To Darkness and to Death

  “Where the hell did that come from?”

  Russ bent over and pulled the leather cushions away from the couch frame. There was a scattering of coins, some crumbs, and, balled into one side, another piece of fabric. Russ lifted it, and it unfolded into filmy pale pink pantyhose. He looked at Shaun.

  “I swear. I have no idea how those things got here. I never saw them before in my life.”

  “Where’s that door lead to?” Russ nodded toward the far wall.

  “It’s my bathroom.”

  “Anybody else use it? Your secretary, maybe?” Russ opened the door and switched on the light.

  “Not . . . usually.”

  Russ’s large frame blocked Shaun’s view into the bathroom. “You sure you don’t want to rethink your statement about not knowing Becky Castle?”

  “I’ve never met the woman!” Shaun struggled to keep his breathing even. In with the calm. Out with the fear. It didn’t matter what Russ thought about this Castle woman. In that, Shaun was completely, utterly blameless. The important thing was to make sure they didn’t link him to Eugene van der Hoeven. And that they stayed away from the old mill.

  “Come on in and take a look.”

  Shaun squeezed into the bathroom next to Russ. There, on the vanity, was a woman’s makeup bag, unzipped. Next to it was a pair of dangling chandelier-style earrings, the kind that would go with a—Shaun caught a flash of hot pink out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see a full-length strapless satin dress on the shower rod. It was dangling crookedly from its straps, as if someone had hastily looped them over the hanger and then hurried away.

  “It looks to me,” Russ said, “as if a woman came in here to give someone a private showing of her fancy ball gown and all its accessories. And then she let someone take them all off.” He looked down at Shaun. “Or I suppose it could be that you’re a transvestite.”

  “I am not a cross-dresser!” Shaun managed to get out.

  Russ nodded. “Pink would be a lousy color for you, anyway.” He moved toward the door, forcing Shaun to back out ahead of him. “We’re still missing Becky’s coat.”

  “This is ridiculous. You have no proof these are Becky Castle’s.”

  Russ ignored Shaun’s protest in favor of walking back to the reception area. “This where you hang your coats?” He rolled the closet door open.

  Thank God, there weren’t any strange articles of clothing hanging there. “That’s my secretary’s raincoat,” he said, “and the other two are mine.”

  Russ ran his boot across the floor of the closet before patting down the coats. He dipped his hand into Shaun’s jacket’s pocket and came up with a shiny clutch of keys.

  “Yours?”

  Shaun shook his head. He was speechless.

  “Let’s see if the slipper fits, huh?” Russ crossed to the door and stepped outside. Shaun hurried after him. Next to the green Prius, Russ bent over and, careful not to touch the car itself, inserted one of the keys. He turned it. There was a popping sound as all the locks sprang free.

  Russ straightened and spoke to the uniformed cop. “Noble, will you get on the horn and get a crime scene investigation unit over here? And since Lyle headed up Becky Castle’s questioning, let’s get him on the scene, too.”

  The cop nodded and disappeared into his squad car.

  Russ turned to Shaun, a mournful expression hanging from his face. “So, old friend. Anything you want to tell me?”

  7:15 P.M.

  “So how come you’re going to let him go?” Lyle cocked an eyebrow at Shaun Reid, sitting slumped on his receptionist’s desk while a state police evidence technician powdered his leather sofa for prints. Reid was staring at his fingers, smudged black with ink. He had volunteered his prints after Russ told him they needed to be able to rule out the things he had touched in the office. Russ hadn’t pointed out that the prints might also rule in Shaun if he had been in Becky Castle’s car.

  “We’ve got her stuff in here,” Lyle continued. “Her car parked out front. And he looks like he’s gone three rounds with a baseball bat. Skating injury, my ass.”

  “Where’s he going to go?” Russ crossed his arms. They were standing in the doorway to the office, out of earshot, able to keep an eye on the work going on inside and outside, where the second technician was going over the Prius. “He and his wife are attending a dinner dance. If he were scheduled to fly out of the country, I’d be worried. The Algonquin Waters, I think we can cover.”

