The Night Is Forever (21 page)

Olivia wasn’t bothering with formality at the moment. She ran over and was lifted into her cousin’s arms to be greeted, hugged and swung around. Introductions were made, Olivia telling the others that she’d heard good things about them. She dug in her pocket for her keys, but even as she twisted the lock, they heard something behind the door, which appeared to move as if someone was trying to open it from within.

Inside the house, Sammy began to bark excitedly.

“I’ve got it,” Dustin murmured, pushing her aside. The Krewe members instantly went into alert mode, drawing their weapons. Malachi pulled Olivia against the wall as Dustin drew his own weapon and threw open the door.

Sammy nearly knocked him over, jumping up with jubilation. Dustin holstered his weapon and stepped inside, greeting the dog and firmly ordering him down. But as he stepped into the entry, he heard excited words.

“I did it! I touched the door. I touched the door and it almost moved. I
am
getting some kind of...some kind of spiritual or ectoplasmic strength!”

Marcus Danby had finally decided to make himself known once again.

15

O
livia understood why Malachi had changed his life—why he’d stopped working for himself to become part of the Krewe.

She’d known plenty of people who would get excited and swear they’d seen General Rufus Cunningham seated atop his warhorse up on a hill.

She’d never believed that there were so many people who actually spoke with the dead and that she could sit in her own parlor serving tea to the living while the ghost of Marcus Danby was among them, repeating everything he’d told Olivia and then Dustin. It had been hard, he’d explained to her, to
be
somewhere. Long conversations wore him out. When he got too tired, he assumed he was in some kind of “ghost sleep” because he knew he faded, and he wasn’t sure where he was. It seemed that he needed to rest in order to gain the strength to manifest himself again. He was thrilled that he’d managed to make it look as if there was someone on the other side of the door; he was heartbroken and disturbed to discover that Aaron Bentley had now joined his ranks. He went from deep sorrow to brightness in a whirl of emotions, astounded that he was facing six people who could see and hear him.

Dustin told the other Krewe members and Marcus everything that happened during the camping trip and what had occurred so far that day. Malachi listened gravely, then asked, “The deputy sheriff in charge, Frank Vine, he’s really come around? He’s ready to have us here?”

Dustin nodded. “He wants to meet you all and he’s asked that we keep him in the loop. And the medical examiner is a great guy. He had the fragments of the dart I found analyzed, so they’re all aware that these deaths aren’t accidents at all. It’s been impossible, of course, to have someone on guard everywhere. The deputy should’ve gone in with Aaron this morning. But despite the information about the dart and the fact that Aaron nearly died, I don’t believe anyone thought the killer could possibly be in his house, ready to finish him off.”

Malachi looked at Olivia. “So, you’re in charge of the Horse Farm now. It’s fallen to you.”

Abby Anderson said, “It seems that you might be the next target, then. What happens if you’re...unable to run the Horse Farm?”

“The will is complicated,” Olivia said, glancing at Marcus. “Marcus had it go to Aaron and then me. If the Horse Farm fails—even as nonprofit—the land is to be sold off and we’re to see to it that every animal ends up in a good home. And then, we move on.”

“There’s no one after you to ‘inherit’ the leadership position?”

“Hey!” Marcus interrupted. “I never thought there was anyone who wanted to kill me, much less Aaron! I figured by the time Aaron and Liv were ready to retire, they’d know who should take over next.”

“We can’t be prepared for insanity or evil in those around us,” Sloan Trent said. “You probably did an excellent job thinking it all out, Marcus. No one could have expected this.”

Marcus seemed to sigh. “I didn’t. I certainly didn’t.”

“But you haven’t learned any more about what happened since we saw you?” Olivia asked.

“I’m dead, not omniscient,” Marcus snapped. “I...just lost all energy. Like I already told you, it’s not easy being dead.”

“Maybe that’s why the general doesn’t talk to anyone,” Olivia mused. The others, except for Dustin, gave her questioning looks. “As far as I know, he just watches,” she explained. “He’s always watching. I think he tries to warn people, tries to stop bad things from happening. Many people have seen him—or claim to have seen him—through the years. But no one’s ever mentioned having a conversation with him.”

Sloan cleared his throat and sat forward. “You have to remember that ghosts are the spirits of those who were alive. Some were shy, some were gregarious. Some were graceful or athletic—and some were clumsy as hell.”

“The speaking thing wasn’t difficult for me, at least when I was talking to Olivia,” Marcus said. “Others...I don’t know. I was aware of Olivia when she found me and passed out. Then everyone else came over and I tried...I tried to tell Vine and Callahan and the medical examiner what happened. I tried to talk to Aaron and Sydney and Drew. But no one heard me.”

