Quiet as the Grave (11 page)

“But we have Gavin,” she went on finally, as if she spoke only to herself. “We have Gavin, so how can we regret any of it?”

She turned to Suzie with bleak eyes. “How can we even regret Justine?”

 

M
IKE HAD ALWAYS THOUGHT
that the road away from Firefly Glen seemed shorter than the road leading to it. It was all attitude, of course. He had always longed to reach the Glen, which made it seem to recede like a mirage. And he'd always dreaded returning to Tuxedo Lake, which made it seem to come zooming at him like a bullet.

Tonight, though, he didn't care how long or short the road was. He was simply enjoying the ride.

He and Suzie had talked about all kinds of things. They'd rehashed the scene with Rutledge and Debra—the story still made him laugh, picturing Ledge with a green crotch, although he was disgusted to learn that his friend had sunk so low. They talked about Debra, who they'd left at the boathouse, waiting for her sister to come and pick her up. Debra had refused to file any charges against Ledge, which mystified Suzie, who obviously would have liked to hang the jerk by the thumbs—or whatever—from the nearest roof beam.

Suzie had told him all about her portrait business, which was an amazing success story that didn't, in the end, surprise him. He'd always known she had grit enough to accomplish whatever she dreamed.

But they'd talked about inconsequential things, too, like whether spaniels or terriers were better dogs. He was surprised to learn that after her adored retrievers had died a year or so ago, she hadn't bought another dog. She said it wasn't fair to ask an animal to live in a town house with a little yard. But picturing Suzie without a dog was like picturing Justine without jewelry.

After about an hour, though, Suzie dozed off. At first, she tilted toward her window, but later she shifted, and her head dropped onto his shoulder. Since
then, he'd been careful not to move much—he didn't want to make her turn away again.

It had been a long time since anyone but Gavin had leaned against him like this. People really were pack animals, he thought. Just like dogs. The instinct to be close to someone, to share warmth, was born in you and couldn't be wished away.

He drove on, the broken yellow line sliding endlessly under his tires. He reached out carefully and put on a classical station, very low. He felt all his sharp edges softening. He might be leaving Firefly Glen behind, but he had created another little refuge here in this car.

She murmured in her sleep. As if that startled her, she woke up. She lifted her head with a jerk.

“I'm sorry,” she said. She wiped at her mouth, as if she feared she might have drooled, though he wouldn't have cared. She blinked a couple of times, and shook her head softly. “I don't know why I'm so tired.”

“You probably tossed and turned all night on that lumpy sofa.”

“Oh, that's not it. It was comfortable, honestly.”

He smiled. He'd slept on that sofa once or twice, and he knew better.

“I should build a real house,” he said. “Gavin and I can't stay there forever. It's nice for a boathouse, but he deserves a real home. Something that feels more…permanent.”

She had moved to her side of the car, but she looked at him in the darkness. “Why haven't you built one already? You bought that big lot intending to put up a house, didn't you?”

“I guess so,” he said. “I bought it right after the divorce. All I was thinking was that I needed to be near
Gavin. I did the boathouse first, because it was cheaper. But somehow I never could make up my mind to start the main house. I can't picture myself living on that lake for the rest of my life.”

“Because of what happened to Justine there?”

He thought for a minute. “That was the final straw, I guess. But I've never liked the neighborhood. It's so pretentious. All those cookie-cutter Tudor mansions that were all built the day before yesterday.”

“Snob,” she said, chuckling. But he thought perhaps she understood. “So then why—”

“Nobody asked me. Tuxedo Lake was Justine's choice, and the house was bought with Alton's money. I was only eighteen. I couldn't possibly supply the splendid setting she thought she deserved.”

Suzie made a skeptical raspberry. “All those Frome millions—”

“Belong to my parents. I don't take money from them. That really annoyed Justine. She thought I was punishing her for ‘making' me marry her. I think, deep inside, she felt cheated that I wasn't willing to play glamorous-young-jet-setters with her. She knew that, if she hadn't insisted on leaving, I'd still be in Firefly Glen.”

“Would you really?” Suzie sounded surprised. “I guess it was different for you. I was more like Justine. I couldn't wait to get away.”

He squeezed the steering wheel. “You are
nothing
like Justine. You wanted to leave because you needed freedom to reinvent yourself. You needed scope to realize your talent. She just wanted a snazzy house and new men to cast her spell on.”

Suzie was silent for a minute. “Maybe,” she said finally. “But she needed some reinventing, too. Maybe she wanted to go someplace where people didn't see
her as a fallen star, an ex–beauty queen who got herself in trouble. I certainly wanted to go somewhere people didn't expect me to have purple hair and fangs.”

He chuckled. She was wrong, but he didn't argue. Under that feisty temper, Suzie had a big heart and an even bigger conscience. She'd always hated Justine instinctively, but she blamed herself and wasted time trying to dissect and understand her enemy.

The truth was she never could. The two women were from different planets.

“Fang,” she said with a sleepy laugh. “God, I hated that.”

