Moonlight Becomes You

  Everything was six bells, identical to the others she had found.

  The packing slip was still inside the box: “12 Victorian bells, cast to the order of Mr. Earl Bateman,” it read.

  Twelve—and now only six.

  I’ll take shots of them and the packing slip, and then I can get out of here, Maggie thought. Suddenly she was almost desperate to be safely away from this place, outside with her proof that Earl Bateman was certainly a liar, possibly even a murderer.

  She wasn’t sure what first made her realize that she was no longer alone.

  Had she actually heard the faint sound of the door opening, or was it the narrow beam of light from another flashlight that had alerted her?

  She spun around as he raised the flashlight, heard him speaking as it crashed down on her head.

  And then there was nothing but impressions of voices and movement, and finally dreamless oblivion, until she awoke to the terrible silent darkness of the grave.

  72

  NEIL ARRIVED AT MAGGIE’S HOUSE WELL AFTER NINE o’clock, much later than he had wished. Intensely disappointed to see that her station wagon wasn’t in the driveway, he had a moment of hope when he noticed that one of the bright studio lights was on.

  Maybe her car was being serviced, he told himself. But when there was no answer to his insistent ringing of the doorbell, he went back to his car to wait. At midnight he finally gave up and drove to his parents’ house in Portsmouth.

  Neil found his mother in the kitchen, making hot cocoa. “For some reason I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  Neil knew that she had expected him to arrive hours earlier, and he felt guilty for worrying her. “I should have called,” he said. “But then why didn’t you try me on the car phone?”

  Dolores Stephens smiled. “Because no thirty-seven-year-old man wants his mother checking up on him just because he’s late. It occurred to me that you probably had stopped at Maggie’s, so I really wasn’t that worried.”

  Neil shook his head glumly. “I did stop at Maggie’s. She wasn’t home. I waited around till now.”

  Dolores Stephens studied her son. “Did you eat any dinner?” she asked gently.

  “No, but don’t bother.”

  Ignoring him, she got up and opened the refrigerator. “She may have had a date,” she said, her tone thoughtful.

  “She was in her own car. It’s Monday night,” Neil said, then paused. “Mom, I’m worried about her. I’m going to phone every half hour until I know she’s home.”

  Despite protesting that he really wasn’t hungry, he ate the thick club sandwich his mother made for him. At one o’clock, he tried Maggie’s number.

  His mother sat with him as he tried again at one-thirty, then at two, at two-thirty, and again at three.

  At three-thirty his father joined them. “What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes heavy with sleep. When he was told, he snapped, “For goodness sake, call the police and ask if any accidents have been reported.”

  The officer who answered assured Neil that it had been a quiet night. “No accidents, sir.”

  “Give him Maggie’s description. Tell him what kind of car she drives. Leave your name and this phone number,” Robert Stephens said. “Dolores, you’ve been up all this time. You get some sleep. I’ll stay with Neil.”

  “Well—” she began.

  “There may be a perfectly simple explanation,” her husband said gently. When his wife was out of earshot, he said, “Your mother is very fond of Maggie.” He looked at his son. “I know that you haven’t been seeing Maggie for all that long a time, but why does she seem indifferent to you, sometimes even downright chilly? Why is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Neil confessed. “She’s always held back, and I guess I have too, but I’m positive there’s something special going on between us.” He shook his head. “I’ve gone over and over it in my mind. It certainly isn’t just that I didn’t call her in time to get her number before she came up here. Maggie isn’t that trivial. But I thought about it a lot driving up, and I’ve come up with one thing that I can maybe pin it on.”

  He told his father about the time he saw Maggie weeping in the theater during a film. “I didn’t think I should intrude,” he said. “At the time I thought I should just give her space. But now I wonder if maybe she knew I was there and perhaps resented the fact I didn’t at least say something. What would you have done?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’d have done,” his father said immediately. “If I’d seen your mother in that situation, I’d have been right beside her, and I’d have put my arm around her. Maybe I wouldn’t have said anything, but I’d have let her know I was there.”

