The Inn (24 page)

R
ichard Carlson stood at the window of the police station staring out into the snow. It had been snowing like this the day Amy had died. His wife had looked like a little rag doll in her bed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, weighing just eighty-odd pounds. Richard had stood by the window, watching the snow blanket the city, looking back every now and then over at Amy. Her breathing was so shallow. The thin white sheet drawn up to her neck barely moved. Richard had known Amy was dead even before the nurses came in to examine her. There was no dramatic ending to sweet Amy's life. She never opened her eyes. There was no last look between her and her husband. Her faint breathing just stopped and she was gone. Richard had sat at her bedside for three hours after she was gone, just holding her rapidly cooling hand.

“All the roads are blocked throughout the county,” Adam told him, coming into his office behind him. “There's no way the plows can get through this.”

“I've lived in these parts all my life,” said Betty, the police secretary, “and I've never seen a snowfall like this.”

“We've got reports of drifts up to nine feet,” Adam said.

Richard looked back out into the swirling white. Why was he thinking of Amy? Maybe because of how badly he had wanted to save her. Maybe because he'd vowed to her that he wouldn't let her die, and he had. He could stop a bank robber in his tracks, but Richard and all his police training had been no match against cancer.

And now he was worried that another woman's life was in danger, and he might not be able to do a thing about that, either.

“Have you gotten an answer out at the Blue Boy Inn?” Richard asked Adam.

“Negative on that, chief. I suspect the phone lines are down. Power's out all over the western part of the state.”

The station was being powered by a generator. Richard sat down at his desk and turned on his lamp as he looked again at the report that had come back from forensics late last night.

The substance they'd scraped from the base of the chimney at the Blue Boy Inn was definitely dried blood. The DNA tests weren't yet back, and they'd likely be delayed due to the storm, so Richard didn't know if the blood belonged to Priscilla or Paulie, or if maybe there was some from both. But the very fact that there was blood in the chimney warranted him to take Jack Devlin in for questioning.

“There are lots of logical explanations as to why we might have found blood in there,” Adam said, seeming to read Richard's mind.

“Name one.”

“Somebody could have been cleaning out the ash dump and cut their hand.”

“According to Annabel, there was enough blood in there to coat her own hand with it. If somebody had bled that much cleaning the damn thing, wouldn't we have been told about that? And this blood was recent. Seems to me somebody would have mentioned it if it was just a simple case of cutting their hand.”

Adam smiled. “I don't doubt you're right, chief. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Because you know the lawyers are going to jump all over you if you try to arrest Jack Devlin on such flimsy evidence.”

Richard stood, returning Adam's smile with a smirk of his own. “You younguns, all fresh from the police academy, think you know all the answers, don't you? Well, I'll tell you something, Adam. When you've been a cop as long as I have, you listen to your gut. And my gut tells me that Annabel is in danger out there.”

“But we have no real evidence that her husband committed any murder.”

“Nope, we do not. But you see, Adam, my gut also tells me that Jack Devlin is not our culprit.” He smiled again as he saw his deputy lift his eyebrows in surprise. “In fact, I think Devlin might be in almost as much danger as his wife.”

“From who? That old geezer the caretaker?”

“No, I don't think Zeke's our culprit, either. You see, this is where I'm stumped. To make any sense of this, I need to go over there. I need to get a plow to make a path for me.”

Betty laughed. “Chief, even the county's biggest plows can't get through this stuff. All the roads are closed throughout the county.”

Richard frowned. “Well, we've got to find a way as soon as we can.”

“You could call in the National Guard,” Adam suggested, not entirely seriously.

“Well, there's where your analysis would be right, Adam. The Guard would take a look at the evidence and say, ‘We're supposed to send tanks out to the Blue Boy Inn because you found a little blood at the bottom of its chimney?'” He laughed. “No, we have to find a way to get over there ourselves.”

“Do you really think it's that urgent, chief?” Betty asked.

