“Fancy clothes? They’re from the Gap, for Chrissake.”
“We don’t have a Gap in Sohegan. Just the Army-Navy. Face it, you don’t belong here, not in most people’s eyes. And then you just happen to show up at the scene of a notorious murder? And then the little girl just happens to show up at your house?”
“I’m so glad I called.”
“Just telling it like it is, Gwen. You want to come over for dinner?”
“I’ll pass,” she said. “But thanks.”
She and Jimmy ate hamburgers that evening, watched the video, played go fish, then slapjack, then go fish again. By eight o’clock cabin fever had set in. She suggested ice cream cones. There was a place on Mill Hollow Road, about five miles north of town. No one would recognize her there, and the ice cream wasn’t half bad.
Visibility was poor that evening, the humidity having congealed into dense clouds of fog. The scenery turned rural just a mile from town, houses giving way to farms—dairy farms, most of them, the terrain too hilly for crops.
It wasn’t a charming landscape, lacking the picturesque clapboard farmhouses and rolling pastures of New England. The area had never been especially prosperous; every structure was built for utility and efficiency. The typical Sohegan house was two stories high, topped with a flat roof, had a long, sagging front porch, and needed a good scrape and paint job. There was usually a ramshackle garage out back, maybe a few rusted auto carcasses.
The small, fluorescent-lit ice cream parlor was attached to a Mobil station that shared a narrow lot with a large, run-down house set close to the road. Jimmy ran over to the ice cream freezer the moment they entered the store.
“Can I have sprinkles, Mom?” he asked as he surveyed the ice cream flavors on tiptoes.
“As many as you—” She froze in the doorway.
“As many as I want?”
Valerie Goodwin stood in front of the counter, watching a young girl scoop ice cream from large, round cartons inside the freezer. In her free hand the girl held two cones.
Figuring it was too late to retreat, Gwen walked over to Valerie and said hello.
Valerie looked up and smiled mechanically, as if she didn’t recognize her. She glanced away, then whipped back around.
“You’re…”
“Gwen Amiel. I look after Tess Lawrence.”
“Of course.” Valerie extended her hand. “I arrived yesterday. I had hoped to attend the funeral on Wednesday, but the bus schedule is so erratic. I don’t drive, you know.” She made this sound like a matter of principle, like not wearing fur.
“It was a small funeral,” Gwen said. “Just family, really.”
“I still can’t believe it, that she’s gone.” Valerie looked paler than Gwen remembered, and thinner, if possible. Still chic—absurdly so, given the setting. But even a stranger might have surmised from her sallow complexion and tired eyes that she’d had a difficult week.
“She was my closest friend, in some ways. Every time I look at that poor child…”
She seemed about to cry as the girl behind the counter handed her the two cones. “Two-fifty,” she said.
Valerie handed one cone to Gwen while she dug into her pocketbook for money. The other cone—for Nick?
“Did you know Priscilla for a long time?”
“Since she moved to New York, about ten years ago. We lived in the same building, off Third Avenue. I introduced her to Nick, in fact. We were inseparable.”
She handed three dollars to the girl. “Keep the change.”
The girl smiled rather inhospitably and turned to Gwen.
“Jimmy, why don’t you order,” she said.
“Chocolate chip with sprinkles,” he said without taking his eyes off the tubs of ice cream.
“Nothing for me,” Gwen said, though her mouth felt terribly dry.
“I wasn’t planning to come up just yet, but Nick seemed so desperate when I called.”
Desperate? Nick Lawrence?
“I thought he was coping pretty well.”
“Oh, Nick always seems to be coping. He can be so cool sometimes, on the outside. But he suffers terribly, do not doubt it for one minute.”
Gwen nodded, trying to look as if she agreed.
“Priscilla hated him when they first met; she thought he was a cold fish. I told her to give him a second chance, then a third. I knew he’d get through to her eventually.”
“How did you know Nick?”