There was silence for a minute.

“Well,” Dustin said, “we know for a fact that someone was using drug-poisoned darts. So we can go into the backgrounds again and see if we can find anything that suggests someone might know about darts. We also need to find out who’d know enough about drugs to mix the right cocktail, in the right quantities. And who would have access to that kind of pharmaceutical. Then, there’s the rendering of the general.”

“Artwork,” Jane Everett said. She smiled at Olivia. “My specialty. I’ll find out. Where’s the cheesecloth art, or whatever it is, now?”

“Frank Vine has it at the station,” Dustin told her. “You could head over there. Oh, I promised Sydney and Drew that we’d have someone at the Horse Farm. Any volunteers? I want to get to the autopsy and I don’t think Olivia should be alone.”

“I can watch over the Horse Farm while Jane goes to the police station,” Sloan said.

“Later, I’d like to ride back to the stream. I keep figuring there’s something we missed somehow. A sign...”

Olivia assumed he meant an otherworldly sign, a message from the general, perhaps? Not the kind of hard evidence the sheriff would be looking for.

“The campsite by the stream,” Malachi murmured. “I didn’t grow up here, but my family often came out, so I’ve been to the stream. And the little cemetery in the woods.”

Dustin nodded. “Then let’s plan a ride for later. But...” He hesitated and looked at Sloan. “I don’t want Sydney and Andrew left alone there,” he said.

Trent nodded. “Don’t worry. I won’t take my eyes off them. Among all of us, we’ll keep up a twenty-four-hour watch.”

“What about the others—the therapists?” Abby asked.

Olivia already knew, of course, that Abby and Malachi were a couple as well as team members. Malachi had been eager for her to meet Abby before any of this had come up. She’d been just as eager. Malachi had been married to a wonderful woman who’d died. He hadn’t been the same after that. Not until Abby.... She made him want to live again.

Olivia automatically liked her for that reason.

They seemed to fit; Abby Anderson was striking, with tremendous blue eyes and pitch-black hair. She managed to look like an agent, smart and savvy and agile. But Malachi had told Olivia that Abby’s heritage included a many-times-great-uncle who’d been a famous—or infamous—pirate known as Blue. Whether that was because of the darkness of his hair or the blueness of his eyes, no one knew. The distinctive coloring had been passed down through the family.

“Mason is supposedly off seeing the Hermitage. He’s never been there for some reason,” Olivia said. “I’m not sure what Mariah’s doing. She said she’d go by the Horse Farm today. And we heard Sandra say that she was going home to sedate herself.”

“Sedate herself,” Dustin repeated. “That did make me wonder...”

“I’m sure she’s talking about Valium or something like that,” Olivia said quickly.

“Who at the Horse Farm knows about drugs and sedatives?” Dustin asked. “All of you?”

“We all know the rudiments,” Olivia told him. “We’ve had to tranquilize rescue horses now and then—and once a pit-bull mix that wanted to chow down on Drew when he was trying to help him. We all know what we’re doing. Everyone there knows where we keep the tranquilizer gun and how to use it.”

Dustin stared at her, frowning. “How can you know how much it’s loaded with at any given time? Some of your horses are close to a thousand pounds, but a pit bull mix, you’re looking at forty or fifty.”

“It’s always loaded for a seven-hundred-pound horse,” she said. “But, in the tack room, we have different size...tranquilizer darts.”

Dustin stood. “I’m on my way to the autopsy. “I can drop Sloan at the Horse Farm first and give him the keys to the rental, and then drop Jane at the station.” He turned to the now-fading ghost of Marcus Danby. “Did you know about the affair, Marcus? Sandra and Aaron?”

“Sure,” Marcus said. “But I didn’t care. I don’t know why they thought they had to be secretive about it.”

“And Sandra really did love Aaron?” Dustin asked.

“As best I could tell,” Marcus replied, his voice faint. “I never asked either one of them but I could tell from the way they talked to each other, looked at each other...but I figured it was their business. They’d say something when they felt like it. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m trying to figure out if she’d conspire with anyone to kill him,” Dustin said. “Or you....”

“We’ll try to sort out motives later,” Malachi said briskly. “Let’s meet up at the Horse Farm in a few hours.”

“It’ll be close to dusk,” Abby pointed out.

“That’s all right. It
will
be dusk,” Malachi said. He smiled at Olivia and she returned his smile, so glad he was there. “The general always had a tendency to prefer dusk.”

