“L.C.’s been very upset about it, dear. She never did think that Raleigh did it.”
“Is that what Will Barnes thinks? If he does, let him come and ask the questions.”
“He already asked me,” Herb Strickland said and seemed to slouch deeper in his chair.
“Then let’s not go on about it.”
“It’s important to me, Toby,” L.C. said.
“I think it’s a terrible mess that we should all forget as soon as possible. I, for one, can’t wait until the house is sold and a new family moves in. And why are you so interested? You and the Bridgers were never that close.”
“We weren’t actually, but at one point in my life Raleigh did me a great service, and in other ways I feel a certain responsibility for what happened to him.”
“You can’t expect to assuage your guilt by chasing butterflies. Leave it up to Will Barnes and the authorities.”
“It’s simple enough for me to answer her questions.”
“Then you and L.C. talk over your sordid little details. I’m going to get ready to go out for dinner,” Toby said as she left the room.
“What did you tell him, Herb?”
“Nothing, because that’s what I saw and heard that night. It was snowing, there was a heavy wind. Even if Mauve had screamed, I wouldn’t have heard it.”
“I see. I suppose it doesn’t make much sense, but I thought that if I started from the beginning it might turn up a clue, a lead, even the smallest shred of evidence.”
Herb finished his drink. “Like Toby said, it’s not our affair. Why don’t you come out to dinner with us?”
“No, thank you,” she, said absently. “I suppose the police still have the house sealed.”
“I believe they do.”
“Are you coming?” Toby called from the hall.
The walks and drive of the Bridger house had been plowed, and she walked to the back door and peered through the window. Nothing could be seen in the dark interior.
L.C. took a deep breath, hoped that Will truly did love her, and broke a pane of the door window with her elbow. She reached through the jagged glass and turned the handle.
The power was still on, and she walked through the house flipping switches in the hope that light might alleviate some of the tomb-like chill that pervaded the house.
She stood in the archway to the living room, looked at the brown stain in the center of the rug and then turned away. She walked through the house trying to recreate possible events on the day of the murder.
If a lover arrived in the afternoon or early evening, they might have trysted in the bedroom. She would have replaced the linen and obliterated any other evidence of his presence, then prepared dinner, gone ice skating, and … and what?
Or had there been no lover that day? She might have returned from ice skating, and been attacked, raped, and killed.
Will had said her clothes were in the dryer, and yet the skates were found near the body. She flipped on the cellar light and went down the stairs, through the recreation room and into the laundry room. She opened and shut the dryer door thoughtfully. It had also bothered Will that a fastidious woman like Mauve returned to the house, removed her clothing, stuffed them in the dryer, and then returned, nude, to the upstairs.
It couldn’t have happened that way. If a robe, a dressing gown, or some clothing had been found near the body … but they weren’t. It didn’t fit. And in that lack of fit there might be a clue.
She walked slowly back upstairs to the kitchen and stopped by the back door. It would all make sense if the killer removed the skates and clothing. If that were the case, she might have been attacked outside and dragged inside.
L.C. looked down at the bright kitchen linoleum, and then knelt near the door leading to the hall and felt along the surface of the flooring. With her finger tips she felt the slight indentations cut into the wax. The skates had cut into the linoleum and left minute marks in the surface. Mauve had been dragged through the kitchen into the living room, and then her clothing, for some reason, had been removed and stuffed into the dryer.
She looked through the door window to see across the estuary to the river and the twinkling lights in the distance. She flipped a switch near the door that illuminated the patio and turned on a light mounted on the dock.
The dock light—used in the summer when the Bridgers and Wadsworth Strickland had their boats moored nearby, and in the winter for Mauve to ice skate.
L.C. opened the back door and stepped onto the patio. The summer furniture had been removed and snow had drifted several feet deep around a low retaining wall. The snow was nearly to the top of her boots as she walked from the patio down toward the water.
She shivered as if the ghosts of the dead couple walked with her. Near the water was a snow-covered bench. On the day of the murder it might have been where Mauve paused to lace her skates. Continuing past the bench she walked out on the ice for twenty yards and stopped to turn and face the house.
Footprints crossed and recrossed the yards. The teams of police officers that had searched the area had marked the snow so that it was impossible to tell which route Mauve might have taken that day.
The dock was closer to the Bridger house and very possibly with the oncoming storm and heavy wind, little if any sound would have reached Herb Strickland. She walked another twenty yards over the snow covered ice and then stopped for fear of going too far and reaching an area where the ice would be thin.
She walked toward shore trying to create an image of Mauve skating toward the dock. The snow would have just begun, she would be cold, and would skate quickly back toward the bench or dock ladder.
Wind off the water turned cold, and she began to hurry. Her hand had just reached for the dock ladder when the ice beneath her feet gave away.
Her body slid into the water. She felt her boots sink into the bottom silt as her body gave a spasm from the shock of the near freezing water.
Her arms flailed out as she fought for the surface. Her fingers brushed against a cross beam support as her left foot caught and canted her body sideways.
