Until Dark (3 page)

“And if they’re impassable?”

“Then you’ll just have to sleep here and we’ll leave in the morning. You can sleep in the study, if you don’t mind spending the night on the sofa.” She added apologetically, “The two extra bedrooms upstairs still have Ian’s and my old single beds in them. I’m sure you wouldn’t be comfortable in either, since you’re so tall. My next project is going to have to be a real guest room.”

“Where I sleep isn’t much of an issue to me,” Adam brushed off her apology. He’d hoped to be sitting in the office of the lead investigator on the Garvey case when the sun came up the next day. He hadn’t planned on a sleepover and wasn’t sure how he felt about spending a night under the same roof with her. “We’ll have to leave really early to get an early start in Deal. We should be able to make good time if we leave before the morning rush hour.”

“There is no morning rush hour around here, at least not until you head toward Philly or Wilmington. And if you’re planning on driving that little number out there, no one would ever believe you’re a fed. Now, we could take my Subaru. . . .”

“That old blue thing in the driveway? You really think that will make it all the way to Pennsylvania? How many miles on it?”

“It made it all the way back from Seattle, thank you very much.” She ignored the last question.

“How many miles?” he repeated.

“Some.”

“Over a hundred thousand?”

“Over a hundred thousand,” she conceded.

“How many over a hundred?”

“Forty-seven something.”

“One hundred forty-seven something miles?” He grinned. “I’d say you got your money’s worth. What year is it, anyway?”

“1985.”

“Maybe it’s time for a new one.”

“It was my mother’s,” she said.

“Oh.”

“She only used it around town. She had a newer car that my stepfather bought for her as a present when she won her seat in the Senate.” Kendra paused, then added, “The Subaru was the first car she’d ever bought for herself. She was so pleased with it. She’d ordered it new from the dealer with all the options she wanted. So it may seem antiquated, and next to that smooth little rascal you’re driving it may not look like much, but as long as it runs, I’ll drive it.” Then, lest she sound too sentimental, she forced a smile. “Besides, down here where I live, my old car fits in just fine. Anything too flashy, too new, folks think you’re showing off.”

“Maybe I should have parked in the barn.”

“Too late. It’s probably the topic of conversation down at MacNamara’s Diner as we speak.”

“How did you know I stopped there?”

“The only route in to Smith’s Forge is via Route 532 through Worth. And once you’ve passed through Worth, there is no other place to stop. I’ll bet they told you to drive down the road here and look for the house with the purple door.”

“As a matter of fact, they did.”

“That must have made Oliver Webb one happy man,” she mused.

“Who’s Oliver Webb?”

“An old friend of my granddad’s who’s convinced that I’ve got all the ancestral Smiths resting uneasy since I had the house painted.”

“Oh, thinks white would have been better?”

“Well, down here, depending on who you speak with, one might prefer no paint at all. At one time, in some areas deeper into the Pines, it was thought that painting the house would only invite higher real estate taxes.”

“I guess a purple door is really asking for trouble, then.”

“I had a hell of a time convincing the painters that I wasn’t kidding. Now, back in Princeton, where we used to live, it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.” She opened the refrigerator and reached for the container of soup that her neighbor, Selena Brennan, had dropped off earlier in the day. “Down here, everything is grist for the local mill.”

Lightning exploded outside and the thunder rattled the rafters of the old house.

“I think we might want to get this soup heated up just in case we lose power,” she noted.

“Can I help with anything?”

“You can get two bowls and small plates out of the cupboard behind you”—she reached up to take a small pan from a rack on the wall behind the stove—“and maybe you could put some sandwiches together. I think there’s some roast beef and some Swiss cheese in the fridge, rolls in the bread box there. And I’m sure there’s some hot dogs, if you’d rather.”

A look of something bordering on horror crossed Adam’s face, much as she’d anticipated, and Kendra smiled to herself. He mumbled something about nitrates and searched for the roast beef.

The lights flickered several times while Kendra prepared soup and Adam made sandwiches. She replenished their glasses with fresh scoops of ice, some tea, a sprig of mint, and a thin slice of lemon before sitting down and, ignoring the torrent that slashed against the window behind her, asked, “Okay, where were we?”

Adam lay on the old leather sofa in the study that Jeff Smith had built for himself almost twenty-five years earlier. The room was large and square, with a ceiling higher than that found in any other room in the house, floor-to-ceiling library shelves on one long wall, rough-hewn rafters, and a bay window with a seat piled high with cushions. Adam plumped the pillow under his head and listened to the echo of Kendra’s footfalls on the floorboards overhead and reminded himself that he and Kendra had, would probably always have, a strictly professional relationship.

