Pursued by Shadows (9 page)

“The half of what?” he asked, running his hand over her breast and then bending over to kiss it gently, over and over again. “I'll tell you what I know. You're very beautiful, you're in trouble, and when you're not too preoccupied with your problems, you're funny and passionate. And somewhere you picked up a boyfriend who's prepared to chase you all over the goddamned continent. What's he planning on doing? Strangling you and then me, one after the other? Actually, I'm not sure whether he wants you or the thing you were carrying around with you. The one you gave to your sister. I assume that he thinks it ought to be his.” He paused, as if to allow her to comment if she wanted to.

Jane shook her head helplessly. “But there's something else,” she said, trembling with nervousness. “I have a baby too, and if—”

“That was obvious.” He stroked her hair gently as he spoke.

“How did you know about the baby?” she asked quickly.

“I looked at you, that's all.” He ran his hand down her flank and then traced a delicate pattern over her hips. “People are like pieces of hardwood. We have these patterns buried in us to tell what our lives have been.” He grinned. “Or to put it in words of one syllable, you have stretch marks. Slight, but unmistakable. What have you done with it?”

“She's with my mother. I didn't take her to England with me. Guy didn't exactly—”

“Is she his?”

“Yes, of course,” said Jane, looking offended for the moment. “But he's not the baby type. She is beautiful, though. You should see her. She looks like me and her name is Agnes. My mother loves babies, so I know she's being well looked after—” She began to tremble once more and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

“Easy,” he whispered, cradling her in his arms. “Of course she's being well looked after. You wouldn't want to drag her into a mess like this, would you?”

“What do you know about the mess I'm in?” she cried out. “Who in hell are you anyway?”

By Thursday, Lesley Sinclair had been driving almost aimlessly for two days without achieving even some of her minor goals. Pulling their old, well-rehearsed switch routine to collect the attaché case from Jane in Syracuse, and losing the heavy-footed lout who was chasing her at the bus station, had used up all her strength and good luck. Once she got out of Syracuse, she had the firm intention of avoiding the New York Thruway for the rest of the trip. Every minute she had spent on that road so far, she had felt open, unprotected, vulnerable. She shrank from every car that passed her; from every stranger who glanced in her window as he drove by. Unable to quell her responses, she comforted herself with the argument that they were not irrational; she would be easier to find if she stayed on major highways, or if she opted for the convenience of the large hostelries clustered around the Thruway exits. And so, on the way out of Syracuse, she had pulled over to the side of the road and, with her characteristic attention to detail, had plotted an ingenious course that would take her down minor roads and through unexpected places.

According to her own logic, Tuesday night's room should have been perfect. It was in a reasonably clean and pleasant-looking motel in a small town, with its own tiny coffee shop where she could get breakfast. It had a room telephone and a television set. It was the sort of place where she could remain safely out of the way until Saturday or Sunday when it would make sense for her to drive into New York City. She picked up some take-out chicken and settled in. She dawdled in a hot bath, toweled herself dry, and contemplated herself in the generous mirror. Maybe they had been right at the hospital and she was too skinny, she thought, running a hand along her bony hip. A little more muscle, a little more breast development wouldn't hurt. Being able to assess things like that rationally was terribly important, she thought. More food, more exercise, a curve or two. She patted her flat stomach, shrugged into the long T-shirt that Jane had given her, and started to look for something to watch on television. Her euphoria had lasted until, two hours of sitcoms and cop shows later, she reached for the telephone to call in her report.

It was dead. She punched buttons, purposefully at first, and then at random; she rattled the receiver furiously. Nothing she did could coax any response from it. For a moment she considered dressing again and going to the office to complain. But what could they do at this hour? She could imagine a bored and impatient night man looking contemptuously at her and asking what she wanted him to do, while she stood there, awkward, blushing, and tongue-tied. Offering her the use of the office phone while he listened in. Asking her if she wanted another room. Anyway, she hadn't really promised to check in every day. Tomorrow they could have the phone repaired. She switched off the television set and climbed into bed.