  He looked at Neil severely. “I’d have done that whether or not I was in love with her. On the other hand, if I was trying to deny to myself that I loved her, or if I was afraid of getting involved, then maybe I’d have run away. There’s a famous biblical incident about washing the hands.”

  “Come on, Dad,” Neil muttered.

  “And if I were Maggie, and I had sensed you were there, and maybe had even wanted to be able to turn to you, I’d have written you off if you walked out on me,” Robert Stephens concluded.

  The telephone rang. Neil beat his father to grabbing the receiver.

  It was a police officer. “Sir, we found the vehicle you described parked on Marley Road. It’s an isolated area, and there are no houses nearby, so we don’t have any witnesses as to when it was left there, or by whom, whether it was Ms. Holloway or another person.”

  Tuesday, October 8th

  73

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK ON TUESDAY MORNING, MALCOLM NORTON walked downstairs from his bedroom and looked into the kitchen. Janice was already there, seated at the table, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

  She made the unprecedented offer to pour him a cup, then asked, “Toast?”

  He hesitated, then said, “Why not?” and sat opposite her.

  “You’re leaving pretty early, aren’t you?” she asked. He could see she was nervous. No doubt she knew he was up to something.

  “You must have had a late dinner last night,” she continued, as she placed the steaming cup in front of him.

  “Ummmm,” he responded, enjoying her unease. He had known she was awake when he came in at midnight.

  He took a few sips of the coffee, then pushed his chair back. “On second thought, I’ll skip the toast. Good-bye, Janice.”

  * * *

  When he reached the office, Malcolm Norton sat for a few minutes at Barbara’s desk. He wished he could write a few lines to her, something to remind her of what she had meant to him, but it would be unfair. He didn’t want to drag her name into this.

  He went into his own office and looked again at the copies he had made of the papers he had found in Janice’s briefcase, as well as the copy of her bank statement.

  He could pretty much figure what she must have been up to. He had guessed it the other night when he saw that crooked nephew of hers hand her an envelope in the restaurant he had followed her to. Seeing her financial records only confirmed what he had suspected.

  She was giving Doug Hansen privileged financial information about applicants to Latham Manor so that he could try to cheat rich old women. Maybe “attempt to defraud” charges wouldn’t stick against her, but they certainly wouldn’t help her in this town. And, of course, she would lose her job.

  Good, he thought.

  Hansen was the one who made a higher offer to Maggie Holloway. He was sure of it. And Janice had tipped him off about the upcoming change in the law. They probably planned to raise the ante until Holloway sold.

  If only Maggie Holloway hadn’t come on the scene and spoiled it all, he thought bitterly. Knowing he could make a killing on the house, he would have found a way to keep Barbara.

  Make a killing. He smiled grimly. That was rich!

  Of course, none of that mattered anymore. He would never buy the house. He would never have Barbara in his life. He really
had no more life. It was over now. But at least he had gotten even. They would know that he wasn’t the empty suit Janice had sneered at for years.

  He moved the manila envelope addressed to Chief Brower to the far corner of the desk. He didn’t want it to get stained.

  He reached for the pistol he kept in the deep bottom drawer. He took it out and held it for a moment, studying it thoughtfully. Then he punched in the number of the police station and asked for Chief Brower.

  “It’s Malcolm Norton,” he said pleasantly, as he picked up the gun in his right hand and held it to his head. “I think you’d better get over here. I’m about to kill myself.”

  As he pulled the trigger, he heard the final, single word: “Don’t!”

  74

  MAGGIE COULD FEEL THE BLOOD THAT MATTED THE HAIR on the side of her head, which was sensitive to the touch and still ached. “Be calm,” she kept whispering to herself. “I’ve got to be calm.”

