Winter's Child

by Margaret Maron

  “Anybody else see her there?”

  “When I spoke to the director the first time, he said he hadn’t seen her since the weekend before,” Dwight said.

  “I didn’t exactly lean on him, though.”

  “And when we were there the second time,” said Radcliff, “we were more concerned with the guns.”

  They described Mayhew’s discovery of the missing antique guns, as well as the bloody history of the presentation pistol that had killed Jonna.

  Lewes lifted his sorrowful bloodhound eyes to Radcliff.

  “Who knew about that?”

  “We’re not sure. Mayhew thought Mrs. Bryant might not know, but Nathan Benton—he’s chair of the trustees—says someone in the Historical Society told him. On the other hand, Mrs. Ramos says she never heard it before today.”

  Lewes started to ask another question but Clark had 13 moved on to a different subject. “How did you feel about your ex-wife’s affair?”

  “What affair?” asked Dwight.

  “The one she wrote about in that suicide note.”

  “There was no affair and she didn’t kill herself.”

  “You don’t think it’s her handwriting?”

  “Oh, it’s her handwriting, but this whole phony suicide was staged by whoever shot her.”

  “Phony?” said Clark.

  “You guys are joking, right?”

  “Why would we joke?” asked Lewes.

  “You saw the setup. No blood spatter where you’d expect it? Besides, if there’s one thing I know about Jonna, it’s that she’d never kill herself over any man and she certainly wouldn’t do it without making sure Cal was taken care of.”

  “Maybe she did make sure. Maybe that’s who took your son,” said Clark. “She knew you’d remarried, right?

  Could be she resented it. Or did you resent the idea of your boy having a new stepfather?”

  His shiny black eyes reminded Dwight even more of that poodle he had once known.

  Known and, as he now remembered, hadn’t particularly liked.

  He felt his jaws tighten.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Why don’t y’all go talk to people who know what her life was like up here? If she really was having an affair with a married man, somebody will know. Shaysville’s not that big.”

  “He wants us to explore other routes,” Lewes told his partner.

  “Map out a different expedition,” Clark agreed with a slight smirk on his poodle face.

  “Jesus H!” said Dwight, slapping his hand down so hard on the desk that Clark had to grab for the tape recorder to keep it from bouncing off. “My son’s missing, his mother’s dead, and you’re playing games with me?”

  “Sorry,” said Clark, “but hey, you did ask, and yeah, we’ve heard all the jokes.”

  “Fine,” said Dwight. “Glad I could give you some more laughs.” He stood up angrily and reached for his jacket.

  Lewes put out a placating hand. “Just a minute, Major.

  Chief Radcliff tells us you’re staying at Mrs. Bryant’s house. We’re going to want to take a look.”

  “When?” he asked, still frosted.

  “Now works for me.”

  “It’s been contaminated since Jonna disappeared,”

  Dwight warned him grudgingly. “I slept there last night and someone came back for Cal’s sweater.”

  “Huh?”

  This was clearly something Radcliff had not told them, so Dwight gave a quick recap.

  “Anything missing besides the sweater?”

  “Maybe something from the medicine cabinet. And that reminds me.” He pulled out the bottle of antihistamine tablets that had been prescribed for Jonna late last summer and turned to Radcliff. “This Dr. Brookfield.

  Where can I find him?”

  “How about you let us handle that?” said Clark and held out his hand for the bottle. “And how ’bout you re-13 member that you’re a couple of hundred miles out of your jurisdiction?”

  “Oh, I don’t think we need to get too official,” said Nick Lewes, playing the ameliorating good guy as he, too, stood and put on his jacket. “We’re all on the same team here. I’ll go on out to the house with him and maybe you could see what’s happening with the wagon.

  Oh, and Chief. Didn’t you say your people lifted the abductor’s fingerprints at the house yesterday? Maybe Ed could take what you have back for our lab to process.”

  “Sure,” Radcliff said sourly.

