A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery) (11 page)

Ah—he was offering me a way out—a conspiracy of departure.

Allison moaned and made disappointed noises, but John was up in an instant. “Let me get you guys some leftovers.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” I said. “Camilla’s chef keeps me stuffed as it is. If I’m not careful I’m going to gain a million pounds.”

For just an instant I saw Doug Heller’s gaze flick over my body, as though he were assessing any potential weight gain. “I doubt that very much. I’ve noticed that you walk about four times as fast as the average human.”

“What?”

“Oh yes, she always has,” Allison agreed. “Kids used to joke about it in school.”

I turned to her in surprise. “They did?”

“Rob Stallman called you Lena the Lively.”

Doug laughed. “Yeah, I think you’ll safely burn up all your extra calories.”

I lifted my chin. “In that case I shall take home a piece of pie.”

They all laughed at me, but I was already dreaming of my sinfulness: I would eat it in my bed as a midnight snack and let Lestrade lick the plate of crumbs at the end.

*   *   *

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
we were calling our good-byes, and Doug Heller said he would walk me to my car.

“Are you afraid I’ll be accosted?” I asked lightly.

“See, there you go, talking like a writer. Does that mean mugged?”

“Yes, sort of.”

“No, I don’t think you’ll be
accosted
, but I’m a gentleman, and I like to walk ladies to their cars.”

“Lots of ladies, I’m sure.”

“Not so many. And none so pretty as you.”

We had reached my door, and I fumbled for my keys in the dark. “That was quite a line, Doug Heller.”

“Yeah. But it was true,” he said in his hoarse cold voice.

I dared a glance up at him and saw that I had not been imagining things; Doug Heller wanted something to happen between us. Had he known, somehow, that Allison would be inviting me? “Well, thanks. That was sweet.”

I was grasping the door handle when he stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Lena, one thing. I know this will make you mad, but I have to say it.”

“What?” I peered at him in the dark driveway; he looked handsome and mysterious under Allison’s back porch light.

“I know you’ve made friends with Sam West. No, don’t say anything yet. The thing is—I know things that you don’t. And I’m telling you, as a friend, that you should keep your distance from him. I’m asking you to.”

I took a deep breath. “I appreciate that, but I have to tell you that Sam West has been nothing but kind and helpful to me. And at no point did he try to murder me.”

“It’s not a joke, Lena.”

“I know. But I also know that man has been through a lot, and no one has proven that anything happened to his wife,
and
I’m not going to contribute to the general cruelty to which this town has subjected him.”

“No, of course you aren’t. Because you’re Lena London, and you do your own thing.”

“Damn right.”

“That’s why I like you,” he said.

“Stop turning everything into a compliment. I’m trying to be indignant here.”

“Sorry.” He leaned in, blocking out the light, and treated me to a moonlit glimpse of his brown eyes. “I’ll say good night then, Lena.”

“Good night.” He walked away, and I watched him recede into the darkness.

I climbed into my car, relieved to be out of the cold air, and let it warm up for a few moments. I switched on the radio; I hadn’t grown familiar with the Indiana stations yet, so I never knew exactly what I was going to hear when I spun the dial. Tonight I heard A Great Big World singing “Say Something.” There in the cold dark the song seemed especially melancholy.

I pulled out, singing along, because that’s what I did when the radio was on, and wondering if it were just the song making me feel sad. Or perhaps I sensed even then that something was terribly wrong.

9

On nights such as this, in darkness like this, one could lose her way.

—from
The Salzburg Train

B
ACK AT
C
AMILLA’S
I crunched over the pebbles of the driveway and parked my car; it felt weird and unfamiliar in the windy dark. I wondered what I had done on nights like this in past Octobers, which now seemed as distant in time and space as the stars that glimmered above Blue Lake. Those stars were much brighter and more plentiful here, and I had a stronger sense of the universe as the context for my existence, making me feel large by association and miniscule in contrast. Disjointed philosophies floated in my head, but in my weary state I could not process them all. I climbed the stairs and opened the door with the spare key Camilla had given me.

There was a small light on in the hallway; it seemed to be on a timer. Other than that, the house was black. Camilla was an early riser, so it didn’t surprise me that she had retired at—I consulted my watch—just after midnight.

I started climbing the stairs. They creaked eerily in the tomb-like space, and my imagination began to tell ghostly stories. Something brushed against me, feather-light and horrifying, and I almost screamed until I saw that Lestrade was climbing the stairs with me, his weird eyes switched to night vision and glowing like green stones.

“You scared me,” I hissed in the dark, and he started to purr.