  Where am I buried? she wondered. Probably in some isolated spot in the woods where no one can possibly find me. When she tugged the string on her ring finger, she could feel a heavy pressure on the other end.

  He must have attached the string to one of the Victorian bells, she reasoned. She ran her index finger up inside the tube that the string was threaded through. It felt like solid metal and seemed to be about an inch in diameter. She should be able to get enough air through it for breathing, she decided, unless it became clogged.

  But why had he bothered with all this? she wondered. She was sure there was no clapper in the bell, because she would be able to hear at least some faint sound if there had been one. That meant no one could hear her.

  Was she in a real cemetery? If so, was there a chance that people might visit or attend a funeral? Would she be able to hear even faintly the sound of cars?

  Plan! Maggie told herself. You’ve got to plan. She would keep tugging the string until her finger felt raw, until her strength gave out. If she was buried where someone might pass by, then there was always the hope that the moving bell might attract attention.

  She also would try to shout for help at what she calculated to be ten-minute intervals. There was no way of knowing, of course, if her voice actually carried up the tube, but she had to try. She mustn’t wear out her voice too soon, though, and not be able to attract attention if she did hear sounds of someone nearby.

  But would he come back? she wondered. He was insane, she was sure of that. If he heard her shouting, he might cover the air vent and let her suffocate. She had to be careful.

  Of course, it might all be for naught, she realized. There was a strong likelihood that she was buried in a completely remote spot, and that he was visualizing her clawing at the lid of the casket and yanking on the string the way some Victorians reportedly had done when they realized they were buried alive. Only those people had someone waiting to hear their alarm. Wherever she was, she was certain that she was completely alone.

  75

  AT TEN O’CLOCK, NEIL AND HIS FATHER SAT TENSELY IN Chief Brower’s office and listened as he soberly revealed the contents of Malcolm Norton’s suicide note. “Norton was a bitter and disappointed man,” he said. “According to what he’s written, because of a change in environmental laws, Ms. Holloway’s property is going to be worth a lot of money. When he made the offer to Nuala Moore to buy her house, he obviously was prepared to cheat her by not telling her of its true value, so it’s very possible that he got wind that she was changing her mind about making the sale to him and killed her. He might well have been searching the house, trying to find her revised will.”

  He paused to reread a paragraph of the lengthy note. “It’s very obvious that he blamed Maggie Holloway for everything having gone wrong, and although he doesn’t say it, he may have taken revenge on her. He’s certainly managed to get his wife in serious trouble.”

  This can’t be happening, Neil thought. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and wanted to shake it off. He was afraid that sympathy would undermine his resolve, and he would not let that happen. He wasn’t going to give up. Maggie wasn’t dead. He was sure of that. She couldn’t be dead.

  “I’ve talked to Mrs. Norton,” Brower continued. “Her husband came home at the usual time yesterday, then left and didn’t return until midnight. This morning when she tried to find out where he’d been, he wouldn’t answer.”

  “How well did Maggie know this guy Norton?” Robert Stephens asked. “What would make her agree to meet him? Do you think he might have forced her into her own car, then driven to where you found it? But then, what did he do with Maggie, and since he left her car there, how did he get home?”

  Brower was shaking his head as Stephens spoke. “It’s a very unlikely scenario, I agree, but it’s an angle we have to pursue. We’re bringing in dogs to try to follow Ms. Holloway’s scent, so if she is in that area, we’ll find her. But it’s a long way from Norton’s home. He’d have to have acted in tandem with someone else, or he’d need to have gotten a ride home from a passerby, and frankly both of those options seem unlikely. This woman he was crazy about, Barbara Hoffman, is in Colorado visiting her daughter. We checked on her already. She’s been there since the weekend.”

  The intercom rang, and Brower picked up his phone. “Put him on,” he said after a moment.

  Neil buried his face in his hands. Don’t let them have found Maggie’s body, he silently pleaded.