“We’d been fixed up, on a blind date of all things.” She giggled and flicked her tongue to catch a drop of ice cream. “I knew right away he was not for me—a brooding genius was the last thing I needed. He was also flat broke, which didn’t help, let me tell you. But I simply knew he and Priss would be perfect. It wasn’t just her money, though that was a factor, I won’t deny it. She could handle him, weather his moods, give him the space he needed. You’ve met the father?”
“Russell? Yes.”
“Well, if you can handle that bastard, you can handle anyone.” She sighed and jerked back her lustrous red hair. Even now, looking vaguely neurasthenic, she was striking, almost theatrically beautiful. The girl behind the counter gaped at her as she scooped Jimmy’s ice cream. Her whole look screamed “out of town.”
One of the cones dripped onto Valerie’s hand. She squealed girlishly as she licked it off.
“I better get this to Nick,” she said. “Would you like to say hello?”
“No, I’ll see him on Monday.”
“I’m leaving early in the morning, so I won’t see you.” She pushed open the door with a bony shoulder. “Oh, there is one thing…” She leaned against the door, facing Gwen. “I understand the police found a flower in Priscilla’s hand, at the ravine.”
“A purple thistle.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know why she was holding it, would you? I mean, there of all places.”
Gwen shook her head. “You were so close to her…”
“True.” Valerie offered a nervous smile and let the door close behind her.
“Who was that, Mommy?” Jimmy’s hand and sleeve were covered with melted ice cream. The girl leaned across the counter to hear Gwen’s answer.
“A friend of Tess’s father,” Gwen said in a low voice. Priscilla’s friend, too, she thought, remembering the scene in the basement. She walked to the window in time to see the Range Rover backing out of its parking space. Nick was at the wheel, Valerie next to him. Behind them, strapped into her car seat, was Tess, asleep.
“One and a quarter,” the girl said.
Something Valerie just mentioned bothered her…
“One-twenty-five, please.”
“Oh, right.” She handed the girl two dollar-bills.
“Keep the change?” the girl said with a fair imitation of Valerie Goodwin’s throaty, moneyed voice. She handed three quarters to Gwen, who put one of them back on the counter.
“Come on, Jimmy, it’s late.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and they walked outside just as the Range Rover made a left onto Mill Hollow.
“Damn,” Gwen said as they drove home, suddenly realizing what had bothered her.
“Damn what?” Jimmy said.
“Oh, nothing, just the heat, I guess.”
The heat—and the fact that something Valerie said didn’t jive with what Nick had already told her. He said that he met Priscilla when she was a student of his. Valerie said she’d fixed them up. Neither Valerie nor Nick struck her as likely to forget that kind of detail. Both were so precise in their choice of words, so fastidious in their dress—a faulty memory just didn’t suit them, somehow. Which left only one conclusion.
One of them was lying.
Chapter 19
The Sohegan Gazette advertised an antiques auction on Sunday, about twenty miles south of town. Back when she’d had the store, Gwen had spent weekends crisscrossing the countryside to attend such auctions, where she’d buy furniture and bric-a-brac to replenish inventory, purchasing an occasional piece for her
own apartment. Since moving to Sohegan she’d lost the desire to acquire anything for herself. Living in a rented house with someone else’s furniture was unexpectedly satisfying; she could pick up and leave at a moment’s notice—at least that’s how it felt.
But Sunday promised to be a scorcher, and the prospect of a long drive in an air-conditioned car was suddenly quite appealing. She also figured Jimmy could use some time with a friend. He’d been pretty much a loner since coming to Sohegan, but he’d mentioned a kid named Andrew Hillman a few times, which was definitely progress. She suggested a play date with Andrew, and Jimmy hadn’t objected. More progress.
The Hillmans lived in a new subdivision a mile north of town. Every tree in the densely wooded area had been chopped down to make way for the houses. The result was a gloomy, barren landscape of split-levels in mixed media—bricks, barn siding, stucco—that looked as if they’d been dropped from the sky onto a lunar landscape of small, treeless brown lawns.