And then the nightmare started. Someone padded quietly along the walkway outside her room, shoes rustling on the thin, outdoor carpeting. The footfalls paused in front of her door. She held her breath, listening frantically for something to happen: an attempt at her door, the steps to go away again, the sound of something breathing. There was nothing. Suddenly a distant burst of laughter shattered the silence, quickly suppressed. She stared at the useless telephone and shivered with fear. For a minute the world seemed dead; then the whole symphony of night sounds started. Music from somewhere, footsteps above her head, the breaking of glass, the creaking of wood, and at last, more footsteps stopping outside her room. Her door rattled, as though shaken by an impatient hand, or perhaps the wind. By two o'clock, she knew she was too terrified of her own vulnerability when unconscious to sleep; she eased herself out of bed and slipped the attaché case under the mattress. It didn't help. At four, she tried to tell herself she was imagining most of it, perhaps dreaming fitful dreams of threatening noises. She got up and turned the television on, very softly, to the late, late movie. It was an old mystery, from the thirties or forties, hard-boiled and fast-paced. Black and white images flickered nervously across the screen, and she could feel her heart beating faster, her breath becoming more and more ragged. She turned it off. Just as the first birds were beginning to chirp, someone tried to insert a key into her door and shook the handle angrily. Her mouth filled with black fear; she crouched in her bed as still as a hunted mouse. She fell asleep as the sun poured in through a crack in the curtains, knowing only that she could not spend another night in this place, and slept until ten-thirty, just in time to dress and check out.

Her miserable luck had continued. The following day, exhaustion had forced her to pull into a motel where she had spent the night cowering behind a barricade of furniture, menaced by a leering manager with offers of comradeship and booze should she feel lonely, in the midst of disintegrating plumbing, carpeting sticky with dirt, and faulty door fastenings. She had thrown herself onto some kind of hellish downward spiral as she moved, a few painful miles at a time, closer to New York City. She needed someplace where she could spend two more days in relative safety before taking up her mission again. With a sigh of defeat, she turned and drove the eighty miles back up to the Thruway.

But the Thruway demons were still there and she hadn't managed to stay on it for long. On impulse, attracted by the odd flavor of its name, she had pulled off at Herkimer and followed Route 5 eastward in her frantic search for a motel. And now, Route 5, snaking along beside the Mohawk River, had taken her into Little Falls before she found what she was looking for—nothing quaint, nothing classy, just a motel that was part of a chain that guaranteed her a decent bathroom, good locks, and enough luxury to be bearable in her present state. Anyway, the name of the town had promise. Somewhere in the vicinity she would find the river and a waterfall. Surely the demons of the night could never withstand the rush and tumble of river noises.

She stared at the card she had just filled out. Under name, she had printed, “Lesley Sinclair” and then she had signed the same thing at the bottom. She hadn't meant to do that, but perhaps it was all for the best. She looked for the right credit card and dropped it on the counter. In the room—ground floor, nonsmoking—she put down her suitcase and flopped onto the bed. With a desperate yawn, she blinked and focused her reddened eyes on her watch—4:05. Much too early to call Jane. If she stayed where she was she knew she would fall asleep now and spend another hellish night awake, listening to the sound of her own fears. She would change and go out to look for the river and the waterfall and call after six.

The traffic began to build up around Grimsby. At Hamilton it was heavy, past Burlington, grim, at Oakville, dangerous. The only consolation was that traffic westbound, out of Toronto, was not moving at all. In compensation, however, the eastbound fast lanes they were traveling in were moving at ten to fifteen miles an hour above the limit, bumper to bumper, one giant accident waiting to happen.

“I seem to remember you assuring me that we would get back before rush hour,” said Sanders, watching Harriet weave back and forth between the left and center lanes to avoid being hit from behind by an impatient BMW. “When we stopped in the middle of nowhere to take pictures of that house. How fast are you going?” he added, watching the BMW dart off. He leaned over to peer at the speedometer. “God—I wish I hadn't,” he muttered.

“Don't worry about us,” said Harriet grimly. “Worry about those other guys. I think half of them are sloshed out of their minds. And we would have been, if we hadn't had to wait for an hour to get through Customs. I told you it would be faster to cross at Buffalo.”

“You're wrong,” said Sanders, clinging grimly to his ancient beliefs. “It was probably even worse there. Lot less traffic at Queenston.”

“That was ten years ago. Or maybe twenty. So everyone started crossing at Queenston to avoid the lines and now—” A white car flew past them on the left, cut in front of Harriet with an inch or two to spare and across three lanes to exit for the airport. “Anyway, stop bitching. You're not driving in this mess. I am.” She accelerated into the left-hand lane. “Let's think about something nice, like where to go for dinner. Skipping lunch was a mistake—and I know. It was my mistake, and I am graciously admitting that I was wrong.”

Sanders patted her on the knee and then closed his eyes until she got them on and off the Gardiner Expressway.

