Devil's Night (13 page)

“Yes, I’m the one who sold the land to Mr. Fanelli,” he said after the obligatory introductions and opening chitchat. “It was a very big get for our firm.”

“Just to clarify, this is the parcel that used to be occupied by the Perry Mill, correct?”

“It is,” David Brandt said. “If you have a map of the area—”

Henry actually did have a map, buried somewhere under the hundred other pieces of paper on the bed. He riffled through them as David Brandt continued.

“—you’ll see that the lot begins right at the edge of Lake Squall. It fronts the water for ten acres. Then it goes away from shore for another ten acres, making it a hundred square acres.”

By that point Henry had located the map and was using an index finger to trace a rectangle around the area David Brandt was talking about. It was a big chunk of land, and probably very expensive.

“How much did Mr. Fanelli pay for the land?”

“I can’t disclose the sum,” Mr. Brandt said. “But I will say it was more than what the land was worth.”

Henry discarded the map and reached for his notebook and pen. He scrawled
pagato più
—paid more—before realizing he didn’t need to take notes in Italian. Shaking off the mental jet lag, he asked, “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t really know. Apparently, he just really wanted the land.”

“Were there any other potential buyers?”

“The town, of course,” David Brandt said. “They’ve been interested in it for years.”

Henry paused, pen frozen over the notebook. “I thought Perry Hollow
was
the owner of the land.”

“No, the land was still with the Perry family. The town wanted them to donate it, but the family refused. Then town officials tried to get them to lower the price. The family made an offer, but the town couldn’t meet it.”

At last, Henry lowered pen to paper. He wrote,
“Town wanted land.”

“Do you know what Mr. Fanelli intends to build there?”

“We never discussed that.”

So much for getting more information. It appeared that Mr. Brandt knew even less than Henry did. Still, he pressed on, asking, “I’m assuming Mr. Fanelli contacted you about purchasing the land?”

“He did,” Mr. Brandt said. “Actually,
he
didn’t. One of his employees did. She said she was a vice president of Mr. Fanelli’s U.S. company.”

“Can I get her name?”

“Sure. It’s Trapani. Lucia Trapani.”

“And she’s based in Philadelphia?” Henry asked.

“I believe so, yes.”

Henry scribbled down the name and phone number David Brandt provided. “Do you know how Mr. Fanelli heard about the land being for sale?”

“You’d have to ask Ms. Trapani about that.” Impatience had crept into Mr. Brandt’s voice. Henry was asking too many questions. “Or Mr. Fanelli, if you can reach him.”

Henry thanked David Brandt for his time and hung up. He then prepared to call Lucia Trapani, but a knock on the door interrupted him before he got the chance.

“Hello?” said a meek voice floating in the hallway. “Is anyone there?”

Henry opened the door and saw the short and stout woman who had been behind the checkin desk in the wee hours of the morning. Her name was Lottie Scott—she had mentioned it three times during the two-minute checkin process—and Henry assumed she was the proud owner of the Sleepy Hollow Inn. Which meant she was also the cook, the plumber, and, judging from the set of towels she was holding, the maid.

Lottie looked surprised to see him. “Oh, you’re here.”

“I am,” Henry said. “Is there something you need?”

“No. I just came up to replace the towels and make the bed.” Mrs. Scott peered past him to the document-strewn bed. “Oh. I’ve interrupted you.”

Henry explained that he planned to spend the day in his room working and that he wished not to be disturbed. He even asked Lottie if there was a sign he could hang on the doorknob to prevent any other intrusions. Naturally, there wasn’t. All Henry could do was repeat that he was working while he accepted the towels.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Goll,” Lottie assured him. “You won’t hear a peep from me.”

“Thank you,” Henry said. “I appreciate it.”

After Mrs. Scott departed, Henry tossed the towels onto a nearby chair and returned to his phone. Since it was a Saturday, he didn’t expect to reach Lucia Trapani. At best, he planned to leave a voice mail and hoped she’d get back to him. So it was a surprise when the phone was answered by an officious secretary who told him, “Ms. Trapani is outrageously busy today.”

“But it’s a Saturday,” Henry said.

