Moonlight Becomes You (37 page)

He could pretty much figure what she must have been up to. He had guessed it the other night when he saw that crooked nephew of hers hand her an envelope in the restaurant he had followed her to. Seeing her financial records only confirmed what he had suspected.

She was giving Doug Hansen privileged financial information about applicants to Latham Manor so that he could try to cheat rich old women. Maybe “attempt to defraud” charges wouldn't stick against her, but they certainly wouldn't help her in this town. And, of course, she would lose her job.

Good, he thought.

Hansen was the one who made a higher offer to Maggie Holloway. He was
sure
of it. And Janice had tipped him off about the upcoming change in the law. They probably planned to raise the ante until Holloway sold.

If only Maggie Holloway hadn't come on the scene and spoiled it all, he thought bitterly. Knowing he could make a killing on the house, he would have found a way to keep Barbara.

Make a killing.
He smiled grimly. That was rich!

Of course, none of that mattered anymore. He would never buy the house. He would never have Barbara in his life. He really
had
no more life. It was over now. But at least he had gotten even. They would know that he wasn't the empty suit Janice had sneered at for years.

He moved the manila envelope addressed to Chief Brower to the far corner of the desk. He didn't want it to get stained.

He reached for the pistol he kept in the deep bottom drawer. He took it out and held it for a moment, studying it thoughtfully. Then he punched in the number of the police station and asked for Chief Brower.

“It's Malcolm Norton,” he said pleasantly, as he picked up the gun in his right hand and held it to his head. “I think you'd better get over here. I'm about to kill myself.”

As he pulled the trigger, he heard the final, single word:
“Don't!”

74

M
AGGIE COULD FEEL THE BLOOD THAT MATTED THE HAIR
on the side of her head, which was sensitive to the touch and still ached. “Be calm,” she kept whispering to herself. “I've got to be calm.”

Where am I buried? she wondered. Probably in some isolated spot in the woods where no one can possibly find me. When she tugged the string on her ring finger, she could feel a heavy pressure on the other end.

He must have attached the string to one of the Victorian bells, she reasoned. She ran her index finger up inside the tube that the string was threaded through. It felt like solid metal and seemed to be about an inch in diameter. She should be able to get enough air through it for breathing, she decided, unless it became clogged.

But why had he bothered with all this? she wondered. She was sure there was no clapper in the bell, because she would be able to hear at least some faint sound if there had been one. That meant no one could hear her.

Was she in a real cemetery? If so, was there a chance that people might visit or attend a funeral? Would she be able to hear even faintly the sound of cars?

Plan!
Maggie told herself. You've got to plan. She would keep tugging the string until her finger felt raw, until her strength gave out. If she was buried where someone might pass by, then there was always the hope that the moving bell might attract attention.

She also would try to shout for help at what she calculated to be ten-minute intervals. There was no way of knowing, of course, if her voice actually carried up the tube, but she had to try. She mustn't wear out her voice too soon, though, and not be able to attract attention if she did hear sounds of someone nearby.

But would he come back? she wondered. He was insane, she was sure of that. If he heard her shouting, he might cover the air vent and let her suffocate. She had to be careful.

Of course, it might all be for naught, she realized. There was a strong likelihood that she was buried in a completely remote spot, and that he was visualizing her clawing at the lid of the casket and yanking on the string the way some Victorians reportedly had done when they realized they were buried alive. Only those people had someone waiting to hear their alarm. Wherever she was, she was certain that she was completely alone.

75

A
T TEN O
'
CLOCK
, N
EIL AND HIS FATHER SAT TENSELY IN
Chief Brower's office and listened as he soberly revealed the contents of Malcolm Norton's suicide note. “Norton was a bitter and disappointed man,” he said. “According to what he's written, because of a change in environmental laws, Ms. Holloway's property is going to be worth a lot of money. When he made the offer to Nuala Moore to buy her house, he obviously was prepared to cheat her by not telling her of its true value, so it's very possible that he got wind that she was changing her mind about making the sale to him and killed her. He might well have been searching the house, trying to find her revised will.”

He paused to reread a paragraph of the lengthy note. “It's very obvious that he blamed Maggie Holloway for everything having gone wrong, and although he doesn't say it, he may have taken revenge on her. He's certainly managed to get his wife in serious trouble.”

This can't be happening, Neil thought. He felt his father's hand on his shoulder and wanted to shake it off. He was afraid that sympathy would undermine his resolve, and he would not let that happen. He wasn't going to give up.
Maggie wasn't dead.
He was sure of that. She
couldn't
be dead.

