Britt arrived at the copse of trees which surrounded the little cottage. Unlike the main house, which was cheerily lit, and had clouds of smoke drifting up from the chimney, the cottage looked lonely and deserted. As she walked up to the front door, and inserted her key in the lock, she felt a hand grasp her shoulder from behind.
Britt screamed and whirled, ready to strike. Dean Webster jumped back in alarm, letting her go. His eyes were bloodshot. His broad shoulders wore a dusting of snow.
“Goddammit,” Britt cried. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
“Sorry,” he said raising both hands, as if in surrender. “I was waiting for you. You’re awful jumpy.”
Britt exhaled and shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing personal. It’s just… the woman who owns the place said Alec was here looking for me earlier. It’s got me a little spooked.”
“Why? What did he say?” Dean said, surprised. Despite the fact that Britt could smell alcohol on his breath, he seemed in control.
“The police searched his house and his business today He says I’m trying to frame him. You and me. He thinks we’re in it together.”
“Paranoid,” said Dean.
“I know What are you doing here anyway?”
“I wondered if you knew about the search. Can I come in?”
Britt thought about the disorderly way she had left the room, and the bed unmade in the middle of it. This didn’t look like the kind of place that had chambermaids to make up your bed. She knew, just by looking at him, that Dean would immediately sprawl out on the rumpled covers and suggest that she join him. “I’m really exhausted,” she said apologetically.
“You sure?” he said.
“Well, have they got enough to arrest him yet?” Britt asked.
“No. They came up empty on the search. I know Ray Stern didn’t find the so-called alibi witness. I’ve practically spoon-fed them everything they know. But they’re so fucking incompetent,” Dean complained.
“Hmmm…” said Britt, frowning.
“Hmmm what?”
Britt shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.
“I feel like we’re close,” Dean said.
Britt sighed. “Not close enough.”
“What did he say when he came looking for you?”
“I don’t know,” said Britt absently. “He hates me though. Hates me and would like to scare me away from this town and this investigation.”
“Really,” said Dean thoughtfully.
“It’s just so maddening. I feel like he’s making fools out of the cops, and out of us,” she said.
“Not out of me,” Dean protested. “I’m not done.”
“I don’t know,” Britt said with a sigh. “Maybe I ought to get back to my real life. This could take a long time.”
“It won’t,” Dean promised her. “Trust me. It’s gonna happen.”
“I hope you’re right. You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’m beat.”
“You sure you don’t want company?” he asked suggestively.
Britt shook her head, trying to suppress a smile. “I’m just gonna read, and turn in early.”
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.” He gave her a brief wave as he backed away.
“Thanks for trying,” she said. “Really.”
Britt let herself in and locked the door behind her. She pulled the curtains shut, and turned on the lamp beside the bed, and the TV set which sat on the dresser, across from the foot of the bed. There wasn’t really anything she wanted to watch. She thought about going out to eat, but she didn’t want to see people. She just wanted to be distracted from everything that had happened. Britt began to yawn as she surfed the channels, and settled on an old Fred Astaire movie. When it was over she switched the TV off altogether. I’ll take a shower, she thought, and read. She shed her clothes, and looked at herself critically in the bathroom mirror. There were circles under her eyes, and her hair looked greasy. At least I can take as long as I want in the bathroom. She had felt self-conscious at Alec’s house about sharing the bathroom, and had showered as quickly and perfunctorily as she could manage. Tonight, I’ll take my time and wash my hair.
But once she was in the shower, she was plagued by muffled sounds, which seemed to come from just outside the cottage. Three times she shut off the water and listened, but heard nothing. It had to have been her imagination. Finally, she gave her hair the quickest scrub she could manage and turned the shower off. She stepped out on the mat, dried herself, and pulled on her pajamas. Although it was warm in the bedroom, she found herself shivering, and pulled her sweatshirt on as well.
You’re being paranoid, she thought. It’s perfectly quiet. Still, just to be sure, she shut off the bedside light, and then pulled the curtain to one side and looked out. The lights from the main house were faintly visible, haloed through the falling snow. But the cottage itself was surrounded by darkness. There was nothing else visible but the trees. The driveway for the cottage was empty, and Britt had purposely left the outside light off. Except for the moonlight, the woods were in darkness. No wonder you’re paranoid, she thought. This is one hell of a lonely place. Beautiful, but lonely. Who wouldn’t be paranoid? Besides, Alec wasn’t going to come looking for trouble. Even if he did decide to try the cabin door, she was locked in, and perfectly safe. And, if worse came to worst, and he started banging on the door, she had her cell phone. Britt turned on the lamp, then reached into her tote bag and set the phone on the bedside table. There, she thought. She climbed into bed, and picked up her book, but her eyelids were drooping before she had read even a page. “Forget it,” she said aloud, switching off the bedside lamp.
The minute she shut off the light, her sleepiness seemed to vanish. She lay awake in the darkness as alert as could be. It wasn’t that being awake in the night was so bad, in and of itself. It was the thoughts that plagued you when you lay awake. Britt tried to force herself to think about only good things—about being back in Boston, a guest she was particularly looking forward to for the show, a winter holiday she was planning for herself in the Caribbean. But it was no use trying to channel her thoughts. The minute she relaxed control, thoughts of Greta and Alec and Zoe filled her mind.
