Madeline Mann (8 page)

I barely felt my feet touch the ground as I sailed toward the car. Jack was still there, thank God, his lights guiding me to safety. I covered the last few yards with some real Olympic-style running, knees high, arms pumping. I tore open the door and dove inside with a sob of relief, then forced a smile for a flabbergasted Jack.

“Okay, ready for dinner,” I said. “Go, go, go!”

Jack
said I would feel better with some food in my system, and I did. We returned to the shop-laden Water Street and settled on a little Italian place which was, as Jack promised, right across from the harbor. We faced each other over steaming bowls of pasta and discussed our options.

“You okay?” he asked with some concern.

I nodded.

He touched my hand reassuringly. I have to say, after a slight trauma, I couldn't think of anyone other than Jack whom I'd want to run to. “I saw four B and Bs on our way back here,” Jack said. “This is the off-season, so one of them is bound to have a vacancy,” he assured me before devoting himself to a forkful of shrimp scampi. His hair was disheveled from our windy walk, and he looked about ten years younger than his age, twenty-nine, and very handsome.

“Fine,” I said after a swig of milk. “I think my heart may actually be beating at its normal rhythm again. I think I can assure you I will never want a dog. So. We may as well enjoy a part of this unexpected journey. I was really beginning to regret Fritz ever mentioning the name Logan Lanford!” I boomed heartily.

A Bing Crosby type who had paused near us to light a fragrant pipe now approached the table. For a moment, I thought he was going to ask if we cared to see the dessert menu, and I did care, passionately, despite the food still in front of me.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking at me. “I thought I just heard my name.”

I stared dumbly at him by way of response. I vaguely wondered if he were a charming, literate beggar who preyed upon tourists.

Unperturbed by my confusion, he put out a big hand. “I'm Wick Lanford,” he offered. “Are you staying at my place?”

My mouth, if possible, must have opened wider. It seemed like some sort of jovial pickup line. I shook his hand wordlessly. Jack must have despaired at my slowness.

In any case, Jack rescued me. “She actually said Logan Lanford,” he told the man called Wick. “It's the name of a friend of hers.”

Wick was still smiling. “Logan is my son. Are you visiting him here?”

Suddenly I found my voice, and my memory. Of course! Logan's father lived in Saugatuck. The dad with the cabin and the broken answering machine. The Lanfords had been divorced when Logan was young, and his father was “an entrepreneur in Michigan,” Logan always told me. And I'd met him at high school graduation.

“Mr. Lanford! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you. I'm Madeline Mann. I went to high school with Logan at St. Roselle. I met you once, but—”

“Sure, sure, I remember. You're as cute as ever. A little blonder, though, right?” He actually winked at me, which I can't remember anyone having done since I was about six. It was charming too, somehow, rather than annoying.

I admitted to the dye job, and Wick asked us what we thought of Saugatuck.

“We just got here,” said Jack. “But we like this restaurant.”

Wick laughed heartily, like Old King Cole. Some people entering the restaurant waved and called out to him, and he gestured back regally.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked him.

“Almost ten years, Madeline,” he told me. He gave the impression that he was confiding in only me, even though Jack was right there listening. I imagined that Wick was a very alluring bachelor, what with his money, his apparent popularity, and his undeniable attractiveness. “I bought a bed and breakfast out here, and it did real well, and now I have two. I'm also opening a restaurant in the spring, with my business partner.” He waved again, at some people who were leaving and seemed bent on getting his attention before they did.

“Is your partner also a businessman here in Saugatuck?” I asked.

Wick twinkled at me. “My partner is named Shelly, and aside from being a successful shop owner here in town, she also happens to be my girlfriend.”

I turned red, ashamed of my own sexism. That was the sort of thing I liked to expose in other people. “So,” he asked, his eyes scanning the room for more friends, “you're here visiting Logan?”

“Is he in town?” I asked him. “We're on a fact-finding mission.”

Suddenly Wick's broad face lost some of its geniality. He ran a hand through his thick gray hair and stroked some imaginary stubble. I noted, in the pause of his impending remark, that his tweed coat and jeans looked expensive, as did the boots that peeked out from below his denim hems.