“I've talked to Mrs. Norton,” Brower continued. “Her husband came home at the usual time yesterday, then left and didn't return until midnight. This morning
when she tried to find out where he'd been, he wouldn't answer.”

“How well did Maggie know this guy Norton?” Robert Stephens asked. “What would make her agree to meet him? Do you think he might have forced her into her own car, then driven to where you found it? But then, what did he do with Maggie, and since he left her car there, how did he get home?”

Brower was shaking his head as Stephens spoke. “It's a very unlikely scenario, I agree, but it's an angle we have to pursue. We're bringing in dogs to try to follow Ms. Holloway's scent, so if she is in that area, we'll find her. But it's a long way from Norton's home. He'd have to have acted in tandem with someone else, or he'd need to have gotten a ride home from a passerby, and frankly both of those options seem unlikely. This woman he was crazy about, Barbara Hoffman, is in Colorado visiting her daughter. We checked on her already. She's been there since the weekend.”

The intercom rang, and Brower picked up his phone. “Put him on,” he said after a moment.

Neil buried his face in his hands. Don't let them have found Maggie's body, he silently pleaded.

Brower's conversation lasted only a minute. When he got off, he said, “In a way, I think we have good news. Malcolm Norton had dinner last night at the Log Cabin, a small restaurant near where Barbara Hoffman lived. Apparently she and Norton ate there together frequently. The owner tells us that Norton was there until well after eleven, so he must have gone directly home.”

Which means, Neil thought, he almost certainly had nothing to do with Maggie's disappearance.

“Where do you go from here?” Robert Stephens asked.

“To interrogate the people Ms. Holloway pointed us to,” Brower said, “Earl Bateman and Nurse Zelda Markey.”

His intercom sounded again. After listening without comment, Brower hung up his phone and stood. “I don't know what kind of game Bateman is up to, but he just phoned to report that last night a coffin was stolen from his funeral museum.”

76

D
R
. W
ILLIAM
L
ANE REALIZED THAT THERE WAS VERY LITTLE
he could say to his wife this Tuesday morning. Her stony silence indicated to him that even
she
could be driven too far.

If only she hadn't come home last night and found him like that, he thought. He hadn't had a drink in what seemed like ages, not since the incident at the last place he worked. Lane knew that he owed this job to Odile. She had met the owners of Prestige Residence Corporation at a cocktail party and had touted him for the director's job at Latham, which was then being renovated.

Latham Manor was to be one of Prestige's franchised residences, as opposed to fully owned and operated; but they had agreed to meet with him, and then later had submitted his résumé to the franchiser. Remarkably, he got the job.

All thanks to Odile, as she constantly reminded him, he thought bitterly.

He knew that the slipup last night was a sign the pressure was getting to him. The orders to keep those apartments
filled; don't let them pass a month unsold. Always the implied threat of being let go if he didn't perform.
Let go,
he thought. Go where?

After the last incident, Odile had told him that if she saw him drunk even once, she was leaving.

As enticing as the prospect was, he couldn't let that happen. The truth was he needed her.

Why hadn't she stayed in Boston last night? he thought.

Because she suspected that he was panicking, he reasoned.

She was right, of course. He had been in a state of terror ever since he learned that Maggie Holloway had been looking for a sketch Nuala Moore had made that showed Nurse Markey eavesdropping.

He should have found a way to get rid of that woman long ago, but Prestige had sent her, and in most respects she was a good nurse. Certainly many of the residents valued her. In fact, he sometimes wondered if she wasn't
too
good a nurse. She seemed to know more than he did about some things.

Well, whatever was going on between him and Odile, Dr. Lane knew he had to go over to the residence and make his morning rounds.

He found his wife drinking coffee in the kitchen. Uncharacteristically she hadn't bothered to put on even a minimum of makeup this morning. She looked drawn and tired.

“Zelda Markey just phoned,” she told him, an angry glint in her eye. “The police have asked her to be available for questioning. She doesn't know why.”

“For
questioning?”
Lane felt the tension run through his body, gripping every muscle. It's all over, he thought.

“She also told me that Sarah Cushing gave strict orders that neither she nor you was to enter her mother's room. It seems that Mrs. Bainbridge isn't well, and Mrs. Cushing
is making arrangements to transfer her immediately to the hospital.”

Odile looked at him accusingly. “You were supposed to be rushing home to see Mrs. Bainbridge last night. Not that you'd have been allowed anywhere near her, but I hear you didn't show up at the residence till nearly eleven. What were you
doing
until then?”

77