Witness (16 page)

When he was done with the call, Joe said, “Listen, if Harwood ditches the car, what will he do next?”

Nick hesitated. “I give up. What?”

“Exactly. When he left the airport in Portland, all he had to do was hail a cab. Or he could even have walked home, though it’s quite a hike for a fifty-year-old man with a sedentary job.”

“He does all that digging, though,” Nick mused. “He can’t be in too bad shape.”

“Well, he’s not in good enough shape to walk a hundred miles home from Sidney or Waterville.”

“Ah. I follow you.” Nick sat back and closed his eyes. “Public transportation, car rental, hitchhiking, stealing a car, or getting someone to pick him up.”

“That about covers it.” Joe frowned, ticking them off one by one in his brain. “I don’t see him taking a bus, but we can have a patrolman check. The bus stop is out near the airport in Waterville. Two or three car dealers in town have rental businesses. I think that’s a good bet. We should check Augusta, too. Hitchhiking’s too risky and too uncertain. If he thinks he can keep this from his wife, he’s got to get back to Portland before midnight. He could explain that, but not an all-nighter.”

“Joe.”

“Hmm?”

Joe looked over at Nick. His friend gritted his teeth. “Don’t you think he’s already contacted his wife to give her an excuse for why he’s late coming home to dinner?”

“Possibly. Do we still have a patrol officer with Mrs. Harwood?”

Nick started punching buttons on his cell phone. “Wish I had my radio.”

Joe stretched his back muscles and flexed his shoulders. Ten more minutes to Augusta. He decided to leave the interstate there and touch base with the officers at the roadblock.

The sun lowered behind them, casting long shadows on the road ahead. Nick’s eyes were grim when he put away his phone.

“The detective squad is going nuts, but they’re trying to cover all the bases in Portland. They haven’t found anyone yet who saw Petra leave the hospital or knows where she parked today. The good news is, they took Mrs. Harwood to the station for questioning. She hasn’t given them anything, but she asked for a lawyer, so they’ve stopped interviewing her. And so far as they know, Rex hasn’t tried to contact her. He hasn’t called his own house, and Mrs. H. doesn’t carry a cell phone.”

“She’s not in this,” Joe said. “Harriet Foster’s murder happened on the spur of the moment, while Mrs. Harwood was in Millinocket. I doubt very much her husband told her about it. In fact, I don’t think she even knew he sold those antiques illegally. If she did, she wouldn’t have been so friendly to me the other night.”

He put on the turn signal and they rolled down the Augusta-Belgrade exit. Cars were backed up around the curve of the ramp. They could see two police cars with flashing lights parked where the ramp met Route 11.

“I’m getting out,” Nick said. “Ease on through and pick me up down there, after I find out if they’ve got anything.”

Joe hated inching down the exit one car length at a time. It was after eight o’clock, and he switched on his radio to catch the news headlines. “Police are looking for a Portland woman who is feared kidnapped this afternoon. Her car is a red Toyota Avalon, last year’s model, license plate number…”

Joe pulled forward and a uniformed state trooper stepped to his car door. Joe nodded at him. “Hey, I’m Joe Tarleton, and I’m with Detective Wyatt over there.” He pointed to where Nick was conversing with another officer.

The trooper called, “Is this gentleman with you?”

Nick nodded, said a few more words to the officer, and jogged to Joe’s car. He plopped into the passenger seat and shut the door.

“Anything?” Joe asked.

“No. They’re letting through most of the cars, but it still snarls up traffic. What do you think is our best bet?”

Joe pulled out onto the roadway. “Ernest Harwood had a country place in Sidney thirty or forty years ago. That’s where Rex grew up. I think we should concentrate on that neighborhood.”

“But we don’t even know Rex came up here. He only took Harriet as far as Durham…”

“I know.” Joe didn’t like it one bit. “Nicky, we’ve got to do something. The way I figure, he knows they found the body and he’s not going to chance dumping Petra so close to home. He’ll go someplace where he knows he can hide a body better than he did the first one.” The words were so crass that Joe felt a tremor of repulsion. It could be too late for Petra.