Richard sighed. “We probably have a little time. But even if Devlin isn't the killer, he seems to be covering up for somebody. He may suspect we found blood in the chimney, and he may be waiting for us to respond. But he knows that we can't respond right away, due to the storm, so he's likely waiting this thing out as much as we are. He doesn't expect we'll get there until the storm lets up, so if we could get there sooner, we could take him by surprise.”

“But you just said he wasn't the culprit,” Adam said, “and that he might be in as much danger as his wife.”

“Right. Whoever committed these murders is not rational. He or she could strike out at Jack as easily as Annabel.” Richard sighed. “And as we saw when we discovered Roger's body, our killer is pretty handy with a knife.”

Betty shuddered. “Do we know for certain that Annabel is there at the house?”

“Well, I think it's a fairly safe bet to assume she is,” Richard replied. “I saw her in Chad Appleby's truck yesterday as the storm was just starting. They were heading up toward the Blue Boy. I presume he was driving her back after picking out supplies for the contracting job.”

“Have you spoken with Chad?” Adam asked.

Richard shook his head. “No, but I've left him three voice mails. I presume in a storm like this, he's out trying to clear driveways. He's got a plow on his truck.”

Betty snorted. “Chad's truck isn't big enough to make it through this.”

“That's true,” Richard said. A thought struck him. “Adam, did our English friend ever come by yesterday on his way out of town to give another statement?”

“Nope,” the deputy replied. “Never saw him.”

“That's odd,” Richard said.

“Maybe he wanted to beat the storm,” Adam suggested. “The snow had already started falling, and he wanted to get to the airport.”

“Well, there's no way he's flying out in this,” Richard said.

He settled back down at his desk. This whole situation was very difficult to figure out. If Roger's killer was somehow holed up at the Blue Boy—despite their apparently thorough searches—how did he get such a hold over Jack Devlin? Jack wouldn't have been so adamant about keeping the police from searching if he wasn't trying to hide something. That seemed to indicate Jack was somehow involved.

Yet Richard didn't think Devlin was the killer himself. Jack had an alibi for the night Roger was killed, and the chief believed that he really was sleeping when Paulie and Priscilla went missing. Annabel was out of the house at the time—Millie vouched for her—and Zeke was simply too frail to kill three people (Richard still believed Cordelia had been murdered) and dispose of two bodies in such a short time. The old caretaker certainly didn't have the strength to shove them down into the chimney, which now seemed to be the case.

So their culprit had to be someone else. But had it been the killer who had cleaned out the chimney and disposed of the remains? Or had Jack and Zeke done that much themselves? If so, why were they colluding with a killer?

Richard could see no motive that linked the deaths of Roger, Cordelia, Priscilla, and Paulie. None. It seemed entirely random. The act of an insane person. A serial killer who killed for no reason whatsoever.

Or for a reason none of them yet understood.

“Chief,” Betty called over to him. “I've got Charlie Appleby on the line. He's asking about Chad.”

Richard picked up the phone. “Charlie,” he asked, “how you faring in this storm?”

“My boys and I have been out there trying to break through it with our plows, but we can't do a thing,” Appleby told him. “We've given up. Staying home with some coffee and a shot of Jack Daniel's.”

“Good for you. Chad with you?”

“Nope, and that's why I'm calling you. He didn't come around with the other boys and he doesn't answer his phone. My eldest made it through the snow over to Chad's apartment on Green Street and he reports Chad isn't there. As far as he can tell, his truck isn't, either, though it's hard to tell with the snow drifted so high.”

“Any idea where he might be?” Richard asked.

“Well, last I knew he was going up to Great Barrington with that woman from the Blue Boy. I've been calling over there, too, and getting no answer.”

“I know they made it back,” Richard assured Chad's father. “I saw them yesterday afternoon.”

“But where's he been since?”

“That I don't know.”

Richard could hear Charlie shudder over the phone. “I had reservations when he told me he'd taken that job. That place is cursed. The people are no good. Something bad happens to whoever steps foot up there.”

“As soon as we can get out there, Charlie, I'll inquire about Chad. For now, don't worry. He's probably out trying to make his way through this. Nobody's getting through.”