“Here we are,” she said. “All in one piece and it's not even five o'clock yet. But I admit I could use a beer. And I'm starved.” She left the car in the driveway and jumped out to open the door. “I feel as if I've been locked in that car forever,” she said, stretching luxuriously, and then bending over to pick up her suitcase.

Cold, stale, unpleasant air tumbled down the staircase and enveloped them as soon as they stepped into the hall with their luggage. “Yuk,” said Harriet. She shivered. “It stinks in here. Did I forget to put the groceries away before I left? Better leave the door open,” she added, “and air the place out.” She dropped her suitcase by her bedroom door and ran up the stairs.

Sanders left his suitcase beside hers and followed, heading for the bathroom. It was on the landing, halfway between bedroom and living room, and equally convenient—or not—to both levels. An odd silence struck him as he came out again. Not a footstep, not a rustle or a bang of doors opening or closing, none of the little noises that he associated with Harriet. “Harriet?” he called, if only to fill the air with noise.

“I'm right here,” she whispered. “John—I think you'd better come up.”

She was standing at the top of the stairs, facing the corner that held her dining-room table and four chairs, holding herself very still. The room was in chaos. Books were spread all over the floor; her desk drawers had been yanked out and dumped; sofa cushions sat in an asymmetrical pile near the door to the deck. In the middle of all this, as the centerpiece of confusion, was the body of a man, a very familiar man, lying on his back, arms spread, face white, hideous and bloated, reddish-brown hair tangled and matted, wearing a torn sweater and paint-smeared jeans. “Shit,” said John.

“It's Guy,” said Harriet unnecessarily. “I think he's dead.”

“Dead? God, yes.” John walked over and peered down at Guy Beaumont's distorted face. He picked up a finger and let it drop again. “For some time, too.” He turned back to her. “Was he in the apartment when you left?” he asked fiercely.

“You mean, lying here, dead?” said Harriet incredulously. “In the middle of my floor? For God's sake, John, do you know what you're saying? No, he wasn't. I would have mentioned it to you. I really would have. It's not something you could overlook, is it?” An edge of hysteria was creeping into her tone. “He wasn't here at all—not even alive.”

“Let's get out,” said Sanders abruptly. “I have to call in and we don't want to stomp around here messing anything up.”

“Can't I just open the door to the deck?” said Harriet, whose pallor was becoming ominous.

Sanders shook his head and led her quickly down the stairs.

“What in hell is this?” said Ed Dubinsky. “You're out of town for two days and someone dumps a body on you? Who is he, anyway?”

“His name is Guy Beaumont,” said Sanders with distaste. “An artist by profession.”

“A friend of yours?”

“No.”

“Ah—a friend of Miss Jeffries, then.”

“He used to be. Until last week, she hadn't seen him for a couple of years,” he said defensively. “He was out of the country. Living in London. England, that is.”

“Where have you stashed Miss Jeffries?”

Sanders nodded in the direction of the stairs. “She's sitting in her car. It seemed easier to get her out of the way.”

“Is she upset?” he asked with professional coldness and detachment.

“For chrissake, Ed . . .” Sanders began and stopped. With a jolt it occurred to him that he was being questioned. He deliberated for a moment over the trap his partner had laid for him. “No. She didn't seem to be upset,” he said cautiously. “Shocked, I would say. And very startled. Between the stench and him lying there,” he added, pointing, “she felt sick, too—so I told her to wait out there.”

“Yeah, well—it stinks enough in here to make anyone puke. Haven't you finished that damned door yet?” said Dubinsky to the constable engaged in the massive task of lifting fingerprints.

“Yeah, it's done,” said the constable dourly.

“Then open it, for chrissake, will you? Before we all choke.” A gust of fresh, warm air blew through the room, ruffling papers on the floor, and rushed down the stairs to meet the driver from the morgue and his mate coming in the door.

“That's the stuff that stinks,” said Sanders, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open, as was the door to its freezer compartment. Oozing packages of meat and other less easily defined things were scattered over the counter. “Don't you think?”

“Messy housekeeper?” asked Dubinsky.

“Lay off, Ed. I am not having a great time.”

“Okay, Miss Jeffries,” said Dubinsky, leaning on her ravaged bookcase like a relaxed and watchful panther, “what's missing? And what were they looking for?” He sounded as if he expected her to know.

“What's missing? In this mess?” Her voice rose in disbelief. “How in hell do you expect me to figure that out?”

“Take your time,” said Dubinsky. “Look around.”

“My God—where do I start?” she muttered without expecting an answer.

“Try the kitchen,” suggested Dubinsky blandly.