  Lyle’s expression was half in light, half in darkness. He reminded Russ of an Iroquois false face mask, lips curving, eyes piercing. “Are you sure you’re not bending over backward to give an old friend the benefit of the doubt?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been hunting with Ed Castle for the last four years. The man handed your head to you on a platter an hour ago. I’m not saying you two were best buds, but that’s gotta hurt. I’m just wondering if you’re not hedging your bets to keep it from happening again.”

  “If Shaun Reid had anything to do with Becky Castle’s assault, I’ll be first in line to haul him in. As far as letting him loose now, I have two good reasons. One.” He held up a finger. “The simplest story is the one most likely to be true. Schoof beat up Becky Castle. In support of that theory, we have the victim’s own testimony—”

  “Which may be unreliable.”

  “Randy Schoof’s disappearance,” Russ continued, “and the fact that your informant on the Reid-Castle affair is none other than Mrs. Randy Schoof.”

  “Okay, okay. I agree, Schoof is the number one suspect. I still think there’s something weird about Reid.”

  “Which brings me to point number two. I can keep an eye on him at the party tonight. Who he talks to, if he leaves, whatever.”

  “Speaking of which, aren’t you supposed to be home right now? Getting all prettied up?”

  Russ looked at his watch. “Crap. Yeah. Look—”

  “I know. Cell phone, beeper, check-ins. We’ll stay in touch.”

  Russ smiled. “Thanks, Lyle. The only reason I can do this for Linda is because I know you’re on the job.”

  “You’re making me blush. Get outta here.”

  Russ strode into the office. “Shaun!” Reid looked up quickly. “Thanks for all your help. Better hit the road. You and I are already going to be late to this thing.”

  Shaun blinked. “I’m free to go?”

  “Course you are.” Russ bared his teeth in a grin. “We can’t be disappointing the ladies, can we?”

  7:20 P.M.

  Lisa Schoof drove slowly past the gates to the Reid-Gruyn mill for the third time since seven o’clock. When she had first approached the mill, she had been ready to drive through the entrance and on to the employee parking lot but had been frozen with terror at the sight of a cop car idling outside the offices. She had slammed on the brakes, coming to a dead stop in the middle of Route 57, expecting at that moment to see her husband escorted out of the building in cuffs. It was only the honk of a driver approaching from her rear that got her moving again. She took the first cross street she could and circled back toward the mill.

  The second time she slid slowly, slowly past, a panel van had joined the squad car. She couldn’t make out the writing on its side, but the state seal and the lights on top made it clear it was another sort of police vehicle. Every light in the office appeared to be on, and she could make out a uniformed cop standing between the squad car and a small green car.

  Now, on her third pass, the cop car, the van, and the lights were still there, but a pickup and a station wagon that had been parked next to the squad car had disappeared.

  Could they have taken Randy away while she was driving in circles? Should she loop around a few more times in the hope they would all clear out? The dark pressed in all around her sister’s car. She wanted to hide in it, to scurry away from the mill office, lit up like the guard tower in a prison.

  She clamped her hands around the steering wheel
and turned through the gates. She wanted to think of herself as brave, but she admitted to herself it was hopelessness that propelled her across the parking lot, the knowledge that if her husband had been arrested, she couldn’t effect his release, and if he was still free, somewhere in the mill, she had to pass by the police. She had no choice. He was waiting for her.

  She drove slowly, steadily, curving past the carnival of light that was the administration building, but not going so far out of her way that it would look suspicious. She had a cover story in her head: If she were stopped and questioned, she was delivering a meal to her husband, who worked on the floor. She knew that a lot of guys working second shift brought a big bag lunch to take the place of dinner with the family.

  She was not stopped. No one emerged from the offices to wave or shout or blow a whistle. Instead, she slipped around the corner into the employee parking lot, a rectangle of asphalt running from the edge of the offices to the bank of the river. A dozen or more vehicles, almost all trucks and SUVs, clustered beneath a few fluorescent lights on aluminum poles. Three picnic tables sat near the featureless mill wall, scoured flat by cold and darkness. Cigarette butts littered the lot like spent casings.