A shaft of light from the overhead flood gave a surrealistic quality to the water beneath the pier as her eyes opened.
Her foot was caught in the tattered remains of a man’s jacket. Her hand had brushed along the flesh of the corpse tied with heavy wire to the underpinnings of the dock.
A large burst of air escaped from her mouth and she heard a dim yell that must have been hers, and then water rushed into her throat.
She clawed at the ladder rungs and heaved herself from the water. Her breath came in choking gasps as she pulled herself to the deck and fell to her knees to retch in the snow. With a low moan she rose to her feet and began to run away from the water and the thing she had just seen.
Her progress was erratic as she swerved across the snow, fell once to her hands and knees, and then was up and running again. She reached a door and pounded on the wood frame with her fists until she felt an ache in her fingers. Of course, the Stricklands had left … the phone … she began to run again toward the open door of the Bridger house.
She stumbled into the kitchen, fell again, and with a crying sob reached for the kitchen extension phone. There wasn’t any dial tone.
The phone had been disconnected.
She ran through the house, careened off a wall in the hall and fumbled with the front door. Leaving it open behind her, she scrabbled at the door of the car, threw herself inside and locked the doors. She inserted the key in the ignition flooded the engine, and tried again.
The car backed quickly out of the drive, went into a skid and swerved in a semicricle across the road and the engine died again. She groped with the ignition, started the car, and plowed into a snowbank. The rear wheels made a frantic whirring sound as they lost traction.
Someone was moaning and she knew it was herself.
Stop! Think! Keep this up and the car will be hopelessly mired in the snow. Shove it into first, then quic
kly into reverse … that did it. It skipped out of the snow bank. She threw the gears into forward and sped from the horror she had witnessed.
“I bet you had a great meal,” Katherine said as she hid her TV dinner chicken leg under a napkin and picked at the peas.
“A club sandwich. L.C. had to leave.”
“You ought to marry her,” Chris mumbled through a mouthful of chicken as he surreptitiously flipped Remley’s drum stick from under the napkin onto his own tray.
“Tell her that.”
“I will,” the boy said in a barely understandable tone.
The pounding on the front door startled them. Will eased himself from the kitchen table with a frown. “I wish they’d call headquarters like they’re supposed to when they have a problem. I’m coming,” he called and went to the door.
L.C.’s hands were clenching the small railing on the front stoop as he stared into her stricken face.
“What in God’s name is wrong?”
“… by the dock … underneath … tied to a support.”
He put his arms around her and led her into the house. “We’ll get you something dry.”
L.C. stood near the bench by the dock as the police scuba diver adjusted the straps of his tanks and spit into his face mask. Will hunched over the dock and peered into the water. “I can’t see anything down there, but it’s supposed to be underneath about right here.”
“Right,” the diver said as he made final adjustments to his equipment and stepped off the pier.
Will stood motionless for a few minutes watching the trail of bubbles, and then slapped his arms toward off the biting cold. “Way I see it,” he said to the other three officers standing by the edge of the dock, “A drain empties warmer water into the cover near the dock and keeps the ice from freezing thick.”
“Makes sense.”
They stood quietly for a few more minutes before Will went over to where L.C. huddled on the bench. “What could you make out?”
“Not much, really. Only that it was a man, tied with what looked like wire to a beam.”
“The face?”
She grimaced. “I think it had been down there a long time. I couldn’t tell.”
He sat next to her and put his arms over her shoulders. “It must have been a terrible experience for you?”
Excitement replaced her drained feelings. “It all fits, Will. Mauve was skating, came to the dock as I did, fell in and saw what I saw. Someone had to kill her because of what she had seen. Which explains why her clothes were in the dryer—to hide the fact that she’d been in the water.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
The diver broke surface, reached for the ladder and clambered to the pier. Will jogged over to him as the diver removed his face mask. “Well?”
“The tide’s come in.”
“For Christ’s sake, I know that. What about the body?”
“Like I said, Chief, the tide’s coming in, wouldn’t or couldn’t float away in this amount of time.”
“So?”
“Like I’m saying. There’s nothing down there. The usual junk, bottles and crap like that, but no body. No body at all.”
Chapter Ten
The next morning Will Barnes sat sullenly in the kitchen at the table in his small ranch house and contemplated a protracted life of continence. He finished a third cup of coffee and tried to avoid thinking about last night’s events at the dock.
As the scuba diver had lumbered off to change in the relative Warmth of the van, the other police officers had looked at Will questioningly, then turned, almost in unison, to stare at L.C. on the nearby bench.
They had gathered their equipment without further orders and backed their cruisers away from the Bridger house.
L.C. had walked to the edge of the dock. “It was there,” she had said, in a low voice.
He had led her to the car where she sat silently in the corner during the drive back to his house. Katherine seemed to sense the anguish in the adult woman, and had led L.C. to her bedroom where she fell into a deep sleep.