She shut her eyes again. He drove on in silence, and before he knew it, they were back in Tuxedo Lake.

But what—what were those lights?

All escape from real life was an illusion, and this one was about to come to an end with a bang.

The area around his boathouse was bright with lights, lights that shouldn't have been there. He had a tight budget. He never wasted that kind of electricity when he wasn't home.

His heart thudded hard. Maybe, when Debra's sister had finally come, she'd been careless. Maybe she'd left everything burning.

But of course he knew it couldn't be that simple.

When he tried to turn into his driveway, he couldn't. The entrance was blocked by a trio of black-and-white police vehicles.

An officer pacing the lawn squinted toward Mike's car. It took him less than two seconds to identify it. Immediately he grabbed his walkie-talkie and began muttering into it. Then he loped over and motioned Mike to lower his window.

“Michael Frome?”

Beside Mike, Suzie opened her eyes. She leaned toward him, peering out his window.

“Yes,” Mike said. “I'm Mike Frome.”

Suzie quietly touched his fingers.

The cop rested his hand at his waist, near the butt of his gun. “I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the vehicle, sir.”

Two other men had joined the officer and spread out around the car, as if they thought Mike might suddenly gun the gas and make a run for the Canadian border. He might have smiled at that, if he'd been able to smile at anything.

Run?

Without Gavin?

Hell, no
.

Not with Gavin, either. Fromes didn't dodge trouble. He hadn't done anything wrong. Whatever these officers wanted, he would handle it. Somehow, he'd face it down.

He unbuckled his seat belt and turned to Suzie. He didn't know exactly what those officers wanted, but he knew that this might be their last chance to speak privately for a long time.

“Look, I know you've never asked me. And I appreciate that. But I'm going to say it anyhow.
I didn't kill her
.”

She gazed at him a minute, then gave him one of her classic eye-rolls. “Well, duh. But don't waste time telling me, Frome. Get out there and tell
them
.”

E
VEN WHEN THE BANGING
and thumping got so loud it made you sick to picture what a mess the policemen must be making, Suzie couldn't help feeling relieved.

A search warrant was a thousand times better than an arrest warrant.

When the cop had handed Mike the folded sheaf of papers, she'd thought her heart might pound its way right out of her chest. She'd been so bloody mad at their dangerous, narrow-minded, half-blind
stupidity
that she'd been afraid she might pounce on the officer like a crazed chimpanzee and try to beat some sense into his thick head.

Mike, on the other hand, had been impossibly calm and dignified. Guess that was what a zillion generations of good breeding could produce. Suzie, who was a scrapper with no pedigree at all, could only force herself to take deep breaths and try to imitate him.

It got easier when she found out the papers were only a search warrant. That was no problem. They could search this boathouse until every policeman on the premises was a hundred years old, and they'd never find anything. There wasn't anything to find.

The officer had escorted Mike and Suzie to the wicker chairs on the porch and left them there with a policeman watching over them. The spot clearly had
been strategically chosen, because there were only two ways off this balcony. You could go in through the French doors, which were guarded by a cop with biceps as big as tree trunks, or you could jump off and swim.

Good thing the chairs were comfortable. The search had already taken about four hours.

Mike's lawyer, a sixty-something guy named Rouge who had a white bottlebrush mustache and smart eyes, had arrived within ten minutes of Mike's call, and he'd read the search warrant so thoroughly it had begun to annoy the cop. Afterward, Rouge had taken Mike aside, and they'd murmured privately for several minutes. When Mike returned to sit beside Suzie, his face had been set in tight lines.

He hadn't been willing to discuss it, not with the guard cop standing only five feet away. Suzie had been frustrated, but knew she'd have to wait. You couldn't fight four hundred years of tight-lipped Mayflower genes.

Behind them, the French doors opened. Both she and Mike turned their heads instantly, so she knew that, in spite of his preternatural calm, he was just as tightly wired as she was.

She heard herself growl under her breath. It was Keith Quigley.

Rouge was right behind him, giving Mike a look. He must be a Mayflower stoic, too, because Suzie, who made a living reading faces, had no idea what he was thinking. But her instincts warned her that the presence of the D.A. could not be a good sign. Quigley obviously wasn't there to congratulate Mike on passing the search test with flying colors.

The D.A.'s face was easier to read. He looked smug as hell.

“We're finished,” he said. He held out the search warrant. “Here's your copy of the paperwork. We've attached a detailed list of everything we're taking away.”

Mike stood and accepted the warrant. He flipped to the list and began to read. Suzie couldn't see the words, but she was shocked by how long the list was.

“The headboard of my bed?” Mike looked up, clearly stunned. “Why?”

“We found smears of blood there.”

“The
hell
you did.”

“You can't spot them with the naked eye,” Quigley explained politely. “But when we sprayed with luminal, the area clearly fluoresced. Your attorney was present.”

Mike looked over at Rouge, who nodded, again without expression. “A small spot,” he said. “It could be anything.”

Suzie saw Mike inhale carefully, then return to the list.

