All Night Long (5 page)

The route took her past the utility room door on the side of the house. She remembered that entrance well. Pamela had kept a key hidden under the steps so she could sneak in and out at night. Not that her father or the housekeeper had ever paid much attention to her comings and goings, Irene thought with a small pang.

At fifteen, she and every other teenager in town had envied Pamela Webb her amazing degree of freedom. But from an adult perspective it was clear that her old friend’s much-vaunted independence was the result of parental neglect. Pamela had lost her mother in a boating accident on the lake when she was barely five. Over the years, her father, Ryland Webb, had been consumed with his political career. The result was that Pamela had been abandoned to the care of a series of nannies and housekeepers.

Irene unlatched the gate at the end of the walk and moved into the moonlit garden. The curtains at the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room were open. The light that she had followed came from a table lamp that had been turned down very low.

Irene aimed the big flashlight through the glass. It came as a shock to realize that she recognized the furniture. Another
case of time warp, she decided. Years ago the house had been decorated by a professional designer imported from San Francisco. The interior was meant to invoke the ambience of a luxurious ski chalet. Pamela had privately labeled it Outhouse Chic.

She studied the shadowed room carefully and methodically, starting on the left where the massive stone fireplace formed most of the wall. Halfway across the space she saw the overturned slipper. It lay on the rug at the end of the brown leather sofa. A portion of a bare foot extended slightly off the edge of the cushions.

Irene stilled. Stomach tensing, she moved along the wall of windows until she could aim the beam of the flashlight directly at the front of the sofa.

A woman reclined on the cushions. She was dressed in camel-colored trousers and a blue silk blouse. Her face was turned away from the windows. Blond hair tumbled across the brown leather. One limp arm dangled above the floor.

A cocktail pitcher and an empty martini glass sat on the low wooden coffee table.

“Pamela.”
Irene pounded on the glass. “Pamela, wake up.”

The woman on the sofa did not stir.

Irene seized the handle of the sliding glass door and tugged with all of her strength. The door was locked.

Whirling around, she raced out of the garden, the beam of the flashlight bouncing wildly, and hurried back to the door of the utility room.

Crouching, she felt around beneath the bottom step. Her fingers brushed across a small envelope taped to the underside of the tread.

It took a considerable amount of effort to loosen the aged duct tape, but finally the envelope fell into her hand. She could feel the weight of the key inside. Rising, she ripped open the sealed packet, took out the key and fitted it into the lock.

She opened the door, groped for and found the light switch. The weak bulb in the overhead fixture winked on,
revealing decades’ worth of boating, fishing and water-skiing gear.

She raced down the shadowed hall into the living room.

“Pamela, it’s me, Irene. Wake up.”

She stopped beside the sofa and reached down to grip Pamela’s shoulder.

The flesh beneath the thin silk blouse was icy cold. There was no doubt as to the identity of the woman. Seventeen years had made remarkably few changes in Pamela’s extraordinarily beautiful features. Even in death she was a classic, patrician blonde.

“Dear God, no.”

Irene stepped back, swallowing the nausea that threatened to well up inside. Blindly, she reached into her purse for her cell phone.

A figure moved in the darkened hallway that led to the utility room.

She whipped around, clutching the heavy flashlight. The fierce beam fell on Luke. It was all she could do to suppress the scream that threatened to choke her.

“Dead?” Luke asked, moving toward the sofa.

“What are you doing here? Never mind.” The questions would have to wait. She punched out 911 with shaking fingers. “She’s very cold. Too cold.”

He reached down and put his fingers on the woman’s throat in a practiced manner. Looking for the pulse, Irene thought. She knew from the way he did it that this was not the first time he had dealt with a body.

“Definitely dead,” he said quietly. “Looks like she’s been that way for a while.”

They both glanced at the empty pitcher on the table. Standing next to it was a small prescription bottle. It, too, was empty.

Irene fought the guilt that clawed through her. “I should have come here earlier.”

“Why?” he asked. He went down on his haunches to read the label on the little bottle. “How could you have known?”

“I couldn’t, I didn’t,” she whispered. “But I knew there was something wrong when she never answered the phone.”

He studied the body in a meditative way. “She was cold before you even checked in at the lodge this afternoon.”

He’d definitely had some experience with the dead, she thought.

The 911 operator spoke sharply into her ear, demanding to know what the problem was.

Irene took a deep breath, pulled herself together and gave the details of the situation as quickly and concisely as possible. It helped to concentrate on the facts.

By the time she ended the call, a strange numbness had settled on her. She fumbled with the phone and nearly dropped it before managing to put it back into her shoulder bag. She could not bring herself to look at the body.

“We don’t need to wait in here,” Luke said, taking her arm. “Let’s go outside.”

She did not argue. He steered her back along the hall, into the foyer and out onto the front steps.

“How did you get here?” She looked around the drive. “Where’s your car?”

“I left it down the road a ways.”

Understanding hit her. “You
followed
me.”

“Yeah.”

There was no apology in his tone, no hint of awkwardness or embarrassment. Just a simple statement.
Yeah, I followed you. So what?

Outrage washed through her, dissipating some of the numbness. “Why did you do that? You had no right whatsoever—”

“That woman in there on the sofa,” he said, interrupting her short tirade with the calm arrogance of a man accustomed to command. “Is she the person you were trying to get in touch with earlier this evening?”

She clenched her teeth and folded her arms very tightly beneath her breasts. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, I see no reason to answer yours.”

“Suit yourself, Miss Stenson.” He turned his head
slightly in the direction of the distant sirens. “But it’s obvious you were acquainted with the victim.”