He considered himself a pragmatic person who evolved his life through logical structure. He ran the department with sound fiscal policy, tried to be fair to the men, and still provide maximum police services to the people of Lantern City. He often thought he was too practical. The mental picture of his dead wife had turned to a dreamy shadow without form, substance or clarity. As his wife faded, so had his feelings for L.C. increased.
The phone rang. It was Pat Pasquale in Hartford. “We picked up Stanley Peckham last night.”
“Who’d he beat up this time?”
“We’ve got him on more than assault this time. He gave a ride to a teenage hitch-hiker, beat her and started to rape her when we grabbed him. If we hadn’t had him under surveillance he might have killed the kid.”
“It was only a matter of time until you caught him,” Will said as he twirled the dregs in his coffee cup.
“There’s more to it than that, Will. Half an hour ago we made a deal with him and he admitted two more rapes.” There was a pause on the phone. “One took place the night of the killing in Lantern City.”
“He could be fishing for an alibi. A rape charge is still better than murder.”
“We don’t think so. He knew details that were never released to the newspapers, and we’re getting I.D.s from the victims on him.”
“Which is why he couldn’t reasonably explain his actions for the night.”
“Right. But we’ve nailed him now. Thanks for putting us on to the creep.”
“Think nothing of it, Pat,” Will said as he hung up.
The bedroom door opened and L.C., wearing one of Katherine’s shortie nightgowns, came out of the room rubbing her eyes. “I thought I heard the phone. What time is it?”
“Oh, my God,” Will said as he watched her come down the hall and swish the empty coffee pot.
“Do I look that bad?”
“Christ, no! You really shouldn’t do this to me, you know.”
She turned to him ingenuously. “Do what?”
“Forget it. I’ll make more coffee. That was Pat on the phone. Your friend, Stanley, was picked up on another charge and admits to a rape attack the night of the murder.”
“Are they positive?”
“Absolutely, or so Pat says.”
She sat at the table and pulled the short nightgown down as far as it would go. “Well, now that we know that there was another body out at the Bridgers’, I’m not surprised.”
Will didn’t answer and poured far too much coffee into the perculator. He ladled coffee back in the can and adjusted the flame on the burner.
“It’s got to be Hal Warren,” L.C. continued.
“The killer or the body under the pier?” Will asked as he grimaced behind her back.
“Under the pier. Dore knew he was back in town and seeing Mauve Bridger. That explains the sex Mauve had that day. She bided her time, killed Hal and tied him under the pier and then killed Mauve.”
“Where did she hide a sixty-five foot boat, or is that with the body?”
“The boat? I don’t know. Hey, what time is it?”
“It’s after eight.”
“And you’re still home?”
“Two reasons. I didn’t want to leave you alone, and the Bridger funeral is at 9:30. I thought we’d go together.”
“Yes, that’s right. You know, someone must have been watching me as I went through the Bridger house and then out on the ice. Can Dore Warren see over there from her house, say with a pair of binoculars?”
The coffee began to perk. Will turned the flame down and stood watching it a moment before turning to face L.C. “There wasn’t any body,” he said softly. “You’re upset, you fell through the ice and saw something—something that looked strange, but was probably a large fish or a tire. At that point your imagination ran away with you.”
“You’ve been taking psychology courses at the university again.”
“That was last year.”
“No, Will. I am not a neurotic woman who’s in a quandary about going to bed with her fiance. I did see a man killed under my apartment window, and I did see a body under the pier.”
He slammed his fist on the table and rattled the cups. “Then damn it! Where the hell is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He leaned across the table and tried to avoid looking at her breasts, clearly outlined through the sheer nightgown. “Please, listen to me. As far as I know, in the past several weeks we’ve had two missing persons in the area. A drunk named Louis who took off down South, and a fourteen year old teeny bopper that we tracked down yesterday in Boston. No one else is gone, L.C. Who the hell is down there?”
“I’m not sure, but it could have been Hal Warren.”
“And his boat?”
“I can’t explain that.”
“Can you find something of Katherine’s to wear? We have a funeral to attend.”
Uniformed chauffeurs were dusting slush off the hearse, flower car and lead limousine in front of the Lantern City Congregational Church. Will parked at the end of the entourage and walked with L.C. toward the church. A small knot of mourners had gathered at the entrance to the church. As they approached, Herb and Toby Strickland separated themselves from the group and walked toward them.
Herb’s scowl deepened. “Chief Barnes, what was all that fuss in our back yard last night?”
“Still searching for evidence, Mr. Strickland.”
“I thought it was all over?”
“So did I,” Will said, “but we have to be careful. It won’t happen again.” Will moved away from the group to talk to a police sergeant who had beckoned to him.
“Something you turned up, L.C.?” Toby asked.
“Something I thought I turned up,” she replied. “It turned out to be nothing.”
“It’s very disconcerting to come home after dinner and find a backyard full of tramping policemen.”
The sound of the organ prelude reached those standing outside, and they began to move somberly into the sanctuary. Will rejoined L.C. and took her arm as they went inside immediately behind the Stricklands.
The Killing Edge Page 12
