Wednesday, November 7, 2:30 P.M.
HamptonJunction
“Dr. Roper, you said my arthritic knees would be better by now. Look at them. They’re the size of cauliflowers.”
“What I said, Nell, was that the pills would make the pain better, not that they’d take away your arthritis.”
“But the pain came back.”
“Are you still taking those pills the way I told you?”
“The prescription ran out. I figured you only wanted me to take ‘em for a month. That’s all the time your father ever needed to get me better.”
She’d also been a quarter century younger back then. Mark turned to wash his hands at the sink in his examining room, not wanting the feisty octogenarian to see his grin. Nell had been coming to him about her knees for seven years, ever since he’d reopened his father’s practice, and she’d argued her way through each visit. The idea that a prescription must be refilled and the medication taken longer than a month had never taken root beneath her frizzy white hair. It had nothing to do with poor memory or a lack of confidence in him. She resisted growing old and the idea she could no longer shake off what ailed her. She still lived independently, her mountain cabin twenty miles north of town on an isolated road overlooking the Hudson River Valley. The only reason she’d recently agreed to let a local handyman cut the twelve cords of firewood she used every winter was that he had four kids to feed and obviously needed the money. But Nell herself wasn’t isolated. Known for her prize-winning recipes at the fall fair – her peach cobbler had taken home the blue ribbon seven years running – her kitchen was a much-visited mecca for anyone caring to pick up her pearls of culinary wisdom. She also reigned as the unofficial queen of the town’s gossip network, a function she dutifully filled by welcoming all visitors and spending hours on the phone. The acquired information made her one of the most sought-after guests for Sunday suppers, afternoon bridge parties, and socials at each of the town’s two churches, neither clergyman willing to yield her soul to the other side, or go without her contribution of cobbler.
Slowly wiping his hands with a paper towel, Mark laboriously explained yet again that she must ask Timmy Madden, the pharmacist, to refill her prescription when she ran out.
Nell sighed, having endured his lecture while tugging her well-stretched pair of elastic stockings over varicose veins as thick as quarter-inch ropes. “And how are you doing, Doctor?” she said. “It must have been a shock, pulling the bones of Kelly McShane out of the mud. Who do you think killed her?”
Now he understood the real reason she’d bothered to come and see him. “I don’t think anything, yet, Nell, and I couldn’t tell you if I did.”
“Oh, come on. Was it that rotten husband of hers?”
“Is that what everyone around here has decided? That Chaz Braden murdered her?”
“You betcha’!”
“Anybody got any proof?”
“He’s mean and was known to get drunk on more than one Saturday night. It’s a bad mix.”
Street justice in rural America could be just as arbitrary as its urban counterpart. In the countryside, though, it tended to be unanimous. “And that’s enough to make you sure it’s him?”
“Yeah. Now tell me what you think.”
Mark chuckled. “My lips are officially sealed, Nell. Besides, you and your friends have probably already snooped out everything there is to know.”
She gave him a no-harm-in-trying shrug, then cocked her head and slipped him a sly jack-o’-lantern smile, missing tooth and all.
A reminder of another argument he’d lost – getting her to wear the partial plate a Sarasota dentist made her.
“You still seeing that pretty veterinarian from New York?” she asked.
Reason number two for the visit.
Nell had always been uncommonly interested in the women who’d occasionally visited him. From the very first day of his return she seemed to have elected herself the local record keeper of his private life. “We keep in touch, Nell,” he said, helping her off the table.
Little wonder she chose now to get an update, especially if she and her friends really had exhausted all they could say about a twenty-seven-year-old murder. While Halloween and Thanksgiving provided lots of gossip – who was shooing away the kids, who intended to run the Christmas pageant, what couples were taking separate holidays – the weeks in between yielded few topics for discussion.
“Not much to interest a young woman around here these days, I guess. Only us old folks left,” she continued, sitting down to put on her shoes – Nike air pumps that she’d sworn more than once did more for her arthritis than anything he’d ever given her.
“Nell, you’re the youngest ‘old folk’ I know.”
“Did you ever ask any of them pretty girls to marry you?”
“Nell!”
“I like your hair cut short like that. It’s black as your mother’s but gives your face the same lean good looks your father had. What with that hunky physique you’ve built up hiking and running all over the mountains, the girls should be falling down over you. The only problem is you’re getting that same sadness in your eyes that he had.”
“Jesus, Nell!”
