We grabbed our coats and stepped out again into the frigid night. I’d fastened my badge and my holster to my belt-the Warden Service required that all wardens be armed whenever we drove our state trucks. The rules also prohibited us from reporting to duty while impaired by alcoholic beverage, but I felt perfectly sober. As I reached into my pocket for the keys, however, Charley clamped a hand around my wrist. “Are you all right to drive?”
The question irked me. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve had a few pops.”
“I’m fine, Charley.” But my telltale breath drifted in the cold air.
He looked hard at me but didn’t speak again until we were backing out of the driveway. “I couldn’t find a local number for Hans Westergaard, so I tried him at home in Massachusetts.”
His insatiable curiosity always amused me. “You just can’t help yourself from butting into these situations, can you?”
“My mother always said I had an inquisitive nature.”
“Was Westergaard home?”
“No, but his wife was.”
“Uh-oh.”
“She told me Ashley Kim was her husband’s research assistant.”
“That’s a new term for it.” The truck hit a frost heave, which brought the seat belt tight against my chest. “I’m guessing there’s more.”
“Mrs. Westergaard said he left yesterday for an international monetary policy conference at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire. She hasn’t heard from him since.”
“What makes you think this is anything more than a case of him screwing around?”
“There was a tone in her voice.”
“I bet there was!”
Charley raised his collar up around his throat and rubbed his gloved hands together. “It was something else. She seemed panicked. ‘Is Ashley missing, too?’ she asked. I thought that was an odd word for her to use, missing.”
“Should I call the dispatcher?”
“Let’s see what we find first,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll discover those two lovebirds snuggled up in their nest, and that’ll be the end of the mystery.”
“If we do, I’m going to give her hell for leaving the scene of an accident. You can bet on that.”
“I have no doubt.” Charley laughed.
The drive from my house in Sennebec down the peninsula to Seal Cove usually took twenty minutes, but I kept my foot on the gas and we made it in fifteen. The headlights cut a narrow path through the dark, making me feel as if I were wearing blinders. We passed the accident site after we turned onto the Parker Point Road. I indicated the ill-omened stain in the road. Charley gave a solemn nod.
The sign for Schooner Lane was brand-new and marked PVT for private. The road had been plowed and sanded over the winter. I figured that Professor Westergaard employed one of the local caretaking companies that watched over the seasonal homes in Seal Cove. The snow had thawed and refrozen a few times since the plow last went through; the lane was as slick as a bobsled run.
There were no other homes on Schooner Lane, just a dense, bristling mass of spruces. At the bottom of a slight hill, the road curved and came to rest in the driveway of a large cottage. The remaining snowbanks along the edges of the drive showed that the caretaker had made a visit after the last big storm. No vehicles were visible, but a car might very well have been tucked away inside the three-bay garage.
As we rolled to a stop, a motion-sensor light sprang on, illuminating the impressive building from the fieldstone foundation to the fieldstone chimneys. The mansion was obviously new. The building frame and casements had recently been painted a deep kelly green, and the cedar shingles still retained a pinkish hue. The architect’s design might have been an attempt at a postmodern Maine cottage, but something about the place brought to mind the House of Usher.
“There’s a light on upstairs.” Charley pointed to the second story where the faintest hint of illumination brightened one window.
The rest of the house seemed utterly dark.
I reached into the backseat and found the Maglite. It was as long as my forearm and as heavy as a steel club.
When we slammed the truck doors, the sound echoed like gunshots in the night. I followed Charley up the frozen drive-someone had recently sanded it-to the front door. We paused a moment on the granite step and exchanged quizzical expressions. Then Charley pushed the bell, saying, “Let’s see who’s home.”
We could hear the muffled, electronic chime of the bell through the glass transom above the door.
In the quiet, I became aware of the crashing of waves in the dark beyond the house. The ocean was an unseen but uneasy presence that made me think of a dragon sleeping in a dark cave.
After a minute of silence, Charley tried again.
I dug my bare hands into my pockets. The air was sharp and cold and stung my cheeks.
After another long minute, Charley hit the bell three times in quick succession. Impatient, I pounded my fist against the door as hard as I could.
Still, there was no response.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s around,” said Charley.
I glared up at the lighted window on the second floor. If nothing else, it told me that the house hadn’t been abandoned for the winter.
The old pilot stamped his feet to warm them. “The women won’t be too happy we flew out here on a wild-goose chase.”
“This house has got to be where Ashley Kim was headed,” I insisted.