  Rain mixed with snow continued to fall as they left the station. Special Agent Lewes borrowed one of Radcliff’s squad cars and followed Dwight’s truck over to Jonna’s house. They stood on the porch out of the icy wet and Dwight pointed to the stone that had hid the now missing key. “When Cal and I came back yesterday, whoever was in the house could have watched from behind the blinds as Cal got it and then put it back.”

  He unlocked the door and held it open for the other officer. “We didn’t search the house when we came in, so she could have been hiding anywhere downstairs here.”

  He went on through the house to the utility room and let Bandit out of his crate. The little dog barked sharply when he first saw Lewes, but then wagged his tail and approached for a friendly pat.

  As Dwight opened the outer door to turn Bandit into the snow-covered yard, he glanced across the two driveways and saw Jonna’s neighbor, Leonard Carlton, at the window.

  “Any news?” the old man called.

  “Nothing,” Dwight called back. “You?”

  “Sorry.”

  “That the guy saw your son leave?” asked Lewes.

  Dwight nodded. Before he could close the door, Bandit scooted back through his legs. Between the wet and the chill, he had finished his business in record time.

  “And the dog didn’t bark last night?”

  “Not that I heard. He sleeps at the foot of Cal’s bed and that room’s at the top of the stairs. If he came down when he heard the key, I’m pretty sure I’d’ve heard him bark.”

  “Yeah, he’s got a shrill voice,” Lewes agreed. “And it’s not like you weren’t on edge about your son. I’m guessing you’d’ve rared up if they’d made any noise.”

  “I slept through the door closing,” Dwight said bitterly.

  They walked up the carpeted stairs and Lewes swung the door back and forth on its hinges with the tip of a gloved finger. It moved easily with no giveaway squeaks.

  “You touch that knob this morning?”

  “Not on this side, I didn’t.”

  “Good. I’ll have it checked out.”

  “I was careful about opening the medicine cabinet, too,” said Dwight.

  “They took a chance coming up here. Must’ve been something they really wanted. Only how would they know? Your son on any special medication?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. And I think Jonna would’ve said.”

  “What about her?”

  Dwight shook his head. “Maybe her mother would know.”

  “Why don’t you ask her? And we’ll check out her doctor.”

  Dwight heard the subtext of what Lewes was saying, and whether or not this was more good-cop tactics to soften him up, he was nevertheless grateful.

  “Thanks.”

  The other man shrugged. “Hell, I figure you’re gonna keep digging no matter what we say. I know I would. But you gotta share anything you find, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  Lewes looked at the football posters on Cal’s wall. He touched the small trophy on the bookcase and half-smiled at the old brown plush teddy bear squashed into the bottom shelf of Cal’s bookcase. “My kid’s ten,” he said.

  C H A P T E R

  15

  Good heed must be taken to the local conditions of the region in which one is placed.

  —Theophrastus

  Saturday afternoon, 22 January

  With only a generic description of the woman who had taken Cal—Caucasian, five-six, slender build, wearing
a blue quilted parka with black fur trim, and without even a car color much less a make to go on—the Amber Alert had produced no fruitful sightings. There had been one call from a supermarket in Shaysville itself, but when an officer checked it out, he knew both the boy and his mother. Four more calls came from a large shopping mall off the interstate that served the whole valley, and the responding officers sighted a surprising number of blue fur-trimmed parkas.

  The women wearing them ranged from skinny teenagers to hefty matrons and the parkas covered the full spec-trum of blue, from pale aqua to dark navy. Two even had small boys in tow, and they were at first indignant at being stopped and asked to prove that the boys were their sons; but their indignation quickly melted into 14 compassion for the missing child when the officers explained.

  “Oh, that poor woman,” said the first mother, putting a protective arm around her son’s shoulder.

  The second, who moments earlier had scolded her son for losing his gloves and then spilling catsup on his jacket, decided abruptly that maybe she would get him that action figure he wanted after all.

