Deadly Harvest (20 page)

Apparently Eric Rolfe was not a man who needed to bask in his success.

The old farmhouse needed paint, and the front yard was filled with a melange of materials—wood, metal scraps, twine, stone and marble—all stacked untidily on the ground or on a series of mismatched broken-down chairs. There were paint cans in the yard, as well, along with a pile of fabric, and plastic bins filled with various bits and pieces of what seemed to be debris.

Rolfe was seated in a chair, sanding a length of wood. He looked up curiously when he saw Jeremy's rental pull into the drive, and gave a pleasant nod when Jeremy got out of the car.

“Hello,” Rolfe said simply. He was a tall man, as Rowenna had said, but he'd lost weight as he matured and would no longer be considered husky, though his arms, bare below the pushed-up sleeves of an old gray sweater, were well defined with muscle. He had long, light blond hair, but his full beard and mustache had streaks of red. He smiled again beneath all the hair and said, “Hiya. Something I can do you for?”

Jeremy strode forward and introduced himself.

“Up from the Big Easy, huh?” Rolfe said politely.

“Recently, yes,” Jeremy said. “I didn't realize it was common knowledge.”

Rolfe grinned broadly. “I know all about you. Salem's a pretty small world when you get right down to it.” He waved a hand toward town. “Nice to meet you. To what do I owe the honor of your driving way out here?”

“Dinah Green,” Jeremy said bluntly.

The other man frowned slightly, and appeared to be thinking. Then he shook his head. “No, can't say I know who she is. Am I supposed to?”

“She's the woman whose body was found in the cornfield.”

Rolfe smiled slowly. “I see. And I make devil masks and live near the cornfield, so…”

“And you just returned to town after a long time living away,” Jeremy added evenly.

“No alibi. I'm living alone,” Rolfe said agreeably.

“Those are some pretty weird masks you make,” Jeremy told him, changing the subject.

Rolfe nodded. “Yeah, I was a weird kid, too. I always loved the movies. Did you ever see
An American Werewolf in London?
That was it for me. They created a new Academy Award for special effects that year, it was so damned good.”

“I did see it,” Jeremy said. “I liked it.”

“Want to come in? Have a beer or something?” Rolfe asked.

“Sure.”

“I didn't kill that woman, you know,” Rolfe told him. “I'm all artist—a lover, not a fighter. But I guess I can understand why you have to eliminate me as a suspect.”

He got off his broken chair, and headed toward the rickety porch and unpainted house.

“Guess you're wondering how I could have done so well in Hollywood and own such a ramshackle place,” Rolfe said after telling Jeremy to watch out for a broken step.

“I was finding it interesting,” Jeremy admitted.

He was even more interested by how surprisingly different the house was inside. It was neat and clean, with a typical parlor to one side of the entry, and a long hallway that branched off to the right and led to the rest of the rooms. The parlor had new leather furnishings, modern end tables and an overall appearance of being well kept. Far more livable than the exterior had led him to expect.

“I picked up some new stuff when I came back,” Eric explained. “I hadn't been home in maybe five years. My father died, and my mother moved to Florida. I have a sister in Las Vegas. No pressing need to come back, except that it's home, you know? I always loved the fall. Anyway, when you don't come around in five years, things kind of go to hell, especially in New England. The weather takes its toll.” He moved on through the house. Jeremy noted that he was lean, but fit. His hands were powerful, calloused from the work he did. Papers strewn on the dining room table were evidence of his expertise in design and electronics, but it seemed evident that he was a hands-on man, that he enjoyed bringing his visions to life—sometimes literally.

“Light or full-bodied?” he asked Jeremy.

“Whichever,” Jeremy said.

Rolfe took two cans of beer from the refrigerator. He handed one to Jeremy, then popped the top on his own. “So you're here with Ro, huh?” He grinned.

“I met Rowenna in New Orleans, and I happened to be coming up here right when she was coming home,” Jeremy said.

Rolfe studied Jeremy. “Well, it's good to see her with someone, and from what I've been hearing, you're a stand-up kind of guy. Half the guys in high school had a thing for her, but she was in love with Jon Brentwood from the get-go. It was hard to hate him for it, though a lot of us tried. Strange thing, him becoming a soldier. He was always the kid who broke up everyone else's fights. The kind who never felt he had to prove anything to anyone. He got teased to death in school, his dad being a cop and all. When we were smoking in the boys' room, or sneaking off to try pot, we'd all rag him, saying he was likely to turn us in to his dad.” He took a long swig of beer and shook his head. “He never ratted on anyone, though. Of all the guys who shouldn't have left this world too soon, Jon Brentwood was at the top of the list.”

“His father must have taken it hard,” Jeremy said. “And Rowenna.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't here—didn't make it back for the funeral. But it must have been tough. Joe kind of adopted Rowenna after Jon's death. Her folks were gone, his only child was gone, she would have been his daughter-in-law anyway. I guess it was natural.” He made no effort to hide the fact that he was staring at Jeremy, studying him. “So what does Joe think of you?”

“We seem to be getting along.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear Ro's moving on finally. You can't dig up the dead, and that's a fact. Strange, though, coming back here. This place is still the same in so many ways. Pretty different from…”

“From…?”

Eric Rolfe laughed. “Hollywood. Coming home to Salem…it's like taking a giant step back into the past. You just get swept right up into all the old stuff, the same routine, the same ‘witches are silly' or ‘don't show witches on broomsticks, it's such a stereotype.' Personally, I'll take the witches, past or present, over those Puritan Fathers any day. Man, those guys were messed up.” He shrugged and gave a dry grin. “But they left some great stuff for an artist to work from.”