Stupid, stupid, she thought. Don’t think about it. It’s up to the police to charge him now. You’ve done what you could. Britt flopped over in the double bed and pulled the pillow down over her ears, as if she could drown out the internal voice of Alec Lynch, accusing her of trying to frame him. Thinking of her own shock when he’d said that Greta had hired the detective to find their mother, Jean Andersen. What had he found? I have to know, she thought, angrily recalling Alec’s jeering advice that she hire her own detective. She wondered, not for the first time, what Greta had ever seen in him.
At least Greta had Zoe to show for her years of marriage. That was no small thing. Picturing Zoe, with her blond hair and braces, was soothing to Britt in a way. It made her smile to think of the girl, with her adolescent affectations and her good little heart. But in another way, it was even more disturbing. Because if they did arrest Alec for Greta’s murder, what would become of Zoe? Lying there in the dark, there was no way for Britt to shut the question out of her mind.
All right, she thought, why don’t you just face it? She can’t stay here alone. You are all the family she has left in the world. You’re going to have to take her with you. Would that be so bad? Your apartment has two bedrooms. You can settle her into one of them, find out where a kid her age has to go to school.
Nancy would know all that stuff about kids. I’ll ask her, she thought, and her heart lifted a little.
Mentally, Britt began making lists. School, an orthodontist for those teeth. Stores that sold clothes for teenagers. Maybe she’d let her have a cat. What else?
Britt thought about Alec, and how he would probably want Zoe to stay nearby whatever prison he ended up in. Well, too damn bad, Britt thought. Once Zoe finds out what you did to her mother, she thought, imagining their confrontation in h
er mind, she won’t want any part of you anymore.
Then Britt was plagued by a fresh set of anxieties. There were so many logistics to consider. They would probably have to make frequent trips back for a while. To testify. To settle legal matters. Her head spun and her stomach began to churn as she thought about it.
Goddammit, I’ll never get to sleep, she thought. She began to feel panicky. She needed sleep to face all of this. She couldn’t stand it any longer.
Britt sat up abruptly in the dark room and sighed. She always felt like such a failure when she had to resort to sleeping pills. She thought about Greta, soothed by tranquilizers. And Zoe. Sneaking some from her mother. Seeking some peace of mind. Runs in the family, she thought. But sometimes there was just no choice. She padded into the bathroom and searched through her toiletries bag under the nightlight. She found the little amber plastic bottle and shook a sleeping pill out into her palm. Then, after a moments hesitation, she shook out another. She swallowed the pills down with a glass of water and returned to the bed. She put a CD in her Discman and put on her headphones. In a few minutes, despite the anxiety that tingled all through her, she began to feel the leadenness in her thought processes that indicated the pills were doing their work. She wasn’t aware of the moment when she fell asleep.
Sometime in the night, deep into a dream, she started to cough. She woke up coughing and found herself lying face down on the mattress.
Britt’s eyes stung, and began to tear. She sniffed, but her nose was stuffy. Then, she began to cough.
She wanted to raise her head from the pillow, but her mind was fuzzy and uncooperative. Even with her eyes closed, the room seemed bright, the light flickering. Her arm hung off the edge of the bed, her fingers trailing on the floor as if she were only a sack of cement lying there. Her eyes were watering freely now, and she let out a series of barking coughs. Even though her nose was stuffed up, she could smell something in the air. Something harsh and nauseating. She couldn’t catch her breath. Clumsily, she pulled off her headset, and heard a whooshing, crackling sound. What is that smell, she wondered? Her brain responded, from a foggy distance.
Smoke.
It took a moment to register, and then Britt leaped up from the bed, as if an electric charge was surging through her. She understood what the crackling sound was now, and realized why, outside the curtained window, she saw a dance of light. She ripped the curtain back. Flames. The cottage was on fire. She tried to scream but she had no voice. Smoke was beginning to fill the room.
“Help,” she whispered. Oh my God. For a moment she was paralyzed. Then she began to cough uncontrollably. Her frozen knees unlocked and she plunged through the billowing smoke in the direction of the door.
PART II
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Walk, please,” yelled Barbara Porter.
A frenzied rush of her students, returning from the art room, was taking place below Barbara’s shoulder level. At the sound of her voice the rush slowed to merely rapid movement.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” she said.
When the corridor was empty, she followed her students back into her classroom. The giggles and murmurs among those seated in the room began to diminish. “Okay,” she said. “Everybody in your seats. Settle down. You’re going to have to concentrate on this. We’re working on decimals and fractions.”
The students groaned and murmured again. Barbara stifled a smile and began to scratch out a series of equations on the board. There was a tap on her open door and she turned around to see Wilbur Thomas, the school principal, in the doorway.
“Hello, Mr. Thomas,” Barbara said. The murmuring among the students began again as each one of them imagined themselves in some kind of trouble.
“Got a minute?” Wilbur asked.