We made it to my room unscathed, and I switched on the bedside lamp. Lestrade jumped onto the bed, mewing now and then to tell me about his evening. “That’s interesting, but I have to get ready for bed. You can relax out here.”

He did, stretching out full-length and displaying his fluffy white belly. I went into the bathroom; despite Camilla’s wonderful heater, the room felt cold, as did the tile walls and—I found to my great displeasure—the toilet seat.

I dressed quickly in my flannel pajamas. These had been a Christmas gift from my father, and I loved them. They were cocoa brown and covered with books of all sizes and colors. They also happened to be toasty warm. I donned some fuzzy socks to complete the ensemble, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and flicked off the bathroom light.

Lestrade was already in a light doze, but he got up to let me pull back the covers and turn off the light; then he rearranged himself along my side. Lestrade was good at gauging the spots that would bring him optimal warmth.

“You’re a silly boy,” I said, stroking one of his soft ears. “But I’m glad you’re here. Do you like this big old house? Do you feel at home here with your scary dog friends?”

He purred and rubbed his head against me, then relaxed
into slumber. Cats do that so easily. Human beings, on the other hand, often find themselves staring at the cracked white ceiling, unable to sleep no matter how many sheep they count. Some of those sheep morphed into the various residents of Blue Lake, whose faces were surprisingly clear in my memory . . .

I must have slept eventually, because when I woke up it said three
A.M.
on the bedside clock, and it was clear that something had changed.

Lestrade was at the door, for one thing, listening with his ears twitching. I heard another sound, soft and menacing, which I realized was the growling of the dogs. Something was wrong; I felt that reality in the dark like a physical presence. I was out of bed in an instant and looking for a weapon. A cast-iron doorstop in the shape of a cow sat to the side of my door near the heating vent. I picked this up and opened the door slowly, peering into the hallway.

A shadowy form loomed before me, and my breath caught in my throat until I realized that it was Camilla, bearing no doorstop but touching the heads of two very attentive German shepherds, the best weapons in the house.

“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice hushed.

“I don’t know. The dogs woke me. They normally sleep through the night,” she said. “I think I might need to investigate.”

“Not by yourself, you’re not,” I said. “Should we turn on a light?”

“Yes, yes. Let’s illuminate the situation.”

I felt the wall for a switch and filled the hall with a speckled gold light. Camilla was wearing a long flannel nightgown with a cream-colored, fluffy robe. Her glasses
were gone, and her hair shimmered silver as she moved toward me.

The dogs suddenly lunged away from us and rushed through the hall and down the stairs. Camilla hesitated. “I guess we need to go down.” She didn’t seem particularly eager to do so.

I realized that she felt intimidated, and that I was the younger and stronger person here. “I’ll go first,” I said, moving down the shadowy hall with a sense of the surreal. I flipped on another light at the stair landing; this made part of the main hallway visible, along with the door to Camilla’s study. The dogs were not in view.

Down the stairs I went, Camilla close behind me, and I paused at the bottom to get my bearings. The house was dark and quiet; I didn’t have the sense that evildoers lurked in the corners. “Maybe the dogs just heard a car backfiring or something,” I said, my voice hopeful. I was still clutching my cow doorstop.

“They’ve never done something like this before—at least not recently. And at this ungodly hour! It’s strange,” she said.

I walked to the door of her study and peered in. Both dogs stood in front of her desk, their faces vigilant, their bodies as still as lawn ornaments. “They’re reacting to something,” I said. “Camilla, I think we should call the police.”

“At this hour? I would feel terrible bothering them . . . but perhaps you’re right. Just to have them check the place out.” She hesitated, then walked to her desk, where an old-fashioned rotary-dial phone sat on top. It was her preferred method of calling; her cell phone was something
she used as little as possible. “Lena, would you run and turn on some more lights? Be sure to turn on the outer porch, too. Thank you, dear.”

I did as she asked, feeling slightly nervous, but less so with each corner I illuminated. When I returned to her study, she was in the center of the room, her expression distracted.

“Everything all right?” I asked, setting the cow down on her desk.

“Hmm? Oh, yes—yes, I think so. They’re sending someone out. Just a few minutes, the dispatcher said.”

“Wonderful. How was your dinner with Adam?”

“Oh, quite nice. He appreciated the invitation. I realized I had never invited him for a meal before—quite remiss of me, since I’ve known him for years. I’m sure he enjoyed the change of scenery; most nights he eats dinner in the kitchen at Wheat Grass.”

“Ah.”

“You’re right about this house fascinating people. Adam insisted on the full tour.”

“Is that so?” I thought about this for a moment, frowning.

“And how was your evening with Allison?”

