by Jean Barrett
“The explanations are going to have to wait,” Jack said. “We need to get your brother to the guesthouse where he’ll be safe, though you might as well know the rest. Allison is still alive, and we’ve got her out there, too.”
Dorothy, understanding the need for haste, didn’t press him for answers. She waited silently as Jack issued swift instructions.
“Lane, you still have the keys for the outside door here and the door at the guesthouse. You go ahead and clear the way while Dorothy and I follow with Chris.”
Lane didn’t argue with his directions. Dorothy was a lot stronger than she was. The three of them spent a nervous few minutes getting Chris transported across the exposed arcade. There were no further surprises, and once the guesthouse door was locked behind them and Chris safely deposited on the sofa, Lane permitted herself a sigh of relief.
Jack checked on Allison behind the sofa, reporting to them that there was no change in her condition. “With all the bodies piling up in here,” he observed with one of his wicked smiles, “it’s beginning to look like a morgue.”
“What are we going to do with the two of them?” Lane wondered. “It was one thing to keep Allison a secret, but the killer knows Chris is alive. How do we hide both of them?”
Dorothy provided the answer. “The cupboard bed,” she said. She crossed the room and crouched at the side of the bed. “Look.”
Her fingers moved along the wide paneling between the floor and the mattress. There must have been a catch blended in so cleverly with the elaborate, painted carving that it was completely unnoticeable. Whatever it was, Dorothy released it and tugged at the paneling. The whole side under the mattress rolled out into the room like an enormous, deep drawer.
“You see,” she said. “It’s a trundle bed stored under the main bed, and it’s wide enough for two.”
Jack was impressed. “I’ll be damned. Never guessed that thing was under there.”
“I’m not sure even Allison knows it’s there. She never mentioned it, anyway. The bed is an antique her father had installed in here a few years back, but he got sick after that and the guesthouse was never used. I only discovered the drawer by accident when I was cleaning.”
“You tell anyone about it?” he asked her sharply.
She shook her head. “No one, not even Nils. No reason to. Actually, I was so busy getting the place ready for this weekend that I forgot about the bed until this second.”
“Hiding them in there means rolling the trundle back into place,” Lane observed. “What about air?”
“They can’t suffocate,” Dorothy assured her. “The upper bed rests on slats. Enough space between and at the sides for circulation below.”
“Let’s do it,” Jack urged. “But we don’t have to close them in unless it becomes necessary.”
Chris was easily placed on the low bed, but because of Allison’s possible injuries, they had to exercise considerable care in transferring her from the toboggan to the trundle. When she and Chris were finally resting side by side, Jack gazed down at them with a gleam of approval in his blue eyes.
“Make a good-looking couple, don’t they?”
“Allison would bless you for that,” Lane said.
Dorothy had no comment. She was wearing an anxious expression as she regarded her unconscious brother.
“He’s going to be all right, Dorothy.” Lane tried to reassure her. “It’s just a matter of waiting for the drug to wear off.”
Jack left, in order to dispose of the toboggan. When he returned, the three of them settled on sofa and chair, leaning toward one another earnestly as they addressed the situation. It was Lane who shared with the other woman all that had been happening. Dorothy listened without comment, her face placid again.
They were all silent for a moment when Lane had finished. The only sounds came from outside the room, the bellowing of the wind under the eaves, the humming of the generator beneath the guesthouse. There was no humor in Jack’s voice this time, only grimness when he faced Dorothy.
“It’s your turn, Dorothy. We’ve taken a chance and confided in you. Now you’ve got to do the same and confide in us. Tell us about Nils and this depression that put him in the hospital.”
Dorothy’s round, grave face regarded them suspiciously.
“We’ve got to know everything,” Lane told her, “if we’re going to survive this thing. We’re not saying your husband is a murderer, but we can’t overlook any possibility.”
“Nils is a good man,” she insisted.
“But maybe a seriously disturbed one. How bad was this illness of his?”