“But why doesn't he answer his damn phone? It's one thing for a landline to be down, but far as I know, cell phones are still working.”

“Cell reception can be affected by storms like this,” Richard told the man honestly.

“I'm talking on a cell now, Richard, and it's working fine. All my other boys, their cells are fine, too.”

“You know I'll do what I can to find him, Charlie.”

“I know that. Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

Richard hung up the phone. This was not good news. Now he had Chad to worry about as well.

And what about Neville? Had he skipped out on giving them a statement?

Or had something happened to him that had prevented him from getting here?

Richard needed to find a way to get out to the Blue Boy Inn. But how? He stood once more, returning to the window, which was now more than half covered with accumulating snow. There had to be seven feet, maybe eight, outside the station, and reports were coming in that drifts were sometimes double that.

He closed his eyes and saw Amy's face. When he opened them, it was Annabel he was seeing. Richard knew she was in danger. He had to find a way to get to her.

Z
eke unlocked the door to the attic and stepped inside. He placed the tray he was carrying down on a table and let out a long sigh.

“I'm so disappointed in you,” he said, looking across the room at the figure hunched down in the corner. “So very, very disappointed in you.”

The figure didn't make a sound, nor did it move.

“I'm an old man,” Zeke said. “I've done what I could. This can't go on. You need to understand that. It just can't go on.”

Still the figure was quiet and still.

Zeke walked over to the little round attic window and peered out. The snow blew furiously. The whole first floor of the house was buried by now. The windows in the kitchen and the parlor were solidly white. It was getting cold, bitterly cold, in the house. The heat was off. And, of course, they couldn't build a fire in the fireplace to warm them.

Behind Zeke came the sound of scurrying across the floor, then the sound of eating and drinking, as if the partaker were famished.

“You just need to understand,” Zeke said, turning around, “that I'm not doing this anymore. I just can't. I'm an old man. You need to understand that.”

He said nothing more, just turned and left the attic, locking the door behind him.

A
nnabel sat in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Where did Tommy Tricky go? He had scampered away. He was hiding in the room somewhere. He was watching her, waiting to jump out and eat her.

That was what Daddy Ron told her, and Annabel believed him. She started to cry.

The door opened. Annabel's mother came into the room, looking down at her daughter with sad, defeated eyes.

“Oh, Annabel,” her mother said, “you got Daddy Ron angry again.”

“Mommy, Mommy, you've got to save me from Tommy Tricky,” Annabel cried, running to her mother, throwing her arms around her neck.

“Oh, baby,” her mother told her. “Tommy Tricky isn't real. He's just something Daddy Ron tells you about so you'll behave.”

“No, Mommy, Daddy Ron says Tommy Tricky gets very, very angry when you don't believe in him.”

Her mother stroked Annabel's hair. “Oh, baby, I'm so sorry he does this to you. But I don't know how to make him stop.”

Annabel realized her mother wasn't really there. She was sitting by herself, in a corner of her room at the Blue Boy Inn.

My mother failed me,
Annabel realized.
She let that monster torment me because she was too scared to stand up to him.

Annabel began to cry harder.

But then she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. She had to get ahold of herself. She wasn't back in her childhood home; she wasn't a little girl. She was an adult, and she was in the Blue Boy Inn, and she had to find a way out. She was hallucinating again. She'd thought she'd seen Tommy Tricky. But Tommy Tricky wasn't real.

Except—except—

Annabel thought of Tammy Morelli.

All Annabel knew was that she had to get out of there.

She stood. Her legs were moving better now, more easily, with less pain. Whatever drug Jack had given her appeared to be wearing off. Annabel glanced across the room. The clock now read 11:30. She must have been huddled in that corner for about an hour. Her eyes shot over to the window. She couldn't see anything outside. The snow had collected against the windowpanes. Annabel shuddered. She felt more closed in than ever.

“I can't give in to my fear,” she whispered. “I have to keep moving.”