Right.

At midnight the storm had still been shaking the trees that stood like sentinels around the old house, and Kendra had announced matter-of-factly that Adam would have to spend the night.

“My dad designed this addition himself,” she’d told him as she led him into the darkly paneled room. “The sofa’s extra long because
he
was, and he liked a sofa he could stretch out on without twisting up his legs. This was his favorite place in the house. I spend a lot of time here.”

“It’s a great room,” Adam said, nodding his approval as if it had been expected. “Do you ever use the fireplace?”

“I’ve used it a lot since I’ve come back. It makes a cozy place to sit and read, or work.”

Kendra opened a door to the right and said, “There’s a full bath here, in case you want a shower. There are towels stacked on the shelves. Extra blankets are inside that chest next to the sofa in case it gets cool.”

“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

They stood awkwardly for the briefest of minutes, as if both of them had a sudden recollection of the last time they’d been in a cozy room together. Then, to banish the memory and avoid the moment, Adam lifted a photograph from one of the bookshelves. A tall, dark-haired man stood with his arm around a slender young woman with a mass of curly blond hair.

“Is this your father?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “That was taken the summer he graduated from college.”

“And the woman in the picture, is she your mother?”

“No, no. That’s my aunt. My dad’s sister, when she was still Lorraine.”

“Who is she now?”

“Sierra.” The sarcasm was unmistakable. “She took up with a somewhat wild crowd in college. Dropped out in the middle of her junior year, changed her name and bought herself a ranch in Arizona.”

“How could she afford to do that?”

“She and my dad had trust funds that had been set up by their grandparents.” She added dryly, “It was more than enough to pay for her ranch and to support the ‘friends’ who came and went over the years. And still do, no doubt.”

“Sounds as if you disapprove of her.”

“Disapprove?” Kendra pondered the word. “I hardly know her. I haven’t seen her or heard from her since the trial. Not even when my mother died.”

“The trial?” he asked, puzzled.

“Edward Paul Webster’s trial. The man who kidnapped and murdered my brother and my cousin Zach.”

“I’m sorry. I’d forgotten there had been two boys.”

“Zach was Sierra’s son.” She turned her face so that he could not see her expression.

“Webster’s still in prison, isn’t he?”

“Serving two life sentences. The tax dollars of the good people of Arizona at work.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to get into ancient family history. Especially since it’s so late in the evening and you’re a guest in my home.”

“Thanks to the storm.” He gestured toward the window. “I think it’s starting to slow a bit.”

“It hardly matters at this point, since the roads will be flooded for hours yet.”

“I appreciate your offer of a bed.”

“Oh. You just reminded me. You’ll need sheets. I’ll be right back.”

She returned in minutes with two pillows and a set of sheets.

“Thanks.” He reached for them.

“You’re welcome. I hope you’ll be comfortable.” She handed them over, then backed toward the door. “Well, I guess I’ll see you in the morning. . . .”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“If you need anything else . . .”

“No, no. I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

Adam watched her disappear down the hall, watched the house grow dark as she snapped off lights on her way to the stairs. He made up his bed and sat on the edge of it, thinking about the last time he’d seen Kendra.

She’d been burying her mother. Literally.

Though they’d only had a few casual dates, Adam had ached for her when the news broke about her mother’s suicide. He’d known that she’d been devastated, but had no way of knowing just how lost she’d be in the aftermath. Kendra and her mother, the only survivors of the once happy Smith family, had been inordinately close. Kendra’s father, Jeff, had died of leukemia when Kendra was thirteen. Years later, the loss of her brother had strengthened the bonds between mother and daughter.

Over dinner on their first real date, Kendra had spoken with great pride of her mother’s accomplishments. Finishing law school in her late thirties, becoming an advocate for tougher prison sentences for those convicted of preying on the young and helpless, as well as establishing a forum for families to deal with the loss of a child. Later, with backing from her second husband, a onetime White House press secretary with rock-solid political ties, Elisa Smith-Norton ran for and won the Senate seat vacated when the incumbent was indicted for fraud. Adam and Kendra had had only three formal dates—hardly enough to have developed an intimate relationship—when her mother’s sudden death took her back to New Jersey and out of his life.

Adam had attended the senator’s funeral along with several other agents who’d worked with Kendra over the previous eight months. He’d spoken with her briefly—long enough to offer his condolences and little else—before passing through a seemingly endless line of mourners at the funeral home. Senator Smith-Norton had become a popular figure during her years as a public servant, and hundreds had shown up to pay their respects to her husband and her daughter. Adam had left several messages for Kendra on her answering machine, but had never gotten a return call. He stopped leaving messages six weeks later when the news began circulating through the office that Kendra had married an old boyfriend who’d come back into the picture to comfort her when her mother died. The wedding had been small. Adam had heard from a friend of a friend, and totally unexpected by everyone who knew her. According to FBI gossip, even Kendra’s stepfather had been caught off-guard. This last bit of news came from the secretary to the director, who himself was an old friend of Philip Norton, the senator’s widower.