“You're kidding,” said Harriet, and when he didn't respond, walked over and opened up the refrigerator again. “They pulled everything out of the freezer,” she said. “It's empty. It's all rotten by now but, as far as I could tell when I checked the stuff they dumped on the counter, it was all there, down to the last putrefying chicken leg. They didn't touch the stuff in the refrigerator. Again, as far as I can tell, that is. They weren't hungry.” She glared at Dubinsky and then began opening and closing cupboard doors, talking to herself as she went. “This is stupid,” she said. “What would anyone want with the junk in the cupboard?”

“People hide things in flour and sugar. And in freezers,” said John, his voice harsh with nervous impatience.

“I know,” she snapped. “But no one's disturbed anything in here. Maybe it was Guy doing the searching, and he didn't figure I'd keep anything valuable in the sugar.”

“What would the victim have been looking for?” Dubinsky's voice was at its softest and most snakelike, and John frowned with worry.

“I really don't know,” said Harriet, not noticing or perhaps ignoring the warning rattle as she walked over to the bookcase. “What a mess,” she added, moving a pile of books aside with her foot.

Dubinsky took up a new position near the stairs, never taking his eyes off Harriet. “He seemed to get tired of pulling books off the shelf pretty quickly,” he remarked. “Or he was interrupted.”

Harriet stood back and stared at the bookcase. Only the bottom shelves had been denuded of books. A few hardcovers seemed to have been displaced on the shelf above; the paperbacks that filled the top four shelves were completely undisturbed. Then she turned and looked over at her desk, at all the file folders spread on the floor. “Do you mind if I check the darkroom?” she asked, glancing over at John.

He gave her a look she had trouble defining and turned to Ed, who nodded. “No problem,” he said. “Constable McNeill will go with you and take notes. Don't touch anything.”

Thirty minutes later a tired and haggard-looking Harriet trudged back up the stairs, followed by McNeill.

“What's the damage?” asked Sanders.

“It's a trash heap down there, but the real damage seems to be negligible. They've gone through everything,” she went on, her voice steady. “But there's a very interesting pattern.”

“What's that?” asked Dubinsky.

“I would guess that they—or he—or whoever is looking for something large and flat, like a big print. Larger than an eight by ten.” She held up a hand to forestall their questions. “Let me finish. All my packages of eleven by fourteen and sixteen by twenty paper have been opened and exposed. No big deal—I didn't have that much on hand. The packages of eight by ten were dumped on the floor, as is. They went into the freezer in the basement and took out some film, just enough to see what was behind it, I would guess. None of it is opened. And, of course, all the film is in four by five-inch packages or smaller. They opened all the big boxes in which I store developed negs and dumped them, but not the smaller boxes.”

“Yeah, that's right,” said McNeil sourly. “Just the big stuff has been gone through. In the bedroom all the drawers are open and dumped, except for a couple of tiny ones they didn't even look in.”

“And up here,” said Sanders, “it's only the big art and photo books that have been pulled off the shelf, isn't it? Everything else is still there.” The three men looked complacently at each other—as if they had just made a brilliant discovery.

“So,” said Ed Dubinsky, “what are they looking for? A print, you think? Some picture she took?” he asked, turning to John.

“Excuse me,” said Harriet. “Do you mind if I break into this cozy discussion? Because I don't see it. I work in eight by ten prints, except for special orders or exhibition stuff. Even if I do something bigger, I always have an eight by ten work print. Besides, what print is worth killing someone for?”

“Maybe the robbery was separate,” said McNeill tentatively.

“And Guy walked in, saw the mess, and dropped dead from shock?” Harriet's tongue was getting some of its bite back. “Not bloody likely.”

“What else could it be?” John asked, puzzled. “What else are you likely to have around here?”

“Well—it can't be one of my prints,” insisted Harriet. “If they wanted one, they could have bought it; if they wanted to suppress something, they'd need the negative and all the prints I'd made from it. The world's greatest idiot knows that,” she went on, glaring at the three police officers.

“Maybe they're looking for plans—of a building, you know. Secret information on some sort of deal,” suggested Ed.

“I don't take pictures of plans,” snapped Harriet. “By the time I take pictures of something, it's usually a bloody great building twenty-five stories high. Hardly a surprise. Anyway, it's something that you can't fit into an eight by ten envelope, even folded, but you can fit it into an eleven by fourteen envelope, or into a book. Therefore—”

“It's flat,” said Sanders. “And they're sure it can't be folded over. Not a piece of paper, then.”

“Wood or metal?” suggested McNeill.