  Lisa got out of her sister’s station wagon. Randy had said he would meet her, but she didn’t know if he would recognize or trust the Durkees’ car. She walked toward the black and rushing river, passing one truck, then another. The third one was Randy’s.

  “Babe?” she whispered. Nothing. She kicked the door gently. “Randy?”

  His face appeared in the window. She almost screamed, clamping her hand over her mouth to still her surprise. He motioned for her to come around to the passenger side.

  When she got into the cab he clutched at her, and she dug her hands into the back of his coat, and they held each other as if it had been four years instead of four hours. Lisa couldn’t stop patting him. “Are you okay?” she asked, over and over. “I was so scared when I saw the cops at the office.”

  “I know. They were there when I tried to leave the mill. I nearly pissed my pants. I was going to go back to the old mill to wait for you, but I decided the truck was safer.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She sat back, separating them by a few inches. “Tell me what’s so important that we’re both here in the parking lot where we could be spotted any minute.”

  Randy grinned. “I know who killed Eugene van der Hoeven.”

  This was so far outside anything Lisa expected, she thought she must have misheard him. “Come again?”

  “I know who killed Eugene van der Hoeven. It was Shaun Reid.”

  “Mr. Reid? The guy who owns the mill?”

  Randy nodded. She glanced out the windshield, wondering when the Candid Camera guy would show up and Randy would announce the whole day, everything, had been an elaborate gag. “Well,” she said.

  He made an impatient noise. “You know the missing woman? Millie van der Hoeven? She’s in the old mill.” He pointed to where the building moldered, hidden behind the faceless brick wall of the new mill. “She witnessed the whole thing. Shaun Reid killed her brother, stuck her in the trunk of his car, and stashed her there to hide her.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  She leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder. “Okay. So how is this going to help you?”

  “We tell Mr. Reid that we have her. If he confesses to beating up Becky Castle, we’ll keep her hidden away. If he doesn’t confess, we bring her out and he’s going down for murder.”

  Lisa blinked at him.

  “Don’t you see? He’d for sure rather be charged with assault than murder.”

  It was such an ambitious and, in its own weird Randy way, brilliant idea that she almost hated to point out the flaw. “What about Millie van der Hoeven?”

  “What about her?”

  “What do we do with her during the months it takes for Mr. Reid to come to trial? Or is she volunteering to go into hiding to save you?”

  He looked abashed. “That’s the fuzzy part of the plan.”

  “Fuzzy? Babe, that’s a freaking jungle growing up around you. It’ll never work.”

  “It could,” he insisted. “Think about it. Even if we didn’t make it stick, you know, with Mr. Reid, we could buy some time. We could take her home with us—”

  “Take her home with us?” Lisa screeched.

  “Long enough for it to set up in the cops’ minds that Mr. Reid did it. Then, even if we let her go and she narcs on Reid and he says he didn’t have nothing to do with Becky Castle, it’ll be his word against mine. Or who knows? Maybe we could convince her to say she saw him beat up Becky and kill her brother.”

  “Like a buy-one-get-one-free.”

  He didn’t hear the sarcasm in her voice.

  “Yeah! There’s nothing says we have to, you know, treat her bad while we keep her. Maybe we can make her our friend.”

  Lisa held up her hand for him to stop talking. There was something in what he just said—some kernel of an idea that might just possibly work. She closed her eyes so she could think better. Okay, what if Shaun Reid confessed? The cops would focus all their investigation on proving Shaun was the guy who beat up Becky Castle. Stuff that incriminated Randy would be pushed aside. Overlooked. Maybe, if they were lucky, forgotten. It wouldn’t be perfect, not with the victim herself yawping on about Randy, but it would be a big old help to that smart lawyer Rachel thought they should hire.

  It would be terrible for Mr. Reid, of course. Maybe even—and here she shivered, from deep inside the core of her, because she hadn’t known that she was capable of thoughts like these—maybe he would even commit suicide.

  Maybe it could just look like he had committed suicide.