Irene hesitated. “We were friends once, a long time ago. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in seventeen years.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, his eyes startlingly bleak. “Suicide is always tough on the people left behind.”

“I’m not so sure it was suicide,” she said, before stopping to think.

He inclined his head, acknowledging other options. “Could have been an accidental overdose.”

She didn’t believe that, either, but this time she kept her mouth shut.

“Why did you come here to see her tonight?” Luke asked.

“What’s your interest in this?” she countered. “Why did you follow me here?”

A police cruiser turned into the drive before he could respond, assuming that he would have responded, she thought grimly. Harsh lights pulsed in the night. The piercing siren was so loud now that she automatically raised her hands to cover her ears.

The siren stopped suddenly. A uniformed officer got out of the car. He glanced first at Irene and then turned immediately to Luke.

“Got a report of a dead body,” he said.

Luke jerked a thumb in the direction of the hallway behind him. “Front room.”

The officer peered into the front hall. He did not seem eager to enter the house. Irene realized that he was young. In the course of his short career here in Dunsley, he had probably not encountered a lot of dead bodies.

“Suicide?” the officer asked, looking uneasy.

“Or an OD,” Luke said. He glanced at Irene. “At least, that’s what it looks like.”

The officer nodded but made no move to investigate.

More sirens sounded in the distance. They all looked
toward the entrance of the drive. An ambulance and another cruiser were coming toward the house.

“That’ll be the chief,” the officer said, obviously relieved.

The vehicles halted behind the officer’s cruiser. The medics got out of the ambulance and pulled on plastic gloves. Both looked expectantly at Luke.

“Front room,” Luke repeated.

Irene sighed. Alpha male, she reminded herself. The kind of guy everyone instinctively turns to for direction in a crisis.

The medics disappeared into the foyer. The young officer followed in their wake, more than willing to let them take the lead.

The door of the second cruiser opened. A big, powerfully built man of about forty climbed out. His light brown hair was thinning on top. The expression on his craggy face was grim.

Unlike Pamela, the intervening years had taken a toll on Sam McPherson, Irene thought.

He gave her a swift once-over. No sign of recognition flickered in his gaze. He turned to Luke, just as the other responders had done.

“Danner,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Evening, Chief.” Luke angled his chin toward Irene. “I’m with Miss Stenson. She’s a guest at the inn.”

“Stenson?” Sam jerked back around and gave Irene a closer scrutiny. “Irene Stenson?”

She braced herself. “Hello, Sam.”

He frowned. “I didn’t recognize you. You sure have changed. What are you doing back in town?”

“I came to see Pamela. You’re the chief here now?”

“Took over after Bob Thornhill died,” he said absently. He looked through the doorway, a tense, troubled expression creasing his face. “You’re sure that’s Pamela in there?”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid of that.” He exhaled deeply, a long, world-weary sigh. “Heard she was in town this week. But when I
got the call tonight, I hoped there was some mistake. Thought maybe she’d let one of her city friends use the house for a few days.”

“It’s Pamela,” Irene said.

“Damn.” Sam shook his head, mournful but resigned to the inevitable. “You’re the one who found her?”

“Yes.”

He gave Luke a brief, speculative look and then turned back to her. “How’d that happen?”

“I got into Dunsley very late this afternoon,” she said. “I tried to call Pamela several times throughout the evening. There was no answer. I began to get concerned, so I finally decided to come out here to see if she was home.”

“Cathy Thomas, the woman who took your call, said you reported booze and pills at the scene?”

“Yes,” Irene said. “But—” She started to say that she didn’t think Pamela had committed suicide, but Luke gave her a hard look that, much to her annoyance, made her hesitate. By the time she had found her tongue, Sam was speaking again.

“Thought she was doing okay,” Sam said quietly. “She was in and out of rehab for a while after college, but in the past few years she seemed to be staying clear of the crap.”

“The pill bottle in there has a prescription on it,” Luke said.

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like she was back in therapy again.” He moved into the foyer and paused just inside the doorway to look back at Irene. “You going to be in town for a while?”

“I was planning to leave tomorrow,” she said, not certain what she would do next.

“I’ll want to ask you a few questions in the morning. Routine stuff.” He angled his head toward Luke. “You, too, Danner.”

“Sure,” Luke said.

Irene nodded, not speaking.

“I’ll see you both at the station around nine-thirty,” Sam said.

He vanished into the house.

Luke regarded Irene. “You’re not exactly a stranger here in Dunsley, are you?”

“I grew up in this town. I left when I was fifteen.”

“First time you’ve been back?”

“Yes.”

He watched her closely in the porch light. “I take it you’ve got some bad memories of this place.”

“What I have are nightmares, Mr. Danner.”

She walked across the drive and got into her compact.

It was going to be one of the really long nights, she thought, starting the engine, one of those mini-eternities when none of the usual rituals worked.

W
hen she got back to the brightly lit cabin, she took the travel pouch of tea out of her shoulder bag and went into the tiny alcove kitchenette to boil some water.

The cabins of the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge did not boast many amenities, but they had been designed as long-term-stay accommodations for summer visitors who liked to spend two weeks or a month at a time at the lake. In addition to the minimal cooking facilities, there were place settings for four, a teakettle and a few basic pots and pans.

She thought about Pamela while she waited for the tea to steep. The dark phantoms of memories that were stored in the vault in her mind stirred. Over the years various therapists and well-intentioned counselors had done their level best to help her lay the ghosts to rest, but she knew that only the truth could do that. Unfortunately, the truth had been the one thing denied her.