River Road (13 page)

L
ucy’s phone rang just as she opened the closet in Sara’s bedroom. She glanced at the familiar name on the screen, took a deep breath, braced herself and answered.

“Hi, Mom. I’m fine. Everything’s under control.”

“What in the world is going on there in Summer River?” Ellen demanded.

The academic world had its own accent, a cool, assured “I just published another peer-reviewed paper—what have you done lately?” edge that never failed to irritate ever so slightly those who lived outside the bubble that was the college environment. This morning, however, Ellen’s usually well-modulated tones were laced with genuine alarm.

“Sounds like you’ve heard the news,” Lucy said.

“They found Tristan Brinker’s body inside
Sara’s fireplace
?” Ellen’s voice rose slightly on the last two words. “I can’t believe it. The media is saying that the authorities think he was that serial rapist who was in the news at the time.”

Lucy studied the row of exotically printed dresses, long skirts and flowing tops that had been crushed against one side of the closet. No wine-country casual for Sara. She had been heavily into the New Age look.

“There is definitely some indication that Brinker was the Scorecard Rapist,” she said. “Sara seems to have been certain of it. There was a newspaper with a headline about the rapist sealed up alongside the body. Nothing has been proven yet, but the local cops are going with that theory.”

“I can’t begin to imagine the shock of having a body fall out of the fireplace. And your aunt’s fireplace, at that. She was a vegan, for heaven’s sake.”

“She killed him, Mom. She didn’t eat him.”

Ellen sailed right past that. “Sara was antiwar. Antiviolence. Anti-guns.”

“She didn’t use a gun. It looks like her weapon of choice was the business end of a poker. We found it inside the fireplace as well.”

“It’s just so hard to imagine your aunt killing someone—especially in what sounds like a premeditated act.”

“They say that most people can and will kill under the right circumstances.”

“Yes, I know,” Ellen said. “There was a notorious case a few years ago in which a female academic murdered a few of her colleagues because she didn’t get tenure, of all things.”

“Imagine that,” Lucy said. Having been raised by academics, she did not have any problem at all envisioning such a scenario.

“Still, it’s hard to wrap my head around the idea of Sara killing someone.”

“It was somewhat disconcerting,” Lucy said. “Fortunately, I wasn’t alone when I found the body. Mason was with me.”

“Who is Mason?” Ellen asked. “The contractor you brought in to do the upgrades?”

Lucy smiled. “Not exactly. Remember Mason Fletcher?”

“No.”

“He was the person who brought me home on the night of Brinker’s last party.”

“Now I remember the name. He was the young man who convinced Sara that you should leave town immediately. She was quite sure he knew what he was talking about. I had to cancel a conference to pick you up at the airport in San Diego.”

“Whoa. Mason told Sara that I had to leave Summer River? He’s the reason she hustled me out of town the next day? Well, damn. I should have guessed that.”

“All I know is that Sara called me the next morning. She said a young man named Mason had talked to her a short time earlier and claimed that you were in danger. She said that she was going to drive you to the San Francisco airport and put you on the first plane to San Diego. She told me to meet the plane on the other end and not let you out of my sight until she called to tell me that everything was okay.”

“So that’s how it went down. I never got the whole story from her.” Lucy paused, thinking about the timing. “Did she ever call you to confirm that everything was all right?”

“Yes, about a week later. But she sounded odd—not like her usual self. That was when she told me that you were safe but that you could not stay with her again there in Summer River. She never explained her decision, but she was adamant.”

Lucy closed the door on the jumbled contents of the closet. “She didn’t want me to have to sleep in a house with a dead man in the fireplace. Bad karma.”

“Good grief. She killed him that same week, didn’t she?” Shock and disbelief shuddered through Ellen’s voice.

“The timing fits. Do you remember anything else about Sara’s reaction to the events that week?”

“I’m not certain—it’s been thirteen years. To tell you the truth, I thought at first that Sara might have been overreacting. I knew you would never be so stupid as to get sloppy drunk at a party and put yourself in danger. Then Sara explained that the bastard had intended to drug you.”

“They think the Scorecard Rapist used a date-rape drug.”

“Yes, well, the possibility that drugs were involved explained Sara’s panic. I panicked, too. So did your father. That’s why I canceled the conference and why Richard and I made sure that you were never alone that week. We didn’t relax until I got the call from Sara saying that Brinker was believed to be dead and that you were safe.”

“I remember,” Lucy said. “You and Dad never let me out of your sight. You even made me sit in on your classes so that I was never alone.”

“We were both very worried. We talked about going to the police, but we had nothing but Sara’s suspicions to go on. Let me tell you, Richard and I were never so relieved in our lives as we were when we got the call from Sara telling us that Tristan Brinker was believed dead.”

Memories of that week floated through Lucy’s mind. She had not really understood what was going on. But she had sensed that somehow her parents were united that week, bound together by their mutual love for her. In her teenage naiveté she had even dared to hope that they would dump their new spouses and remarry each other. That little fantasy had, of course, been shattered once the call from Sara had assured Ellen and Richard that the danger was past.

“The only other thing I can remember is that, in addition to being worried about your safety, Sara was also concerned for the young man who brought you home that night,” Ellen said.

“Mason. His name is Mason Fletcher.”

“Mason Fletcher, yes.”

“She was afraid that he might be in danger?”

“I got that impression. I think what alarmed her was the possibility that he might try to deal with Brinker himself. She said she did not want him to do that.”

“Aunt Sara was worried about both of us.”