“Oh, go on. Who’s more fitting to talk frankly with you than me? I watched your mother change your diapers, bless her dear departed soul. And I used to baby-sit your father when I was a teenager.”
“I know, Nell.” As they chatted he helped her down a short hallway and into the center of what used to be his parents’ living room but now served as his waiting area. It was packed as always, and she routinely saved a zinger or two for this audience, all of them nearly as old as she was, most of them women.
“Guess what’s the trouble with your generation?” she asked.
“I got a feeling you’re going to tell me,” he said, resigned to his usual role as her straight man.
“None of you want to buy a cow because you get your milk for free.”
He started to laugh, along with everyone else. “Nell, you’re wicked.”
“Maybe you should take me out.”
“I couldn’t handle you.”
“Tell me, did that veterinarian woman cook?”
He felt his face grow warm. Banter with Nell in private was one thing. In public it could get embarrassing. “We ate out a lot when she was here,” he said quickly, trying to end the conversation.
She flashed him that jack-o’-lantern smile again. “Well, you know what I always say?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“If she’s no good in the kitchen, she won’t be worth much in the bedroom.”
The oldsters found this one even more uproarious.
“Oh Nell, how naughty,” yelled one of his blue-haired regulars.
“But ain’t it the truth?” she fired back.
The woman giggled. “I’ll say.”
A large lady gestured with her thumb to a distinguished, white-haired gentleman at her side.
“Fred here adores my pot roast.”
He turned beet red and fiddled with his hearing aid.
Nell proceeded to lead the rest of the room in a free-for-all of off-color innuendos about food and sex. It grew so loud that Mark barely heard the phone ring. He didn’t have a secretary. Hiring anybody locally had proved impossible. Whomever he picked, someone inevitably commented, “I don’t want that person seeing what’s in my file.” Since he knew his patients the way only a country doctor could and the practice pretty well ran itself anyway, he’d kept it a one-man operation – except when it came to all the forms for Medicare and Medicaid. They drove him crazy. His aunt Margaret used to process them for him. Now a company from Saratoga did it. They charged him a hefty commission, but he figured it well worth the price, since he could use the extra hours to run or hike.
“Dr. Roper,” he answered, blocking his other ear in order to hear over the brouhaha.
“Mark, it’s Dan. Hey, sounds like you’re in a tavern. The whole gang there, huh?”
“Yep. Everyone over seventy-five is here to party. That’s my waiting room!”
He chuckled. “Well, I hate to be the pooper, but I’ve got Chaz Braden and his father, plus Kelly McShane’s parents in my office, all of them squabbling over her remains.”
“What?”
“It started last night with phone calls from their lawyers, just as soon as Everett made it official that everything is now in our hands.”
Son of a bitch. “I’ll be right over.”
Dan’s office was in a large, colonial building that dominated Main Street. Shabby wood siding toward the back made it look as if the contractor had run out of money. Once nicknamed the White House, the building hadn’t been painted in years and was now a sooty gray. Inside, county officialdom was cut down to size. The courthouse, the jail, a records room, the fire hall, the police station – all were crammed into three floors and a basement. There was even a small coroner’s office that Mark used only during inquests or for campaign headquarters on those occasions when someone challenged his reelection.
Floorboards creaking under his feet, he walked up to a door with a clear window that had SHERIFF written across it and peeked in at the people he’d be dealing with.
Dan slouched in his chair massaging his temples. An immaculately groomed, sophisticated-looking older woman sat across from him. She wore a well-tailored black suit and hat. Lord, Mark only saw hats like that in old movies these days. She held black leather gloves in her left hand and kept tight hold with her right on the gold clasp of a black snakeskin handbag in her lap. Behind her stood a compact man, also elderly, but his tanned complexion, though creased, had a youthful tautness that was at odds with his shock of white hair. Arms folded across his chest, his mouth grim, he seemed to be studying his shoes.
Kelly’s parents, Mark assumed. He hadn’t seen them since he was a small boy. They’d moved away shortly after their daughter’s disappearance.
Charles Braden III was the only one who seemed to be at ease. Mark remembered him vividly from his days as a resident at NYCH when the man served as outgoing chairman of the Obstetrics Department prior to retirement. Still sleek, sporting the same wiry, brushed steel haircut, and dressed in a two-thousand-dollar suit, he leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets.
By contrast, his son Chaz looked anxious, though no less sartorially splendid. His wiry body was taut; dark circles underscored his eyes.