That had been nearly four years ago. Plenty of time, Adam figured, for his interest in her to have waned. Or so he’d believed, until John had called the day before and mentioned in that oh-so-nonchalant way of his that Kendra had returned to the East Coast, divorced and ready to resume business. And by the way, would Adam head down to southern New Jersey to pick her up and accompany her to Deal?

Casual though their relationship might have been, there was still an air of unfinished business that nagged at Adam every time he thought of her. And over the past several years he had thought of her more frequently than he liked to admit.

And now here he was, in her house, alone in the darkened room below her own, listening to the soft sound of her feet padding on the floorboards, the light sigh of the bed as she sat upon its edge, the low music from overhead. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t her face he saw in his mind’s eye.

As he lay in the dark room of the old house, where the barest wisp of aromatic tobacco lingered in the air, and counted sheep to the faint sound of the Dave Matthews Band, he wondered if this trip had been such a good idea after all.

Chapter
Three

“Do you have everything you need, Ms. Smith?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Is the little boy here yet?” Kendra unpacked the file from her briefcase and placed it on the table that dominated much of the small kitchen that served the dining needs of the Deal Police Department. She was anxious to spend some quality time with their young witness and knew from experience that casual surroundings might help eight-year-old Max Spinelli to relax.

Alan Ford, chief of police of the village of Deal, Pennsylvania, population 3,517, nodded from the doorway. He’d requested the assistance of the FBI under protest from several of his detectives whose last homicide investigation was seven years past and had involved a couple of bikers just passing through. They hadn’t seen the need for outside intervention now that they had what appeared to be a bona fide serial killer in the area. Ford had expected the assistance to come in the form of a few agents. He hadn’t expected the FBI to bring in a compositor. After all, their own sergeant had drawn up a sketch and that looked pretty good. On the other hand, this woman looked pretty good, too, so who was Ford to question the FBI’s judgment?

The chief paused in the doorway and looked at Adam and asked, “By the way, why do you need a profiler?”

“What?” Adam looked up.

“A profiler. I’d heard that you specifically requested a profiler.”

“Well, when you asked for us to assist, there’d only been two killings, possibly related.” Adam leaned back in his chair. “Now that we have at least three, we have enough behavioral clues to start making appropriate inferences that can lead to a profile. She should be here soon.”

“She?” Ford’s eyebrows raised.

“She,” Adam assured him. “And for the record, she prefers ‘criminal investigative analyst’ to ‘profiler.’ ”

Muttering unintelligibly, Ford stuck his head out the door and called to someone down the hall, then opened the door wide enough for a frightened-looking young boy and his wary mother to enter the room.

“Max, Mrs. Spinelli, my name is Kendra Smith. I’m a sketch artist who occasionally works with the FBI. This is Agent Stark.” Kendra turned slightly in her chair to nod to Adam, who extended his hand to both Mrs. Spinelli and her son.

“Agent Stark, my son has already told Chief Ford everything he knows. A sketch of the man who”—she swallowed hard—“a drawing, a good drawing, has been made. I’m not sure I understand why Max has to go through this questioning again.”

“Kendra,” Adam deferred the response to her, for which she was grateful.

“I appreciate that you and your son have been so cooperative. But in a case like this—I’m sure you are aware that the suspect is being sought in connection with two other victims—we just want to be sure that the sketch that was released to the media is as accurate as it can be.”

“He told them everything he knows, and the artist drew a good picture.” Mrs. Spinelli frowned.

“The picture is quite well drawn,” Kendra chose her words carefully, “but it’s a mistake to believe that the sketch is accurate just because the art is well-done.”

She turned to address Max.

“I’m sure that the description you gave was as truthful as possible. But it’s my understanding that you were given catalogs of photographs so that you could pick out features that looked right to you.”

Max nodded. “The police had big books with faces in them. They told me to look at the faces and then they asked me, did his nose look like this? Or this?”

“And police artists often work that way.” Not wanting to give the impression that she was critical of someone else’s efforts, or worse, that she was questioning Max’s veracity, Kendra smiled reassuringly at the child.

“But in order to refine the sketch, we’ll need to have you tell us about that night, Max. No books this time.”

“Okay,” Max nodded.