“Right,” Nick said softly. “And Waterville P.D. has a patrol car on the street where your office is. They sent a detective to Petra’s sisters’ house to tell them what’s going on and see if anything unusual has happened—if Petra’s called them, for instance.”

“Good.” Joe wished again that Petra had leveled with her sisters. This was going to be rough for them. He drove in silence to the intersection where the road split between Belgrade and Sidney. Messalonskee Lake lay between the two towns.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Nick said. “We should have put her in protective custody.”

“She wanted to finish out the work week.” Joe shook his head in remorse. “I was stupid enough to let her do it.” He sent up a silent prayer.

P
etra found it hard to breathe. She switched the car’s lights on. It wasn’t quite dusk yet, but she felt the end of their journey was near and she needed to do anything that would make her more visible and easier to find. Driving at gunpoint down a dirt road in Sidney didn’t boost her hopes.

“Slow down.”

Her heart hammered and her hands shook as she guided the car along the isolated road. Were they headed for Great Sidney Bog?
He could throw a hundred bodies in there and they wouldn’t be found for years.

“There! Pull in there.”

She braked and looked where he gestured. An even smaller road led off between the birches and poplars. A woods road; more like a Jeep trail.

She nosed the car in under the branches and braked.

“A little farther.” His voice was quiet, near her right ear.

She shivered and obeyed.

“All right. Put it in Park.” She hesitated, wondering what would happen if she threw it in Reverse and floored it. The hard metal of the pistol muzzle pressing against the back of her head answered the question. “Do it now.”

Her joints turned to rubber as she did what he demanded. He opened the rear door. A cool breeze wafted through the car.

“Get out,” he said.

She groped for the door handle and pulled it with numbed fingers. When she swung her legs out and looked up at him, he stood impassively, watching her with the gun in his right hand and a coil of manila rope in his left. Her mouth went dry.

“Come along, Petra.”

“Where are we going?” She hated the quiver in her voice.

“You’ll see.”

“We can’t drive?”

“Just leave the car here. I’ll need it later.”

“But…”

He sighed. “Let’s not be tiresome. The police will find your car safe in your garage when they look there. Right where you parked when you got home from work this evening.”

She said nothing but eyed him cautiously. If Joe were here, what would he do? She felt that she ought to memorize every detail…Rex’s clothes…the gloves…the pistol…the rope…Just as she’d tried to commit to memory the turns they’d made after they reached a point she recognized in Sidney. But for what? She would never have a chance to tell anyone. She disappeared from Portland, but her car would be found there after Rex returned it to her garage. It would be easy for him, although she’d changed the locks on the house. He had her garage door opener now. Would Joe know somehow that her car had been driven an extra two hundred miles tonight? Not likely. What could she do to get out of this?

“Give me the keys,” Rex said.

She pulled them from the ignition and dropped them into his hand without touching him.

“Turn around,” Rex said when she stood. “Follow the path.”

She walked with wooden legs through the trees. A phoebe sang and a gray squirrel ran across the trail not two yards in front of her. It wasn’t fair. She ought to be able to do something.

“You could have avoided this, you know,” he said behind her. “If you’d only kept quiet.”

She said nothing, but kept walking slowly. Ahead, she saw a glimmer of light on water.

“That’s it,” Rex said quietly. “Go right up to the bank. It’s a pretty spot. I always loved it here.”

Petra’s lungs felt as though they would explode with each breath. If she’d wanted to scream, she wouldn’t have been able to. She stepped slowly toward the water. The trail petered out and the legs of her light blue uniform pants brushed the long grass aside as she approached the rim of the pond. Trees grew within a few feet of the brink and several boulders dotted the shore.

“Closer to the edge,” Rex said. “This was my favorite fishing spot.”

Her mind raced. If he shot her on the edge of the pond, she would fall in. What was the rope for?

“Stop now.”