Mark took a breath, squared his shoulders, and walked in, adopting the swift stride he used to impose his authority while making rounds at Saratoga General, another arena where money tried to outrank him. “Good afternoon, everyone.”
They all looked up at him.
Before Mark had enough time to clear his throat, Mrs. McShane was on her feet, her handbag placed precisely on her chair, and standing before him. “Dr. Roper, I am Kelly’s mother-”
“Samantha, my dear-” Her husband followed on her heels, reaching out, placing his hands supportively on her shoulders.
She wrenched away from his touch. “Please, Walter, let me have my say.” She turned a beseeching face to Mark. “Do forgive me, but I simply must demand a little respect here as Kelly’s mother.” She had a tremor in her voice that reminded him of Katharine Hepburn’s performances in her later movies like On Golden Pond or A Lion in Winter. “My darling girl meant everything to me and to learn that I was right all along, that she didn’t run away from us, that someone viciously murdered her – well, I’m sure you understand how devastating, how traumatic this has been for me.”
From behind, Mark heard one of the Bradens mutter, “Garbage!”
Samantha obviously had also heard. She drew herself up to her full height, but didn’t turn around. “As I was saying, Doctor, it should be a parent’s right to bury her only child, her beloved chi-”
“For heaven’s sake, Samantha,” Chaz said, stepping forward. “You and Kelly hadn’t exchanged a single civil word in years before she-”
“That’s quite enough!” Walter said. His arm shot protectively around his wife’s shoulders. “And after all you put Kelly through during those years, how dare you say anything about us. The least you can do now is agree to let Samantha give her a proper, loving funeral.”
“I have every right to bury my wife,” Chaz shot back. “Every right. It was you two and Kelly who were estranged, but we, Kelly and I, were not. Let me repeat that. We weren’t the ones estranged, and I insist-”
“You insist?” An incredulous look rearranged Samantha’s beautifully made-up face. “All her friends said she wanted to leave you, and you know it. If Kelly estranged herself from anyone, it was you.”
“I don’t know any such thing!” Chaz said, alarmingly red in the face.
“And you drove her away from me,” Samantha continued. “Every chance you had. You’re the last one who’s going to take her from me now by trying to turn the tables on me like this.” Walter still steadied her as if she were a fragile piece of Baccarat.
This was fast growing out of control, Mark thought. He glanced at Dan, who shrugged, rolled his eyes, and raised his hands as if to say, “See what I’ve been trying to deal with?”
Then Charles Braden III moved into the middle of the fray. “Chaz, please, we know you adored Kelly and are distraught, but, as I’ve said before, have a care for a mother’s feelings as well. Do sit down, Chaz.” He squeezed his son’s shoulder. “And let’s all try to remember that Kelly would have been dreadfully upset by this wrangling.”
Although Charles sounded reasonable, Mark thought, the guy was so smooth he reeked of hypocrisy. Time to take charge himself, and impose his own agenda. “Listen up, people,” he said, moving to position himself behind Dan. “I’m afraid neither side will get any satisfaction today. Her remains are evidence still, and I’m not releasing them to either party.” He knew that he couldn’t get anything more out of the bones from a forensic point of view, yet instinctively balked at letting them go.
Everyone looked surprised.
“I thought you’d have done everything necessary by now,” Chaz said, walking quickly around the end of Dan’s desk to where he could stand toe-to-toe with Mark. He exuded anger, but also seemed edgy, his fingers continually opening and closing as if he were practicing his grip. “What are you playing at?”
Not exactly a presence to back down from, Mark thought. In fact, why not probe a little. See how the man reacts to the prospect of his wife’s death being looked at locally. “You think I’m playing here, Chaz? This investigation is just beginning, and I’m bound to hold Kelly’s remains for as long as I need to do a proper inquiry.”
He got even more flushed. “You? But the NYPD told me as far as they were concerned it was a cold case. They’re not working on it.”
“They dumped it in Dan’s and my laps.”
“That was just for you to do their paperwork, for Christ’s sake. Any fool could see that. Surely you’re not going to drag this out?”
Mark caught the condescension, and an old enmity stirred. But he kept it in check.
Nevertheless, he saw Dan looking up at him apprehensively.
“Listen to me, Roper,” Chaz said. “You may think you’re some kind of big shot here, being coroner and all, but I can rally enough votes to fix that at the next election.”
Mark’s discipline in dealing with assholes nearly folded. He smiled, slowly, showing his teeth a few at a time. “Take your best shot.”
