Quiet as the Grave (14 page)

Suzie opened the door and smiled. “Hi,” she said. “Mike's not here right now. I'm Suzie. Can I help you?”

The woman was attractive, in a favorite-aunt sort of way. She wore a very professional gray suit and sensible heels, but the suit was too expensive for a door-to-door salesman, or a religious pamphlet peddler.

She held out her hand. “I'm Judy Stott.”

Judy Stott? Suzie tried to remember where she'd heard that name.

“I came by to update Mike about Gavin's incident on the playground last month.”

Oh, yeah. Judy Stott. The next-door neighbor, the lady who had been arriving to see Mayor Millner just as Suzie was leaving that first day. Judy Stott was the principal at Gavin's school. She was also the one Suzie had heard arguing at the lake last night.

Right now, the woman sounded one hundred percent professional and composed—nothing like the angry, tearful voice that had floated toward them from the bluff.

“Oh,” Suzie said, pretending as if she knew all about Gavin's “incident,” though she'd never heard of it. “Come on in. Mike's out on a job right now. Would you like to tell me, and I can pass it along?”

The woman looked dubious. She obviously took herself very seriously. “I suppose I could. It isn't anything confidential, after all.”

She held out a sealed envelope. “This is just a copy of the official incident report. As you know Gavin was seen talking to a young man near the fence of the playground about three weeks ago. We looked into it at the time, and determined it was nothing alarming, but this morning Mike called and asked for more details. I fully understand that he's overly anxious right now, with the untimely discovery of Justine's body and—”

“Yes,” Suzie said, already bored with this woman and her orgy of unnecessary syllables, but still interested in anything related to Gavin. She was also curious about this woman's personality. Was she likely to have agreed to participate in Mayor Millner's “Frame Mike Frome” campaign?

“Don't you want to come in?”

Judy Stott hesitated, but then she stepped over the threshold as carefully as she might have stepped over a snake. What was the deal with this woman? It was as if she didn't move or speak or even breathe without sorting through the possible legal consequences of her actions.

“At any rate, it's all here,” she said, putting the envelope on the coffee table. “As I said, I understand his concern, and I want him to rest assured I've interviewed everyone involved, from Gavin's teachers to his classmates. I'm satisfied that the young man who approached Gavin that day is not a stranger at all. He's a college student who lives near the school. We know his family well. He was looking for his lost dog.”

The woman paused. Suzie frowned. Mike hadn't mentioned this. She wondered how many lines of investigation he'd already cast into the water without mentioning it to her.

“Of course, if Mike is still concerned that it might have any bearing on the recent situation, he can feel free to call the school. Naturally, my secretary has instructions to put him through whenever he calls.”

“Thanks,” Suzie said politely. She was definitely sensing that this woman was nervous about something—probably just fearful that Mike might somehow try to tie the school to Justine's unsavory
death. That made her curious. How on earth would he do that? “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, I really should be going. Please tell Mike I'm sorry I missed him.” She held out her hand. “It was very nice to have met you, Miss—”

Suzie laughed. Jeez, what a priss. “Please. Call me Suzie.”

The other woman's smile looked pained, as if she found that unthinkable.

Suzie wasn't sorry to see the woman go. Pompous people always rubbed her fur the wrong way. But, if you thought about it, Judy Stott's ramrod-stiff personality could be a good thing. Any elementary school principal who took herself that seriously was unlikely to participate in Millner's frame.

Suzie wondered who Millner had turned to, after both she and Judy Stott told him to get lost. Quigley? That would be a risk.

The gardener, maybe? That scruffy stud hadn't exactly looked as if his scruples were screwed on tight enough to chafe.

Maybe she'd go have a little chat with the guy. He had a weakness that should be easy to exploit.

And it wasn't just women. His major weakness was that he liked himself way too much.

She could exploit both. She didn't look half bad in this T-shirt. If she purred like a bimbo and admired his big, strong shovel, he'd probably tell her anything.

She thought about calling Mike, but decided just to leave him a note.

