On the Run (8 page)

Why? Why would these two people take this tragic, irreversible action? What despair could have been so overwhelming that they saw
this
as the only solution? Now I also had to wonder, what would their son think? Would death by suicide pact be more or less horrendous for him than murder by some outsider?

But another thought slithered in behind that obvious conclusion. What if this wasn’t what it looked like? What if it was a staged scene, a phony note, murder set up to look like a suicide pact?

I quickly discarded the thought. Maybe I did read too many mystery novels.

“I’m going to go out and unlock the gate.” Abilene sounded as if she was suddenly frantic to get out of the house, away from the bodies and flies and smell.

I dug in a pocket and brought out my own keys. “You can drive the motor home back.”

She eyed the keys but didn’t reach for them. “We can get it later.”

“There’s no point in your walking all the way back here in the heat.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind.” She said it politely and waved her hand dismissively, but I heard an underlying stubbornness that puzzled me. Why be stubborn about something so trivial?

She went through the dining room and kitchen to the back door, which was still standing open, but stopped short. I could see her through the wide arched doorway to the dining room.

“Is something wrong?” I called.

“No, I guess not. For a minute I thought I saw something moving back there in the woods. But it was probably just a bird or squirrel or something. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

After Abilene left, I found a row of switches on a nearby wall and used my elbow to snap them on. I jumped when the lights flared on overhead, startled by the source. Three chandeliers made of intricately entwined antlers hung there like a row of barbaric crowns for a trio of medieval kings.
How many wild creatures have given their heads for these
monstrosities?
I wondered, appalled. Above the chandeliers, the sloping ceiling disappeared in shadows laced with dark beams. A huge, rock-embedded fireplace, with another slab of rock for a mantel, stood at the far end of the room. A horseshoe grouping of sofas and chairs faced it, with other groups of furniture scattered around the room. An upright piano draped with a Navajo blanket stood off to one side, a television on the other. A huge antlered deer head on a wooden plaque hung over the fireplace. It was slightly askew, making the deer look as if it were watching the big room with the cynical expression of one who has seen it all before. More Navajo rugs and blankets hung on the walls, along with several oversized paintings of generic-looking mountains and lakes.

This must have been a general gathering place for guests when it was a hunting lodge, and probably used by the Northcutts as an oversized living room.

Stairs led up to a railed balcony overlooking the room below. The upstairs probably held a number of bedrooms for lodge guests at one time, but it looked as if there was space for only a couple of bedrooms now. A tawny skin hung over the railing. I couldn’t identify it, but a glitter of claws told me I wouldn’t have wanted to encounter it when the skin was occupied.

Carpeting covered the hallway floor, but the floor in this huge room was hardwood, with area rugs, mostly of the colorful Navajo variety, scattered here and there.

The general effect was rustic, pleasing but impersonal, the kind of thing that would look good in a lodge brochure. The dining room, with all those books and folders, appeared considerably more lived in. I wondered where the Northcutts kept the Oscar their son said they’d won.

I headed back to the bathroom to make certain I’d cleaned up the tangle of toilet tissue, but along the way I peeked through the open door of what had been, according to Frank Northcutt, his parents’ bedroom. The drapes in the bedroom were also closed, and it was too dark to make out more than shadowy shapes of furniture. I felt a moment’s apprehension when I flicked the light switch. Would it reveal some bizarre light fixture of entangled hooves or teeth, perhaps?

No, thankfully, it was just an ordinary glass fixture.

The large room held a four-poster bed of dark walnut, with a matching mirrored dresser, two chests of drawers, two nightstands, and a couple of chairs upholstered in dark green. All were massive and impressive, almost as impersonal as the over-antlered room out front. There were no photos or mementos, no dirty socks on the floor or open books on the nightstands, but there was a delicately lovely music box on the dresser plus a collection of antique perfume bottles.

But what most caught my attention was a double-doored, tall, wooden cabinet in one corner of the room. One door stood partly open, a ring of keys dangling from the lock. Craning my neck I could almost . . . but not quite . . . see inside the cabinet. Was this where the Northcutts kept that Oscar? Or what
was
in there?