“Sure,” said Barbara, brushing the chalk off her hands. Immediately a buzz resumed in the classroom. Barbara turned to her students. “That’s enough noise. Solve those problems. I’ll be right back.” She closed the door to her room behind her and went out into the hall. The principal was accompanied by a middle-aged woman with a short cap of graying hair and an unlined face. “Hey, Peg,” said Barbara to her friend and colleague who was smiling at her. Barbara and Peg Slavin followed the principal across the hall to an empty classroom.
Wilbur leaned against the vacant teachers desk crossing his arms over his worn, houndstooth blazer. Peg took a seat behind a desk, while Barbara hoisted herself onto one of the student desktops.
“What’s up?” Barbara asked.
“Zoe Lynch,” said Wilbur.
Barbara sighed and looked at Peg. “I thought maybe.”
“We just got word in the office,” said Wilbur. “Her father has been arrested.”
Barbara, who was married to a Coleville police officer, Randy Porter, nodded and sighed.
“You’re not surprised?” he asked.
“I heard about it from my husband at breakfast.”
“Oh, right, of course.”
“For both fires?” she asked.
“Yeah. The one the sister-in-law was in, too. That was my impression,” said Wilbur.
Barbara glanced around as if she was concerned about being overheard. “Well, according to Randy, they did know for a fact, from the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, that he came looking for Zoe’s aunt that day. Apparently, he’d threatened her…”
“God, what a tragedy. That poor kid,” said Wilbur, shaking his gray head. “It’s a lot for a child her age to have to cope with. First she loses her mother. Now this.”
“I know,” said Barbara. “My heart goes out to her. I just wish I could help her.”
“Well, that’s why I asked Peg to join us,” said Wilbur. “I thought she could help us come up with a strategy. We’ve had other parents get themselves arrested, but we’ve never had a situation quite like this one before. So, I think we need to deal with this in a special way.”
“How has she seemed to you in class?” Peg asked Barbara.
Barbara frowned. “She’s…subdued. She tears up. She felt sick to her stomach one day. That seems only normal to me. You’d know a lot better about this than me, I’m sure. But, all in all, she seems to be coping. This arrest is going to make it much worse though.”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” said Peg. “A parent’s death at this age is a devastating loss. But even a young child can understand that death is part of the natural order of things. The idea of her father’s involvement in the crime puts it on a whole other level.”
“That’s for sure,” said Barbara. “I just don’t want her to have to suffer any more than is necessary. She’s not to blame for any of this.”
“That’s certainly true,” said Wilbur.
“How have the other students been treating her?” Peg asked. “She told me that they don’t mention her mother’s death. I’ve explained to her that most lads this age are afraid to even bring up the subject. She says that everyone’s been very kind to her, but I’m curious about your perspective.”
“So far, I’d say the other kids have been pretty nice. They’re awed by her loss. But that could turn in a minute. You know how they can be.”
“All too well,” said Peg grimly.
“Well, that’s what we need to discuss,” said Wilbur. “We’ve got to head off trouble before it starts. And it will start.”
“I’d say to just be very aware of how they are treating her,” said Peg. “It doesn’t do any good to pretend this isn’t happening and let the rumors fly. Mr. Thomas, I think that after they come and get her today it would helpful for you to come in and talk to Barbara’s class. You know, level with them and appeal to their better nature. I think it’s important that you, being the ultimate authority figure around here, impress on them that they have a responsibility to act decently and humanely.”
“I’ll be glad to if you think it would help,” he said. Wilbur Thomas had been the principal of the school since Barbara was a student there. Despite his being virt
ually a relic from another era, he had a reputation for keeping current, and for not being easily fooled. The kids respected him for more than his title.
Barbara nodded agreement. Sixth graders had a tendency to keep their better nature well hidden, but as a teacher she knew that it lurked just below the surface bravado. “I think that’s a good idea. I haven’t known how much to say”
“Its all gonna be on TV anyway,” said Peg. “They’ll see it on the news tonight. Their parents are going to be questioning them about it. You might as well be frank with them. Answer their questions as honestly as possible. Try not to say too much about her father.”
“That’s right,” said the principal. “We have to remind them that in our justice system, he is presumed innocent.”
“Right,” said Barbara. “Okay. That’s what I think, too. I’ll just follow your lead. Is somebody coming for her?”
Wilbur nodded. “Any minute now. I want to emphasize to both of you that we have to be careful about what we say. It’s not our job to… make judgments on Alec Lynch. We don’t want them going home and telling their parents that they heard in school that the verdict is in on him.”
“No,” Peg agreed somberly. “At least not from the faculty or the administration. What they say among themselves…well, I don’t have to tell you. And I’m afraid there’s no way that Zoe is going to escape the gossip and the cruelty.”
Barbara shook her head. “It’s such a shame. Zoe is a wonderful kid. Bright and nice. I hate that she has to go through this. I’m glad she has you to help her, Peg.”
“It’s going to be a challenging assignment to try to steer her through this,” said Peg.
“We’ll all try to make it easier on her,” said Wilbur. “But you know as well as I do that somebody’s going to act like a jerk.”
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