The Mountain's Shadow (3 page)

Matt leaned in and lowered his voice as Louise shuffled away. “Her grandson is one of the children who’s missing.”
 

“Oh,” breathed Lonna. “Poor woman.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I gazed out the window. The original town of Piney Mountain looked much the same as it had twenty years before when we’d drive through to visit my grandfather. The main differences were some of the shabby little buildings had been renovated, and expensive cars seemed to have replaced the pickup trucks. Someone had even straightened the leaning statue of General Lee in the middle of the square. There were also signs at the main intersection pointing to the pool, clubhouse and driving range.
 

“Your thoughts, Joanie?”

“I don’t understand how somebody can just swallow a whole little town. Wasn’t there a protest?”

“Lee Franz, the mayor, convinced everyone it would be for the town’s best,” Matt replied. “He said it would help keep the children in the area if there was more opportunity for them.”

Louise appeared with more creamers. “He didn’t count on them not being here for the opportunities.” She sighed, and her exhalation expressed more than a tirade could.

I turned away to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that somehow this was my fault even though I had no idea what was going on.
 

A movement outside the window caught my attention, and I spotted a familiar face. “Who’s that?” It was the distraught, handsome Leonard Bowman from Lawrence Galbraith’s office, walking out of the City Hall building across the square. I wanted to know more than his name. I wanted to know why he was up here. Had he followed me?

“Leonard Bowman,” Matthew told me.

“Very nice-looking.” Lonna followed him with her eyes.

“He and his brother Peter, the blond man you winked at, Lonna, are like night and day in more than just coloring.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Peter Bowman is a lawyer and the one in charge of the legal aspects of the community planning. He lives in one of the cul-de-sacs with his wife and their son.”

“And Leonard?”

“He moved in with them about a year ago, right after the rest of the houses on their street were completed. He was a medical resident at the university and VA hospitals in Little Rock, but then he had some health problems and had to take a break.”

“He’s a doctor?” He didn’t look like any I’d worked with.

Lonna seemed to read my mind. “Research doctors are different, Joanie.”

“I guess.”

Leonard disappeared into another building—some sort of shop.

“So, what is it, exactly, you wanted me to come up here for?” Lonna asked.

Matt’s answer was forestalled by Louise’s arrival with our breakfasts. Bacon, cooked crisp but not too stiff, just the way I liked it, lay over a bed of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs beside two pieces of whole wheat toast. My stomach growled in appreciation.

The food momentarily distracted me from the conversation, and when I tuned back in, Matt was saying something about when the strange disappearances had started.

“It was about a year ago,” he told Lonna. “The first phase of Crystal Pines was underway, and some of the families were moving off of their homesteads into new apartments to make room for the larger estates.”

“They were relocated?”

Matt stirred more sugar into his coffee. “They were offered huge sums of money for their land that most were too poor to refuse, especially those who wanted better for their kids. Education is expensive.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered.

Lonna elbowed me. “So what happened?”

“One of them, a friend of Louise’s grandson, was taking a box through the woods on a shortcut the kids all knew from the farmsteads to the apartments. He just disappeared. The box was found on the trail, but he wasn’t.”

Lonna took out her notepad and a pen. “How old was he?”

Matt frowned as he tried to remember. Louise, who had come by with coffee refills, answered for him. “Eleven, just a year older than Johnny.” A tear trickled down her cheek as she poured.

“That’s right. It was in August. Then, about every month after that, a new one would go. Well, not every month. People were real careful the next month, then relaxed their guard and let the kids out again. That’s when Johnny disappeared. There’ve been about six or seven in all.”

“Any idea what time of the month?”

“Every four weeks.”

“What?” I asked. “Are you saying you’ve got some sort of PMS-ing ghoul out there snatching children?”

The corners of Matt’s eyes crinkled when he laughed. “Not exactly, Doctor. I think it had more to do with the fact it was a full moon.”

“Maybe easier to see them, then?” Lonna asked as she jotted down,
full moon
. I noticed she had hardly touched her food, which was disturbing because the only time the woman lost her appetite was when she’d fallen in love. Hard. I looked around, and my eyes met the pale blue ones of Peter Bowman, who was looking past me at Lonna. Oh, crap. Lonna’s “love at first sight” experiences never ended well. Plus, I didn’t know the man, but I felt an instant dislike for him. Maybe I unfairly associated him with his brother’s rude behavior, but something told me it was more.

“Lonna, listen.” Matt’s voice had an edge to it, and he leaned in. “I called you because if it were just some crazy person, I could’ve handled it. But there’s something more going on. You’re the former private eye.”

“Nope, I’m not doing that regularly anymore. And I never did kids.”

“But your license is still current.”

She looked down into her now-empty coffee cup. “I keep it current for money reasons.”

“DFCS pays you more for it?” This was news to me.

“No,” she said, the exasperation evident in her voice, “because DFCS doesn’t pay me much, and sometimes I need to take on an easy case on the side for some extra cash.”

“Oh. Well, you could stay with me,” I offered. “You wouldn’t have to pay for lodging or try to get it reimbursed.”

“C’mon, Lonna.” Matt gestured to Louise, who counted change by the register. The slump of the woman’s shoulders and the wet tracks down her cheeks told us she wasn’t concentrating on the bills that slipped through her fingers. “These people need us. They need you. There’s something big going on here.”

“Well, I guess I have no choice then, do I? Fine,” she said. “I’ll call the office and transfer my cases until after Labor Day. Luckily none of them are urgent.”