“This is not fitting for Kelly,” Braden Senior said. His tone had the quiet authority of someone who never raised his voice to get an order followed.
Mark had to admit Braden had spoken the truth. “I’ll say it’s not fitting.” He kept his gaze on Chaz.
“There can’t be much more you need to examine,” Braden Senior continued. “Besides, both the McShanes and my son and I probably will lawyer you to death if you persist. Now I’m no judge, but in a court of law you’ll be hard-pressed not to accord both families the closure of putting her in a grave.”
Again, Mark knew he was right.
“So for our Kelly’s sake, why not now?” Braden Senior pressed.
Mark looked over at him. “Can you people agree on arrangements so that Dan and I don’t have to decide between you? Neither of us is a Solomon, you know.”
He got no immediate response, except Chaz walked over to rejoin his father.
Mark forged on. “Mrs. McShane, you mentioned a funeral, right?”
She nodded slowly.
“What if you agreed to hold the funeral, which Chaz and his father may attend, and let the Bradens hold a memorial service a couple of weeks later, which you and your husband may attend?”
Samantha appeared to be taken aback, but to his right he could see that both the Bradens were smiling, albeit reluctantly.
“I think you are a Solomon after all, young man,” Braden Senior said. “A real peacemaker. Well done.”
Braden was complimenting him. Dan looked relieved, and the McShanes appeared to accept his compromise. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that even Chaz nodded slightly. Why, since he had put this potential fracas to rest, did he have such a bitter taste in his mouth?
4:00 P.M.
Mark started his run as usual, going down to the foot of his driveway and turning left. After this afternoon’s business, he figured it would take at least an hour on the road to work off the tension.
The air was cool, the light gray, and leaden clouds promised snow. He’d worn gloves and a hooded track suit, but initially he still felt cold. He also carried a small flashlight in his pocket since it would be dark before he finished.
By the first hundred paces, he started to feel the flush of his endorphins. Within fifteen minutes, his runner’s high kicked in like a shot of morphine, first vanquishing the pain of protesting muscles, then wiping the Bradens and McShanes off his radar. His world became the sound of his breathing, the thudding of his heart, and the soft slap of his running shoes on asphalt. When the first few flakes began to float down around him and fall on his cheeks, he even welcomed their sting against his skin as they melted, the sensation invigorating him. It was a mindless state, and he reveled in it.
Thirty minutes later, well along the uphill part of his trek, he trotted by a gated muddy road that led into a thickly forested property. Off to one side a rusted plaque pompously announced THE BRADEN FOUNDATION CLINIC.
At least they hadn’t hung a scarlet A in front of the place.
He had passed this place a hundred times, never giving it a thought. But now, the crumpled clipping about the place that his father had kept popped to mind, and on a whim, he slowed, walked over to where a wire fence abutted against the post at the right of the entrance. Ignoring a faded NO TRESPASSING sign, he climbed to the other side. The rickety barrier swayed under him, suggesting the whole thing might soon collapse, maintenance obviously no longer a priority.
He started along the center hump between two little-used ruts, resuming the same jogging pace as before. The falling snow disappeared as soon as it hit the bare earth, and in the brittle undergrowth of wild grasses that lined a shallow ditch on either side it collected around the roots like frizzy bits of fluff before melting. The sight made him feel slightly forlorn, not an unusual emotion at this time of year; he preferred it when everything finally turned white and Christmassy. Lately, though, as the change of season drove away the summer crowd and emptied the countryside, instead of enjoying the drop in his workload, he sometimes felt left behind. The sensation, when it occurred, puzzled him. He had nowhere else he wanted to live or work. No matter. Whatever it was that disquieted him, he figured it couldn’t be what he’d seen happen to Dan and others. He just wasn’t the type to get bushed.
Deeper into the woods the russet foliage of ancient giant oaks intertwined to form a thatched arch high above his head and cast a further layer of shadow over the thickening dusk, forcing him to watch his step.
In the far distance he heard the “Boom! Boom! Boom!” of rifle shots.
“God, I hate hunting season,” he said out loud. He’d not worn the prescribed orange vest or gaudy cap, so he began to whistle at full volume between breaths, figuring that making a lot of noise was his best protection against being mistaken for a deer. Every November he and Dan hauled out some poor Joe who had a stray bullet or crossbow arrow in him. He medevacked the living by helicopter to the nearest trauma center, usually Albany; but sometimes, when patient volume at local facilities made them too busy, he had to ride with the victim, fighting to keep him stable all the way to New York City and his old alma mater, NYCH. The dead they body-bagged and sent to Blair’s.
