the old coin. “He’s the only one I know of who would understand the significance of something like this.”

  “If he’s an expert in this area,” she said, “I wonder that someone else hasn’t consulted him with a similar question.”

  His eyes widened, and for the first time he looked truly worried.

  —From Death at Delphi

  BY NOON WE were ready to take a break, and Camilla said that she wanted to go on a walk to sort her thoughts. “You take some free time, dear. Go see one of your friends.”

  This sounded like a good idea, but I knew that Allison’s two-day break was over and she was back at the hospital, so I called Belinda from Camilla’s office. Lestrade, with his feline audacity, had jumped on Camilla’s desk and started licking his paw. I scratched his head with one hand while I held the phone with the other. “How’s the library?” I asked.

  Her voice was wry. “It’s fine. Are you calling for London File details?”

  “And also to talk to my friend Belinda.”

  She laughed. “I can meet for lunch again, if you want to drive me. Darla told me that Willoughby’s has opened their summer garden.”

  “Oooohhhh,” I said. Willoughby’s was a small diner in town, but a little-known secret was that the owner was a devoted gardener, and his outdoor eating area was a hidden paradise, filled with whimsical flower arrangements and tended with a loving hand. “I’m there. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  “Great. I’ll bring my notes.”

  I hung up, and Lestrade gave me a surprisingly judgmental glare.

  “You’re thinking that all I do is have meals at restaurants, aren’t you?” I said. “I swear I do more than eat. Just not lately, I guess.”

  His fuzzy face remained skeptical. I kissed the top of his little head and said, “Keep an eye on the house.”

  * * *

  * * *

  AT THE LIBRARY I waved to Belinda, who was at the back of the room near her office, packing some things into a bag. At the front desk sat Darla, her dark hair pulled back in a thick braid. She was scanning in some books, and the regular beep, beep was one of the only sounds in the quiet space. I approached her with some reluctance, but she seemed not to notice. “Hello, Lena! Nice to see you,” she said. Her eyes went to the door for a moment because some people had entered the library; she waved to them and then returned her attention to me. “How’s everything?”

  I summoned
up a smile. “Just a regular workday. I’m taking a lunch break.”

  She nodded. “It must be amazing to work with such a famous author.”

  “I love it,” I said. “Camilla is my hero.”

  “So cool.” She finished scanning and pushed her pile of books aside. “How’s Sam?” Her eyes were on the counter when she said it, and she was clearly working to make it sound casual. It wasn’t casual, though; there was an intensity in her face, and a stillness in her form, that suggested my answer was important. I didn’t know what she was up to; there was of course the chance that she was hoping to make money off any sort of story about Sam that she could sell—people had done it before. She had told me, though, that she had studied him for a class. I wondered vaguely if she could have fallen in love with his image—that, too, was a possibility. Sam did have an arresting image, to say the least.

  “He’s fine. His life is complicated, as always.”

  She didn’t bother to hide her intensity now. “Is it? What makes it so complicated? I mean, they found his wife, right?”

  “But her abductor is still at large. And Victoria’s baby is missing. It’s all—it adds stress to Sam’s life.”

  Now her face bore what looked like genuine sympathy. “That poor guy. He’s been through so much in his life. I’m amazed that he is so strong.”

  “Yes. Well, anyway—here’s Belinda. Nice to see you, Darla.”

  “You, too.” She wore a yearning expression that made me feel a bit guilty. For whatever reason, she was fascinated by Sam, and I was stingy with details. It wasn’t like me, though, to discuss Sam’s life with some stranger.

  Belinda was wearing a mint green pantsuit today that made me think of ice cream. It was a delicate color which suited her slightly dreamy eyes. I said, “You have the nicest work wardrobe. I tend to always wear jeans and stuff.”

  She shrugged. “Some of it is years old. But you look nice all the time, Lena. You always look like you’re about to go off on some adventure. I can’t explain it.”

  Darla leaned forward. “It’s her enthusiasm. She looks full of life.”

  This made me laugh. “Yeah, right. Okay, Darla, I’ll have her back by one.”

  Darla nodded and waved; a familiar-looking woman approached the desk with some books, and I paused for a moment, wondering where I knew her from. Belinda tapped my shoulder and pointed at her watch. She was on a timed lunch; Camilla had spoiled me in letting me have a flexible schedule. “Sorry,” I said. “Our carriage awaits.”

  Belinda and I left the library and climbed into my car; I drove left out of the parking lot, back toward Wentworth Street, where Willoughby’s sat unobtrusively in the middle of other storefronts. Minutes later I found a spot right in front of the little restaurant and felt a familiar glow as I looked at the sign. It was at Willoughby’s that I had first realized my attraction to Sam, back in the fall when the whole world still believed he was a murderer.

  “For some reason I’m starving,” Belinda said, looking for something in her capacious purse. “I’m not having a salad today.”

  “Me, either,” I said. “Must be the spring air making us hungry.”

  I paid the meter and we hurried inside, where Belinda asked if we could have garden seating. The waitress nodded. “It’s getting a little crowded, but I have a table by the fountain that just opened up.”

  “Ah,” I said appreciatively. The fountain was an antique shop find that the owner, Frank Attenborough, had placed in one corner of his brick-lined patio and refurbished to its original splendor. It was a circular stone fountain with a playful cherub frolicking in its center. Frank, who had a green thumb, had trailed ivy over the stone and tucked pots of bright geraniums and hydrangeas around the base. The sound of the sprinkling water was a restful accompaniment to the muted chatter of the people dining outdoors.

