Past Malice

by Dana Cameron

  Most of them were short on cash, all of them had a reason to want Aden quiet or dead. All of them potentially had access to guns, I thought suddenly, reminded of the hunting photo in Aden’s office. And I still had no idea whether Justin’s death was a part of this as well.

  It was about the time that I was talking about what properties the Chandlers owned in Stone Harbor, what percent of town actually owed them money, the financial stuff, that a thought dislodged itself for my consideration. What if Aden hadn’t been marched into the wooded area at gunpoint? What if he had been going somewhere intentionally and the killer had followed him? There wasn’t much there, just the old Mather House, the vacant lot, and then, a ways down, the Voeller factory.

  I stumbled a little in my talk, lost my place, and then riffed a little on the slide of an account book until I could catch my place and reconstruct my train of thought. I finished up by offering my tentative theories about the garden wall and the Chandlers’ failure to rebuild that wing of the house after it had burned.

  “My next goal is to start going through other diaries and town documents to learn what I can about the fire of seventeen thirty-eight and whether it might have anything to do with the destruction here at the Chandler House and Nicholas Chandler’s death. With a few more specifics—things I never dreamed I’d have to know about when I began this project—”

  There were a few appreciative laughs here.

  “—I hope I’ll be able to piece together this puzzle and add another chapter to Chandler family history. For the moment, if you’re interested in possibilities, I’m wondering about this: What if Nicholas died when the wing was destroyed? Is it possible that Matthew and Margaret Chandler, not wishing to let the death of one of their family members”—that was a sop to Bray—“go unobserved, rebuilt to the back, with the addition you are now seated in, and put in a permanent memorial to Nicholas, in the form of a garden? Remembering how useful a garden was to colonists, containing plants for food, medicine, beauty, and pleasure, and how meaningful the natural and the built landscape was to them, is it so hard to imagine that they also planted rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thought? I think it’s possible.

  “But of course, that can all be answered only with more work and more study. Thank you very much and enjoy the reunion.”

  I answered the questions that followed as well as I could. I might have been a little brusque, eager to chase down my thoughts, but people were already filing down the stairs and outside to get back to drinking in preparation for the fireworks that were about to start. I wrapped up to enthusiastic applause, and went to find Fee. I had to ask her about the Mather House and trusted that the crowd would keep her from responding violently to my sensitive questions.

  Unfortunately, Daniel, Perry, Ted, and Bray were all clustered around her, finalizing their plans for the end of the event, so I had to just brave it out. I came up with as good a ruse as I could, and plunged in. None of them left after they’d finished, and I had made it clear I wanted to talk to Fee.

  “Say, Fee? I had a question for you.”

  She eyed me maliciously. “Go ahead.”

  “I haven’t had time to do the deed research on the Mather House, well, not carefully anyway. The past five or six years, it passed through a lot of hands, but it’s now in the hands of the Stone Harbor Investment Properties, and that seems to be something you know something about. That might be another good place for me to do research and I figured I should check with you about who to approach about working there.”

  The others frowned; it was an odd thing to ask at such a party. Fee took a deep breath and took me by the elbow a few steps away from the rest.

  “Why do you keep doing this?” she asked desperately. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want anything from you, Fee. I just want to know what the deal is with the Mather House, because I think Aden might have been heading there when he was killed.”

  She looked around; the others were quite obviously paying attention and the uniformed cop was within sight. Her lips tightened, but then relaxed. “I might as well tell you; it’s going to come out anyway, sooner or later. Aden gave me the money to buy it. To keep it in my name, although it really belonged to him. That’s why we set up the company.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He said taxes, but you could never trust Aden about anything. I went along with it….”

  “Because he threatened to tell…about Grace unless you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Taxes? Aden wouldn’t have to worry about taxes and if he did, he’d have about seventeen tax attorneys to help him out. He wanted a blind for some reason, but why?

  A secret place to store his files.

  Fee continued. “I don’t know what will happen now, who it will go to, now that he’s…gone. But the will would have led people to find out about my involvement. So there’s no harm in telling you. I just don’t know what I’m going to tell the authorities when they come to me.”

  “None of it will have anything to do with Grace, though,” I said. “There’s no reason to bring that up.”

  She didn’t look much relieved by this. “You’re right. Now if you don’t mind….”

  I thanked Fee and went back to find Bucky and Brian.

  Bray, Daniel, Ted, and Perry had circulated back into the crowd, getting people settled in for the fireworks and handing out more glasses of punch. The crowd was starting to become loudly jocular as the night grew quickly darker.

  I found my sister standing near the back of the gathering, trying to get a little breath of air. She’d already finished her second glass of punch, had started a third, and was holding another one in her other hand. Her eyes were bright and she was getting into the spirit of the party.

  “Emma, you did so good!” she announced, throwing her arms around me. “Your talk was just great!”