  Brower’s conversation lasted only a minute. When he got off, he said, “In a way, I think we have good news. Malcolm Norton had dinner last night at the Log Cabin, a small restaurant near where Barbara Hoffman lived. Apparently she and Norton ate there together frequently. The owner tells us that Norton was there until well after eleven, so he must have gone directly home.”

  Which means, Neil thought, he almost certainly had nothing to do with Maggie’s disappearance.

  “Where do you go from here?” Robert Stephens asked.

  “To interrogate the people Ms. Holloway pointed us to,” Brower said, “Earl Bateman and Nurse Zelda Markey.”

  His intercom sounded again. After listening without comment, Brower hung up his phone and stood. “I don’t know what kind of game Bateman is up to, but he just phoned to report that last night a coffin was stolen from his funeral museum.”

  76

  DR. WILLIAM LANE REALIZED THAT THERE WAS VERY LITTLE he could say to his wife this Tuesday morning. Her stony silence indicated to him that even she could be driven too far.

  If only she hadn’t come home last night and found him like that, he thought. He hadn’t had a drink in what seemed like ages, not since the incident at the last place he worked. Lane knew that he owed this job to Odile. She had met the owners of Prestige Residence Corporation at a cocktail party and had touted him for the director’s job at Latham, which was then being renovated.

  Latham Manor was to be one of Prestige’s franchised residences, as opposed to fully owned and operated; but they had agreed to meet with him, and then later had submitted his résumé to the franchiser. Remarkably, he got the job.

  All thanks to Odile, as she constantly reminded him, he thought bitterly.

  He knew that the slipup last night was a sign the pressure was getting to him. The orders to keep those apartments filled; don’t let them pass a month unsold. Always the implied threat of being let go if he didn’t perform. Let go, he thought. Go where?

  After the last incident, Odile had told him that if she saw him drunk even once, she was leaving.

  As enticing as the prospect was, he couldn’t let that happen. The truth was he needed her.

  Why hadn’t she stayed in Boston last night? he thought.

  Because she suspected that he was panicking, he reasoned.

  She was right, of course. He had been in a state of terror ever since he learned that Maggie Holloway had been looking for a sketch Nuala Moore had made that showed Nurse Markey eavesdropping.

  He should have found a way to get rid of that woman long ago,
but Prestige had sent her, and in most respects she was a good nurse. Certainly many of the residents valued her. In fact, he sometimes wondered if she wasn’t too good a nurse. She seemed to know more than he did about some things.

  Well, whatever was going on between him and Odile, Dr. Lane knew he had to go over to the residence and make his morning rounds.

  He found his wife drinking coffee in the kitchen. Uncharacteristically she hadn’t bothered to put on even a minimum of makeup this morning. She looked drawn and tired.

  “Zelda Markey just phoned,” she told him, an angry glint in her eye. “The police have asked her to be available for questioning. She doesn’t know why.”

  “For questioning?” Lane felt the tension run through his body, gripping every muscle. It’s all over, he thought.

  “She also told me that Sarah Cushing gave strict orders that neither she nor you was to enter her mother’s room. It seems that Mrs. Bainbridge isn’t well, and Mrs. Cushing is making arrangements to transfer her immediately to the hospital.”

  Odile looked at him accusingly. “You were supposed to be rushing home to see Mrs. Bainbridge last night. Not that you’d have been allowed anywhere near her, but I hear you didn’t show up at the residence till nearly eleven. What were you doing until then?”

  77

  NEIL AND ROBERT STEPHENS DROVE TO THE REMOTE ROAD where Maggie’s station wagon was still parked. Now it was surrounded with police tape, and as they got out of their car they could hear the yapping of search dogs in the nearby woods.

  Neither man had spoken since they left the police station. Neil used the time to think through all he knew so far. It amounted to very little, he realized, and the longer he felt in the dark, the more frustrated he became.

  It was good, even essential, to have the understanding presence of his father, he realized. Something I didn’t give to Maggie, he told himself bitterly.