Dorothy hesitated before admitting, “Bad enough.”
“Does he have a history of mental problems?” Jack pressed her.
She shook her head vigorously. “No, nothing. There was nothing until—” She broke off, her face betraying real emotion for the first time. The emotion was anguish.
“Until?” Jack prompted.
“Until our son was killed last year,” she continued in a small voice. “It was a bad time. You can imagine how bad it was for us. The hurt never goes away. I don’t think it was any worse for Nils than it was for me. He just handled it in another way. Kept it all inside until it made him ill.”
Lane had had no idea it was anything like this. She felt sick for Dorothy. She also felt guilt. “You don’t have to go on with this,” she murmured.
“I think she has to,” Jack said. “I don’t think there’s any choice at this point.”
Lane was about to protest when Dorothy stopped her. “He’s right. You should hear the rest. Our boy was drinking, and there was a car accident.”
“Was he driving?”
“No, there was someone else at the wheel when they went off the road. A friend who’d been in the tavern with him. Rick died, but Teddy was unhurt.”
Lane stared at her. “You’re saying his companion was Teddy Brewster?”
“Yes, Teddy Brewster. They said he was sober, that it happened because he was trying to avoid a deer in the road. Nils had a hard time believing that, but the judge didn’t. He dropped the charges when Teddy came up before him.”
“You want to tell us who that judge was?” Jack probed softly.
“You know who it was,” Dorothy whispered. “It was Dan Whitney.”
A message flashed between Lane and Jack. A single, shocking word. Motive.
Dorothy didn’t miss their rapid exchange. Her dark eyes gazed at them stubbornly, denying the possibility. “I don’t say he wasn’t bitter when his depression was at its worst.” She stoutly defended her husband. “But he was never vengeful. Anyway, he’d recovered when they released him from the hospital. The doctor said he was much better.”
“Dorothy, I know this is difficult,” Jack said slowly, “but there’s one more thing you have to tell us. When Nils was dealing with all this, did he indicate any signs of aggressiveness?”
“I don’t think I want to say any more.”
“Dorothy—”
But the conversation went no further. From somewhere outside came the wild clanging of a bell.
Jack leapt to his feet. “What in the—”
“It’s the chapel bell!” Dorothy said.
The bell went on tolling like a shrill, desperate summons.
“Where were the others when you came into the kitchen?” Jack demanded.
Dorothy tried to remember. “Stuart was playing those old records in the lounge, and I think Hale was still in the library. I’m not sure where their mother was.”
Lane was also on her feet by this time. “It sounds as if someone might be in trouble out there and calling for help.”
“Whatever it means, we can’t ignore it.”
Jack snatched up his coat and raced to the door. By the time he got it unlocked, the ringing had abruptly stopped. He didn’t let that matter. Ripping open the door, he plunged down the steps of the arcade. Lane hesitated for the space of a heartbeat. Then she grabbed up her own coat and tore after h
im. Dorothy was right behind her.
“The door,” Dorothy called after her. “We can’t leave the door unlocked.”
Lane caught herself at the edge of the arcade, realizing that the key was now somehow in her hand. Dorothy was right. They couldn’t leave the guesthouse unlocked. The alarm from the chapel might be nothing but a device to lure them away from Allison and Chris.
By the time she’d secured the door and joined Dorothy in the clearing, another figure had emerged from the front of the lodge. It was Stuart, looking wide-eyed and uncertain as he stared in the direction of the chapel. Jack had reached the vicinity of the topiary garden. He turned briefly when he realized they were following him.
“Go back inside, all of you.”
They ignored his cautionary shout and went on rushing toward the chapel. Even Stuart was running now.
Jack was on the half-enclosed porch and struggling with the stiff iron latch when Lane joined him, the others crowding behind her. “Stand back,” he warned them as he succeeded with the latch and pushed the door inward.
They stood off to one side, peering carefully around the edge of the jamb. Nothing met them but silence and an unexpected flickering glow.