“Maybe she and the professor drove up to Camden for a romantic dinner,” Charley said. “I suppose we could wait, but who’s to say when they’ll be back?”
“I’m going to look in the windows.” I stepped into the brittle snow and began making a circuit of the building, pressing my forehead against every pane of icy glass and squinting to see what I could. Most of the windows had curtains to prevent a burglar from doing exactly what I was doing, but there were slits between some of the drapes that afforded a glimpse inside. The interior of the house hid itself in shadows. I could make out the bulked silhouettes of furniture and floating gray rectangles demarcating windows on the far side of the home.
“We should probably get back to the ladies,” called Charley.
The night before, I’d left the scene of an accident without quieting my doubts. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
A long porch stretched along the ocean side of the house, suspended on steel pilings driven into the ledge. Below me, waves splashed against the rocks, turning from ink black to foaming white as they exploded against the shore. I mounted the steep ice-coated steps and climbed carefully up to the porch.
The doors were all of glass. Like dark mirrors, they reflected the harbor behind me: a phantom seascape lit by watery stars. Again, I peered inside. Heavy drapes barred my view. I moved to the last window and found the curtains parted. Inside, all was blackness. Nothing to be seen.
I switched on my flashlight and, shielding my eyes with my hand, began moving the beam around the inside of the room. On the other side of the window, at the level of my feet, there was a pale carpet that might have been light gray or bluish white. My light encountered the legs of a coffee table. I moved the beam to the right and found a couch. The carpet stretched on into the darkness.
Something sparkled. I directed the cone of light back a few feet and focused it on a distant patch of rug. Tiny prisms lit up, like quartz crystals scattered on the floor. A lamp had fallen from a table. It lay broken in pieces. I saw that the cord had been pulled out of the wall socket. There was something else there, too, at the edge of the flashlight beam. Beside the toppled lamp-a large reddish stain.
“Charley!” I swung the Maglite around in my hand and drove the heavy butt down against the door. The glass shattered. I reached inside to turn the lock. A jagged shard sliced through my parka and into the meat of my forearm. I saw the blood but didn’t feel any pain; it was as if my arm had been unplugged from my nervous system.
The lock turned with a sharp click and I shoved the sliding door open. I unholstered my service weapon.
The inside of the house was very warm and as dry as a desert. I felt the hot air on my face as I entered the room. Someone had cranked up the thermostat. I could hear the furnace murmuring in the basement. I crouched over the stained carpet. It was unmistakably a splatter of congealing blood.
I glanced up, unsure what to do or where to go. “Police!” I shouted. “Professor Westergaard?”
The only answer was the ominous hum of the furnace.
A hallway receded ahead of me, a long Persian carpet disappearing into the shadows. I followed it past a guest room with a stripped mattress and white sheets draped like shrouds over the bureaus. The door of the first-floor bathroom stood ajar, but the room was empty.
In the kitchen, I saw granite countertops and sinks, pots and pans hanging from hooks. Reflected light bounced back at me from the brushed aluminum face of the refrigerator. My eyes searched for clues.
Atop a stone island in the center of the room was the knife block. A knife was missing.
Charley called after me, down the hall, “Mike?”
Steps led up to the second floor. The hall light was burning. “Upstairs!”
I sprang up the stairs, taking two at a time. Behind me came a pulse of light as Charley found a switch on the kitchen wall.
The house was huge. There were so many doors. I pushed open one after another before I reached the master bedroom. I turned the knob and swung the door into the room. Before me was another bare mattress. But this one was splattered with blood. I circled the bed, aiming my weapon at the center of the flashlight beam.
On the floor reposed a naked woman. She lay on her side, with her arms bound together behind her, not with rope but with sailor’s rigging tape. She was very small. Black hair almost completely masked her face, but I could see her chin was painted with blood and her neck was covered with purple spots. Her body was white except where a knife had cut bloody letters into the skin.
The overhead light snapped on as Charley entered the room. I heard the old pilot gasp out loud.
I slid my SIG back into its paddle holster and knelt beside the dead woman. Rigging tape was wrapped over her nose and mouth. I brushed the hair out of her eyes. They were open, lifeless. On the woman’s cheek was a small S. Between her breasts was a larger L. The word continued down her torso, a bloody signature that ended above the dark triangle of pubic hair.
“Don’t touch her!” said Charley.
He yanked me away, but not before I had pushed the dead girl onto her back. By then, I knew the inscription the killer had carved into the body of Ashley Kim.
SLUT, it said.