Marta Perry

by Search the Dark

  Voices pierced the night—a babble that grew in volume, with Burkhalter’s bull-like roar foremost among them. A wave of flashlights swung this way, bobbing and flashing along the trail. Blast the man, he was letting the whole herd come stampeding onto what might be a crime scene.

  Moving quickly, he positioned himself at the entry to the path. Burkhalter reached him first, thrusting him back when Zach tried to stop him.

  “What’s this nonsense?” He stopped in midroar as Zach trained his light on the body, muttering an oath under his breath.

  “Better try to keep them from tramping all over the scene,” Zach said quietly, wondering how likely it was that the chief would listen to anything he said.

  Before Burkhalter could respond, Bennett Campbell tried to push past them.

  “Get her out, man. What do you mean by leaving her there? You should have pulled her out the instant you found her.”

  Zach gripped his arm. “It’s too late.”

  “You don’t know that. I’m the doctor here, not you.” He swung on Burkhalter. “I demand you let me treat her.”

  While Campbell’s influence had worked in his favor earlier, it went against him now. Zach made eye contact with Burkhalter, and it seemed to him that there was a question in the older man’s face.

  “At least try to preserve the scene,” Zach said.

  Ted elbowed his way forward. “The chief doesn’t need any advice from you.”

  Ignoring him, Zach kept his eyes trained on Burkhalter. Finally the chief nodded.

  “Ted, help me get her out. Doc, you come, too. Nobody else moves any farther, got it?”

  Nobody argued. The three picked their way across the clearing, avoiding the edge of the pool. They began the difficult job of getting the body out without disturbing the area any more than they had to. Silence hung heavy, broken only by the grunts and murmurs of the men. Zach suspected every person there had accepted the fact that Margo was dead.

  He felt a tug on his sleeve. Benjamin stood there, shivering a little, his father behind him with a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I tried to tell him quietlike, but he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t believe me.”

  “It’s okay, Benjamin. I know you did your best. You’re not to blame for Burkhalter’s...” He mentally deleted several words he wanted to say. “It’s not your fault he didn’t listen.”

  “Rachel had Meredith in the house,” the father said. “It could be that she didn’t hear.”

  Zach nodded. It could be, but he didn’t hold out much hope that she wouldn’t catch on to the uproar. He ought to go and tell her himself, but someone had to try and ensure that Burkhalter handled this properly.

  Flashlights bounced as a ripple went through the crowd. His heart sank. Too late to break the news gently—Meredith pushed her way forward with Rachel trying vainly to hold her back.

  “Let me through. Mom—”

  His heart contracting, Zach stepped into her path so that she ran right into him.

  “Let me go.” She struggled against the restraining hands, and he suspected she didn’t even recognize him in that moment.

  “Merry.” He used the pet name without intention. “I’m so sorry. She’s gone.”

  She stared into his face, her eyes dark with shock. “Gone,” she repeated. “She can’t be. She was fine when I left.”

  “Hush now,” Rachel said gently, putting her arms around Meredith. “Just listen to me. You can’t get in the way. Let the doctor do his work.”

  The glance Rachel sent to Zach showed that she understood there was nothing the doctor could do, but she’d chosen the right approach. Meredith settled, shivering a little but no longer trying to rush forward. Her gaze strained toward the small group huddled around the dark figure on the edge of the pond. Someone switched on a strong battery lamp, and it cast the scene into sharp, black-and-white relief.

  Bennett Campbell rose from his knees, moving as slowly as if he’d aged twenty years in the past few minutes. “Margo is dead.” His face was ravaged in the harsh light. He seemed shaken by a spasm of emotion. “It never should have happened.” He stared at Meredith. “You shouldn’t have left her alone.”

  Zach felt Meredith recoil, as if each word was a separate stone striking her. Rage filled him, but before he could speak, Rachel did.

  “That was unnecessary, Dr. Campbell.” Her clear voice rang like a bell in the sodden silence.

  Zach suspected he wasn’t the only one looking at Rachel in surprise. Such an attack was unusual, to say the least, for someone raised Amish.

  Apparently she got through to Campbell. He looked abashed, rubbing a hand across his face. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Afraid I’m upset.” He turned to Burkhalter with an assumption of something like his earlier assurance. “I’ll sign the certificate and make arrangements with the funeral director. That’s the least I can do for her.” His voice trembled again.

  Zach’s heart sank. He was going to have to intervene again, and it was the last thing he wanted to do. Leaving Meredith with Rachel’s arm securely around her, he picked his way toward Chief Burkhalter. Not that his caution was going to do much good. The ground would look like the proverbial herd of elephants had tramped over it by morning.

  “You can’t do that,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Campbell flared up in a second, as he’d expected. “Stay out of this, Randal. I’m the woman’s physician. I’m within my rights to sign the death certificate. It’s a clear case of accidental drowning.”

  “What about the injury to the side of her head?” Zach could see the mark clearly now that the body was out of the water.

  “Incidental,” Campbell said. “She struck her head on a rock when she fell. It’s obvious what happened. She must have had an episode with her heart. Short of breath, her heart racing, she tried to go for help and became disoriented.”