Carefully, she walked toward the door. These old doors were flimsy. She could maybe rattle it enough that it would pop open. It was a slim chance, perhaps, but it was all she had.

She tried the knob. And to her great surprise and gratitude, it was no longer locked.

Maybe I'd only imagined it was locked before
, she told herself.

Annabel opened the door and stepped gingerly out into the hallway.

The house was eerily quiet. The muffled sound of the storm outside was the only thing she heard. Annabel made her way to the top of the stairs. She had no idea what her plan was. She was barefoot and wearing only a nightgown. But she could think of only one thing to do. Make a mad dash for the front door and—

And what? She had seen the drifting earlier. It came up halfway over the door. Even if she could reach the front door without Jack stopping her, she would run straight into a solid wall of snow on the other side.

She really was trapped.

No. She wouldn't accept that.

All right then. She'd still make a mad dash down the stairs. But she'd run to the kitchen. Maybe Jack would be in there, waiting for her. But maybe he wouldn't be. She had to take that chance. Because the phone was in the kitchen. She could call 911. Even if he caught her, if she could just press those three numbers and have the call go through, they'd send someone out. Annabel had to pray that the phone was still working.

She took a deep breath and started down the stairs.

Her bare feet flew over the steps. She seemed to make no sound at all. It was almost as if she were running on air. She made it to the bottom of the stairs. But that was only half the challenge. She continued on without stopping to the kitchen. She could see as she rounded the corner that the kitchen was empty. Yes! Maybe Jack had left. Maybe she was alone in the house after all. She would call the police and—

But when she turned to lift the phone off the hook she saw something terrible.

The phone was no longer there.

It had been taken clean off the wall. All that remained was an empty jack.

“No,” Annabel moaned, and then put her hand to her mouth. She didn't want to make a sound.

Face it,
she heard Daddy Ron's voice tell her.
You're trapped in there.

Trapped.

Except—

Annabel could almost hear the gears in her mind turning.

Except—she might not be able to get out of the house from the first floor, but the snow had not reached the second. She could jump from a second-floor window. The snow would cushion her fall. If it was packed hard enough, she wouldn't sink completely into it, and she could, she hoped, trudge through it into town.

Right. With bare feet. With winds that seemed to want to rip the roof off the house.

But what other choice did she have? Wait for Jack to come back and kill her the way he'd killed Priscilla and Paulie? That much Annabel was certain she didn't hallucinate. She firmly believed she was right about that.

She hurried back into the hallway. Hanging on the hook beside the door she spotted a coat. It was Neville's, she realized.

Oh, no,
Annabel thought.
I had thought Neville escaped. But why would he leave his coat?

His car had been gone. That much Annabel was sure of. But he wouldn't have left in a blizzard without taking his coat.

Not knowing what to think, she grabbed Neville's coat and slipped it on. She'd need it if she was going to take a plunge into the snow. She could smell her friend's scent on the coat. It both comforted her and saddened her. Was he alive? What about Chad?

Annabel had never felt so alone, or so frightened.

She made her way back upstairs.

She decided she would go out the window in Cordelia's room. That was over the small roof that covered the front porch. Annabel could hop to the roof, and then take her leap into the snow. But she needed something on her feet. She'd never make it even as far as Millie's store if she had to do it barefoot.

She realized that although her own clothes were gone, Jack's clothes might still be in his closet.

Back inside their room, Annabel paused, looking over at the bed, now pushed aside at an angle. Was Tommy Tricky under there?

Stop it
, she scolded herself.

She took a deep breath and pulled open Jack's closet door.

Yes! His clothes were still there. And a pair of work boots! They would be big on Annabel, but if she tied the long laces several times around her foot, she should be able to keep the boots on during her trek through the blizzard. She sat down on a chair as she pulled the boots onto her feet. For the first time, a real sense of hope filled her. She would get away from here! She would not be trapped!

But then she sensed someone was watching her.

She spun her head around.

Jack stood there, leaning in the doorway, looking down at her with his arms folded over his chest and an enormous smile on his face.

“Where you goin', baby cakes?”