He rounded a bend and stepped out of the shadows into a clearing the size of a baseball field. At its center stood the lifeless hulk of the building. Made of stone and four stories tall, it had the dimensions of a medium-sized apartment block and had most of its windows punched out. Not even falling snow in twilight could soften the dreariness.
He hadn’t been here since sneaking in with friends when they were kids. They’d deemed it “haunted” back then and prowled the dark corridors as a rite of passage. Even a few of the broken panes were their doing. The rest had been target practice for the crowd that roamed the woods at this time each year.
Might as well take a look, he thought, not that he expected the reason for his father’s interest in the place to jump out at him. But as coroner he’d learned the value of visiting a site. Every place had a feel to it, and sometimes the physical layout of a building spoke to him. It didn’t necessarily give answers, but often begged specific questions – Who was here? And why? What were they doing? How did their presence relate to the death under investigation? And in forensics, like medicine, the first step in solving a problem was asking the right question.
He started across the open space, pushing through the bare branches of bushes and saplings that were waist high. These soon gave way to a field of spindly grass up to his knees. Dormant like everything else and beige in color, it appeared to have once been a lawn that had long since gone to seed. Several medium-sized trees dotted the area.
He mounted a half dozen stone steps and stood in front of a massive wooden door suitable for a cathedral. He gave the ornate handle a jerk. Locked solid, just as it always had been. No matter, he thought, walking over to the broken window he and his pals had used. Verifying that the frame was still free of glass bits, he hoisted himself up on the sill and crawled through.
A familiar musty smell of mold, dust, and dead mice filled his nostrils, sharp as memory. It was much darker in here, and he fished the flashlight from his pocket. Passing the beam around the room, he found his bearings as quickly as if he’d been here yesterday. He and his buddies hadn’t known then the exact nature of what once went on inside, only that it used to be a kind of hospital where women without money came to have their babies. Eyeing the wooden counters and ceiling-high shelves that he’d scrambled up and over while playing tag, he now figured this must have been the reception area. He stepped through its only doorway, and the wooden floorboards creaked loudly, as they’d done two decades ago. Staring down the dark passageway that ran the length of the building, he felt a familiar, yet old anxiety reassert itself. Then it had been part of a game, titillatingly effervescent, the sort of thrill he experienced in a horror movie or at the summer carnival’s House of Terror, not the foreboding he sensed now. His beam of light didn’t help any, making the faded wood along the barren corridor only seem more ghostly.
He began to walk, having no idea what he was looking for, yet kept his mind open to impressions, allowing them to play loose and free through his head where, with luck, they would offer some brilliant insight into what he saw. At least that was how it was supposed to work.
On either side of him were small bare rooms, each about fifteen feet square, twenty of them in all. Bleak and dismal under his white probings, the curls of peeling paint on the walls and clumps of dust on the floors cast shadows that made everything look ragged. Sleeping quarters? The idea of being shut up in one of them, even when it would have been clean and less decrepit, gave him the creeps.
At the far end of the hallway, he came across a pair of large, tiled chambers situated opposite each other, many of the white ceramic squares cracked or missing altogether. In one a row of round black holes across the floor indicated where the toilets had stood; in the other a half dozen open stalls stripped clean of all nozzles and taps, even the drains, were all that was left of the communal showers. Scratching noises came from deep within the uncovered plumbing, and he pictured legions of rats waiting down there, ready to crawl out as soon as night fell.
He found a stairway and headed for the upper floors.
Mark imagined the culture of shame and censure that had driven all those women to this bleak, isolated place. The practice at the time would have been to whisk them away from their homes, out of sight of friends and neighbors as soon as they started to “show” in the second trimester. Steeped in guilt, they’d then endure months of waiting in “homes” such as this. He could almost see them, heads cowed over swollen bellies as they shuffled to and from their rooms, made to feel they’d sinned by the sanctimonious silence of the staff. At least that’s how it had been described to him by some of the veteran nurses during his obstetrical training. They’d wanted to impress on the residents how far society had come regarding single moms.