  Belinda and I made our way outside, where the garden paradise was indeed filled with people, although we barely noticed our human companions on the patio. Frank and his wife, Deana, had outdone themselves this year, and for a moment we just stood in the doorway, breathing and letting the beauty invade us. Deana had done her usual job of scouring antique malls for gorgeous or unusual planters, and this year she had gone for earthenware pots in distinctive colors like red and deep gray and forest green. Into these Frank had planted a bright, sunny mixture of yellow blooms—yellow capsicums, orange marigolds, calendula, nasturtiums, orange chard, and cosmos. Mixed with these were purple-toned plants and bright green herbs with their variegated leaves. The color came from sages, purple basil, thyme, eggplant, beetroot, lavender, violet, geranium, viola, and petunia. As always, Frank had dedicated himself to the arrangement, probably for days, before he opened the patio. Rumor had it that he hired a high schooler each summer just to weed and keep the garden perfect.

  “Oh, I needed this,” Belinda breathed. “Look at our table—it’s right next to the fountain! It’s like a vacation back here.”

  It was. I indulged a brief daydream in which I bought my own house in Blue Lake and hired Frank to design my gardens, which would of course be vast . . .

  We reached the table and tucked ourselves into chairs. “How are things going—in general?” I asked Belinda.

  She pursed her lips at me, but her eyes were smiling. “You mean with Doug.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “We talked. It was nice. And since then he’s been—leaving me signs of his devotion.”

  I trailed a hand in the cool water of the fountain. “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, this and that.” A little smile escaped her. “A pot of roses on my porch. A present tucked under the windshield wiper of my car. Little notes left for me at the library.”

  “That’s romantic, but why doesn’t he just come in and talk to you?”

  She shrugged. “I told him I needed a little time. I want to be sure—you know. I mean, there was an attraction between you two, right?”

  “Months ago. When I first got to town. I would say yes, for me, but only until I met Sam. I fell for him pretty quickly, and Doug knew that. So it was nothing, Belinda. Nothing ever happened. He spent a few weeks hoping something would, maybe. And that was it. We were never together. Not like he wants to be with you. And he’s a good guy—you know that.”

  Her eyes were bright as they studied mine. “Yes, I do. But I’m a good guy, too, and I deserve a man who will be devoted to me.”

  “You mean the kind who will leave you secret presents all over town?”

  She grinned. “Yes.”

  “Don’t make him wait too long, Belinda. Some other girl will snatch him up. He’s handsome and young and single and super talented at his job. Remember how you had a crush on him before you even met him? Well, don’t you think there are other women like that in town?”

  This startled her, and she studied her menu without seeming to see it.

  “Anyway, enough of my nosiness about your love life. Tell me what you’ve been finding out for the London File.”

  Her eyes lit up; they actually seemed to grow greener with her interest. “Okay.” She put her menu aside and a waitress approached. It was Carly, the one who had waited on Sam and me the day we met. She was pregnant, and she wore an apron that said, “Bun in the Oven.”

  “What can I get you all?” she asked.

  Belinda held up a finger. “I’ll have a cup of the chicken rice soup and a club sandwich with chips.”

  I nodded. “The soup sounds good, and the chicken salad croissant for me. With chips.”

  Carly noted this on her pad and said, “And what to drink, ladies?”

  “Iced tea,” Belinda said. “It’s so lovely and warm today, it’s the perfect drink.”

  Carly nodded her agreement and I said, “Yes, I’ll have that, too.”

  She went away to put in our orders, and Belinda pulled her large purse into h
er lap. “Okay. Who do we start with? Nikon Lazos or Sam?”

  “You already have something about Sam?” I asked her, shocked.

  “Yeah, a couple things. Nothing amazing, but still—he might not know this stuff.”

  “Start with Sam,” I said.

  She opened the file folder that she had started for me months before and removed a couple of clippings. “Well, here’s the thing: Sam’s mom was married before.”

  “What? Before Sam’s dad?”

  “Yeah. I traced her marriage certificate just as a matter of course and found that she had two of them. One in 1981 and one in 1979.”

  “Sam was born in 1982.”

  “Yes. She married his father in 1981. The father was significantly older, did you know that? By almost ten years.”

  “I didn’t. I know he was a police officer.”

  “Yes—a decorated one. I’m still looking into details about him.”

  I stared at the fountain, where the stone Cupid seemed free of all care. “Tell me about the first husband.”

  “His name was Steven Randisi. I checked his school record and saw that he and Mrs. West attended the same high school. Maybe a first romance?”

  I shook my head. “There’s no way Sam wouldn’t have known this, right? I mean, wouldn’t you mention to your kids that you’d been married before? Why would it have to be a secret?”

  Belinda was digging in the file again. “That’s all I have so far, but I do have a death notice for Steven Randisi. He died in 1995 in an auto accident. He was survived by a wife and two daughters.”

  She handed me the obituary, which included a picture of the tall, thin Steven Randisi. He had not even reached forty years old. The thought made me sad.

  “I don’t know whether I should mention this to Sam, or not,” I said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”

  “I’ll give you this file. I made copies.”