  The man couldn’t possibly be as dumb as he sounded. It made Zach wonder how many of his former patients had died unnecessarily.

  “First taking the time to change into dark clothes and collect a flashlight?” He let the sarcasm show in his voice.

  “What are you suggesting?” Campbell demanded.

  “I’m not suggesting anything.” He hadn’t reached that point yet. He just knew this death couldn’t be written off as another accident. “That will be up to Chief Burkhalter. He’s required to order an autopsy in a case of unexplained death.”

  Campbell’s face reddened. “I’ve just explained—”

  “He’s right, Doc.” Burkhalter looked like a man who accepted his duty, now that it had been pointed out to him. He turned to the nearest patrolman. “Clear the area. Get all those people out of here. Take names and addresses and send them home. Ted, you secure the scene. I want crime scene tape clear back at the beginning of the path, and you’d best block off the other side of the creek, as well.”

  Now that Burkhalter had gotten a grip, he was doing what should have been done from the first. Zach regretted that it had taken his intervention to make it happen. Burkhalter was bound to resent that fact.

  Maybe he should have let it go—let it be written off as an accident. But that was the trouble with being a cop. He couldn’t turn off his profession when it was inconvenient.

  Besides, in the long run, Meredith would have to know the truth. His heart wrenched. Otherwise she’d spend the rest of her life convinced that she’d caused her mother’s death.

  * * *

  MEREDITH HUDDLED IN her chair at the kitchen table, trying to take what comfort she could from the familiar setting. There was the tea towel, hung up neatly after her mother had cleaned up from her supper. Above the table hung the clock her father had taken in trade from an Amish craftsman, a habit of his that had driven her mother crazy. Now they were bo
th gone.

  She shivered, wrapping her hands around the mug of tea Rachel had made for her, trying to absorb its warmth. A blanket dropped over her shoulders, and hands smoothed it around her. She looked up, grateful, into Zach’s worried face.

  For just an instant her heart was pierced by the knowledge that she loved him. Then, just as quickly, it was superseded by the conviction that if she hadn’t gone out with him that night, her mother would still be alive.

  She stared down at the amber liquid in the cup—chamomile, by the scent of it. She bit her lip. Zach, her mother...

  “You’re blaming yourself,” Rachel said, sitting down across from her. “Stop it right now. What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  Meredith shook her head. “If I hadn’t gone out—”

  “Rachel’s right,” Zach interrupted, his voice gruff. “We don’t know enough yet to say how or why this happened to your mother. But it’s obvious that she had formed some intention of her own. Changing her clothes, taking a flashlight... Those things show that she intended to go out, apparently to the pool. Why?”

  Rachel nodded. She stood again, as if she needed to keep busy, and began slicing the shoofly pie her mother had sent over at some point in the past hour.

  “Until we know what Margo planned to do, we won’t know how she died.” She plopped the plate down on the table. “I was brought up to say that it was God’s will when something like this happens. Maybe so. Maybe it was some plan of Margo’s that went wrong, or maybe it was someone’s evil intent. But it definitely didn’t happen because you went out to dinner.”

  Meredith was almost convinced. Rachel had put it so compellingly. And maybe she was swayed by Rachel because Rachel so seldom told anyone else what to do or believe.

  “I...I’ll try to remember that.” She managed a smile. “You should go home. Mandy—”

  “Mandy is fine,” Rachel said. “My sister is with her tonight, and she’ll get her off to school in the morning. I’m staying with you.”

  Meredith had to fight back tears. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You have nothing to say about it,” Rachel said with mock severity. “You can come to my house if you’d rather. We have a room ready for you. But I thought you might want to be here.”

  “Yes.” She felt a wave of gratitude for Rachel’s quick understanding. “I need to stay in my own house tonight.” It would feel like desertion to go away now.

  “So I’m staying, too.” Rachel glanced at the clock and then at Zach. “How long will Chief Burkhalter keep us waiting here? I think Meredith should lie down, even if she doesn’t sleep.”

  “Hard to say.” Zach didn’t sound especially sure of Chief Burkhalter’s methods. “I can try to hurry him up.” He half rose, but Meredith caught his arm.

  “Don’t. It’s all right.” She felt an inward shudder at the thought of closing her eyes. All she’d see would be that dark shape at the edge of the darker pool.

  “Someone’s coming.” Rachel nodded to the glass in the back door. “Maybe—” She cut off the words when the door opened and Bennett Campbell stepped inside.

  Bennett seemed to hesitate at seeing the three of them watching him. Then he approached Meredith, still moving so stiffly that she felt a wave of pity for him. He’d been so attached to her mother that she didn’t know what he’d do without her.

  “Bennett, would you like to sit down?” She gestured to a chair.

  He shook his head. “I won’t take a minute. I must apologize for speaking so sharply earlier.”

  But not for his words, she suspected. “We were all in shock,” she replied, not sure what else she could say in the face of his stiff manner.

  “Yes, well...” He hesitated, eyeing Zach with suspicion. “Was that true, that Margo had put on dark clothing and taken a flashlight with her?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t avoid answering a direct question, whether it was really his business or not.