“Like your masks? Where did you get the pictures you modeled them on?” Jeremy asked.

“The Internet. I've got a bunch of them printed off, if you'd like to have them, if you think it will help you in any way.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Jeremy wondered if the guy really was innocent or just ingenuously pretending he had nothing to hide.

Rolfe went to the bookcase in the living room, behind the leather recliner that faced the state-of-the-art television. He dug around in a folder, then handed the whole thing to Jeremy. “Take it. I'm done with the masks. I'm working on a Christmas monster for a film that's supposed to start shooting in Vancouver in January.”

“So you're not staying in town?”

“It's home. I guess I'll always come back. Strange thing about New Englanders—we leave, we come back. I think it's the draw of the autumn colors,” he said.

“When did you get back to town?” Jeremy asked him.

Eric Rolfe thought about that a moment. “I drove cross-country. All by my lonesome, with my audiobooks and CDs. Stopped here and there…I think I got in on the seventeenth.” He smiled slowly. “Just in time to commit murder, right?”

“The timing fits,” Jeremy agreed equably.

Eric shook his head. “I'm clearly your man, then. I must've done it.”

“Did you spend Halloween in town?”

“Yes, I did. And please, for the love of God, don't ask me if I saw anything strange,” Rolfe said, rolling his eyes. “It was Halloween in Salem. It would have been a miracle if I
didn't
see something strange.”

“I was about to ask you if you happened to meet a fortune-teller called Damien.”

He had.

Jeremy was sure of it.

Something had briefly flickered in the other man's eyes.

Eric Rolfe hadn't just seen the man. Jeremy had somehow hit a nerve.

“Yeah, I saw him.”

“Had you seen him before?”

“No….” Rolfe answered slowly. “No…I don't think so.”

“Okay, that's a leading answer,” Jeremy told him.

“Well, the guy was out shilling for customers when I walked by. I was on my way to see Eve and Adam, and I was just kind of looking around, watching the kids in their costumes, catching the displays—looking down my nose, if you must know, at some of the cheesy effects some of those people use—when I almost bumped into the guy.”

“And then?”

“Then I backed up and said excuse me or something like that. But the guy was staring at me as if…”

Rolfe stopped talking. He appeared to be deep in thought, as if he were trying to remember exactly what had happened. He stared at Jeremy suddenly. “He looked at me as if he knew me. For just a split second it was as if he thought
I
might know
him.
You know, I wouldn't even have remembered that—except that you just asked me. He laughed and said he could tell me the future. He said—”

Rolfe broke off abruptly.

“What?” Jeremy prompted.

“He said he could show me the mysteries of the cornfields. The
cornfields.
”

He stared at Jeremy as if puzzled himself.

“And then?”

“Then I said something about having an appointment and kept moving, because to tell you the truth, he kind of creeped me out.”

“What did he do? Anything—”

“He just laughed and said I was going to be sorry,” Rolfe said. He looked pensive for a moment, then shrugged—almost as if he were shaking off uncomfortable memories. “Who knows? Could have been coincidence. Or maybe he did know me and knew I used to make scarecrows. What do you think? Do you think he knew me?”

“Probably,” Jeremy said. Eric Rolfe was either telling the truth or he'd learned a hell of a lot about acting out in Hollywood.

“Do you think that guy is the killer?” Rolfe asked suddenly.

“I don't know what to think. No one can find him.”

Rolfe shook his head thoughtfully, his features scrunched into a frown. “I swear, I didn't recognize him, but then again…he had on a turban. And makeup. Facial hair—fake facial hair, I can assure you of that. It's like trying to recognize Santa Claus, you know?”

Jeremy pulled a card from his pocket. “If you come up with anything concrete…”

“Yeah, yeah, call you.”

Jeremy laughed. “If you come up with solid facts, call the cops. But if anything occurs to you that you're not a hundred percent sure about, then yes, call me.”

“A pleasure. How's Ro, by the way?”

“Good.”

“Good?” Rolfe echoed doubtfully.

“Beautiful,” Jeremy said.

Rolfe's grin deepened. “Give her my regards. I can't wait to see her.”

“I'm sure you'll see her soon. And you know, I really am here to help out a friend.”

“Brad Johnstone,” Eric said.

“You've met him?” Jeremy asked.

Rolfe shook his head. “No, I haven't met him. But I read the papers, and it's all the talk around town. Or it was.” He sighed. “The way of the world. A corpse beats a missing woman.” Eric paused. “I did see him on Halloween, though. Him and his wife.”

“Where?”

“They were holding hands, walking into the cemetery.”

“You saw them go in, but you never saw Mary come out?”

“I was walking down the street, not hanging around spying on them,” Rolfe said, sounding tired and impatient. “You couldn't miss them, because they were beautiful. I admit it. I was thinking they would have made the perfect opening for a horror movie. The beautiful couple, dusk coming, the ancient tombstones. I saw them go in. I walked on by.”

“No one saw anything,” Jeremy muttered, disgusted.

“Hell, it was Halloween. Pretty much anything could have happened and no one would have thought a thing about it,” Rolfe said.

He stood and walked out of the kitchen, and Jeremy had no choice but to follow him back toward the front door.

But on the way, Eric paused in the living room and stared at his bookcase.

“You know, I've done some macabre makeup in my day. I've made a gorgeous woman look like a crone and the heartthrob of the month look like a three-thousand-year-old mummy. I've made people look like trees, goats, dogs, bears, you name it. And yet…”

“And yet?”