From Port to Rigor Morte

by J. C. Eaton

  “I need to speak with Deputy Hickman,” I said. “I’m Norrie Ellington from Two Witches Winery and this is Theo Buchman from the Grey Egret winery. We may have information about the missing boys—Eli Speltmore and Stuart Landrow.” Geez, I hope it’s Landrow. I never asked.

  “I’m sorry. You just missed him. He’s on his way to the Speltmore residence but I can take down the information. I’ll need your full name, address, email, and phone numbers. I’ll also need to note how you are acquainted with the boys.”

  She took out a notepad and pen (haven’t these people caught up with technology yet?), leaned against the doorframe and looked directly at me. The yellowish porch light subdued the features on her oval face but I guessed her to be in her early fifties.

  My explanation was clear and succinct, and while I spoke I could hear Laura crying. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her seated at the kitchen table with an older male deputy.

  “Eli and Stuart may have put themselves in jeopardy by overhearing a conversation at the house diagonal from the Dresden Hotel,” I said. I then went on to reiterate what the boys told me and the events leading up to it. When I was finally confident I had provided sufficient background and information, I took a long breath. That’s when the deputy replied with the party line—“We’ll take this under advisement.”

  “Is it possible for me to speak with Mrs. Landrow for a minute?”

  The deputy shook her head. “Only relatives.”

  “Okay, then let me ask you something. Were the boys’ bikes found? As I explained, I had an earlier conversation with Eli’s mother and she was fairly certain they biked up the road to my winery, but that wasn’t the case. So, it kind of begs the question, or, um, questions. Are the boys still on their bikes or were the bikes ditched somewhere?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Ellington. Right now, this is a missing child case. Well, children. Our office is not at liberty to disclose any part of the investigation. Thank you for taking the time to share your information.”

  “Fine. Please make sure it gets passed on to Deputy Hickman.”

  “Understood.”

  With that, the deputy stepped inside the house and closed the door behind her. I wouldn’t exactly say it was closed in my face, but close enough.

  “That went well,” Theo said. “You were up-front and honest. Now it’s up to them to make good on the info.”

  “All they’re going to do is canvass the neighborhood. I’ll swing around by the elementary school and marina for a look before we head home.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll call Delia, try to reassure her that the boys will be found, and then scrutinize those photos we took from those freezer files.”

  “We can do that together at our house. Don’s up late. He’s reading a new C. J. Box novel. Besides, he bought a double chocolate cheesecake from the nuns at New Skete and it got delivered today.”

  “Say no more. Chocolate is always a decent remedy for frustration.”

  I walked back to the car, started the engine, and drove toward the lake. A sheriff’s car pulled past us in the opposite direction as we approached the marina. Theo stretched out his arms, barely missing my head. “I doubt we’ll spot anything they didn’t. And the elementary school couldn’t have been any darker or creepier if it tried.”

  “Yeah. At least no one heard me shouting for Eli and Stuart.”

  He gave my arm a squeeze and I knew it was time to get out of Dresden and console myself with a slice of double chocolate cheesecake before calling Delia.

  “Think they’ll issue an Amber alert?” I asked.

  “Nope. Those are only issued when it’s a clear case of abduction. But they could post missing children information on the internet and the radio.”

  “It’s a start. Darn it. I was so convinced they were being held in that house.”

  “You may be right about them being held, but it’s the where that matters. Not enough credible evidence for Deputy Hickman to track down Barbara and get a search warrant. And heck, you don’t know the name of that guy with the Coors beer.”

  “But I can describe him. It’s better than nothing. For the first time since I got here, I really wish Deputy Hickman would call me or pay me a visit at home or at Two Witches.”

  “It might come to that. You never know.”