  After leaving Nick Lewes to go through Jonna’s papers while he waited for the evidence truck, Dwight was grimly amused to find no parking spaces near Mrs. Shay’s house. It was still small-town South here. Only three hours ago, he had told his former mother-in-law that Jonna was dead, yet word seemed to have spread through her circle so quickly that he suspected a highly efficient telephone tree. As he slid his truck into an empty space on the next block, more friends and neighbors hurried up her walk, umbrellas slanted against the slushy rain, bearing food and words of comfort. Like the U.S. Postal Service used to be, he thought—neither snow nor rain, nor heat of day nor gloom of night would deter them. Even though Jonna’s body was by now headed away from Shaysville for a complete autopsy, a local funeral home had already arranged for a spray of white carnations for the front door, and a register stood in the foyer for callers.

  Inside the house, a cone of silence followed behind him as people realized who he was; and when he asked to speak to Mrs. Shay, it was her cousin Eleanor who came down to escort him up to the bedroom where Mrs. Shay lay weeping on a blue velvet chaise longue, attended by three or four of her most intimate friends. On the hearth nearby, gas logs burned in a cast-iron grate. No doubt it was meant to be cheerful, but it made the room feel op-pressively warm to someone who had just come in out of the cold and wet, and the different floral scents worn by some of the women contributed to the hothouse effect.

  Yet Mrs. Shay had a fleecy shawl wrapped around her shoulders as if she was chilled to the bone.

  “Oh, Dwight!” she moaned. “What’s happening?

  Have they found Cal?”

  “No, ma’am, not yet. The police here have put out an Amber Alert and they’re questioning the neighbors again.” Mrs. Shay’s bedroom was one of those ultra-feminine rooms full of spindly furniture and breakable knickknacks that always made him feel like the Durham Bull in a tea shop and he tried not to bump anything as he crossed the thick white rug. “I was wondering if I could speak to you privately for a few minutes?”

  Chirping and twittering, the elderly, well-mannered women immediately began to leave, but Mrs. Shay put her feet on the floor and sat up to reach for her cousin’s hand. “Whatever you have to say may be said in front of Eleanor.”

  Eleanor Prentice tried to disengage her clasping fingers, but Mrs. Shay was insistent. “Please, Eleanor, I can’t do this alone. You know my heart can’t take much more of this.”

  “It’s okay with me,” Dwight told her. Today was the second time he had met this cousin, and he was impressed by her calm demeanor and soothing air.

  “Of course, I’ll stay if you want me,” she said, and 14 brought Dwight the sturdiest chair in the room. He sat down gingerly and she joined her cousin on the chaise.

  Quietly, Dwight told them how someone had entered Jonna’s house during the night. Mrs. Shay murmured and exclaimed, and Dwight was struck anew by how little he had actually known of this woman before today.

  She had flown out to Germany for their wedding, the only member of Jonna’s family to come, but there had been no time then to get to know each other. When he and Jonna returned stateside, Jonna had always come back to Shaysville alone and Mrs. Shay had visited them in Arlington only once, an overnight stay necessitated by a relative’s funeral. Indeed, this weekend was the first time they had met since the divorce, and except for Cal, there was no real shared mutuality. At times, in exasperation, Jonna had called her a spoiled hypochondriac, but that had not stopped her from hurrying home whenever Mrs. Shay called. He thought of Jonna’s financial records and the monthly bank draft from Mrs. Shay’s bank. Quid pro quo?

  Trying to get information from her was like trying to hold smoke in his hands, yet when he said that the intruder had taken Cal’s sweater, she looked at him with sudden hope in her eyes. “But that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, it shows that Cal’s being tended to, doesn’t it?

  Warm clothes? You don’t steal a sweater if you’re going to hurt— Going to— Oh, surely he’s still alive?” Her voice broke and she couldn’t continue.

  “Something was also taken from the medicine cabinet.

  Was Cal on any medication?”

  “Not now. He had a real bad cough last week and the doctor prescribed a cough syrup, but it made him so sleepy that Jonna got scared and stopped it after a couple of days.”

  “What about Jonna?”

  “Only for her allergies.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “Certainly not!” Mrs. Shay said. “What are you implying, Dwight?”

  He heard something defensive in her tone and his curiosity was pricked.