* * *

Despite the fact that he was at a morgue looking at the electrocuted body of a man he’d known and
tried
to save, Dustin felt confident that they were finally starting to get somewhere.

Sloan Trent had been an immediate hit with Sydney and Drew—because he knew horses. He talked about his own, and how the move from Arizona to northern Virginia had been interesting for him
and
his horses, and they were soon discussing feed, hay, saddles and tack. Sydney and Drew both seemed to forget, for a few minutes at least, that they’d lost two bosses in less than three weeks.

Jane Everett also did well at the station; she charmed Frank Vine, Jimmy Callahan and the other deputies milling around her. She described how researching the general’s picture—determining who’d created it and how it had ended up in the woods—might help them uncover just what was going on.

At the morgue, Dr. Wilson had already cut into Aaron Bentley. His assistants were sewing up the body when Dustin arrived, but Dr. Wilson showed him just what electrocution did to the body.

Blood samples had been sent to the lab and Wilson suspected they’d find trace elements of whatever medication Aaron had been given in the hospital—but nothing else. Too much time had passed. However, it appeared that he’d died because of his own carelessness in knocking the iPod charger into his bathwater.

“It’s like a closed-door mystery,” Wilson said, frustrated. No way in, no way out.” He shrugged, asking, “Do you think Aaron might’ve just been tired and sloppy? After all, there was no one else in the house.”

“There was no one else that we
know
of,” Dustin reminded him.

“I wish I could help you more—that the body was telling me more,” Wilson said. “But in this case...it really does appear to be accidental.”

He shook his head. “If only a corpse could talk...”

Dustin stared at the corpse, wondering if this one could. At the moment, he saw nothing, felt nothing, to suggest that Aaron Bentley could suddenly speak to him, tell him what happened.

“Naturally, when I get the lab results, I’ll let you know immediately,” Wilson said.

Dustin thanked him and drove to the police station to collect Jane. By the time he arrived, she was ready to leave, having taken dozens of photographs and done considerable research on the internet. She summarized what she’d discovered thus far.

“The cheesecloth is cheap and available in almost every art store in the United States. The rendering of the general was done in chalk and watercolor—and wouldn’t withstand a rainstorm. The artist was fairly decent, so I’d say you’re looking at the work of an art student, either someone who went to a good school or is still taking classes. That’s what I have so far.”

“So,” Jimmy Callahan said, “we’re looking for someone with access to the workers at the Horse Farm, someone who knows their hours and their habits. This someone also knows the campsite and the surrounding area. And he or she knows about tranquilizer drug concoctions that don’t show up in blood tests at a customary autopsy.
And
this person happens to be a fairly decent artist.”

“Except maybe our killer doesn’t need to be an artist at all, decent or not.”

“Yes,” Jane agreed. “This person—the killer—could have bought the image.”

Dustin nodded. “The murderer knew that Mariah would go snooping if she thought she was about to see the general. Although I don’t think she ever got to see this picture of the general floating in the forest mist. She happened on the pieces of coyote-torn cow first.”

Frank sat on the edge of his table and shook his head. “How did this person lure Mariah out—and hit Aaron Bentley with a dart at the same time?”

“It could’ve been done,” Dustin said. “The plans would have had to be laid the night before. And then the killer had to count on luck, as well. But most people know that Mariah is the local historian and ghost-queen. An eerie sound would definitely have caught her attention. Not a rebel yell or anything like that—too loud. A whisper? A distant bugle? Whoever this was came prepared.”

Frank shook his head again. “You still think Sandra?”

“At the very least, I think she knows something.”

“What’s your plan?” Frank asked.

“I’ll take a group riding—retrace our steps again, see what we can discover,” Dustin told him. “I particularly want to check out the stream.”

“My partner and I will be at the Horse Farm,” Jane told him quickly.

Frank looked at Jimmy. “Go pay Sandra Cheever a visit. Tell her you’ll be watching over her so that she can get some rest. See if you can stay inside at her place, rather than out in the car.”

“Yep, you got it.” Tipping his hat to Jane, Jimmy left the room.

“Is this crazy, or what? Is everyone at that place supposed to die in some kind of presumed accident?” Frank asked.

“Could be. What’s still eluding us is the reason,” Dustin muttered.

“You’ll be watching over Olivia, right?”

“A killer would have to get to her over my dead body,” Dustin assured him. “And you know that Malachi Gordon—Olivia’s cousin—is here, too.”

Frank nodded. He walked around to his desk and rummaged in his bottom drawer, then handed Dustin an outdated walkie-talkie. “You can reach the station with this. Keep me apprised of your movements.”