“Oh—a bit complicated. She insisted on bringing a man for me to meet, and it ended up being Doug Heller.”

Camilla clapped her hands, smiling. “Oh, how funny. But he was a good choice, really. He’s probably the most sought-after bachelor in this town.”

“Yes, well. I’m not seeking any bachelors at this point. I need to concentrate on your book, and here I am swanning around making all these social plans. In fact, I have to dart out again in the morning; Sam West was kind
enough to look at the contract for me, so I’m going to pick it up at his house. And then, as you recall, I invited Lane Waldrop for lunch.”

Camilla shrugged. “Sometimes you have to pay your social dues. And I’ll be gone at the doctor anyway, remember? We can work on the book when I return.”

“Yes, all right. Oh—someone’s at the door!”

It was not Doug Heller—I wasn’t sure whether I felt relief or disappointment about that fact—but the nervous, Chihuahua-like man who had wanted to push Camilla and me off the beach on the day of the murder. At his side was a younger officer in uniform, a sandy-haired man with a baby face. I wondered if there were any women on the Blue Lake Police Force.

“You say you heard sounds?” said the nervous officer that Doug Heller had called Chip, and whose nametag said “Officer Johnson.”

Camilla yawned, then nodded. “Thanks to the dogs, we were alerted to something—I’m not sure what. The dogs never get up in the night, but they are both trained to ward off intruders.”

I had not known this; I looked at Rochester and Heathcliff, who sat nearby, posing and panting, and sent them a look of respect. They seemed to acknowledge the attention with a slight raising of their chins.

Chip Johnson and the younger policeman spoke to each other in low tones; then the younger one went outside, murmuring into his radio.

“May I look around the house?” Chip asked.

“Feel free,” Camilla told him. “It has a great many nooks and crannies, but we’ve tried to turn on enough lights.”

He moved importantly past us and marched up the stairs to the second floor.

I made a face at Camilla, my impression of Chip Johnson’s officious expression, and she giggled. “Oh, Lena, you make me laugh. You’ve brought new life into this house.” She reached out and patted my hand. “You must promise never to leave.”

She said this last sentence lightly, ironically, and I chuckled. “If you promise to never stop writing.”

The outside man returned, holding something small in his hand. “Where’s Chip?” he asked.

“He’s checking the place out—currently upstairs,” Camilla said.

The young officer went bounding up the stairs after Chip, and we moved to a small couch in the corner of the study, to rest our bones, as Camilla rather mordantly put it. After about twenty minutes, Chip came in with his companion and cleared his throat, ready to make a report.

We remained sitting, but Camilla sat a bit straighter. “Did you find anyone?”

“No people, no, ma’am, but I am concerned that someone might have been here. No footprints to speak of, but the ground’s pretty dry right now.”

“But?”

“But we found this scarf.” He held up a gray knitted thing. “It’s not wet or dirty, which makes it seem it may have been dropped quite recently. And we found this fluttering against your trellis.”

He held up a fifty-dollar bill. “Have you lost money recently, Ms. Graham?” he drawled.

Camilla snorted. “I am not in the habit of carrying large
sums of cash, and I don’t deal in big bills like an American gangster. For the most part I write checks.”

“This money ain’t been affected by the weather, either,” said the young officer, looking pleased.

“It
hasn’t
been affected,” Chip corrected ostentatiously, looking at Camilla out of the corner of his eye; he seemed to be standing on his tiptoes. I almost laughed; apparently I wasn’t the only one in this town who felt the need to impress Camilla Graham.

Camilla sighed. “I confess I am at a loss to imagine what might have occurred out there, or what visitor might be lurking in the shadows with pockets full of money. It does sound intriguing, though.”

I could see that if she had ever been frightened, that feeling had passed. Now she looked tired.

“Thank you so much for coming out,” I told the two officers, both of whom seemed rather curious about the house and its pajama-clad occupants. The baby-faced officer pointed at my flannel night attire.

“Are those flying books?” he asked.

I assured him that it was merely a pattern on the material, and that the books were simply open and ready to be read. This made me want to be in my bed, reading a book.

“You give us a call if you have any other visitors,” Chip said. “Right now I’m guessing it was just someone taking a shortcut, or some kids on a lark.”

We thanked them again and ushered them out the door, which Camilla locked with a firm click.

I turned to her. “A shortcut?”

“To what, I wonder?” she asked. “We’re at the top of the bluff.”

We thought about this for a moment.

“Lena?”

“Yes?”

“Do you like cupcakes?” Camilla Graham asked me with a mischievous expression.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Rhonda made us some delightful ones for our dinner, but goodness. As if two old people are going to eat six large cupcakes after a full meal!”

I shrugged.