“So she got rid of the source of the problem. Permanently. Who knew your aunt had such a fierce side? It must have been incredibly traumatic for her. And it does explain the changes in her behavior. She was never quite the same after that summer.”

Lucy opened a drawer and studied a tumbled array of yoga tops. “The shadow.”

“What?”

“There seemed to be a shadow around her after that summer. Even when she was enjoying herself, you could feel it.”

“I don’t know what you mean by a shadow, but given what we now know, it’s highly probable that she suffered some post-traumatic stress. Perhaps that’s what you detected.”

“Yes.” A thought struck Lucy. “But I never noticed the same shadow around Mary.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think Sara kept her secret even from Mary. Sara probably didn’t want to burden her with the knowledge. Or, as Mason suggested, maybe she didn’t want to take the risk that Mary might accidentally let the secret slip. Whatever the case, Sara carried the full weight of killing Brinker to her grave.”

“Evidently.” There was a short silence on Ellen’s end of the connection. “Speaking of Mason, I’m a little sorry to hear that he is there in Summer River.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Sara always felt that Mason had a lot of potential and would someday make something of himself. I take it that didn’t happen.”

“Mason never had to
make
something of himself.” Lucy crossed the room to the dresser and yanked open a drawer. “He is now what he was intended to become.”

“Dear, you know it annoys me when you talk like Sara. I can’t translate that New Age jargon. What on earth are you trying to say?”

There was no explaining Mason, Lucy decided. “Never mind. Mason doesn’t live here in Summer River. He’s just visiting, spending some time with his uncle. Mason went into law enforcement.”

“I see.” There was a faint, significant pause. “He’s a cop?”

It wasn’t disapproval in her mother’s voice, Lucy decided—more like a tinge of disappointment, as if Ellen had hoped to hear that Mason had obtained a Ph.D. in quantum physics or chemistry. Lucy knew that note well. She had heard the same regret in the voices of both of her parents when she had informed them that she was going to work as a forensic genealogist.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to grad school?”
Ellen had asked.
“You have so much potential, dear.”
Her father had been more blunt:
“You’re wasting your education. Genealogy isn’t a profession, it’s a hobby. You don’t need a degree to draw up a family tree. Any sixth-grader with a computer can go online and find out where her great-great-grandparents were born.”

“Mason was a homicide detective for a few years,” Lucy said. “Now he and his brother run a security consulting company.”

“Do you mean one of those companies that supplies guards for shopping malls and office buildings?”

“More like one of those companies that solves old murder cases.”

“It sounds very macabre.” Ellen paused. “Is there any money in it?”

“Evidently, there is if you’re good at it. Mason and his brother are very good. But I don’t think Mason does it for the money. He finds the work . . . satisfying, I think.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy, psychologically speaking.”

Lucy closed one drawer and opened another. “We need people like Mason. And I’m pretty sure he was born to do that kind of work. Look, I’ve got to run, Mom. Lots to do today.”

“What, exactly, are you doing? I thought I heard a door close a moment ago, and now it sounds like you’re opening and closing doors.”

“I’m in Sara’s bedroom, getting things organized so I can pack up her belongings and dispose of them. She certainly accumulated a lot of stuff. Not to mention the antiques she kept after she and Mary closed their shop.”

“She lived in that house all her life. I don’t think she ever threw anything away. And do be careful when it comes to disposing of those antiques. Most of them will no doubt be valuable.”

“Dad said to bring in an estate appraiser.”

“Good idea. How long are you planning to stay in Summer River?”

Lucy opened another drawer and looked at a tangled heap of cotton and flannel nightgowns, most embroidered with flowers.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I took two weeks of vacation time from Brookhouse. It may take me that long to sort things out here. I need to do some work on the house to get it ready to put on the market.”

“Are you staying at the house?”

“No, a local inn. The thought of spending the night here, knowing there had been a body concealed downstairs all these years, was just too creepy. Got to go, Mom. Love you. Bye.”

“Good-bye, dear. I love you, too.”

It was true, Lucy thought, ending the call. She loved her mother, and her mother loved her. The same was true of her relationship with her father. Their version of family would never be the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting, but still, it was a family.

She wanted something different for herself, though, something more glued-together. But she was not a romantic at heart. She knew the risks and the lousy statistics all too well. She was commitment-shy for a reason.

She went to the bed and dropped the phone into her tote. She had not discussed her suspicions about Sara’s and Mary’s death with her mother or her father for a very good reason. Both would have been seriously alarmed. There would have been long lectures on the phone. She could hear her father now:
Leave
that sort of thing to the police.

One thing you learned as an adult was that it was not necessary to tell your parents every little detail of your life.

She opened a few more drawers, assessing the contents. When she was finished, she walked out into the hall and entered the second bedroom, the one that she had used when she had stayed with Sara.

She opened another closet door. The sight of the jumbled pile of storage boxes and old clothes told her all she needed to know. It was not her imagination.

Her phone chirped.

She went back into the other room and got her cell out of the tote. She was in the process of deleting two more messages from the matchmaking agency when the device rang. She glanced at the screen.
Mason.

“Good timing,” she said. “I was just about to call you.”

“Why?” he asked.

Just like that he had gone into cop mode, she realized.

“We really need to work on your phone etiquette,” she said. “For the record, it’s best not to treat a perfectly normal conversation as an interrogation.”

“What the hell is wrong?”

She abandoned the attempt to instruct him in proper phone manners. “I’m at Sara’s house.” She heard a car pull into the driveway. “Hang on, there’s someone here.”