  Maybe Millie van der Hoeven, who had so mysteriously vanished without a trace or clue left behind, might never show up again.

  Lisa looked into Randy’s hopeful, innocent eyes. “I think it’s a great idea, babe. I think we can really do something with it.”

  7:50 P.M.

  Millers Kill, like most towns within reach of Lake George, Saratoga, and the mountains, had numerous campsites, cabins, and motels devoted to summer vacationers. Visitors arriving after leaf-peeping season was over had a far narrower range of accommodations. If the travelers didn’t want to stay in one of six bedrooms divided among three bed-and-breakfasts, they had the choice of the Sleepy Hollow Motor Lodge, the Stuyvesant Inn, or the brand-new and very luxurious Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort.

  After nearly two years living in the area, Clare knew this. So she shouldn’t have been surprised when she entered the lounge at the Algonquin waters and found her date chatting with Deacon Willard Aberforth.

  They were sitting at the long green-granite bar, identical glasses of peat-brown whiskey in front of them. From the high color on Aberforth’s face, his was the latest in a line of drinks.

  Hugh spotted her first, jumping off his stool and clutching his heart, staggering like a man blinded by beauty. He recovered in time to take her hand and help her onto his abandoned seat, assistance she was grateful for, given the volume of material in her skirt. “Vicar! You’re absolutely stunning! You’re going to be the most beautiful woman here tonight. Doesn’t she look absolutely amazing?”

  His last remark was directed to Deacon Aberforth, who examined Clare with a great deal more attention than he might have had he been strictly sober. “Elegant,” he pronounced with a disappointed air. “Although perhaps a bit too revealing?” He waved in the direction of Clare’s shoulders and chest. “I myself prefer to maintain the dignity of the church with good, classic clothing.” Aberforth still wore his black wool jacket and dog collar; he had spiffed up for the evening by replacing his black blouse with a deep purple one.

  Clare resisted the urge to tug her neckline higher. “I’m trying to envision the intersection between clerical clothing and ladies’ evening wear. Maybe an off-the-shoulder cassock?”

 
Hugh laughed. “If you write up the business plan, I promise you, I’ll have my firm invest.” He waved the bartender over. “Do you want a Macallan?”

  She nodded. After the day she’d had, she wanted several Macallans.

  “You didn’t tell me, Ms. Fergusson, that your friend here is the nephew of the bishop of Warwick.” Aberforth leaned his elbow on the bar and toasted Hugh.

  She raised an eyebrow. “That’s because I didn’t know.”

  Hugh smiled smugly. “Told you we’d make a good match. Stick with me, Vicar, and we’ll have a pectoral cross on you before you can say, ‘the Very Reverend Mrs. Parteger-Fergusson.’ ”

  She stared at him.

  “Fergusson-Parteger?” he suggested, handing her her glass of whiskey.

  How much had he had to drink? “That’s the silliest name I’ve ever heard,” she said. “And I don’t believe in this married-hyphenating business. Either keep the old name or take the new one.”

  “Hear, hear.” Aberforth toasted both of them. From the lobby, a bell rang out, so perfect in pitch and modulation, it had to be a recording of some sort.

  “I think that’s the sign to head in to dinner,” Hugh said. “Father Aberforth, it was great meeting you. P’raps I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure of it. I will be attending the ten o’clock Eucharist at St. Alban’s, with the bishop.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Hugh’s face had a trapped expression. Anglican and episcopal-nephew though he was, Clare had yet to see him inside a church. She took pity on him. “Do you need to stop off anywhere before we go in to dinner?”

  Hugh’s face cleared. “Yes. Yes, I do. I’ll meet you outside the ballroom door.” He dashed off before Aberforth could pin him down about tomorrow.

  Clare collected her whiskey and carefully slipped off the bar stool. “I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning, Father Aberforth.”

  He surprised her by taking her bare upper arm. “Ms. Fergusson.” She frowned at his hand, but he didn’t release her. “Let me give you some advice. The only female clergy who are successful at celibacy are the ones who are too old and dried up to care or the ones who are too mannish to attract members of the opposite sex.”