  Chapter 32

  It was a toss-up between a fog and a funk when I got home from Don and Theo’s house. And if it wasn’t for the phone call I made to Bradley as soon as I got in the door, I would have remained in that horrible state for hours. “You’re not law enforcement, Norrie. Missing kids means pulling in the big guns. Trust me on this. They’ll have the state police involved with all of their resources. And speaking of which, Marvin has his nose in everything. If I so much as hear even the teeniest of news, I’ll call you. Can we meet for dinner Wednesday? It feels like ages since we downed a pizza together.”

  “For sure. Miss you, too.”

  Unfortunately, my earlier phone chat with Delia, while I was with Don and Theo, clouded my mood as I recalled every detail. Unlike me, with a heavy slice of chocolate cheesecake in my stomach, Delia told me she wasn’t even able to keep down water and crackers. That’s how frantic she was about her son. I told her Theo and I had perused Dresden’s streets as well as the school and marina. I also told her I spoke with one of the deputies at Laura Landrow’s house but I didn’t share the details.

  According to Delia, Henry arrived home unaware of his son’s disappearance and was now in their study with two Yates County sheriff’s deputies. I didn’t ask which ones. With a promise to talk tomorrow, we said good night.

  “You’ve done all you can,” Don had said when I got off the phone with her. He and Theo had been inches away listening to my every syllable. “Except for that file information you and Theo photo’d. It may explain what Eli and Stuart overheard and whether Barbara and those men had a reason to abduct them.”

  Theo had immediately jumped up and sent his photos to their desktop, directing me to email mine to him as well. Then he’d turned on the computer and ran off copies. One for Don and him and one for me. What we saw astonished and confounded us.

  Barbara wasn’t simply Brewer’s secretary. She appeared to be a savvy businesswoman in her own right who may have used her secretarial position to shift any suspicions away from her. It still didn’t come close to explaining Boyd’s role as the trusty witness on the financial agreements.

  “This is going to take a lot of digging,” I’d said, “but it looks like she recently financed a new seasonal worker business with someone named Kelsey Arnet. Good grief. This has to be the same business Henry touted in that email he sent to the wine trail. I should have looked closer. Think he was paid off or blackmailed about something?”

  Don shook his head. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other, but I’m too wiped out right now to give anything serious thought. I say we look at this tomorrow. Either you call us or we’ll call you after work.”

  And that was why my mind was foggy and dense. At least automatic pilot worked as far as feeding the dog, letting him out, and trudging upstairs to go to bed. I was at a standstill as far as everything else was concerned, but that changed the minute I opened my dresser to grab a clean nightshirt and glanced at the scarab bracelet I had tucked in there for lack of a better place.

  I didn’t need to wait for Zenora. Thanks to Bradley’s police officer friend in Kingston, I had a pretty solid idea of whose wrist that thing fell off of—Sally Lynn Confree, elementary school teacher and owner of the white SUV. Maybe she was the missing link. I mean, why else would she and her cohort have exited those woods?

  If nothing else, I had to reach closure on the one piece of information I knew to be correct. When I turned off the lights and shoved Charlie to the foot of the bed, I had already finalized a plan of action. It was simple, really. Find out what time Dundee’s elementary school dismissed its students, locate Sally’s car in their faculty parking lot, and wait fo
r her. It wasn’t exactly stalking but it came narrowly close. At least my intentions were on the up-and-up.

  • • •

  The news of Eli and Stuart’s disappearance followed the farm report and everyone in the tasting room charged over to me when I arrived the next morning. It was a few minutes before we opened for business and I thought I’d be the first to let them know. So much for not having faith in our media. I was caught in a barrage of questions that seemed endless.

  “Did you turn on the news?”

  “Do you know about the Speltmore kid?”

  “Do you think it was an abduction?”

  “Did the sheriff’s office call you?”

  With the exception of Sam, who had classes that day, everyone, including Fred and Emma, who rushed over from the bistro when they saw me come in, hammered me until I finally threw my hands in the air and said, “Slow down. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  That, lamentably, led to more questions, but there wasn’t time. We opened in less than ten minutes and had to get moving. “I’ll fill you in when I can,” I said. As the crew ambled off to their tasting room tables, Glenda pulled me aside. She brushed her holographic hair away from her face, revealing a silver dragon earring with two red stones for eyes. Then she held out her cell phone. “Zenora just sent me this text. See for yourself.”