  Bennett shook his head slowly. “Inexplicable,” he pronounced. “Still, people can do the most extraordinary things when they’re upset.”

  In other words, he didn’t want to let go of his pet theory. Meredith felt a surge of impatience with the man. They wouldn’t find out the truth of what happened by snatching at easy answers.

  “Well, I must go. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Still shaking his head, he went back out, holding the door for Chief Burkhalter as he did.

  Rachel already had a mug and the coffeepot in her hands by the time the chief reached the table. “You’ll need some coffee by now, Chief Burkhalter. And maybe a piece of shoofly pie to keep you going.”

  Seeming thrown off his stride by this display of hospitality, Burkhalter let himself be ushered to a chair. He had a mouthful of shoofly pie by the time he tried to regain control of the situation.

  He swallowed. “Maybe I’d better talk to Meredith alone,” he said.

  Rachel slid into the chair next to her, so that Zach was on one side of her and Rachel on the other. She reached over to squeeze Meredith’s hand.

  “Meredith is still in a state of shock. She needs to have her friends here,” she said.

  Burkhalter looked undecided for a moment, but then he shrugged. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter, I guess. At this point, I just want to get the events of the evening clear in my mind. We can talk more tomorrow.” He pulled a battered notebook from his uniform pocket and spread it open next to the plate of shoofly pie. “Now, I understand you went out this evening?”

  Meredith nodded. There was nothing to be wary of in answering his questions. “Yes. I left at about six-thirty or so. My mother was sitting in her recliner in the living room, watching television. She seemed to be settled for the evening.”

  Burkhalter nodded. She realized that Zach was watching him closely, his dark eyes unreadable.

  “And Zach here picked you up? You didn’t drive separately?”

  “No, he drove. We went to Williamsport, to the Peter Herdic House.”

  “I had made a reservation for seven,” Zach put in smoothly.

  “Your mother had no plans for the evening as far as you know?” Burkhalter looked at her, pen poised over the notebook.

  “No, certainly not. I don’t understand it. She seldom went out in the evening unless someone else was driving, and she never walked anywhere after dark.”

  “You don’t go along with what the doc said about her getting confused?”

  “I’ve never known her to show any signs of confusion.” It really was inexplicable, but not for the reasons Bennett Campbell had advanced. “If my mother had started having rapid heartbeats when I wasn’t here, she’d have called 911 immediately, not changed her clothes and gone out of the house.”

  “It’s odd, that’s for sure.” Burkhalter mused for a moment. Or maybe he was trying to decide if he’d asked all the appropriate questions. “So what time did you say you left the restaurant?”

  “We didn’t,” Zach answered for her. “It must have been about eight-thirty or quarter to nine.” He looked at her for confirmation, and she nodded.

  “And you got back here about...?” The chief paused, waiting for an answer.

  “It was almost eleven.” She had to expend some effort to keep her voice even. “I was surprised to see the television still on, because my mother usually goes upstairs by ten or so.”

  “Wouldn’t take you that long to drive back from Williamsport,” Burkhalter observed.

  “We stopped on the way back to talk.” She couldn’t quell the heat that mounted to her cheeks.

  “Where was that?” Burkhalter’s gaze never left her face.

  “Up at the overlook along the highway.”

  Burkhalter didn’t comment, but he made what might have been a disapproving sound deep in his throat. “So you’r
e saying Randal here was with you the whole time from six-thirty to eleven, that right?”

  Her heart clutched, and the pulse in her throat hammered. “Yes. He was.” She put everything she had in the words, but she knew what the question meant.

  Burkhalter was thinking that if her mother had been killed, Zach might be the one person in Deer Run who had reason to want her dead.

  Zach couldn’t have done it. They had been together all evening. And he wouldn’t have, even if he could have. He hadn’t come back looking for revenge, and she wasn’t a seventeen-year-old to be cowed by a parent’s disapproval.

  But one thing was abundantly clear. Once again, she was bringing grief to someone she loved.

  * * *

  ZACH CROSSED THE STREET to Meredith’s house the next morning as early as he figured was reasonable. Not that he supposed Meredith would have actually gotten any sleep last night. Still, in a place like Deer Run, the proprieties had to be observed.

  The orange crime scene tape behind the house was only too familiar to him, but obscenely out of place here. His stomach clenched. He had to protect Meredith, and he wasn’t sure how that could be done.

  Well, one step at a time. He rapped quietly on the door, not wanting to set the doorbell jangling.

  Rachel opened the door and greeted him with a wan smile. “Zach. I thought it would be you.”

  He stepped inside. “How’s Meredith?” Belatedly he realized it would have been polite to have asked how Rachel was doing, but all his thoughts were centered on Meredith.

  “I’m all right.” Meredith answered from the stairs. She came the rest of the way down, her hand on the railing as if she didn’t quite trust herself. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but she seemed composed. “I keep telling Rachel she can go home, but she doesn’t listen.”

  Rachel smiled and shook her head. “My sister got Mandy off to school, and I don’t have any guests. Besides, you need someone to handle all the people who keep coming to the back door with casseroles.”

  “It’s kind of them.” Meredith pushed her hair back wearily. “But I’ll never eat all that food.”