“So that gives us, what? Two weeks?” Matt counted it out on his hands. “I know you work fast, Lonna, but are you sure?”

“As sure as I’ll ever be. When’s the next full moon?”

Matt checked his watch. “Tomorrow night.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep. It’s something we’re all keeping track of nowadays.”

“Then we should be able to catch whatever is happening in the act.”

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I looked out the window, where Leonard Bowman had reappeared in the square. Yet another problem to deal with.

The front door to my grandfather’s house showed its age like he never had. Pitted and scarred from fifty summers and winters, it had nevertheless achieved the smoothness common to old wood and cotton. The gray granite walls also seemed untouched by time, and the manor still loomed over the wide lawn like a castle. The ornate knocker, a smiling lion who held the brass ring in a mouth full of rounded teeth, leered at me as I turned the key in the lock. I heard the bolt grind, and I shook the key as I’d always seen my grandfather do on the rare occasion we came in through the front door.

“Is this place haunted?” Lonna asked in a hushed tone as the door creaked inward to reveal the gray marble-tiled foyer. The central staircase curved up into the gloom, its mahogany banister dusty. The door to the left was open, and I could see the fawn-colored leather loveseat and sofa that faced the granite fireplace on the opposite wall. The fireplace dominated the room and occupied most of the outer wall. Grandfather’s old sea chest served as a coffee table, and large wine barrels as end tables. Wan sunlight shone through the front windows and on to the dusty wooden floors.

I realized I still hadn’t answered Lonna’s question.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“Don’t know what?”

“If it’s haunted. I still don’t know how or where he died.”

“It certainly looks like this place hasn’t been occupied in a while.”

“True.”

“Was there a funeral? I would’ve gone with you.”

I pondered. “Not that I know of. Not that there’s anyone to have gone besides my mother and myself, so you would’ve been welcome.”

“A formal reading of the will?”

“Nope. The lawyer just called me in.”

“That’s a little suspicious, Joanie.”

I also thought so, especially since it seemed Leonard Bowman had some grounds to challenge the will.

Another glance up the staircase and the shadowed second-story hallway was enough to convince me I really needed to get my leftovers out of the cooler and into the fridge.

“Let’s leave the suitcases here and go up later,” I suggested. We walked through the sitting room and into the breakfast nook. I stopped, dumbstruck.

“What?” asked Lonna.

“He completely redid this.” I gestured to the kitchen. It was not the old-fashioned kitchen I remembered from my childhood. Now all the appliances were new and stainless steel, there was a black marble island with a pot-and-pan rack hanging above it, and all the cabinets had been updated. I couldn’t remember my grandfather cooking a day in his life, and I really couldn’t imagine him giving his kitchen a makeover for some woman he paid from the village.

“Since you’re a gourmet cook, this should be a welcome surprise,” Lonna said. “Wow, look at this. A full set of Le Creuset and All-Clad cookware.”

I just shook my head and put the leftovers in the fridge, one of the super-modern types with the freezer in a drawer at the bottom. I turned to the island and saw an envelope with my name on it.

“Looks like somebody left you something.”

“It’s from Galbraith.” His long, slanted writing gave it away. I opened it with a knife—Wusthof, of all things—and found a brief note with cash, lots of it, and a spare key. The money was for spending and housekeeping expenses until the rest could be transferred to my accounts.

“I can’t even begin to believe this.”

“I can’t, either,” murmured Lonna as she walked around and opened cabinets and drawers. “This is moving a lot faster than most estate settlements.”

“Really?”

“Isn’t your mother a co-beneficiary?”

“Of a small amount, yes.”

“And you don’t think she’ll challenge it?”

“She probably will.”

Lonna opened and closed cabinet doors. “And would you blame her? I wonder why Galbraith is so eager to have you take possession of the money and property.”

“I don’t know. I wonder if it has something to do with that Leonard Bowman guy.”

She looked up at the name. “Why Leonard Bowman?”

I told her about the encounter at Galbraith’s office. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to anyone,” I said and remembered the blond man at the diner who’d winked at my friend. “Especially Peter.”

“Not a word,” she promised.

“So what’s your game plan?”

“For what?”

“The investigation.” I gestured to the window over the sink, which showed a wide expanse of lawn sloping toward the woods. “Finding the missing children.”

“I don’t know. I guess the first step is to call work. Do you think the phones are on?”

After some searching, we found a cordless telephone on its charger in the sitting room. It sounded a dial tone when we clicked it on, so I left Lonna to make her call while I put on some coffee. I had just switched it on when the doorbell rang.

I opened the front door to see a middle-aged man whose tan uniform strained over a belly that had probably been fed at the town diner too often. He stood with feet planted shoulder-width apart and thumbs hooked into his black belt. His sheriff badge said he must hold some respect in the community.

“May I help you?” I asked. I had no reason to be nervous, but there’s something about a cop appearing at your door that prompts a quick examination of conscience. Had I gone too fast through the community? Did I roll through a stop? Was I supposed to have a parking permit?

“Miz Fisher?”

“Yes, and you are?”

“Bud Knowles, sheriff.” He held out his hand, and I took it. His handshake was firm, if a little moist. “I just wanted to make sure you’re rightly welcomed to the community.”

“Thanks. Would you like to come in?”

His face lit with a grin. “I’d love to, ma’am.”

I suspected the true reason for his visit was to check out the place, but I didn’t mind. I had nothing to hide.

“I just made some coffee. Would you like some?”

“Yes, ma’am.”