  “Thanks,” I said, surprised by her enthusiastic response. “I’m glad you liked it. Brian around? I’ve got to find—”

  “He’s in the can,” she announced. “I was saving this punch for you. The spices are a little overdone, but it’s not bad.”

  I took it absently. “Thanks. You know, I just found out something very interesting. You know the Mather House? Aden owned it. Why wouldn’t he have told me? I asked him about it and he kept putting me off. Jesus, I wonder if he had the rest of the files over there. It would be a big enough space, with no one to bother them. No one even knew it was his, really.”

  “Wow! You should mention that to Bader. Wouldn’t it be great if you hit on something?”

  “Yeah, it would be nice, but I mostly just want this behind me.”

  Bucky gestured to my glass. “You going to drink that?”

  “Here.” I handed it to her. “I’m going to find a Coke or something, I’m dying of thirst.”

  “Don’t be long, the fireworks are about to start.”

  I had only gone about ten feet when I ran into Bray.

  “Thanks for flouting your half-baked theories all over the place,” he growled. “You never stop, do you?”

  God, but I was sick of him. “You know, I can’t help but think that you are overlooking a couple of rather obvious things here.”

  “And what is that, Dr. Fielding?” Bray’s untidy beard bristled, making it too easy to imagine a tall pointed red felt hat on him. For all he and his wife seemed to be anxious about appearances, they might have worried about his dress a little more. And that was saying a lot, coming from me, a poster child for the fashion impaired.

  “Two things. The first is that, even if Nicholas Chandler had not been a Chandler by birth—and I believe he was, though not through Matthew—he arrived in this country very early and was a part of a prominent family. Surely that counts for something?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “The more important fact is that of your first name.”

  “Bray?”

  “Bradley. The Bradleys were also one of
the first families in the town, who arrived even earlier than the Chandlers. Nicholas, whoever else he might have been, was good enough for them to marry one of their daughters. So you should remember that you are descended from them as well.” And if pedigree counts, as it seemed to for Bradley, then that fact was even more significant.

  He nodded slowly. “Perhaps.” This was a little less depressed than the last “perhaps,” though, and I began to believe that I had shown Bray a way out of at least one of his problems. Keeping it in his pants and being unhappily married weren’t things that I or anyone else could help with. He wandered off without another word, which suited me just fine.

  The first volley of fireworks went off, scaring the hell out of me. I needed to find the ladies’ room too, but a drink and a rest first. I didn’t make it too much farther, when I heard my sister’s voice.

  “Emma! Emma, come here! Please!”

  I turned back, and saw that Bucky was clutching her head. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, something’s wrong. I feel sick.”

  “Sick like you’re going to throw up, or sick like something else? Do you need your inhaler?”

  “No, it’s not that…I don’t think so. I feel dizzy and my stomach…ohh, man, can we just go home? I feel really ill.”

  “Okay, no problem. It’s probably just dehydration or something. Maybe you just drank the punch too fast.”

  She was sweating and looked greenish on the dully lit lawn. “No, it doesn’t feel like…just get me to the car. Please?”

  No time to look for Brian now, I decided. I’d get Bucky settled into the car and then collect him. “Okay, here we go.”

  I looked down at her and was really worried now. Bucky was stumbling as often as she took a step. We were almost to the parking lot when she collapsed.

  I tried to pick her up. “Jesus, Bucky! What’s wrong? Get up, can you? Can you get up for me, and I’ll get you into the car?”

  Despite my pleading, she just sat there on the gravel, drooling a little, and the little hairs on my arms and neck stood right up. I looked at her face and her eyes were funny, the pupils too small for the minimal amount of light outside. My stomach contracted; she was badly ill. As soon as I could get her to the car, we were going to hightail it for the emergency room.

  “It’s not…I can’t…Emma, what’s wrong…?”

  “I don’t know, Bucky—”

  She slumped forward.

  “Oh, God! Bucky…Carrie? Wake up, hon, okay? You’ve got to wake up for me. You’ve got to do that now!” I shook her hard and got a moan out of her. I shook her harder and saw her eyelids flutter.

  “Don’t do this! Wake up!” I screamed. “Wake up, Bucky! I’m going to get help, just wake up!”

  She moaned and I felt her hand tighten on my arm. “The drink.”

  “What?”

  “Something…” Her head rolled and I couldn’t hear what she said. I thought I would shake her head off, before she opened her eyes again.

  “What did you say?”

  “Bitter.” She fell over and I couldn’t wake her up. I rolled her over onto her side, just in case she should get sick, and realized that I needed help; I couldn’t carry her to the car myself….

  The phone! I grabbed my bag and found the cell phone. We were just close enough to one of the lights in the parking lot that I could actually read the buttons. I punched the on key and waited for what seemed like an eternity before the screen registered. I almost screamed when I read the screen.

  No signal.

  I flung the thing away from me and ran back to the crowd to find Brian. I found Officer Lovell instead, thanking providence for that. I had to shout to make myself heard, but he got the idea that something was wrong immediately, and followed me as I all but dragged him toward the parking lot. He used his radio in a second, then started to go through the CPR protocol.