He looked up again almost immediately. “Master bathroom sink trap?” His voice was as cold as the plumbing at the North Pole.

“That's correct,” Quigley said.

Suzie practically had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from jumping in. So they must have found a spot of blood in the sink trap. So what? Mike did hard, physical work for a living, and he had a rambunctious ten-year-old son. They probably cleaned more cuts and scrapes in this house than in a hospital.

Besides, if it were Justine's blood, it would have been sitting in that sink trap for more than two years. Was that possible? With water going through it several times every day? Unfortunately, she had to admit she
had no idea what the life span of a blood spatter actually was.

Mike kept reading. His body was so tense that Suzie could feel heat and vibrations humming off him, the way you could tell from a distance that a piece of electrical equipment was plugged in and running.

Without warning, Mike let the paper fall and lurched forward. “You son of a bitch! You took my son's baseball bat? You think I killed my son's mother with his
own
baseball bat?”

Rouge stepped between the two men. “Settle down, Mike. He's just doing his job.”

Mike had locked eyes with Quigley, and Suzie felt sorry for the pudgy little man, who had to tilt his neck to maintain the contact.

“This isn't a job, Rouge.” Mike didn't look at his attorney. He enunciated slowly and clearly right into Quigley's face. “This is a vendetta.”

“Oh, really?” Quigley narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, Frome. Do you still maintain that your ex-wife has never been inside this boathouse?”

“Don't answer that, Mike.” Rouge held up a hand, but it was too late. Mike was blind to anyone except Quigley.

“Of course I do,” he said. “Justine never set foot in this house.”

Quigley smiled, and Suzie's heart skipped a beat. It was a terrible, knowing smile.

“Your neighbor Mrs. Cready says otherwise. She says she saw you bring Justine here on three separate occasions.”

Mike shook his head. “That's bullshit, and you know it. Mrs. Cready is ninety years old. She can't see past her own nose.”

“Mike,” Rouge warned, obviously disturbed by the level of his client's hostility. “Be smart.”

“I
am
being smart,” Mike said. “I'm smart enough to know what this is really all about.”

“Three times,” Quigley repeated. “If she was here three times, she will have left something behind. We vacuumed all over your bedroom. We'll find a hair, a fingernail—”

Mike pushed forward again, as if Rouge's body, firmly planted between them, wasn't even there. He thrust out his index finger and shoved it into the D.A.'s shoulder.

“I'm on to you, Quigley. This isn't about how many times Justine was in my bed,” he said. “It's about how many times she was in
yours
.”

The little man puffed up, and his resemblance to a bullfrog grew so strong Suzie was sure his next sound would be a croak.

“Why, you slanderous bastard.” Quigley's eyes bulged, and his face reddened. “Your wife was never in my bed.
Never
.”

“I know.” Mike stepped back with a cruel smile. “And
that
is what this is all about.”

 

T
HAT NIGHT
, the dream changed.

The dreamer tossed, trying to wake up.
Oh, God
…

He was frightened.

This wasn't right. This wasn't the way it had really happened.

This time, when he heard the girl whimpering, he began to sweat under his mask. He rocked in place, terrified. His bowels began to liquefy, because he felt himself about to be brave, and he didn't want to be brave.

This wasn't the place for courage.

This was the place for weakness and cruelty, for deviance and pain. That's why each of them had come, because down here they could admit that they had needs, needs that shamed them above ground, in the light.

The rules required silence. This was not his time to speak or touch. He was a watcher only. And yet a protest, which had built unseen somewhere deep inside him, began welling up in his throat like vomit. He tried to choke it back, swallowing spastically, but it continued to rise.

Inside the box, the girl began to weep.

“No!” he cried. “Let her go!”

The other black masks turned toward him. He couldn't see their faces, not even the color of their eyes.

But he felt their hatred.

“I'm sorry,” he said, but it was too late. They had already decided. They dragged him toward the box. They tore off his robe, and made him stand naked in front of them. They saw him, saw his ordinary face that had no beauty, his flaccid body that had no power, his withered heart that had no love.

They knew him. They knew why he was here.

“Please, no,” he said, just as the girl had said before him. But they took his arms and legs. They opened the box and put him in.

It was all darkness and the smell of fear. He felt the walls. He tried to pray.

He couldn't find the girl, though the box was not large. She should have been manacled, hand and foot, to the floor. It frightened him that she seemed to be gone. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it had really happened.

He touched the steel cuffs that had been drilled into the floor, and, in the way that impossible things often happen in dreams, suddenly the cuffs were around his wrists. He was spread-eagled where the girl should have been.

He heard a hissing sound, and she slowly materialized out of the shadows. He writhed on the cold stone floor, sickened by the sight.

God, what had they done to her? Her eyes were red, and her mouth was bloody. Her body was tattooed with bruises. There was a large hole on the side of her head.

That's when he knew it was Justine, and she was dead.

She came toward him, though he begged her to stop, to get away, please, please….

She was deaf to him. She knelt between his legs. When she smiled, blood dripped onto his thighs.

“The rules require silence,” she said.