I hesitated, but curiosity overrode guilt for my nosiness, and I walked over and nudged the door open, again using my elbow. Elbows leave no prints. At least I’ve never encountered elbow prints in my reading. I stared at what the open door revealed. Not a Hollywood award.

Guns.

At least a dozen of them were leaned neatly against the green felt that lined the big cabinet, some narrow and long barreled, some short and squatty. Handguns hanging from hooks covered a side wall of the cabinet, some large enough to intimidate a terrorist, others small enough to be concealed in a purse. Or garter, perhaps, if you were the Mata Hari type.

I’m familiar with gun names and numbers from mysteries I’ve read. Winchesters and Remingtons, Glocks and Sigs, Berettas and Rugers. And 30-06s and 10 gauges, .45s and 9mms. But my ability to actually identify such guns is close to nonexistent, and I had no idea if the long-barreled guns were rifles or shotguns, legitimate hunting guns or subversive guerilla weaponry. Why would anyone need so
many
guns?

One space on the handgun wall was empty. It didn’t take an expert to suspect where that weapon was now.

Another point on which I was reasonably certain was that this was no elite collection of fancy guns kept only for display. These were working weapons, unadorned and deadly looking. Several were equipped with what I guessed were telescopic sights. Maybe even night-vision sights.

On the floor of the cabinet were several more items that totally mystified me. But which I strongly suspected would give me shivers if I knew what they were. Now I also noticed that leaning against the outside of the cabinet was a strange and vicious-looking instrument, probably the thing Margaret had called a crossbow.

Margaret Rau had said the Northcutts were “different.” I had to agree. Not your garden-variety suburban neighbors.

I started back toward the door to the hallway, but curiosity got to me again. I detoured to peer in the bathroom, which was considerably larger and more elegant than the smaller one I’d fallen into. Another twitch with my elbow on the light switch revealed double sinks, an octagonal tub, a huge, separate shower, and enough mirrors to make me feel as if I was watching myself over my own shoulder.

The mirrored door on an oversized medicine cabinet stood open. I tiptoed closer. Why tiptoe? I don’t know. Perhaps it just comes with the territory when you’re prowling where you probably have no business being, and there are two bodies just down the hallway.

The cabinet held a mundane assortment of items: laxatives, antihistamine pills, Band-Aids, Ben-Gay, Advil and Tylenol, plus some herbal concoctions I’d never heard of. A plastic bottle of Tums spilling multicolored pills lay on its side on the marble counter below.

Nothing unusual, and yet . . .

Wasn’t the sequence of events suggested by bath and bedroom just a little odd?

Open bathroom cabinet door.

Take antacid pills.

Get gun from cabinet.

Shoot mate and self.

Although it was conceivable that Jock or Jessie may have been looking for a pain killer or tranquilizer to make the suicide process easier. A second glance at the medicine cabinet suggested all the items in it had been marginally disarranged, as if someone had poked through everything. Which meant . . . what?

Not my place to speculate, I once more told myself firmly. The authorities were on their way.

In the dining room the books and thick manila folders pulled me, but I bypassed them. More a reaction to the pervasive scent coming from the other room than determined control of my curiosity, I had to admit. Outside in the sunshine I breathed deeply of fresh air. Even the dust raised by the emus had a good, earthy, natural scent, unlike the tainted air inside the house.

I felt too edgy to sit, so I wandered around, eying the big tanks and outbuildings. Frogs croaked somewhere out of sight, suggesting water back there in the woods somewhere. Several of the curious emus came to the fence to watch me. One had the peculiar habit of blinking just one eye. Probably just the emu version of a tic, but it came across as a conspiratorial wink. I couldn’t agree with Frank Northcutt’s derogatory judgment of the emus as “stupid birds.” There seemed an inquisitive intelligence in their bright eyes following my every move. They hadn’t been making any of those odd noises since we’d arrived and Abilene had fed them. They struck me as sociable birds who liked to be around people.

After a few minutes I had the peculiar feeling that more than emus were watching. And Abilene thought she’d seen something out in the woods . . . Which reminded me of the son’s comment that we shouldn’t hang around if a murderer was still in the vicinity.

