Bel, Book, and Scandal

by Maggie McConnon

  “I’m in the closet.”

  “The closet?”

  “Yes, the closet in my daughter’s room. She is downstairs with Crawford, and if he hears me talking to you about this he might bust a gut.”

  “Oh, is he as sick of your sleuthing as everyone in my life is of mine?” I asked.

  “For sure. I have a long history of butting my nose in where it doesn’t belong, so in the interest of marital harmony I’m just going to talk to you from the closet, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Sure. Not a problem.”

  “Are you going to go see him?” she asked.

  “Yes, first thing in the morning,” I said.

  “I have school. Will you let me know what he tells you?”

  “If anything,” I said. “Larry said he wanted to talk to me, but who knows about what? Maybe he just wants to thank me for calling the police before he bled out. For being in the right place at the right time.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe there’s something else. Something juicy. Something that will help you solve this.”

  “I have to tell you something,” I said.

  “Hurry,” she said. “They’re coming. I can hear them on the stairs.”

  As quickly as I could, I recounted what had happened that night.

  She gasped and called, “I’m coming!” to her husband and daughter before she hung up.

  Now I knew I was completely on my own.

  The next morning, a mountain of work awaiting me in the kitchen, I left a little after nine, knowing that I would be pulling all-nighters for the next few nights to make up for the fact that I was no longer focused on my job in the way that I should be, that I had become obsessed with something that might never come to a resolution. My parents trusted me enough to run the kitchen the way I wanted to and didn’t seem to worry that I wasn’t around as much as I should be. Believe me, I would have heard about it, had they been concerned in the least. They weren’t ones to hold back their feelings on any subject, let alone one that concerned the Manor and its success.

  Tweed Blazer was still in a prone position in bed, oxygen going into his nose via two small connected tubes. He looked pale and weak but more so than I expected; the burly, hearty guy whom I had met was gone and in his place was a shell of his former self. Archie Peterson sat beside him, his long white hair hitting his shoulders, a copy of New York magazine closed and sitting on his lap.

  He looked up when I appeared at the door of the room, recognition dawning on his lined face. “You weren’t looking for unclaimed barn wood that day, were you?” he asked.

  “And you’re estranged from you son,” I replied, causing Tweed to let out a little cough.

  Archie waved a hand dismissively. “That’s what he tells all of the lookie-loos. No skin off my nose. How did you like my class?”

  “I fell asleep,” I said. “You’re the guy who started Love Canyon.”

  “Guilty as charged,” he said. “It was a good time while it lasted.”

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  “If you’re this Belfast person he’s been asking about, then yes.”

  Behind me, I heard a familiar voice asking what it took to find a vending machine with a Diet Coke around here. It wasn’t a complaint, or even a request, but more of an observation, the musings of a senior-citizen detective who just wanted a shot of caffeine in a can. He came into the room.

  “I thought I should be here, Belfast, in case anything important came to light,” Larry Bernard said.

  “That makes sense, Detective,” I said. I moved to the side of the bed and took a seat in a chair that had a blanket tossed over the back of it. I knew it wouldn’t be long until at least one of us, if not all of us, was chased from the room; this was a floor for the seriously ill and those who had had surgery in the past few days and I couldn’t imagine it was good for three people to be hanging around this guy’s bed, two of them looking for answers.

  “I’ve already asked him if he knows who did this,” Larry said. “But he doesn’t.”

  “Does this have something to do with you?” I asked, looking at Archie. “Something to do with the old commune?”

  “Don’t believe everything you read, darling,” he said. “Sure, it was free love back then, but ours was a much more conservative communal dwelling.”

  “Named ‘Love Canyon’?” I asked. “That’s kind of hard to believe.”

  “Summer of Love. Peace, love, and understanding. ‘Love is all you need,’” Archie said. “Love, baby.”

  Jeez Louise, this guy was as crazy as a bedbug. If he had been my dad and carried the reputation that Archie Peterson did, I would probably change my name, too.

  Larry Bernard was having none of it. “I was in Wooded Lake, Peterson. You might not have been a full-fledged commune, but you were certainly leaning toward being a cult.” He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “I’m surprised you’ve come back to Wooded Lake. Not too many people happy to see you.”

  “Stop.”

  We all looked at the bed, where Tweed waved a hand weakly, his voice a throaty rasp.

  “Stop.” He looked over at me. “She’s alive, Bel.”

  “Amy?”

  “Yes. Amy.”

  “Do you know where she is?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes up and failing.

  He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace. “I do.” He attempted to shift position but could barely move. “She talks about you. A lot. Said that you were the one reason she would ever consider going back to Foster’s Landing.”

  “Did you know that it was me when I showed up? That I was Amy’s friend?”

  “I did,” he said. “I’m sorry I lied.” He put a hand on his chest, tried to move slightly but couldn’t; the pain was too much. “I didn’t know if I could trust you. If Amy could trust you. I was protecting her. I was in love with her once. But I haven’t told her I know you. It was never the right time.”

  “Thank you for doing that,” I said. “For protecting her.”

  He gave me an address not far from the center of Wooded Lake. “Go find her and let her tell you everything.”