Martha Hillman met her at the door, a thirtyish woman with short, no-nonsense brown hair and small, dubious eyes. Andrew joined her a moment later: tall, painfully thin, with pale skin and a blond buzz cut. He peered at them from behind his mother’s legs. Jimmy, too, was hiding behind his mother, only he was clutching a handful of Gwen’s skirt.
“Andrew, why don’t you show Jimmy your room,” Martha Hillman said. He nodded solemnly and shambled down a hallway.
“Go on, Jimmy,” Gwen said. “I bet he has some cool toys.” He shook his head. “I’ll be back soon.” She gently nudged him into the house. As he shuffled after Andrew her heart broke a little. He’d been such an independent boy, more outgoing than most, a bit of a leader, in fact. It had taken a lot to kill that, and it would take a lot to get it back. Shy, geeky Andrew Hillman was the first step.
“We’ll take good care of Jimmy,” Martha Hillman said with a sour smile. Gwen chose not to read anything into the woman’s vaguely accusatory tone. “Take your time coming back for him.”
The forty-five-minute drive to the auction was unexpectedly relaxing; no prying questions, no condemning stares. Occasionally she’d think of Valerie Goodwin and wonder why her story about how Nick had met Priscilla differed so dramatically from Nick’s. But by the time she reached the auction such thoughts had all but vanished. The car was cool, Jimmy finally had a friend, and she had two hundred dollars in her pocket, squirreled away from her all-cash salary.
The auction was in the auditorium of a high school in Denby, New York. She didn’t recognize anyone, but the crowd was familiar enough. The sellers were generally locals, dressed unpretentiously in jeans and T-shirts. The buyers were city folk, more fashionably attired, pulling out drawers to inspect the craftsmanship, upending china, searching for signatures on dusky oil paintings, pausing only to check off items in the xeroxed catalog. But the two groups shared a hungry, distrustful look, each eager to make a killing off the other.
She arrived in time to peruse the auction items in the school gymnasium. She saw quite a few things that she might have wanted for the store, but not much that interested her personally. She browsed through aisles of cupboards and tables and assorted bric-a-brac that only a year ago might have set her heart racing; strange to feel nothing but detached appreciation now, and perhaps a hint of sadness for a life already so remote. Acquiring things was a habit she’d lost, apparently.
Still, it was oddly fascinating to confront her former life in this way, to realize just how much she’d changed. Glancing around the crowded gymnasium, she felt neither nostalgic nor relieved, only mildly astonished that her life had once revolved around situations like this.
She sat halfway back in the auditorium, which quickly filled up. The sale items were hauled onto the small stage by a team of burly movers, and the bidding was professionally conducted by an elderly woman with the requisite knack for fast talk and gentle cajoling. The auction went fast, since most of the buyers were dealers from New York or Boston or Albany who knew the value of each lot, quickly bid up to that level, then stopped. The prices were fair—which meant they could safely be doubled at retail in Manhattan.
The one bit of excitement came about an hour into the auction, when a complete, mint-condition, nineteenth-century pine bedroom set, each piece beautifully decorated with hand-painted flowers and fruit, was bid up to forty-three thousand dollars. As soon as the gavel came down on the sale a family of overalled dairy farmers—a husband and wife and three young children—got up and headed for the door, huge grins on their faces. Gwen couldn’t help smiling herself: how could they have known that grandma’s old bedroom suite would fetch that kind of money?
Even she wasn’t immune to the buying fever, for she found herself bidding on the next lot, a nineteenth-century pitcher and basin, white with a delicate ring of violets painted around the lip of both pieces. Bidding began at fifty dollars, she jumped in at seventy, and within moments she’d bought the lot for one hundred and eighty dollars.
Pure insanity, of course. The set was beautiful, and easily worth twice what she’d paid for it. But it would make an irresistible target for the tennis balls Jimmy liked to throw around inside the house. And what the hell was she doing, spending almost two hundred dollars on pottery? She should be building a nest egg, not blowing her few leftover dollars on accessories.