  I looked at the message and tried to keep a straight face. It said, Tell Norrie there’s an interruption in the energy waves. Something dark on the horizon. Warn her. Truth be known, I’d seen sci-fi and horror movies with worse lines but this was definitely a contender.

  “Um, I take it Zenora’s not too confident that the bracelet’s owner will show up.”

  “Forget the bracelet. That’s the least of your troubles. Zenora’s never wrong about these things. I hope it doesn’t have to do with those missing boys.”

  “Me, too.”

  The morning crawled by and I had to fight off the desire to chew my fingernails. Something I hadn’t done since eighth grade. Yep, I was edgy and nervous. And that was before Deputy Hickman made his entrance. True, I was expecting him to show up, considering I was the one who had that telling conversation with the deputy at Laura Landrow’s house, but I didn’t expect him to be so accommodating. I would have rather seen his grouchier side.

  Our conversation couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes and I told him everything the boys had told me. I even mentioned the conversation on the dock with reference to the Coors guy/fisherman who may have overheard us. However, I kept mum about the freezer discovery and the bracelet. At least for the time being.

  When two fifteen rolled around, I took off for Dundee, a small village pretty much equidistant from Keuka and Seneca lakes. Only Cammy knew what I was up to and cautioned me as well. At least she didn’t mention energy waves. “Whatever you do, don’t get in that teacher’s car. I’ve seen episodes of FBI Most Wanted where normal people turn into psychopaths in a split second.”

  Terrific. One more thing to think about.

  The school was roughly a forty-minute drive from Two Witches, give or take lake traffic on Route 14A. The scarab bracelet was tucked in my jeans pocket and it wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.

  Earlier in the day I had pulled up the Dundee Central School website and checked the dismissal time—two thirty-five. I knew teachers never bolted out of the building. That was reserved for the students, who had at least six hours of pent-up energy. Therefore, my arrival at two fifty-three gave me plenty of time.

  The elementary school was part of a larger two-story central school structure in drab beige that encompassed the primary, middle, and high school. It looked like every other central New York school I’d seen. Its parking lot was longer than most professional football fields and I groaned when I realized it would take me at least six or seven minutes to eyeball each and every car until I found the white SUV. Good thing Godfrey had jotted down the license plate on his mileage pad a week ago.

  After circling around for what seemed like ages, I spotted the car. It was parked in a middle row adjacent to a silver Kia Optima. Fortunately, the space next to the SUV was empty and I pulled in. Talk about catching a lucky break. I unsnapped my seat belt, leaned back, and waited for Sally Lynn to approach.

  Thirty-five minutes had passed and still nothing. Please don’t tell me she’s directing a play or something and will be at a rehearsal until dinnertime. Or worse yet, coaching a middle school or high school sport. Darn it! I should have paid more attention to the extracurricular activities on the website.

  It didn’t matter. Good parking spaces were a rarity and I had no place else to go. I watched as other faculty members got into their cars and took off. Wonderful. The one person I need to see will be the last one out of the building, preceded only by the principal or some unlucky guidance counselor.

  Finally Sally Lynn approached her car and tapped on the fob to open the driver’s-side door. Shoulder-length dark hair in a flip and the same physique as the woman Godfrey and I spotted leaving the woods. I didn’t waste any time. I was out of my car in a nanosecond and skirted to the front of hers. She tossed a large tote bag on the driver’s-side seat and held on to the doorframe.

  “Sorry to startle you,” I said. “Are you Sally Lynn Confree?”

  She nodded. “Do you have a brother or sister in my class?”

  I have a sister but she’s chasing mosquitos and cockroaches in godforsaken places . . .