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on. Cal’s dog didn’t bark, so it was probably someone familiar with the house, who knew where Jonna kept medication, because those were the only two things taken. Can you think of anyone it could have been?”

  “None of Jonna’s friends would do such a thing,”

  protested Mrs. Shay. “Sneak around in the dead of night?

  Rummage through her medicine cabinet?” A sudden thought struck her. “Oh, Dwight! Could it have been Jonna?”

  “We won’t know for several hours, but we’re pretty sure she died sometime before then.”

  Yet even as he said it, Dwight found himself wondering if there were any chance in hell that it had been Jonna after all. That was the simplest explanation. Who else could be able to walk in and out of the house without alarming Bandit or crashing into furniture? Who else would have gone straight to the medicine cabinet? Had he been mistaken about the thickness of the ice around the Honda’s doors and windows?

  “We’re also trying to locate some of her friends. Maybe you could tell us who she was close to? For instance, there 14 was a message on her machine from someone named Lou with a son named Jason?”

  “Lou Cannady,” said Mrs. Shay. “And Jill Edwards.

  They’ve been friends since kindergarten.”

  He didn’t press for addresses. Surely one of them was bound to be in Jonna’s address book, and as Deborah had reminded him, one friend would probably lead to others.

  As he stood to go, he asked again, “Are you sure you don’t know of any medications Jonna was on?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “One more thing. There was a message on Jonna’s answering machine from you, too, Mrs. Shay. You asked if Jonna was still mad at you about something. What was that about?”

  “I—I don’t remember,” she said, but her blue-violet eyes, so like Jonna’s, fell before his steady gaze and she started to cry again.

  Awkwardly, Dwight promised to keep her informed. As he turned to leave the room, Mrs. Prentice opened the door and the faithful intimates who had waited there in the hall streamed back in.

  “I’ll just see him out, Laura,” said Mrs. Prentice, but when they reached the landing she touched his sleeve.

&nb
sp; “Major Bryant—Dwight?” She looked up into his face and whatever she saw there decided her. “You do know that there have been periods when Jonna took tranquiliz-ers, don’t you?”

  “Tranquilizers? When?”

  “Since adolescence, I think.”

  “What?”

  “You really didn’t know?”

  With a worried frown, she opened a door down the hall and ushered him into an empty guestroom. It was chilly and appeared not to have been used in some time.

  Although there were fragile ornaments here as well, they were fewer and a window seat offered a sturdy place for him to sit. There was a heating vent on one wall but Mrs.

  Prentice did not open it. Instead she drew her wool cardigan more tightly around her and pulled a chair close to him so that she could speak in confidential tones.

  “Laura doesn’t like to talk about it, not even with me.

  She thinks it’s something shameful. Jonna’s depression was never as severe as Pam’s, though, and—”

  “Wait a minute,” said Dwight. “Her sister has depression, too?”

  “With psychotic episodes. You really didn’t know?”

  “We never met. I mean, Jonna used to talk about her crazy sister, but I thought that was just an expression.”

  The older woman clicked her tongue in gentle exasperation. “Jonna was as bad as Laura. Pam is fine as long as she takes her meds. Frankly, I never thought Jonna really did have depression, but you can’t blame Laura for worrying. First Stacey and then—” She paused. “If you didn’t know about this, perhaps you don’t know about Stacey?”

  “Eustace Shay? Jonna’s dad?”

  Mrs. Prentice nodded.

  “Jonna told me it was an accident, but from what I’ve heard today, it was suicide, wasn’t it?”

  “Again, this is nothing that Laura ever wants to talk about. Officially it was an accident. The story was that the gun was old and unstable and that it went off while he was packing up his office. In truth, that gun was a family 14 heirloom and it was Laura’s pride and joy. She kept it in their library at home until that last day when he took it to the office.”

  She sighed. “Stacey was a sweet man, but with no head for business. He should have sold the company the day after he inherited it, but he was too prideful. He couldn’t admit that he didn’t have his father’s business sense and it wore on him. Looking back now, I would guess that this is where the girls inherited their tendency to depression.”