She looked over her shoulder, and she knew. He was kicking at a rock about the size of a football. Heavy enough to weight her body to the bottom of the pond?

She pulled in a breath, her mind racing. Could she somehow overbalance him and push him over the brink instead? Heroines in movies did it. But she doubted Rex would get carelessly close to the edge. How deep was the water? He must know and be confident it would conceal her for a long time. If she were wounded, how long could she hold her breath? And if he tied the rock to her body, how would she get free of it?

He dropped the rope next to the rock and faced her.

“Now then, don’t you want to turn around? Look out over the pond. It’s truly beautiful.”

She started to turn, helpless to do anything else.

A sudden movement from behind a large rock startled her. A man stood with a fishing rod in one hand. He wore jeans and a Colby College T-shirt. His dark hair gleamed in the last rays of sunlight and he smiled from behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“Hello, folks. Come to enjoy the view?”

She could tell the instant his gaze focused on Rex’s hands. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened.

Petra sucked in a huge breath and ran toward the pond. In two steps, she was at the berm. She launched her body downward, keeping low, and extended her hands before her. As her face cut the water, she heard an explosion behind her.

She pushed hard with her legs, angling down and away from the shore, to her left. On her third kick, her hands struck bottom. She leveled off, took two strokes with her arms and headed for the surface. As soon as she broke through, she grabbed another breath and dove again. She and her sisters had practiced surface dives together—sticking their feet up like a mermaid’s tail. This time she tried to keep them beneath the water.
No splash.
She hadn’t heard another gunshot. What did that mean? She swam on and on, her lungs burning. At last she surfaced and looked back. She couldn’t see anyone on shore in the shadowy twilight. Wasn’t that the spot where she’d dived?

She turned and struck out for the far side of the pond. A hundred yards or so. She could make it. As she swam she tried to orient herself. The car…the road…If she climbed out of the pond near that leaning pine tree and walked east, away from the sunset, she ought to strike the dirt road soon.

Her feet kicked bottom and she stood. Her hair and her loose cotton uniform hugged her body, dripping. She slogged through the shallows. The bank wasn’t as steep on this side, and she thought she could climb out. The water beneath the pine was murky, and she shivered. The first thing she would do when she reached safety was to check for leeches. She grabbed a sticky branch and pulled herself up out of the water. Her shoes sloshed and squeaked.

As she shoved back her sopping hair, something struck the trunk of the pine near her cheek, and a
pow
echoed over the water. She ducked and scrambled beneath the leaning bole of the tree and into the dark woods beyond.

Joe drove slowly, scanning the roadside. “You sure this is it?” he asked.

Nick nodded. “They had the town clerk look it up. This is where his family lived.”

Joe signaled for a driveway and drove up before a white clapboard house. “Her car’s not here.”

“Not where we can see it.” Nick got out of the car and bounded up the steps. Joe followed, peering about the yard in the half-light. A stocky young man opened the door to Nick’s peremptory knock.

Nick held up his badge. “I’m police detective Nick Wyatt. We’re looking for a man who used to live here. Rex Harwood. Has he been here?”

The man blinked at him. “I don’t think so. What’s he look like?”

“Tall, thin, dark hair with some gray, dark eyes, glasses, age fifty.”

The man shook his head. “Nobody like that’s been around here lately.”

“So you didn’t know the Harwood family?”

“No, can’t say as I did. When did they live here?”

“A long time ago. Thirty or forty years.”

The man laughed. “That’s older than me.”

Joe stepped forward. “Have you seen a red car around here today? A Toyota Avalon.”

The man shook his head. “Nope. You wanna come in? My wife might have seen someone.”

Nick started to follow him inside when his phone rang.

“Wyatt. Yeah?…Hold on.” He looked at Joe. “Are we near the Quaker Road?”

The homeowner stepped onto the porch. “You can cut across right down there at the corner.” He pointed down the road.

“Great,” Nick said. “They found Petra’s car in the woods over there.”