“Did your mom send you?” he asked.

That one came so far out of left field that I was stricken dumb for the third time. I was forced once again to display my intelligent look, although this time I stylishly added a slight whining sound through my nasal cavity.

“My mother?” I finally managed.

Jack sent me a quizzical glance and answered for me again.

“Actually Madeline's here on behalf of Logan's wife. Apparently there's been a lack of communication about Logan's whereabouts. He forgot to mention where he was going, or what they should do for money while he was gone.”

Wick's facial skin seemed to tighten, and he sat abruptly on the edge of Jack's side of the booth. “Logan told me Jamie and the kids were visiting her parents in Peoria.”

I was now uncomfortably aware of my position as bearer of bad news. “That's not true,” I said gently. “He walked out for diapers on Wednesday night and didn't come back. Jamie is beside herself with worry, and they're all pretty stressed. And hungry.” I added this last part half as a joke, but no one laughed.

Wick Lanford sat like a graven image, taking this in. His jaw worked briefly, like he'd found a piece of steak somewhere in his molars, and then he was still. I was trying to formulate something like an apology when he started talking, apparently in an effort to articulate his growing anger.

“A little vacation, he told me. And hungry babies at home. Not even a call, except to Linus—”

“Linus?” I asked. “Is that how he got here? Jamie wondered where he could go without a car.” Linus was Logan's older brother.

Wick nodded. “My son Linus is a supplier for my inns. He travels back and forth all the time. Logan just hitched a ride.” He mused some more. Jack surreptitiously continued eating his shrimp. I couldn't blame him.

I had a thought. “If Logan's here, why didn't he answer the door when we drove to the cabin?” For once I had captured Wick's roaming eyes, which looked rather miserably into my own.

Logan's dad seemed a little edgy. “He didn't answer? Well, maybe he thought—I mean, did he know it was you? Know why you all were there?”

“I called out to him. I imagine he could have heard me, or seen me through the window,” I said.

Wick stood suddenly. “I'll get to the bottom of this right now. Do you two need a place to stay? I've got the two B and Bs here in town. One is quaint, and one is more elegant. If you want the first, you can stay at Thatch Cottage. If you're lookin’ for modern conveniences and a nice Jacuzzi, then go to Elegance. That's two blocks over on Griffith, on the corner. Can't miss it. It's on the house. Least I can do when you come all the way out here for Jamie.”

Jack and I both began to thank him, and he waved us away. He pulled a business card out of his pocket and scrawled something on the back. “Wherever you decide,” he told us. “Just show this to the innkeeper. I'll be in touch about Logan.”

I thanked him again and felt a bizarre desire to bow as well. Wick was like Saugatuck royalty, and we'd been invited to the palace.

Jack and I chose Elegance. Our room had a pretty view of a forested park, no longer visible in the autumn dark. The room was decorated with refined simplicity and muted tones, and the style was in the little details. I viewed the well-stocked side bar and the telephone table that contained not a Gideon Bible, but a local restaurant list, some mysteries for in-room reading, and a few copies of
Connoisseur
and the
New York Times
. I pulled back the bedspread and found that the sheets were silk, and the pillow contained not a mint, but an entire bar of Godiva chocolate, which I proceeded to eat. I sat on the edge of the bed, munching and kicking my feet to the rhythm of some distant sirens, the sound of which drifted in our window like a delightful October ghost.

“I've never slept on silk sheets before,” I said with my mouth full.

Jack was fiddling with a television in one corner, probably trying to find PBS. Jack loved watching those shows that no one else cared about, like the mating habits of the praying mantis or the slow erosion of the world as shown in time-lapse photography. “About time you did,” he murmured, playing with the channel selector.

“Should I call my mom and tell her where we are?” I asked, mostly for something to say.

“Nah. We'll be home tomorrow. She won't even miss you.” Jack had now found a promising-looking station that featured some tiny animal facing extinction; it looked like a cross between a rat and my high school economics teacher. He settled into a wingback chair and let out a contented sigh. “God bless Wick Lanford,” he said.

The phone rang then. “He heard you,” I joked as I walked to the telephone. I picked up the receiver. “Hello,” I said, smiling and wiping chocolate from my mouth.