“Now, according to the police report, you were across the street in front of the video store when you first saw Ms. Garvey speaking with a man.” Adam took over, hoping to re-create the scene so that Max might be better able to describe to Kendra exactly what he saw.

“Well, I was across the street when I saw Ms. Garvey talking to him, but I was crossing the street when she went into the store.”

Kendra sat back in order to permit Adam to take over the questioning about the actual events of that evening.

“You were crossing the street from where, Max?”

“From the corner next to Fanning’s, the sporting goods place, to the video store on the opposite corner.” He glanced at his mother, then said somewhat sheepishly, “I’d forgotten to return a movie that my brother and I had rented. I wanted to get it back before my mom got home.”

“The boys have been habitually late returning their movies,” Mrs. Spinelli explained, “so the new rule is that they have to pay late fines from their allowance.”

“Do you remember what you did after you left the house, Max?” Adam took a seat across the table from Max.

“Sure. I rode my bike right down Fourth Street and crossed Main right there at the corner where Fanning’s is. Usually you can drop the tape right into a box outside the video store, but the box was full and I had to go inside. I parked my bike and went into the store and put the video on the counter.”

“So how long do you think you were inside the store?”

Max shrugged. “Just a couple of minutes.”

“When Ms. Smith and I drove into Deal this morning, we walked around town a little. I noticed that there’s a parking lot behind Fanning’s store. Did you pass the parking lot on your way down Fourth Street that night, Max?” Adam leaned back in his chair, a casual gesture that lent an air of informality to the session, as if he and Max were just old friends talking it over.

“Sure.”

“Did you notice if there were any cars parked there that night? Any cars that you recognized?”

“Ms. Garvey’s car was there, and Mr. Fanning’s car.”

“What kind of car does Mr. Fanning have?”

“A red Corvette.” Max grinned. “It’s hot.”

“Were those the only cars parked there that night?”

“No, there was a van in the lot. I remember because it was parked over toward the back, and it sort of blocked Mr. Fanning’s car. I had to look around it to see the Corvette.”

“I guess when you go past Fanning’s, you gotta see that ’vette.” Adam nodded, man to man.

“Right. It’s the only one around. You always look at it.”

“So there was a van in the lot blocking your view of the ’vette, so you looked around the lot a little to see if the ’vette was there.”

“Right.”

“And where was the Garvey car?”

“On the other side of the van.”

“What kind of van was it, did you happen to notice?”

“Nah. It was just a van.”

“So, you don’t know if it was new or old? Or the color . . . ?”

“It was sorta like . . .” Max appeared to be giving consideration to the van for the first time. “Sorta like . . . like Mrs. Alcort’s van.”

Max turned to look at his mother. “You know, the dark greenish blue one.”

“What kind of van does Mrs. Alcort drive?”

“I think it’s a Dodge,” Mrs. Spinelli replied.

“Max,” Kendra asked, “tell me what you saw when you looked across the street after you came out of the video store.”

“I saw Ms. Garvey talking to a man.”

“What can you tell me about the man? Was he tall? Short?”

“He’s already told Chief Ford that the man was—” Mrs. Spinelli started before Adam stopped her.

“Let him tell Kendra.”

“Was he as tall as Agent Stark?” Kendra asked.

“Uh-uh. Not near that tall.”

“More like Chief Ford?” Kendra nodded to the door, outside of which the chief lurked. Chief Ford topped the chart at a solid five feet eight or nine.

“No, more like . . .” Max gave it considerable thought. “More like my dad.”

“How tall is your husband, Mrs. Spinelli?”

“Just about six feet,” she told Kendra.

“And what else did you notice about the man, Max?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t close enough to really see him.”

Kendra slid the artist’s sketch out from the file, and pretended to study it. Finally, she said, “Does this look anything like the man you saw that night, Max?”

“I didn’t see him close enough to say,” Max told her. “I told him—the guy who drew that picture—when he was showing me faces. I told him that I didn’t really know what the man looked like up close.”

“Thank you, Max. You’ve been a very big help to me.”

“But I haven’t told you anything. I didn’t really see him.”

“Exactly.” Kendra returned the sketch to the file. “Thank you, Mrs. Spinelli, for your time. And for bringing Max in.”

Adam stood and took two cards from his wallet. One he handed to Max’s mother.

“You ever want a tour of FBI headquarters, Max, you give me a call.” Adam handed the other card to Max.

“Wow. Thanks!” Max took the card and studied it. “Wow, this says you’re a
special
agent.”

“That’s right, son.”

“Cool.” Max tucked the card into his jacket pocket.

“Thanks again, Mrs. Spinelli.” Adam opened the door for mother and son to leave, then paused and asked, “Max, had you ever seen that van before?”