“I’m going in,” Jack announced.
In a protective half crouch he slid around the side of the door. The others pressed recklessly behind him. There was no humor in the display that waited for them inside, but its creator must have intended the whole thing as a monstrous joke.
The red Christmas candles had been lighted in every sconce and holder throughout the room, their flames fluttering in the draft from the open door. The soft light revealed a ghastly sight at the front of the chapel where the rope from the belfry was located to one side. Hanging from the bell rope, with a loop around her neck, was the mink-clad figure of Ronnie Bauer.
Lane wanted to look away and couldn’t. The horror mesmerized her. Ronnie’s lolling head gleamed in the candlelight. Her skull was bare except for scattered tufts of thin, colorless hair. For a dreadful second Lane thought she had been scalped, just as they had believed Teddy Brewster was scalped. And then she saw what was on the floor below the body. A wig. Ronnie’s glorious black hair had been a wig. This final robbing of her dignity, more than all the rest, was a desecration Lane couldn’t bear. With a cry of outrage, she turned away.
Jack must have slipped between the pews. She heard him at the front checking the body, reporting gruffly, “It’s no good. We can’t help her.”
Lane, hiding her face, began to tremble uncontrollably. The tremors seized her and wouldn’t stop. Seconds later she felt Jack’s arms slide around her and draw her close. His soothing, loving warmth calmed her as nothing else could. She was able to lift her gaze after a moment, force herself to glance again in the direction of the strangled body swaying slowly on the bell rope.
“Don’t leave her like that, Jack,” she pleaded. “Crime scene or not, take her down, please.”
“You’re right. This is one obscenity that son of a—” He caught himself, released Lane and strode rapidly back to the front of the chapel.
Within seconds he had freed the body from the rope. As he was lowering Ronnie to the floor, something slipped out of the pocket of the mink and landed with a metallic clunk on the boards. Lane watched him pick up and examine what proved to be a snub-nosed .22-caliber Beretta.
“A pistol,” he said in surprise. “All this time she had a pistol and never told us she was carrying one.”
“She may have had it to protect herself against robbery,” Lane guessed. “Allison said she was buying a lot of expensive jewelry.”
“Whatever the reason, it looks like she never had a chance to use it to defend herself. But we might.” He pocketed the loaded gun, which the killer had obviously failed to discover.
Lane noticed there was something else on the floor. It must have been caught on the pistol when it fell out of Ronnie’s pocket. She pointed it out to Jack. “There’s a folded paper there.”
He rescued the scrap and swore over its contents. “It’s a note. The killer must have found an opportunity to somehow slip it into her pocket, where she discovered it later. This explains what she was doing out here.”
Jack came down the aisle and handed the note to Lane.
“Ronnie,” she read, “it’s vital I meet with you. There’s something I need to discuss, and I don’t want any of the others around. Trust me on this, please. I think the chapel would be safest for us. Make it eleven o’clock. I’ll be waiting for you. Jack.”
“The way I’ve been putting her off at every turn,” Jack muttered, “I can’t believe the woman would be foolish enough to fall for such a trap, even if she did arm herself with a pistol.”
But Lane could believe it. The promise of finally having a tryst with a man of Jack’s attraction must have been for Ronnie a lure too provocative to resist. She had taken the risk and paid for it with her life.
Lane returned the note to Jack. He added it to the pistol in his pocket to be kept for future evidence.
Dorothy, who had silently managed to overcome her own shock, was moving around the room, blowing out the candles one by one. Her prosaic action forced Lane to shed the last traces of her trance. She looked around, suddenly remembering. Stuart! She had been dealing with her personal trauma and forgetting that the teenager must have suffered an intolerable blow seeing his mother like that. How could she have neglected him in his need?