Ah, but the high of competing for something and winning! She’d missed that, after all. She went to claim her lot at the cashier’s table and felt the tiniest twinge of regret as she handed over two hundred-dollar bills. But when the pitcher and bowl were brought to her the regret sputtered out. Her eye never failed her; the set was simply beautiful, worth every penny and then some.
She carried her purchase to her car, cradling both pieces like treasure, and decided she’d place the set in the front hallway, where she’d see it most often.
Dwight Hawkins waited until Gwen Amiel left the auditorium before approaching the cashier. He’d never been to one of these things, had never known they existed. He spent much of the auction cataloging in his mind the old furniture he and Elaine had back at the house, wondering if there was anything worth the small fortune these city folk seemed willing to pay.
He found himself fantasizing about selling the whole damn house, contents and all, and taking off for parts unknown. Hell, he was due to retire in five years. Neither of them had seen any of the world outside this small corner of New York State. They’d sell the house, drive down to JFK airport, get on the first plane out of there. The Southwest might be nice, where the USA Today weather map always showed bright orange—warm and dry.
He waited on the cashier’s line, picturing him and Elaine on a jet crossing the country, sailing west like gods over isobars and occluded fronts and high-pressure systems, chasing the weather to its source. He’d never been on a plane—that in itself would be something.
“Lot number?” the cashier asked him.
“Excuse me?”
“What is your lot number?”
“Oh, I didn’t buy anything. I…” He took out his wallet and showed his badge. “Dwight Hawkins, Sohegan Police Department. That woman you helped a few minutes ago, the one who bought the commode set?”
“Yes…” The cashier narrowed her eyes. “Is there something the matter?”
“I was wondering how much she paid for it, that’s all. Or we could check the credit card receipt.”
“Oh, no, detective, she paid cash. Which is pretty unusual around here.” She pointed to a stack of processed credit card slips. “Pretty soon we’ll just auction the cash drawer with the rest of the stuff.”
“She paid cash? I don’t suppose they happened to be hundreds she gave you.”
“Two of ’em,” the cashier said.
“Hundred-dollar bills,” he said softly. If only Russell Cunningham had worked with the FBI from the start, the missing five million would be traceable by serial number. Those two bills in that strongbox could well wrap up the case.
“Anything else?” the cashier
said. “I have other customers waiting.”
He thanked her and headed out to his car, wondering whether to alert the FBI about Gwen Amiel’s new purchase. A hundred and eighty dollars seemed like a lot of money for a baby-sitter to be spending on antiques. He felt a momentary shot of self-confidence: following her had been a smart move; he’d have to keep it up, see if she made a habit of splurging with hundred-dollar bills.
Hawkins got in his Buick and headed back to Sohegan. Yes, he’d call the FBI; they seemed to appreciate new information, no matter how trivial. Every other lead had gotten them nowhere. No sign of the money, let alone the kidnapper. Browning .22s were as common as Timex watches—millions were registered to private owners. Now, if they found the actual gun used to kill Priscilla, they could compare the barrel markings to the two shells found at the ravine.
The FBI had looked into every nook and cranny of every life even casually associated with Penaquoit. Don Reeves had personally visited Nick Lawrence’s father in a nursing home near Scranton, his only living relative. What he thought he’d get out of that he didn’t say, but he’d gotten zip. Nick and his father hadn’t talked in years.
Gwen Amiel’s story checked out—the furniture store, the sudden flight from Manhattan earlier that spring. But her husband was nowhere to be found. Reeves thought that was significant, and so did Hawkins. People didn’t just disappear, and when they did they left a trail. Not Barry Amiel, though. He’d just vanished.
What else did they have? Size-ten prints of a Nike walking shoe leading from the west side of the ravine to a set of tire tracks almost three hundred yards away—Michelin radials, only moderately worn, a midsize car carrying an average load. If they found a suspect car they could compare the tread to the tire prints—good as fingerprints, almost. If.
Fingerprints? Every single print taken from Penaquoit had checked out against the mansion’s occupants. No unexplained hair or fiber evidence, either.
Disillusions Page 14