I then reminded myself that, from all indications, there
was
no murderer, just a sadly misguided couple who’d given up on life. Which didn’t keep me from whirling a couple of times, trying to catch whoever or whatever might be slyly spying from cover of the dense woods.

I saw nothing, but the being-watched feeling was strong enough to send me back to a lawn chair on the deck. I may be curious, but I’m not without a prudent sense of caution, and the house felt safer than the woods. Although it hadn’t provided safety for the Northcutts . . .

Abilene returned a few minutes later, but it was at least an hour and a half before we heard a car approaching. By then, we were sitting on the back deck. I was wishing I had something to drink, but I wasn’t about to raid the refrigerator. We circled the house to meet the car.

Two officers, one middle-aged, the other much younger, got out of the dusty white car marked with a county sheriff’s department emblem. The older man with steel-gray hair and a generous belly introduced himself as Sgt. Dole, and the younger man, who could surely be a poster boy for clean-cut, handsome police officers everywhere, as Deputy Hamilton.

“Sorry to take so long getting here,” Sgt. Dole said. “A report came in about an off-road rollover accident with a death involved, and I was investigating that when the call about this situation came in. Actually, as the crow flies it isn’t all that far from here. Although it’s a long way around by road.”

“I understand there’s also been a murder in the area.”

“Right.” Sgt. Dole checked his watch as if he had something on his mind. “Bad stuff. We’re not usually so deep in bodies around here.”

Sgt. Dole was also inspecting Abilene as he spoke, as was the younger deputy, both men obviously taking note of the black eyes and bruises. Abilene’s toe ground nervous circles in the dust, and her gaze skittered everywhere but directly at them. Once her glance darted toward the woods, and I was afraid she might actually cut and run.

Quickly I identified myself and said I’d made the call to 911. “The front door is still locked, but you can get in the back way.” I motioned around the house. “The bodies are on a sofa just beyond the dining room. We’re assuming they’re Mr. and Mrs. Northcutt, although we don’t know that for certain. Their son is on his way and can positively identify them, of course. But I didn’t think to ask him where he was coming from, so I don’t know how long it will take him to get here.”

“You’ve already notified the son of this?” The older officer’s bushy eyebrows did hairy calisthenics of disapproval.

“He happened to call just as I was going to dial 911. So I didn’t feel I couldn’t
not
tell him, with them sitting right there beside me . . . dead.”

“You’re . . . what? Relatives? Friends?”

“We just happened to be here looking for jobs,” I explained. I thought that might raise the eyebrows again. Possum-gray LOL and nervous, spike-haired blond with bruises.
What kind
of jobs did these two hope to find?

All Sgt. Dole said, however, was, “But you’re not from around here.”

An observation, not a question, but I couldn’t tell if it meant he knew everybody in the county, if he’d noted the Arkansas plates on the motor home, or if we just stood out as not-from-here people. So all I said was, “Margaret Rau told me the Northcutts might be looking for someone.”

“And how did you ‘happen’ to find the bodies inside the house?”

Sgt. Dole had instantly zeroed in on the weak point in our good-citizen involvement here. I hastily explained about peering through the sliding glass doors, being concerned that the people we could only partially see might be ill, not having a way to call, and so finding entrance through a window.

“We didn’t touch anything,” I assured him. “Except the phone, of course.” I didn’t feel it was necessary to tell him about my plunge into the toilet bowl. Or my excursion into the master bedroom. I’d been careful not to touch anything there.

Sgt. Dole frowned at my statement about climbing through the window but made no comment other than to warn, “Don’t leave. We’ll want to ask you some further questions.”

9

Sgt. Dole led the way into the house. The younger deputy and I followed. Abilene stayed behind. I suspected she wanted to keep as far away from the officers as possible, though I still didn’t know what that was all about. Both men stopped short just inside the arched doorway to the big room. The chandelier lights were still on. I thought the gruesome scene would shock even the most experienced of police officers. The flies were still buzzing, and the smell not improving. But I saw no change of expression on either face when I edged up beside them.