Stuart was no longer with them in the chapel. She went outside and found him on the porch. For the first time she realized he had come away from the house without a coat. He stood there in his shirtsleeves, hugging himself and shivering. But it was probably an involuntary action. Lane didn’t think he was feeling the cold. There was a glassy look in his eyes. He looked terribly young and vulnerable.
“Stuart, I’m so sorry.” She put a hand on his arm, hoping to comfort him.
His body went rigid with her touch. He jerked away, resisting her effort to console him. She didn’t pursue it. He was better left alone now that he understood she would be there for him if he wanted her. But she couldn’t help worrying about him.
Lane hoped Jack wouldn’t question the teenager about his mother. But Jack had something else on his mind when he and Dorothy joined them on the porch.
“Where’s Hale?” he asked them sharply. “Why isn’t he out here with the rest of us?”
No one answered him.
Jack looked off in the direction of the lodge. “I don’t like this. I think we’d better find him.”
They left the chapel and hurried toward the house.
Lane spoke in an undertone to Jack. “If Hale has been drinking steadily this whole time, he’s in no condition to be aware of anything that’s been happening.” She dreaded the prospect of making him understand that his mother was the killer’s latest victim.
Jack didn’t respond to that. They had reached the front door. It stood wide open to the foyer. The three adults exchanged uneasy glances.
“Stuart,” Jack asked him, “did you leave the door open when you rushed out?”
The teenager shook his head. “Don’t know. Guess I must have.”
Deeply worried, the four of them entered the house. Jack led the way through the foyer and the lounge. The library door was also open. Lane, already anticipating the worst, was reluctant to enter the room. But the four of them shared a terrible bond now. No one dared to be separated from the others. They moved gingerly into the library.
The last time Lane had seen Hale he was slumped in the wing chair in a shadowy corner of the room and fast drinking himself into a stupor. He still occupied the chair, and perhaps he had succeeded in his single-minded effort. Perhaps that explained why his head was drooping to his chest.
But Lane knew better. Even before she noticed the bloodstained tomahawk lifted from the weapons collection and now on the floor where the killer had tossed it after crushing Hale’s skull, even before Jack examined the body and shook his head in
solemn regret, she knew that Hale McGuire was dead.
Lane was beyond demonstrating any further horror. She had encountered too much of it in the past forty-eight hours. They all had. All she could feel was a strange, forlorn numbness. But under that merciful dispassion she was dimly aware that the daughter Hale had rejected would never have the opportunity now to know her father. Somehow that seemed the greatest waste of all.
There was something else she understood. The ringing of the chapel bell had been neither an accident nor the result of Ronnie’s death. The murderer had used the bell to lure them away from the lodge in order to destroy a man who had been defenseless in his drunkenness. This time the stalker had managed to invade the house itself. Even now he might be lurking somewhere inside, waiting to strike again.
Lane looked around wildly and realized that Stuart had disappeared again. Dorothy, understanding her alarm, nodded toward the lounge. “In there,” she murmured.
Leaving Dorothy and Jack to deal with the body, she went in search of Stuart. He hadn’t gone far. He was just around the corner, leaning against the rough plaster wall. He had one of the old phonograph records in his hands and he was gazing down at the faded label.
“Go away,” he muttered. He began to slowly turn the disc around and around in his hands.
This time she couldn’t ignore him. “It’s all right, Stuart,” she coaxed him gently. “It’s okay to feel everything.”
He didn’t answer her, look at her. She stood in front of him and waited, refusing to leave. Finally he lifted his gaze, and she saw it all in his eyes. The desolation of having lost both a mother and a brother, the sick grief, the raw terror. The terror he was ashamed of.
He went limp then. Unable to support himself, he slid down the wall until he was huddled miserably on the floor. He began to cry, deep, wrenching sobs that tore at her with their plaintiveness. Lane crouched on the floor beside him and put her arms around him. He was beyond resistance now. He clung to her fiercely while she held him, letting him release his emotions with his tears. Gone was the hostile teenager wearing a false bravado. This was the real Stuart, a boy helpless with fear.