“It has to be thin enough to slide into one of those art books and not be noticeable, or they wouldn't have bothered opening all of them,” Sanders pointed out.

“A painting,” said Harriet. “A thick, textured oil—something that would crack and be ruined if you folded it. One of Guy's paintings, maybe. That's it. They weren't looking for
my
work—they were looking for his. Or he was.”

“Did you have any of the victim's paintings?” asked Dubinsky.

“Not a one,” said Harriet. “I wouldn't have given it house room. But that isn't it—they'd be too thick to hide in a book. So maybe a print,” she muttered, frowning in concentration. “Or a sketch. But who would kill him over one of his sketches? They're not that valuable.”

“Really,” said Dubinsky thoughtfully. “Maybe you could think that one over, Miss Jeffries. And thank you for your cooperation,” he added.

His smooth face remained placid and bland, almost as if he meant it.

“Someone else was looking for you,” said Amos. “Yesterday. The town's getting filled with them,” he added lightly. “We're going to have to open a new hotel to accommodate them all. This was someone who knew you were at the house. She had a letter from you.”

Jane was coiled in the basket chair like an overwound spring, an open book on her lap, staring out at the darkening sky. “She?” The word bounced out in surprise. “What did she look like?”

“Brown hair. Green eyes. Thin. She was worried about you.”

“Omigod. Harriet. With everything else going on, I'd forgotten. I wrote her on Saturday morning before I was sure . . .” Her voice trailed off uncertainly. “I asked her to come down because I was scared. I suddenly thought that I knew nothing about you and—”

“No one knew where you were except me ? Your classic ax murderer? I'm flattered,” he said, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “What made you change your mind?”

“I don't know—perhaps I haven't. But you seem to be too competent and sane to be an ax murderer. Not that I'm an expert, of course. Anyway, as soon as I mailed the letter I realized it was stupid. There was nothing she could do.”

“She came down and she brought someone,” he added, with a wary expression. “Big guy. She called him John and he looked like a cop.”

“Oh no,” said Jane, in a despairing voice. “I never thought for a minute she'd call the cops.” She sank back in the chair in an attitude of exhausted hopelessness. “And now they know I'm here.”

“She was worried,” he repeated. “I think that was all. And she may know you're here, but no one else does. Except, of course, that bastard antiques man Harmon. And the cop, if he was a cop, wasn't here officially. I drifted by the police department this afternoon to say hello to everyone—and all they knew was that you were a missing person whose friends were looking for you. Nothing about cops from anywhere.” His voice had turned brisk and cheerful, trying to energize her. “Is it that important, the thing you had in that briefcase?”

She pushed herself out of the chair and walked slowly over to get her purse. “I think it must be,” she said. “I never realized it when I took it. I just thought Guy owed us something, me and Agnes, and I figured I could raise a bit of money on it.” She took out her wallet and extracted the newspaper clipping that described the death of Malcolm Whiteside. “There. They gave me that in London. They said he was mixed up in it.”

“Who are they?” he asked.

Jane shook her head. “I don't know. Some man. He just walked up to me in a restaurant. But he knew me. And he knew I was involved. And then he said he could find us any time he wanted. But stupid me—I figured I wouldn't have to worry once I got over here. How wrong could I be?” She smiled ruefully. “And then getting Lesley to take it to New York—I wasn't thinking. And now what's happened to Lesley?”

He shook his head. “I wouldn't worry about her. She'll be lying low somewhere. If there are people out there looking for you and for that leather case, it makes sense to lie low.”

“But why hasn't she called?” said Jane fretfully. “I told her to call and let me know she was all right. You know, Lesley's not very—she gets upset easily,” she added, with hesitation. “She's had a bad time the last few years. Maybe something has happened and no one can get in touch with me. No one knows I'm here except Lesley.”

“Then why don't you call your mother?” he suggested. “If your sister's in trouble, wouldn't she call her?”

Jane reached for the telephone with a worried frown.

“Why couldn't I just have given my statement to you?” asked Harriet, once they had ordered.

“I'm not sure that it would have been totally acceptable under the circumstances. Too many people seem to know about us,” said John, with an air of studied cheerfulness. “It would look strange, that's all. But don't worry about it—you were out of town when it happened,” he added unnecessarily. “So really what you had to say wasn't much use to anybody except as background. Have some wine.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” said Harriet wryly. “I like not being any use. And yes, I'll have some wine. Although I'm not sure it's a great idea when you haven't eaten since breakfast and it's”—she looked carefully at her watch—“well past nine o'clock at night. I'm whimpering with starvation. I wish they'd hurry with the soup.”