He'd called Judy Stott without telling her. If he could do a little investigative moonlighting, so could she.

D
EBRA HADN'T HAD A SALE
in three weeks. She didn't even have a serious buyer to trot around. She still led the occasional gawker through the Millner-Frome mansion, but that was a waste of time. No one would buy it now.

Not since the spring rains had unearthed the body.

Sometimes she wished she could simply have kicked the dirt back over Justine's ghastly hand and continued with her open house. Would that have been so terrible? Was one grave so different from another? It's not as if anything could bring Justine back to life now.

Debra sometimes wondered whether, if Richie Graham hadn't been on the property and likely to witness it, she might have done exactly that.

She put her head in her hands and fought back self-pitying tears. She wasn't a bad person. But how much could she take before she snapped?

If something didn't happen, she was going to have to go home to her mother.

Judy, who had recommended Debra to Millner, was apologizing for sticking her with the doomed listing. But Judy had meant well. If Debra had been able to sell it before the body surfaced, she would have been financially set for months.

As it stood, she was much too dependent on Rutledge. They were trying to resolve their problems, but something had shifted inside Debra's heart. When he reached out to touch her, some internal flinch made her pull away. He was taking it well, so far, but every night she wondered…was this the night he'd lose control?

Even more pathetic, while her heart might have shifted, her finances hadn't. Quite simply, without Rutledge, she wouldn't be able to pay the rent.

She could feel her mother waiting, standing in the big Kansas kitchen, wearing her Donna Reed apron and just itching to say “I told you so.”

Her mother had always thought Rutledge was bad news.

Everyone did.

Debra stared at the computer screen, where she'd been researching the multiple listings, but all she saw was Rutledge, handing her that awful gold anklet. Surely that proved he hadn't been involved with Justine, right? It wasn't as if he was a murderer, right? So why was Debra still unwilling to let him touch her?

What doubt lingered in her psyche, poisoning her against him?

Without any specific plan in mind—at least consciously—she rolled her cursor up to the top of the screen and typed in the name of a search engine. In the empty bar, she typed
anklet
and
gold
. She got about eight hundred thousand responses.

Well, that was useless. She narrowed the search.
Anklets
.
Gold
.
Charm
.

Four hundred thousand.

Anklets
.
Gold
.
Charm. Lips
.

That was a little more manageable…but still rather
daunting. She ignored the smutty sites—apparently just the word
lips
was enough to bring up some pretty weird stuff. If she hadn't been used to doing Internet searches, she never would have stuck it out.

It took her half an hour to find the right place. Then she had to hunt some more to find the manufacturer. Finally, she had the 800 number. She called them and asked for the names of all shops within a thirty-mile radius of Tuxedo Lake that had ever carried that particular anklet.

She scribbled down the names as they read them. At the sixth name, she dropped her pencil.

That was it.

It was the Albany jeweler with the beautiful cases of solitaire diamond engagement rings. The jeweler who, even now, was resizing Judy's eternity ring.

The jeweler across from Rutledge's favorite love-in-the-afternoon hotel.

Before her hurt and anger could take over, reducing her to a puddle of self-pity, she stood, grabbed her purse and rushed out the door. It was crazy, but she couldn't get rid of this last niggling doubt. She had to know.

She was there within thirty minutes. The same woman stood behind the counter, an elegantly groomed brunette whose multiple face-lifts made it impossible to tell whether she was fifty or seventy.

She seemed to recognize Debra and welcomed her warmly. She probably hoped Debra was ready to pick out one of those six-figure solitaires she'd been drooling over last time.

“I have a strange request,” Debra began. She'd thought this through on the way over. She had to make it sound innocent. “My boyfriend bought me an anklet
here a couple of years ago. I lost it the other day, and I don't want to tell him. You know how it is. I was hoping I could buy another one, so that he'll never find out.”

The saleslady's face had been nipped and tucked to the point that it wasn't extremely mobile, but Debra thought she looked sympathetic. The woman moved toward one of the cases, her lovely, long-fingered hand extended.