The second floor was a carbon copy of the first. The third and fourth the same. Looking out a window he got a bird’s-eye view of the grounds. Through the falling snow and dying light, the stalks of grass now seemed black, resembling a wildly irregular bed of needles amidst an encroaching border of brush. He scanned the edge of the trees beyond, making sure that none of the shooters he’d heard earlier had taken a notion to come here and fire off a few more rounds to test their marksmanship.
Still alone, as far as he could tell.
Continuing to use his flashlight, he descended to the basement and strode through an area of sinks, counters, and wires dangling out of walls.
Must have been the kitchen.
Down another corridor he passed several big rooms, the functions of which he couldn’t fathom. Through a particularly large metal door he entered the biggest room he’d seen so far, the walls covered in green tiles, a central drain in the floor, an abundance of plug outlets along the baseboards, and a solitary, heavy-duty electrical cord sheathed in metal dangling out of the ceiling. For an OR lamp, he thought. This had been the delivery room.
He played his light at where the examining table would have been, and found himself thinking of the ordeal the women must have suffered through at that spot. Their eyes bulging from the iron grip of contractions, they would be spread-legged under the white glare – like specimens. From the stories he’d heard, the pain might have been compounded without anyone with them to hold their hands, stroke their heads, murmur comforting words, or even say their names. Instead, they’d feel only the cold probe of steel instruments, hear nothing but their own cries and clipped orders to push, see little else but a ring of censorious eyes above a circle of surgical masks. At the final expulsion, would they strain to catch a glimpse of the child as the cord was cut, before the tiny infant, wrapped in a blanket, was whipped out of the room, never to be seen again?
His fists tightened.
But those were the norms back then. What had any of this to do with Kelly, and why had his father kept newspaper clippings about a place of such misery? He’d come no closer to answers to those questions. He hurried back up the stairs, playing his beam of light from side to side, making sure no wandering rats were anywhere near. He made his way to the front room, slithered out the window, and stood on the stone steps, taking in deep, long breaths of the cold night air. The snow came down more heavily than before, and in the dim illumination of twilight he could see the beginnings of a lacy white pattern between the stalks of grass. Once more he peered along the forest’s edge, checking for hunters.
No one.
Walking quickly, he started toward the dark opening in the trees, where he would pick up the dirt road. He felt the cryptlike heaviness behind him, and despite himself kept taking quick glances over his shoulder. Only the black line of his own footprints disturbed the charcoal-shaded landscape.
Not paying proper attention to the ground in front of him, he’d gone less than a dozen steps when he stubbed the toe of his running shoe on a rock and tumbled forward. He sprawled onto what felt like a sheet of plywood that sagged under his weight. He quickly rolled off, got to his feet, and, using his light, looked more carefully at where he’d fallen. Sure enough, a four-by-eight rectangle, the standard size of a plywood sheet, lay outlined in a dusting of snow. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, remembering what would be under it.
The well.
They’d avoided it like the plague as kids. Avoided all wells. Every mother in Hampton Junction drummed the rule into her children from birth. Still, now and then a kid tumbled down an uncovered shaft, driving the point home with brutal clarity.
These wells had been dug deep, sometimes 150 feet to reach a stable water table, and the water was cold. A few children had actually survived the ordeal of falling in, hypothermia having kept them alive until they could be retrieved and resuscitated.
Mark lifted the board and saw a four-foot-diameter hole lined with mortared rock. These were the old kind, drilled and dug by hand a century ago and made to last. Cautiously leaning over, he probed the darkness with his flashlight. He saw water about forty feet down. It had been raining a lot, so the level was high. God knows how deep it was. He picked up the rock he’d tripped over and dropped it in. The splash echoed back up at him, and air bubbled to the surface for what seemed a long time.
Better tell Dan to have the Braden caretakers get it fixed before some child fell in. He wasn’t sure if that would still be Charles Braden’s responsibility.
The run through the forest seemed darker than before, and he used his light. The snow had started to penetrate even here, reaching the ground and creating a glistening carpet of white that sparkled in the beam. Overhead it accumulated along the tops of twigs and branches, making silver webs throughout the trees, as if giant spiders had been at work while he’d been inside.
He rounded the bend that had kept the grounds private from people peeping in at the gate. Feeling chilled, he pulled the hood of his jacket tighter and picked up his pace.
He still kept looking over his shoulder. The solitary line of his footprints ran back as far as he could see, and he thought of all the four-legged prey that would now leave distinct tracks as they fled the men with guns.
When he returned his attention to the path ahead, he saw two figures silhouetted against the gray opening at the end of the road.
He stopped.