  “Everything?” I asked.

  “Everything,” he said. “It’s her story to tell.”

  CHAPTER Forty-two

  Larry Bernard followed me out into the parking lot. “Let me go with you. You don’t know what you’re going to find.”

  I turned. “This is a one-woman show, Larry.”

  “I think you’re in over your head, Bel.” He buttoned his overcoat, pulled the neck in against the stiff wind that blew. “And she’s still a suspect in his stabbing.”

  Not to mention the death of the girl found in her car. I knew that was why Cargan hadn’t warmed to the investigation.

  “Why?” I asked. “You heard him. They were young when they married. They divorced. They stayed friends. All he wanted to know was if he could trust me and if Amy could trust me. That’s all it was.” I pushed aside the part in my brain that knew that while I was trying to get close to him, he was trying to get close to me, to find out what I knew and what my intentions were. When it was clear that I was a heartbroken friend and nothing more, he invited me to his home, where he would tell me everything, show me the photo of their special day. It didn’t turn out that way, though, someone getting to him first, someone not willing for the truth to come out.

  While we spoke, I plugged the address into my GPS, seeing that I was just fifteen minutes away from the place where Tweed said Amy lived.

  I opened the door to my car and watched as Larry Bernard, not as young as he used to be by his own admission, scurried to his beat-up Honda, fast but not fast enough. I tore out of the parking lot of the hospital and onto a back road that ran adjacent to the highway, jumping on at the first entrance ramp I came across, playing it cool in the right lane, going just five miles or so above the speed limit so that I wouldn’t attract any undue attention. As it was, I had Larry Bernard on my tail; he had heard the address
, too. He knew where I was headed. My goal was to get there before he did.

  I did, pushing the gas pedal a little more than I thought was safe but wanting to put some distance between me and the detective. It was a very direct route, one that took me off an exit just a few miles up the road and through the center of a charming town; I would come back here again, I was sure, if not to see Amy, then to poke around on a nice spring day, maybe eat at the Turkish place that had a line of would-be diners out the front door. It wasn’t long before I turned onto the street that Tweed said Amy lived on—or at least had at some point, this being her last address known to him—looking at a row of well-kept Victorian homes sitting across from a fire station. This place was even smaller than Foster’s Landing, which boasted one building for sixth grade through eighth grade and another for the high school itself.

  So why hadn’t he told me before that he might know where she was? Archie had answered for him. “He didn’t know if he could trust you.” He had pointed at the bed, at his wounded and weakened son. “Now he knows he can. Because of what you did. How you saved him.”

  I pulled up alongside the curb and looked at the place that bore the number of Amy’s beautiful house, one with a wraparound front porch, little evergreens in window boxes with decorative holly and ivy interspersed. If Amy had done that, we needed her at the Manor to take care of our Christmas decorations; she had done a much better job and was much more creative than I remembered. I got out of the car and walked up the front walk, flat bluestones framed on either side by tiny, manicured bushes, and put a foot on the front steps, the first one creaking slightly. I finally had enough courage to mount the rest of the steps and press the bell, stepping back when I heard its shrill report.

  After a few moments, it was clear that no one was home. I went back down the steps and walked around the north side of the house, taking in the meticulous paint job on every corbel, some a beautiful pink, others in a shade of lavender that complemented the other colors perfectly. I looked in a few windows and saw an equally gorgeous interior, spotlessly clean, with complementary architectural details adorning the space: crown moldings, wide baseboards, decorative coffered ceilings.

  The person who lived here—Amy?—had crafted a perfect exterior and interior for the life she now lived, and while that didn’t seem completely at odds with who I remembered, how could I know? That person had been a teenager, just out of her childhood years, and this person was an adult, with tastes and preferences and a style all her own.

  I walked back down the driveway and came face-to-face with Larry Bernard. “She’s not here,” I said.

  Larry’s face mirrored mine in terms of disappointment. “I was hoping you’d find your friend,” he said.

  “I was, too.”

  “I’d like to talk to her,” he said.

  “You and everyone else,” I said. The thought of the person in Amy’s car floated into my head. Although no one had told me outright, someone would want to question her about that.

  Bernard and I walked down the path to our cars, parked at the curb. “I’m sorry, Belfast. I thought today might be the day for you. Maybe leave a note,” he said. “Maybe she’s just at work.”

  “What about you?” I said. “Won’t you be looking for her, too? Isn’t she a suspect?”

  He rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. “I’m going in a different direction on this one.”

  “And what direction is that?” I asked.

  “Nothing you should concern yourself with,” he said, smiling. “Just leave it to me, Ms. McGrath. Belfast.” He got in his car and I made a show of getting into mine, too, starting it and even pulling out of the space. But once he was no longer in my sights, the Honda disappearing down a side street, I circled back around and parked across the street from the house, where I could watch anyone come or go.

  I stayed there a long time, well into the evening, before realizing that she was never coming home and that if her words to me at the river the night before were any indication, I would never see her again.

  CHAPTER Forty-three

  I had been wrong about my parents’ lack of concern about my disappearance. I had misread the situation to the point that when I arrived in the kitchen the next morning they were both waiting for me, Mom looking less sympathetic than Dad when it came to my explanation of why I had been gone the entire day before.