“Of course. But we do have an extensive selection. Do you think you'd recognize the pattern of the chain? As you see, we have rope, Byzantine, anchor—”

Debra gave the display only a cursory look. “You couldn't forget this one. It was very unusual. It had this charm hanging from it.” She held up her fingers to indicate the size. “A big pair of gold lips.”

The woman laughed softly. “Oh, yes, of course, I remember those! A real novelty. But I'm afraid I haven't any more. I ordered only two—they weren't really for everyone, you know. And one gentleman bought them both.”

Debra kept the smile on her lips, though inside everything was falling apart. “Both?”

The woman nodded. She smoothed her stiff hair with her hand, as if she remembered this particular customer quite fondly. “Yes, he bought one for his girlfriend a couple of years ago.” She smiled. “That would be you.”

“Yes,” Debra said numbly. “That would be me.”

“And, just when I thought I might never sell the other one, he came back and bought it for his best friend. It was actually rather sweet. You see, his friend has a bad habit of forgetting his wife's anniversary. He wanted to help his friend out so that this year wouldn't be a repeat of the same.”

Debra put her hand on the counter for balance. Surely she'd misheard. “
This
year?”

“Yes,” the woman said sadly. “You just missed your chance. He bought the second anklet less than a week ago.”

 

S
UZIE WAS FUMING
.

Darn it, she was not a wimp. She was not a scaredy-cat. She was not the kind of girlie girl who got spooked every time a boy blew in her ear and said “boo.”

But, though she'd sat out here in front of the Justine's house for at least ten minutes now, long enough for the sunny afternoon to turn gray and rainy, she could not work up the nerve to get out of the car.

She drummed her hands on the steering wheel and watched the drops pelt the windshield. What the devil was the matter with her? So the house was creepy, with all those big, shadowy rooms sitting empty, listening for the sound of Justine's footsteps. So the gardener was creepy, with dirty hands and his eyes that slithered all over your body until you felt dirty, too.

So what? “Creepy” was a mind-set, not a threat.

She needed to help Mike. She had to start somewhere.

But apparently she wasn't quite ready to start with the gardener.

Maybe, she decided, she could just check things out, look around a little. If she went down to the lake, she could probably walk up the dock stairs unnoticed and get a glimpse of the property.

And she wouldn't have to get quite as close to the house—or to that creepy gardener.

She drove about three houses down, to the open
green space between estates that provided the legally required public lake access.

The rain had begun in earnest, so she rummaged in the backseat and found a jacket, pocketed her keys and headed down the wooden stairs that led to the beach, whistling to buck up her courage.

The path cut through the cliff was beautiful, lined with tall, green pines whose needles sparkled in the rain. The staircase provided a great view of the lake, a cool, dark gray under the heavy clouds.

She wondered how she'd mix that color, if she wanted to paint this scene. She'd need raw umber, ultramarine and white…but where would she get the shimmer of silver and green?

Focus, Suzie
, she reminded herself. But thinking in terms of paints had become second nature. And she couldn't really take herself seriously as Miss Marple, anyhow. She wanted to help Mike, but she had no idea how to go about it. Maybe Mrs. Frome had been right. Maybe the only thing Suzie had to offer was moral support.

Oh, well, she was here now. She might as well look.

When she reached the lake, she jogged through the rain until she drew even with the Frome mansion, which dwarfed the houses on either side.

Rats
. She couldn't see much from the lake, as she'd feared. Well, at least she'd confirmed that one piece of the puzzle. People out here couldn't have witnessed the gruesome burial, but at the same time, no one up there could ever see what was happening directly under the cliff edge.

She was going to have to get closer if she wanted to look at the grounds. For a moment, as she stepped onto the stairs that led steeply to the Frome property,
her angle changed, and the house almost disappeared behind the cliff. As she rose, so did the house. It loomed ever larger…its bulk dominating the sky.