“It's Wick Lanford,” said a voice barely recognizable as belonging to the man we'd just met. His tone had an indefinable quality that raised the hairs on my arms.

“Hello,” I said again without the smile. “Did you find Logan?”

Wick made a horrible noise, like the bellow of a bear, and I jumped in place and sent a shocked look toward Jack. I realized then that Wick was crying.

“Mr. Lanford!” I yelled. “Is everything all right?”

After a few moments, Wick got himself together. “Logan's dead,” he said tonelessly. “I got here and found him dead, killed by someone. He's…been killed.”

“My God,” I said. I sat abruptly in the chair next to the phone. “I…don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. This is terrible, I…” I went on, trying to voice my feelings of sorrow and commiseration and doing an inadequate job. Finally I cut myself off. “Mr. Lanford, what can I do?”

The idea of specific action focused him. “I've got some police out here, and more on the way. I told them you were here—they found this little card you left for Logan. They want to ask you some questions.”

“Should we come out there?” I asked.

“No. No, I don't think so. Too much going on. But now that I know where you are, I can tell them, and they can come on out. You'll still be up?”

“Of course!” I assured him. As if I would sleep now.

I hung up and told Jack what Wick Lanford had told me. “So he was in there, Jack, lying in there when I stood outside calling his name!”

Jack nodded grimly. “Sounds that way. I'm sorry, Madeline. I know he was a friend of yours.”

I nodded. “He was, once. God, who would want to kill him?”

Images came unbidden to my mind in answer to my own question. Jamie, haggard with resentment and frustration. The car that Jack and I had seen leaving Logan's right before we drove in. And Quinn Paley's living room, homey, fire-lit. One gun had been missing from the wall.

seven

There were two
police detectives, a man and a woman. Both appeared to be in their thirties, and both projected the professional solemnity appropriate to their jobs. They shook our hands and introduced themselves: he was Detective Krosky, and she was Detective Perez. I got the impression that the two of them hadn't been partnered long, because they sometimes repeated one another's words, and I sensed a hidden battle for superior position.

Detective Perez was fairly short, with dark hair pulled back in a no-nonsense pony tail. Her skin looked prone to dryness, and her face looked weary. Maybe she was sick of justifying her status in the department to male cops.

She asked me why I'd been at Logan's cabin, and I described my visit to Jamie. “Actually it was my brother who mentioned Logan was missing,” I said. “He's in a band with Logan. I said I'd talk to Logan's wife, and Jamie said he might be out here, because apparently he'd come here before—without telling her, probably. I got the impression Logan didn't feel the necessity of informing his wife where he was at all times.” I tried to keep the disapproval out of my voice. Logan was dead, and I didn't want to speak ill of him. Not entirely.

“So you came all the way out here on your own?” asked Detective Krosky, with obvious skepticism. He was a tall, husky man with a clean-shaven face and two chins. He wore a creaky leather jacket, which he did not take off during our interview. It almost concealed, but not quite, the sizable stomach above his Dockers, and I wondered if he left the coat on as a matter of course. His blond hair was cut in military fashion, and he smelled like smoke.

“Well, no, I was with Jack here. And I also planned to write an article for the
Webley Wire
on tourism in the area.” I felt suddenly defensive, as though they'd accused me of murdering Logan myself.

“And you never saw or spoke with Mr. Lanford?”

“Logan Lanford?” I qualified. “No.”

Detective Krosky stood near the bed, where my chocolate wrapper still lay like the evidence of sin. He stared down at it and asked, “Was there ever anything between you and Mr. Lanford?”

“Romantically?” I asked. “No. I really haven't spoken with him at length in years. We went to high school together, and we were friends then. I recommended him for my brother's band, and he actually worked in the mayor's office with my mother for a while. I saw him once in a while there, and I was going to see him this Saturday at the music festival in Webley. I was going to listen to the band.…” I trailed off as I thought of Fritz's reaction to this sudden violence. Fritz had liked Logan.

The two detectives exchanged a glance. I strove to convince them; I've always felt a need to impress authority figures. “Is there some reason why my note might be important?” I asked.