  “What happened to her?” he asked as he worked.

  “I don’t know! She said it was the drink.”

  “What did she have?”

  “Two or three glasses of the punch! That shouldn’t be enough to do this! Look, I don’t know if this is important, but she’s got asthma.”

  “Okay. What’s her name?”

  “It’s Bucky!”

  “Bucky! Who gave you the drink, do you know?”

  She didn’t answer this time. Not even to cough.

  Lovell kept going through the motions. “Okay, an ambulance is on the way.”

  I was feeling sick with dread. “I’m going to get my husband.”

  He was sweating as he worked. “Make it quick.”

  I ran back, but couldn’t find Brian in the crowd. It was one of the most terrible experiences in my life. Try and remember when you were a kid and got separated from your mother in a crowd, then multiply that panic times a thousand, and you’ll get the idea. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. I couldn’t see very well in the dark, the crowd’s faces only occasionally lit up by the glare of the fireworks. I couldn’t even hear myself calling for Brian over the noise; some joker had brought a sound system with the “1812 Overture” and was blasting it away. Faces glowed red and green and blue and none of them were Brian’s.

  I found Fee and Daniel and shouted to them. “Have you seen Brian?”

  “Who?”

  “My husband! Have you seen him? My sister’s really sick and I—”

  They exchanged a worried glance. “Perry just left too,” Fee yelled over the noise of the happy crowd. “Said she didn’t feel well. I hope it wasn’t the smoked salmon—”

  “No, she said it was her arm,” Daniel shouted. “Going home to take a painkiller—”

  A painkiller? Oh sweet Jesus! I stared at them in horror and grabbed Daniel’s arm. “Tell Brian she’s in the parking lot! Tell Officer Lovell, I think Perry put painkillers in Bucky’s drink. She’s gone to—”

  Another volley of mortar fire exploded around us. Daniel nodded, but I wasn’t certain he’d heard all of what I said. Fee just looked confused, but I couldn’t waste any more time. I began to shove my way through the crowd, going as fast as I could get bodies out of my way, until I reached the edge. I stumbled, but regained my footing on the fly, pounding as far as I could toward the tree line, the sound of simulated cannon blasts and clanging church bells filling my ears.

  I was practically running blind; it was only the last bursts of the finale that gave me enough light to find my way through the woods, once I got past the familiar track to the second set of excavation units. I could feel the branches cracking beneath my feet, could feel brambles and undergrowth tearing at my clothes, but I kept charging right through. I only paused when I could see the ambient light of the town a little more clearly: I was coming to the edge of the wooded area.

  I slowed down to a quiet creep now; I could see a light bobbing ahead of me, moving deliberately toward the Mather House. With any luck, whoever it was—and by now I assumed it was Perry looking for the last of Aden’s files—hadn’t heard me over the noise of the fireworks display. I could just barely make out a female form by the door to the house; the flashlight was now on the ground by the door, and I could hear the clink of keys as she tried them in the lock.

  I tried to think of what to do—should I call out to her? Should I go back and tell Lovell? There was no time. I crept closer and closer and realized that this was not a time for finesse or patience or calculation; like Brian had said, sometimes the trick was knowing when to use brute force.

  There was also no time to worry about whether she had a gun.

  I ran the last couple of yards, and as she turned, I lowered my shoulder and slammed her into the door. That was a mistake, because I didn’t hit her quite right, and I felt something in my shoulder pop. I also felt the door buckle underneath us, and for a split second worried that it would collapse, but it held.

  Perry was quick; she stomped her heel into my foot and drove her elbow into my ribs, throwing me off balance. I was too cl
ose to her and didn’t fall back. My foot hurt like blazes though, and it only made me madder. I grabbed her left arm, the one with the cast, and shoved it as hard as I could against the door. Perry screamed and brought her right hand, bristling with a fistful of keys, around. She missed my shoulder, but I could feel something sharp tear across under my chin.

  This time I did step back. She dropped the keys and reached into her bag. I didn’t wait to see what she would pull out. I grabbed her shirt at the shoulders with both hands and pulled as hard as I could, setting my foot against hers to act as a fulcrum. There was a ripping noise. Perry fell forward. She sprawled out onto the leaf-strewn walkway, the beam from the flashlight spilled on the ground, glancing off her disheveled shirt and hair. Her hands were still underneath her, however, and I couldn’t see her bag. I could, however, smell lighter fluid.

  She rolled over even as I darted toward her. I snatched the bag away from her and she struggled. I sat down on her chest, my knees pinning her shoulders. She struggled still and threw me off her as my hands closed around the grip of a pistol. I pulled it free from the bag as Perry rolled away. I got to my knees, and Perry scrambled to hers, just as I checked that the safety was off and aimed it at her. I stood up slowly, unable to control my trembling.