  Dad put his head on the counter, his arms encircling it; he didn’t want to hear any more. Mom stood ramrod straight, staring at me. “You know how I feel about therapy, Belfast, but I think that maybe it would help you.”

  “Yeah, I know how you feel,” I said, stripping off my sweater and replacing it with an apron. “You’d rather die than expose your innermost feelings to a stranger.” It was a refrain I had heard many times and there was no mistaking her disdain for the wonders of a good therapist. We were supposed to keep our feelings bottled up inside until one day, when we were unable to repress them anymore, they came out in a torrent—usually at a wake or funeral—or they stayed there, killing you with their vice-like grip on your heart and soul. I had vowed that I wouldn’t be that person, trying to straddle the line between keeping enough in so that my vulnerability didn’t show and letting enough out so that I wouldn’t die of a heart attack in my sleep.

  It wasn’t the easiest way to live, to be honest.

  Dad raised his head. “Belfast, that girl is gone and she will probably always be gone. Is this about your breakup with Brendan? A diversion to keep you going so that you’re not completely heartbroken?”

  I laughed. “No, Dad. It’s not that.”

  Mom crossed her arms over her chest, regarded me for a few minutes. She left the kitchen and went into the adjoining office, where I heard her begin a conversation with someone, her voice a whisper; I couldn’t make out any actual words. When she came back to the kitchen, she had a satisfied smile on her face. “Lieutenant D’Amato will take care of it,” she said. “I told him to come by so he can get all of the information from you. If she is alive, Belfast, as you say she is, then let the authorities handle it. They will find her and bring her home and give her family some peace.”

  “This town,” Dad said. “Give this town some peace.”

  “Mom!” I said. “Why did you do that?” Amy’s words ringing in my ears, something told me that the last thing she wanted was for the local police to be involved.

  Mom looked sterner now than when I had arrived in the kitchen. “We tolerated your investigation into Declan’s murder. And in finding Pauline. But this is getting ridiculous,” she said, mentioning two situations—two mysteries—that I had insinuated myself into. She tried to soften her tone but was unsuccessful. “You are a banquet chef now, Bel, and we appreciate your help more than you know. But you’re distracted and flighty and obsessed—”

  “And an adult,” I reminded her, this diatribe reminiscent of one that I would have heard in my teens.

  “—and you need to settle down and return to what makes you happy.”

  “Finding Amy would make me happy,” I said.

  Mom slouched slightly, the conversation weakening her. She looked up. “Well, look at the time. I have Pilates,” she said. Before she left the kitchen, she turned to look at me and Dad. “Mal, please pick up where I left off.”

  Dad stood up. “You really think she’s alive?” he asked, a hopefulness creeping into his voice.

  “We know she is.”

  He came over and wrapped me in a hug, his arms strong, his chest soft beneath his paint-splattered shirt. One of its buttons dug deeply into my cheek, but I didn’t care. I needed a soft place to land—a safe place—and this was it. He was my champion and my ally, the man from whom I got my emotional side as well as my creativity.

  There was a knock at the front door of the Manor and he dropped his arms. “That would be the Lieutenant.”

  It would be. He was accompanied by Kevin and Jed and none of them looked particularly excited to have this conversation, which to me
seemed very strange. We went into the dining room and sat at one of the denuded banquet tables.

  The Lieutenant was in charge. “So how were you able to figure out something that the Foster’s Landing Police Department and the FBI haven’t been able to solve in fifteen years?” he asked.

  I shrugged. The tone of this conversation was a bit more hostile than I had anticipated. I didn’t expect to be a hero, per se, but I didn’t expect to be treated like a perp, either. An annoyance. A pain in the ass. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her, though,” I said to Jed, his eyes hopeful in the way the other two men’s weren’t. “I tried to find her, but she never came home.”

  “Give us the address,” Lieutenant D’Amato said.

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I made up an address, one that didn’t remotely resemble the one that Tweed had given me. Based on their body language and the way the Lieutenant was looking at me—angry and somewhat perturbed—it was my first instinct.

  She was probably a suspect in that girl’s death, and although I didn’t know for sure that she didn’t do it, in my heart I knew that Amy wasn’t a killer.

  Unless something had propelled her to be, her own safety at risk.

  “That’s three hours from here,” he said. “You’ve been going all the way upstate to investigate?” He wrote the address down quickly. “How do you get any work done if you’re driving back and forth to Lake Morgan?”

  “Didn’t we go on a class trip there?” Kevin asked. “To see the caverns?”

  “We did,” I said. How do you think I came up with this so quickly? I wanted to ask. God, he could be such a dim bulb. It wasn’t a coincidence that Lake Morgan was the place I used to throw them off the track. I figured they could be searching that town, and maybe the caverns, for long enough for me to find Amy and let her know that the case was now officially reopened.

  Hers was no longer a cold case. Rather, it was getting very, very warm.

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy, Belfast,” Lieutenant D’Amato said. “Also sounds like you should get back to the kitchen. Start preparing for our party. You only have a few days.”