“I don’t know. Maybe at the Boys Club field. I think it might have been there on Sunday during the soccer tournament. At first I thought it was Mrs. Alcort’s, ’cause it’s sort of the same, but then I remembered that the Alcorts went to Virginia because Jake’s grandmother died.”

“By Sunday, you mean the Sunday before the day you saw Ms. Garvey with the man in front of Fanning’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you just see it that one time?”

“That’s the only time I remember.”

“Was Ms. Garvey at that game, Max?” Kendra asked.

“Sure. Ms. Garvey was at all the games. She always brought us snacks and stuff.”

“Kathleen was one of the team mothers,” Mrs. Spinelli explained.

“Thanks, Max. If you think of anything else, would you give me a call at the number on that card?”

“Sure.”

Mother and son passed through the door into the hallway, and Adam closed the door behind them before Chief Ford could enter.

“What do you think?” Adam asked Kendra.

“I think our sketch is a bit of a stretch on someone’s part. Of course, Mrs. Sims may have gotten a better look at your suspect than Max did.”

Adam was shuffling through the file that the chief had given him earlier.

“I don’t see a damned thing in here about the van being at the soccer field on Sunday,” he frowned.

“That’s because it takes a
special
agent from the FBI to ask all the right questions.”

“All right, all right.” Adam laughed good-naturedly. “So I didn’t tell Max that field agents are
special
agents.”

The door opened and Chief Ford stepped into the room.

“Was Max able to help you?” he asked.

“He helped,” Kendra told him.

“Good, good. Are you ready for me to bring in Mrs. Sims, Ms. Smith?”

“Is she here?”

“Oh, she’s been here for about twenty minutes or so. I didn’t figure you’d be with Max for so long, so I told her to come in at ten-thirty.”

“Bring her in then.” Adam nodded.

Aretha Sims was a tiny, birdlike woman in her seventies. White-haired and with the small bones of a woman who has shrunken past her prime, her eyes were still lively and her gaze direct. She toddled into the room in her Sunday-best low-heeled shoes and introduced herself in a manner that told both Kendra and Adam that she was a woman who was accustomed to being
regarded
.

“Please, sit here, next to me.” Adam pulled the chair out for her, and the elderly Mrs. Sims sat upon it delicately.

“Thank you, Agent Stark.” She looked at Kendra and said, “You know, I’ve already spoken with the chief and with that other artist fellow they had here from the county. He drew a nice picture.”

“Yes. I’ve seen it.” Kendra folded her hands in front of her.

Mrs. Sims looked around the table. “Aren’t you going to show me any books?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t work with visual aids.”

“Then how can I pick him out?” Mrs. Sims’s hands fluttered slightly.

“You will just describe to me what you saw.”

“Just like that?” Mrs. Sims frowned.

“Yes. Just like that.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem very official.” The elderly woman looked over her glasses at Kendra. “Are you sure you’re with the FBI?”

“Actually, Mrs. Sims, I’m with the FBI,” Adam told her. “Ms. Smith is a well-known compositor who often works along with the FBI. When we are lucky enough to get her.”

Mrs. Sims looked at Kendra with no little bit of skepticism.

“You remember the case of the California carjacker?” Adam asked in confidential tones.

“Oh, my, yes. That woman with the gun who forced all those people to give up their cars? She went all the way from San Diego to Seattle.” Mrs. Sims gave a shiver. “Shot those people, every one of them, right in the face. Made a body scared to death to drive to the grocery store.”

“Ms. Smith was the artist who drew the sketch that led to the capture of the carjacker.”

“You don’t say?” Mrs. Sims regarded Kendra in a new light.

“If it wasn’t for her, Carol Billingsly would still be out there, stealing cars and shooting people.” Adam leaned close to Mrs. Sims. “Ms. Smith is the best at what she does. That’s why the FBI called her in to work on this case.”

“Oh, wait till I get home to tell Amelia.” She looked across the table at Kendra. “That’s my sister, Amelia.”

“Was Amelia with you the night you saw Kathleen Garvey speaking with the man on the sidewalk outside Fanning’s store?”

“No, no, Ms. Smith. She was at home. Amelia had taken a fall out in the garden a few weeks before—those pesky moles had the ground all uneven. She broke her ankle. I was on my way to the pharmacy to pick up a renewal of one of her prescriptions. Of course, I don’t usually venture out after dark—my eyes aren’t so good in the dark anymore—but the car had spent the whole day down at the Sunoco station having new tires put on, and they didn’t get it back to me till almost six, and ’Melia was in such pain, well, I thought, just this one time, I could drive down to town by myself at night.”