Petra moved with as much caution as she could at first. She considered holing up behind some undergrowth, but the sound of tramping footsteps and breaking branches soon pushed her into a run. She trudged through the forest, losing her bearings after a few yards. She could no longer tell where the sun had gone down. Walking in a straight line would be better than no plan. She sighted ahead, from one tree to another. The white bark of the birches let her see them several yards away. Soon it would be too dark even for that.

Hurrying along, she caught her toe on a root and sprawled on the ground. Her knee hurt. She hauled herself up and limped onward. Beneath a large hardwood she paused, listening. At first she heard nothing but the stirring branches above her, but soon the unmistakable sounds of pursuit reached her. She looked up, considering climbing the tree, but the lowest branches were too high for her.
If he spotted me in a tree, he could shoot me, and I wouldn’t have a chance.

She stumbled on, but her wrenched knee definitely slowed her down. She leaned against a large, moss-covered rock and gasped for breath, shivering.

A shot rang out, closer than she’d bargained for. She threw herself on the ground behind the rock. As she lay still, she heard quick hoofbeats retreating.

He must have seen a deer and thought it was me. Thank you, Lord.
She hoped the deer escaped.

From a short distance away, she heard him trampling brush and thrashing about. The noise grew fainter, and she waited. At last she couldn’t hear him anymore, but she continued to lie still. The wind picked up, and the rustling of the trees increased, blotting out the sounds she strained to hear.

After another ten minutes she rolled cautiously to her back and stared up between dancing leaves. She could barely see a sprinkling of stars. Could she find her way back to the clearing where the pond was? If so, she thought she could make her way to her car. But maybe Rex would wait there for her. She stood. Her clammy wet clothes clung to her skin. She set out slowly, one hand extended before her so she wouldn’t crash into a tree. A faint wail reached her and she stopped. Above her pounding pulse and the sighing wind, she caught it again: a distant siren. She adjusted her path toward where the road must be.

Joe stood on the gas pedal in order to keep up with the police car ahead of him. He wished the officer would kill that annoying siren. It was giving him a headache, not to mention alerting every criminal in the county of their presence. They veered around a curve.

Nick grabbed the armrest. “I bet that’s the dirt road they were talking about right there.”

The police car shot past the road Nick had indicated, but Joe slowed and turned in. The town clerk had relayed a message that the Harwoods owned a woodlot in this area, and Rex Harwood was the owner of record, having paid the taxes since his father’s death. A quarter of a mile farther down the road, Joe spotted two more squad cars and an ambulance parked to one side. He parked on the shoulder and jumped out, heading straight for the EMTs.

“What’ve you got?” Joe barked.

“Forty-year-old male, gunshot wound to the abdomen.”

Joe glanced at the man’s taut face. “He tell you anything?”

“Yeah, the police arrived first, and they interviewed him.”

Joe hurried to join Nick. Darkness was falling fast. Nick was with two officers just inside the verge of the woods, examining a car with their flashlights. Petra’s car.

“So what did the wounded man tell you?” Nick asked the state trooper who seemed to be in charge.

“He said he was fishing and two people came along. The woman jumped in the water, and the man shot him,” said the state trooper.

Nick introduced Joe and asked if the officers had found anything important at the car.

“Not really. It’s locked. Nobody inside, but it looks like there’s a purse in the backseat.”

A man in plain clothes knelt at the back bumper, his arm underneath the back of the car.

“Got it.” He pulled out a hide-a-key case and handed it to the trooper. While he stood and brushed off the knees of his pants, the trooper extracted the car key. Joe didn’t think he could stand another moment of the images assaulting his brain.

“Open the trunk first,” he said.

The trooper shrugged and tried the key in the trunk lock. The lid swung up and they all looked inside. Like Petra’s house, her car trunk was neat. Spare tire, wool blanket, jack, an emergency flare box and a folding shovel.

“Where’s the fishing hole?” Joe asked.

The trooper pointed down the overgrown woods’ road. “We’ve got two officers in at the pond.”