“Not where I work,” the secretary replied with undisguised bitterness.

“I only need five minutes of her time.”

“That’s like asking for the Easter bunny. Five free minutes simply don’t exist.”

“Then one minute,” Henry said, trying to summon patience from a well that was quickly going dry. “Surely Ms. Trapani has a minute available to answer a few questions.”

“Who are you again?” The secretary was starting to sound like a snobby maître d’ who was refusing to let him enter a restaurant because he wasn’t wearing a tie. “And what is this about?”

Henry stated, not for the first time, his name, his newspaper, and why he was calling. When he was finished, Lucia Trapani’s secretary said, “I think we’d both be happier if you just called the PR department on Monday.
They
don’t have to come in on the weekend.”

“Take down my number,” Henry said, giving up for the time being. “Tell your boss that if she gets the chance, I’d appreciate it if she could call me back and answer a few questions. Today.”

A flurry of half-whispered voices hissed out of the receiver. The secretary was conferring with someone, her hand trying to muffle the phone. Henry could make out snippets of the conversation.
Who? What newspaper? And he’s where?
That was followed by some ear-scraping rustling as someone else took control of the phone.

“This is Lucia Trapani.”

Henry was taken aback, not just by the fact that she was talking to him but also because her English was impeccable. Judging by her name—and the man she worked for—he had assumed he’d need to conduct the interview in Italian.

“Ms. Trapani, thank you for—”

“You’re welcome,” she said, cutting to the chase. “You’re calling about the Perry Hollow land, right?”

“I am.”

“And you came all the way from Rome to report on this?”

“I did,” Henry said. “It’s a big story. And from what I can tell, no one in the Italian press but us knows about it.”

“I see. You want to break the news. Unfortunately, I spoke to a reporter about it yesterday.”

Hearing that made Henry want to throw his phone out the window. He had traveled all that way just to be scooped. “Was it an Italian paper?”

“No,” Lucia said. “More local.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer,
probably, Henry thought. Or maybe Miss Trapani was bluffing just to avoid talking to him. If another paper had broken the news, Henry would have heard about it by now.

“That doesn’t matter to the readers of my paper.”

“Of course. But what if I told you there’s no story to break?”

This time Henry knew she was bluffing. “If there wasn’t a story, then all your filings would have made it clear what Fanelli Entertainment USA actually does. They also would have explained why he bought land in Pennsylvania and not, say, New York or California. Finally, they would have provided some idea of what Mr. Fanelli plans to build on the land, because you and I both know it’s going to be something huge.”

“You’re correct in that regard. Giuseppe never does anything small.”

“So,” Henry said, “would you care to comment?”

“No,” Lucia replied. “At least not right now. It might have sounded like an exaggeration, but I really don’t have five minutes to spare today.”

Henry slumped on the bed, deflated. He needed to get something that day. Otherwise, his editor would start to get impatient, and Dario never liked to be kept waiting. There was also the fact that someone else could break the story before him, which would make Dario livid that the paper had spent all that money on travel for nothing.

“Please,” he said. “I’m desperate here. Like Tosca.”

Lucia Trapani surprised Henry once again, this time by laughing. “An opera buff, I see.”

“Very much so.”

“Is
Tosca
your favorite Puccini?”

“It is,” Henry said.

“It’s a good one,” Lucia replied. “Although I prefer
Madama Butterfly
. I suppose I’m girly and sentimental in that regard.”

“It has its merits,” Henry said. “I saw it again a few months ago in Rome. It’s more mature than I thought.”

“Listen.” Lucia Trapani sighed, like she was already regretting what she was about to say. “I can drive out to Perry Hollow tonight. I’ll give you an exclusive sit-down interview and tell you everything I know.”

“Isn’t that far for you?”

“Call it a favor for a fellow opera buff,” Lucia said. “Besides, I’m used to the drive. I was just there last night, in fact. And I have to drive out there tomorrow morning to monitor some site work. If I have to, I’ll spend the night at that wretched bed-and-breakfast they’ve got there.”

“When do you want to meet?”

“My schedule is packed until tonight, so it’s going to have to be late. How does nine-thirty sound?”