No nerves
, she instructed herself. The house was just a pile of bricks and stone. She eyed it analytically, as if she were preparing to paint it, reducing it to its component parts. Shadow and color, angle and geometric masses. The familiar exercise comforted her. It gave her control.

But then she saw the dying larkspurs.

Clearly no one had tended this garden at the cliff edge since Justine's body had been found. Maybe the police had prevented it, at first. And then…

Then no one had cared—or dared. The grasses and weeds had slithered in, seizing the chance, and had begun to strangle the flowers, which were beautiful, but weak. Those that survived were in their death throes, leggy and pale. The rest lay in wilted stalks that even the rain couldn't revive.

She dragged her gaze away.

Who had a view of this backyard? The gardener's suite over the garage definitely did. The Stotts' house, on the other hand, was blocked by hedges, unless you were standing fairly far out toward the lake. From that point on, their view of the Frome estate was unbroken. The neighbors on the other side—she made a note to find out who they were—had much the same setup.

About two dozen windows of the main Frome house, all dark and hooded now, overlooked the backyard, as well. Anyone who'd been in the house could have seen what happened.

Suzie's gaze kept being drawn to the second floor, as if something were out of place. In the center of the house, a small, circular balcony extended out from
one of the windows. For her painting, Suzie had trained her eye to analyze and understand proportion, and she realized that something was wrong with that balcony.

The wrought-iron balustrade that formed the barrier was too low. Most railings came to just above waist level, so that no one could ever get dizzy and, in a nanosecond of bad balance, simply pitch over and fall.

This one was almost a foot lower than that. It would have hit a woman of normal height somewhere on the thigh. Suzie had a sudden mental picture of Justine tumbling, her golden hair flying out like ribbons as she slammed to the ground—and a shadowy figure retreating silently into the darkness of the room.

She shook her head to dislodge the vision. That was absurd. It couldn't have happened that way.

Discouraged, she turned back toward the stairs to the lake. This had been just as pointless as she'd feared. The police had undoubtedly already done this, and had questioned both the Stotts and the gardener. If they'd seen Mike doing anything suspicious out here, he'd already be in custody. If they'd seen anyone else digging in the larkspurs, Mike would be off the hook.

She cast one last look back, and caught a glimpse of motion. Something had moved in one of the windows in the east wing. The gardener's wing.

She descended the rest of the stairs so quickly she slipped twice on the wet wood. She skinned her knee, but once she was back on the sandy beach, with open sky around her, she pulled herself together and ordered her heart to behave.

She pulled her hood over her hair and made her way calmly along the beach. Remember how she wasn't a wimp?

But then…

The drumming of the rain on her hood drowned out most other noises, so she wasn't sure why she suddenly looked behind her.

Had there been a noise? Her peripheral vision caught the tail end of something moving near the cliff, though by the time she really looked, nothing was there. Just more proof, as if she needed it, that she was thoroughly spooked.

Above her on the wooded cliffs, branches swayed. Wet leaves shifted and glimmered in the wind. The lake itself was twitching and heaving. It was hard, in the middle of so much motion, to believe she was entirely alone.

“Hello?” Her heart beat faster, which was stupid. Whatever bird or squirrel had just darted by searching for shelter probably thought she was crazy.

No one answered, of course. No one would be fool enough to hike out here in this weather. No one but Suzie.

The minute she said that, a figure came jogging toward her, wearing a jacket much like her own. The hood was tightened, protecting the runner from the rain, and also rendering him or her completely anonymous. Her heart sped up, but the person jogged casually by, raising a palm in friendly salute.

She breathed normally again and continued on. She'd almost made it to the stairs when the sky opened up, and the rain fell in a deluge. She didn't want to risk the steep steps in this kind of weather, so she darted for an outcropping, over which a hemlock grew, providing a natural umbrella.

She wedged herself as close to the granite as she could. To her surprise, her hand slid around a curve in the stone, and she realized that there was an opening.
This rock wasn't solid, as it appeared. There was something like a cave back there.