They just stood there, absolutely still.
“Hey!” he cried out, shining his light in their direction. The beam barely reached them. He couldn’t see their features by it, but it illuminated the area enough to make out the shape of the rifles they were carrying, the barrels vaguely pointed at him. “I’m Dr. Mark Roper, the coroner. You shouldn’t still be out here after dark.”
No reply.
Not that he expected them to jump when he spoke. His authority over hunters kicked in only after they shot one another. “There’s no trespassing here,” he added, remaining motionless. He didn’t think for a moment they’d take a potshot at him, but being in front of anyone who might be liquored up and have their weapons off safety made him very cautious.
He heard them laugh, then saw them turn and walk back toward the highway.
Mark exhaled, his breath white on the frost. Only then did he realize he’d been holding it. He quickly ran the rest of the way to the road, feeling a sense of relief once he emerged from the murk of the forest to the lighter shades of darkness.
“Assholes!” he muttered, starting toward home. After thirty yards he spotted where their tracks led back into the forest. He ran by, trying not to look in that direction, but he could feel their eyes on the back of his neck all the way to the next bend.
“I’ll go out there, but they’ll be long gone,” Dan said, sinking his fork into an extra wide wedge of apple pie.
Mark sipped his tea. “I figured you might find their truck or car at the side of the road somewhere and ticket the hell out of it.”
They were in Hampton Junction’s best eating establishment, its name, The Four Aces, scrawled in big purple neon letters across the front windows. Inside the lighting was as dim as in any New York City lounge. The room itself was long and narrow, a bar running the length of the back wall, the booths for eating lined across the front. It boasted the finest home cooking of any restaurant in the state, and most of the townspeople agreed, barring Nell, of course.
Dan and he were at their usual table in the corner, where they could talk privately and see anyone approaching in time to shut up before being overheard.
“I’ll try my best, Mark. Did you have a good run, otherwise? You don’t look as relaxed as usual.”
“Not really. By the way, there’s also a well on the property that needs a cover.”
“Really? Shit. I’ll have to contact old man Braden’s caretakers. What did you go in there for anyway?”
“Last night I found clippings about the place in an old file my father had on Kelly.”
Dan’s fork stopped midway between his plate and mouth. “Oh?”
For the next five minutes the man didn’t eat a bite as Mark summarized what he’d found, leaving out the specifics of the medical entries. “I’ll make you copies of the articles and the letter. As for Dad’s clinical notes, there’s nothing much there anyway.” They’d worked enough cases together to develop a routine. Medical records remained confidential and off-limits to the sheriff. But Mark had no hesitation signaling when they weren’t relevant anyway.
Dan went back to his eating. “Shit! You’ve been busy.”
“Except we’re not much further ahead. The letter just confirms that she had a lover. It isn’t enough to get Everett back on the case.”
Dan chased down the last few crumbs of crust on his plate. “Probably not.”
Mark sat staring out the window, saying nothing.
“Hey. Are you sure you’re all right?” Dan asked, after downing the remains of his coffee in one swallow.
“Of course. Why?”
“You got that look in your eye.”
“What look?”
“Like you’re about to take another trip.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ve taken a lot of trips this year. Let’s see, there was London, San Moritz, Cancún, Hawaii, South Beach in Florida-”
“Those were conferences.”
Dan grinned. “Yeah, right. As if you suddenly forgot so much medicine you need twice as many refresher courses?”
“Have you got a point to make?”
“I do. This comes from one who has been there. Don’t let yourself get bushed. You remind me of myself after Marion left.”
On the drive home Mark turned the radio up loud, hoping a dose of music would blast his brain free of the day’s dregs. As if the Bradens and the McShanes weren’t enough, the last thing he needed was a little homespun advice. He knew Dan meant well, but the guy’s butting into his private life irritated him. The trouble was Dan had no one to care about, nothing coming of the attempts he’d made to start dating again. Being a forty-year-old cop in a town most people considered as exciting as Mayberry, he’d only been able to muster a few summer romances with women who’d come here to vacation. Predictably, they left in the fall.
Not much different from his own ladies, he had to admit, and cranked up the volume even more as the strains of a familiar song filled his Jeep.
Flashing along tendrils of mist, his high beams picked up a truck parked over on the shoulder of the road. Nearby a huddle of men, most of them still carrying their rifles, were lined up taking a piss. One of them toasted him with a silver hip flask as he passed.
He belted out the chorus as loud as he could.