Anytime would have sounded great to Henry, so he agreed on nine-thirty. They arranged to meet for drinks at Maison D’Avignon, Perry Hollow’s fanciest restaurant. It was an expensive place, and a few cocktails there would probably blow through the meager food budget the newspaper had provided. Henry didn’t care. He was simply happy for the chance to get some information about Fanelli’s plans.

He was in such a good mood that he didn’t even mind when Mrs. Scott inevitably knocked on his door five minutes after he ended the call with Lucia Trapani. In addition to being overworked, the poor thing was also senile. Otherwise she would have remembered that he had specifically asked not to be disturbed.

“Mrs. Scott,” he said, opening the door. “More towels?”

Henry blinked. Hard.

Instead of the proprietor, he saw Deana Swan, standing with her hands folded nervously in front of her. Henry took a step backward, his good mood gone in an instant.

Deana noticed and attempted a smile. “Hi, Henry.”

Stunned by her presence for the second time that morning, Henry’s first instinct was to close the door. He couldn’t face her. Not now. Not ever. But Deana was quick and blocked the door’s progress with her foot.

“Please,” she said, the door bouncing off her shoe. “This will only take a minute.”

Henry wanted to keep pressing the door against her foot in the hope she’d pull it away and leave him in peace. But Deana sounded desperate. As desperate as Tosca, he noted. So he released the door, letting it drift open until there was nothing between them.

“I know you don’t want to see me,” Deana said. “I completely understand that. Even more, I respect it. But you just vanished. I know why you did it, and I came to terms with the fact that I was never going to see you again.”

She was on the verge of crying, the welling tears catching the light and setting off her big, blue eyes.

“And then suddenly you’re here again. I don’t know why or for how long. But I knew that I couldn’t let you leave again without telling you how deeply sorry I am about what happened to you. He hurt you so much, Henry. You almost died. And it tears me up inside that I was in some way a part of that. I will never forgive myself, and I understand if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Henry remained silent, his conflicting emotions too unruly to be conveyed in mere words. He still thought about Deana often. His clumsy stakeout of her house made that embarrassingly clear. Yet he wasn’t ready to forgive her.

Yes, he knew she wasn’t the Grim Reaper, who had killed two people and died while trying to make Henry his third victim. But Deana had provided him with one of the tools used to torment him. It wasn’t intentional on her part. At the time, she had no idea about the consequences of her actions. She was an unwilling accomplice, an innocent bystander. But Henry needed someone to blame. Now that the Grim Reaper was dead, Deana was the only person left.

“I know what happened to you and Chief Campbell in that mill,” she continued. “People in town still talk about it. I know what happened, and I’m sorry.”

She paused, letting the silence stretch between them, as taut and vibrating as plucked piano wire. Henry made no move to break it.

“I want to sit down and talk about all this,” Deana eventually said. “I think it would help both of us. But not now. I need to get to work and it’s obvious I surprised you as much as you surprised me this morning. But I have an hour break at two. You can come over and we’ll talk.”

She paused, waiting for him to respond. But Henry didn’t. He couldn’t even manage a shake of his head.

“You need time to think about it,” Deana said, biting her lower lip expectantly. “And I know you don’t want to. But please try. It’s important.”

She hesitated a moment, leaning in the direction of the stairwell just down the hall but keeping her eyes on Henry. No doubt she was hoping he’d agree and let her avoid the suspense of waiting. But the nod Henry gave her was one of dismissal, not affirmation, and Deana eventually drifted away from the door.

Henry didn’t observe her progress down the hall.

Instead, he listened.

To the sob she tried to muffle as she hurried through the hallway. To her footfalls, getting faster once she reached the stairs. To the creak of the inn’s front door as she slipped outside.

Only when she was gone did Henry close the door to his room. He stumbled to the bed, collapsing on top of its blanket of papers. Although his body had insisted on running on Italian time all morning, a wave of exhaustion suddenly crashed over him.

His eyelids, as heavy as steel doors, slammed shut. His mind, having been given too much to process, simply closed down. Henry relished the dark void. He retreated into it, practically sprinting into sleep.