  “No, I’m Norrie Ellington and I co-own Two Witches Winery on Seneca Lake. It’s really important that I speak with you.”

  “I’ve passed your winery but I never had a chance to stop in. What’s this about?” She closed the car door and leaned against it.

  I couldn’t very well blurt out “two murders and a possible kidnapping,” so I took a breath and looked directly at her. “Two sixth-grade boys from Penn Yan are missing and they may know something about a recent murder, putting them in danger. I’m a friend. They discovered a body in the wooded area across from Lake View Winery on Seneca Lake and my friend and I saw you leaving that crime scene days later. It begged the question as to what you were doing there.”

  Sally Lynn gasped. “My God! Do you intend to call the sheriff’s office?”

  Chapter 33

  The rosy color in her cheeks turned white and I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Should I?”

  “You have to believe me; I had nothing to do with that man’s death. I heard it on the news like everyone else. I would never have gone back there except for the fact I lost something valuable and sentimental. It was a bracelet and my boyfriend thought it might have come undone when we were geocaching there a few days before those woods became a crime scene. Our work schedules prevented us from getting back there sooner.”

  “Geocaching?”

  “An adult version of hide and seek for objects using a GPS. My gosh! That was you in the woods. Along with a short man who had wispy blond hair. We thought you were the killers. You were in front of us but we figured you’d turn around and well, you know . . . My boyfriend started to take out his phone to call for help but you had already gotten out of there.”

  His phone and not a gun. Geez.

  “We thought you were the murderers,” I said. “That’s why we followed your car. To get the license plate.”

  “It must have really confounded you because we had my brother drop us off and then take us back to my car afterward. We didn’t want to leave a car on Route 14. We needed a pull-off.”

  Everything Sally Lynn said jived with the events that day. On the one hand, I was happy to have found the bracelet’s owner, but on the other, I was bummed to cross off a viable suspect. “Um, about that bracelet . . . can you describe it?”

  “Sure. It was a gold scarab bracelet that belonged to my grandmother. Three blue lapis scarabs and three pink rose quartz scarabs. One of the blue scarabs had a whitish line running through it. It’s calcite. Pretty common in lapis.”

  I reached into my pocket, look a
close look at the bracelet and then handed it to her.

  Sally Lynn’s hand shook as she took it. “You found it! I can’t believe it. I never imagined I’d ever see it again. Can I give you a reward? Pay you? Anything?”

  “No, it’s your bracelet. It’s a long story but my friend and I were hoping to find evidence for that murder. We uncovered your bracelet and a bungie cord.”

  “I don’t know about the bungie cord. It wasn’t something we lost. Tell me, how are those missing boys involved?”

  I gave her the rundown on Eli and Stuart and she listened intently. Then she furrowed her brow. “I can see why you’re so concerned, especially if they overheard a killer’s confession or something close to it, but it may not be that at all. Were the boys into any role-playing games?”

  “Like Dungeons and Dragons?”

  “That’s an oldie, but yeah, same idea. I teach sixth grade so I’m pretty familiar with what my kids are up to. More like Lightseekers and Minion Masters. Sometimes those kids go beyond the video and card games to recreate their own imaginary worlds and go traipsing all over the place oblivious to the time of day. A few years ago, three kids from Ithaca took off and wandered around the Buttermilk Falls area for two days. They weren’t exactly lost, more like on a quest. Maybe that’s what happened to your guys.”

  “Lightseekers. I remember the name. Eli’s got a nitro hammer for an action figure from that game. But he also has a cell phone. Same with his friend. They would have called.”

  “Not if he was in an area without service or if they dropped their phones to play the game. You said they had bikes, didn’t you? Those games are combat- and battle-themed. That means the boys would have been looking for a spot where they might not have been easily seen. Away from their neighborhood. And it was getting dark, right?”

  In that split second my mind fused Sally Lynn’s words with what I already knew. A theory emerged in my head and I couldn’t wait around another second.