The Kill (47 page)

She sucked in a breath and spun around.
It was a darkroom
. Abigale stepped forward and ran her hand along the cool edge of a shiny new developing table. Guilt washed over her. Uncle Richard must have built the darkroom for her. And she’d never come back to visit. She fingered a roll of duct tape that lay on the table as she glanced around the room at the professional developing equipment.

Abigale heard the clink of glass and she peered over the table. Duchess’s tail swept across an overturned bottle of booze as she nosed around the cement floor. Abigale crouched down beside the dog and grabbed the bottle. The stench of whisky almost took her breath away. The bottle was half empty, but the cap was screwed on tight. So where did the smell come from? She rocked back on her heels and fingered a splattered stain on the cement floor. Whisky. And it was damp. Someone—Manning?—had been drinking in here. Not long ago.

Manning’s slurred speech rang in her ears, his illogical comments. Had he lied to her about going to Pennsylvania and been holed up here the whole time? Getting drunk? If so, where was he now? And where was Margaret?

She thought back on that afternoon’s phone conversation. Manning had said something about developing pictures. When she’d asked him if he’d been drinking, he’d said, “Develop your pictures.”
He must have been talking about this room
. But that suggested he wanted her to come here and find him. Her earlier suicide fears tumbled down on her.

“Oh, Manning,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

Duchess looked over at her and wagged her tail, then went back to nosing eagerly around a thick beam that ran from floor to ceiling. Abigale frowned. What was that? She scooted over next to the dog and picked up a tangled mess of duct tape that lay on the other side of the post. It was sticky, but not tape-sticky. Something was smeared on it. She held it closer—and snatched her hand away as if it had burned her. The tape was covered with blood.

Abigale jumped to her feet. “Come on, Duchess. Now!”

Something had happened in this room. Something bad
.

Abigale punched 9-1-1 on her cell phone as she raced up the stairs to the kitchen. She stumbled over her words as she tried to explain the nature of the emergency, then finally shouted that someone had broken into the house, figuring that would bring a patrol car quicker than a missing-person call. She jabbed the key to disconnect the call, then called the hunt kennels.

Smitty answered, and she said, “It’s Abigale. Have you heard from Manning or Margaret?”

“Not a lick,” he drawled. “They still not back from Pennsylvania?”

“No, and something’s going on. I’m not sure what, but I found something in the basement. I called 9-1-1, but can you come over here?”

“Of course.” Smitty’s voice darkened with concern. “Where are you at? Margaret’s?”

“No, I’m at Dartmoor Glebe.”

“Just sit tight. Doug’s here with me. We’re on our way.”

T
he remnants of the sandwich Thompson had for lunch roiled in his stomach as he maneuvered the truck and trailer around the tight turn onto Snake Hill Road. He’d encountered only a handful of vehicles since leaving Dartmoor Glebe. Too bad one of them was Doug Cummings. Not that he was all that worried about it. He’d waved casually at Doug and their vehicles had slipped past each other on the curvy two-lane road like oil through water, each disappearing into the storm. Later, after the BMW was found in Goose Creek, the memory of seeing Thompson driving down Foxcroft Road would probably be the last thing on Cummings’s mind.

Water sluiced down the pavement as the rig lumbered up the steep incline. The back entrance leading to the stables at Coach Farm was just another hundred yards or so on the left. Once he turned in there, he’d be home free. He knew the Petersons were at a carriage-driving competition in New Jersey. And if anyone did happen to be around, he’d just say he’d come to pick up the carriage Richard had loaned them. He’d say Margaret had sent him—she wouldn’t be around to contradict him—then he’d hem and haw a bit, and decide against loading the carriage on the trailer in such bad weather. He could even feign concern that Margaret would be irked with him for disobeying orders. Anyone who knew her would likely sympathize with him.

The thought of Margaret tied up in the cargo area behind the seats of the BMW pleased him. She’d been compliant, almost submissive, when she was in the basement, but when she’d seen the BMW inside the carriage trailer she had started kicking and struggling like a feral cat. It had probably hit home, the inevitability of what he was about to do.

Margaret’s outburst had caught him off guard; even with her hands bound she’d damn near slipped out of his grasp. Not that she’d have made it very far, but still, timing was everything, and if Smitty or Michael or someone else had driven up the drive just at that moment and seen them struggling in front of the house he’d have been screwed. He’d hauled her right back into the trailer and ended up knocking her out to get her in the back of the BMW.

Manning, on the other hand, hadn’t even put up a struggle once it had registered through his drunken fog that he had a gun barrel pressed against his neck. Of course, Thompson had counted on that. He knew even the most belligerent assholes could be overpowered if they were drunk enough. A lesson he’d learned from his stint as a waiter at an off-campus pub during college.

Thompson drove up the narrow gravel lane to Coach Farm and stopped the rig in front of the barn. So far, so good. No vehicles in the courtyard. Barn doors closed. No light peeked through the cracks. The place was deserted.

He snapped his waxed barn coat all the way up to his neck and patted his pocket to make sure the magnetic hunt logo he’d taken from the truck’s passenger door was still there. If anyone saw him hiking back up the road after he sent the BMW into Goose Creek, he’d say a tree branch had brushed the logo off the door when he’d made the turn onto Snake Hill Road. That he’d seen it in the side mirror, didn’t want to risk stopping the rig on the road, yada yada, had walked back to look for it. But if luck kept going his way—and no reason it shouldn’t—he wouldn’t encounter anyone. No one would be out and about in this weather if he didn’t have to be.

An excited calm slithered through Thompson. He’d make it back to the truck unobserved, wait for the 9-1-1 call, and be the first responder. Make sure he was all over the scene, the bodies, to explain away any evidence that might be found that linked him to the accident. Same reason he’d shown up at Longmeadow, gone up in the stewards’ stand when the call about Richard came in. Being an EMT had its advantages.

Thompson smirked, thinking about how Manning had accused him of being stupid for handling Richard’s wallet after the dog dug it out of the bushes. Quite the opposite, actually. Nice how that had worked out.

He’d be even more thorough this time. Scour the darkroom from floor to ceiling. Mop his shoe prints off the kitchen floor, the hallway. Wash the tire tracks out of the trailer. Not that he expected anyone to have reason to search any of those places. But he wouldn’t leave anything to chance.

Thompson jammed a baseball cap on his head and swung the driver’s door into the rain. Time to get the show on the road.

S
mitty and Doug arrived at the house in less than five minutes, dashing through the rain toward where Abigale stood waiting at the mudroom door.

“What’s going on?” Smitty asked as soon as he ducked through the door.

Abigale quickly told them how odd Manning had sounded when she’d spoken with him on the phone, that she was pretty sure he was drunk. Then she relayed what she’d found in the darkroom. “If Manning was hiding out down there—drinking—that’s one thing. But there’s blood.”

Doug and Smitty exchanged a glance. “Okay, show us what you found,” Doug said.

“You go on,” Smitty said. “I’ll wait up here for the deputy and bring him on down when he arrives.”

Abigale showed Doug the bloody duct tape first.

“Is this where you found it?” he asked, taking a pen from his pocket and turning the tape over to examine it.

“No, it was over there.” Abigale pointed at the floor-to-ceiling support post. “I picked it up, just thinking it was trash, then dropped it when I realized there was blood on it.”

Doug glanced at the post, then slowly eyed the rest of the room. His gaze lingered on Duchess who had followed them downstairs and was busily sniffing around the utility sink in the corner, her nose stretched out as if trying to capture a certain scent. Doug reached the sink in three strides and leaned over the basin. “There’s more duct tape in here.”

Abigale rushed to his side. Several tangled strips and one balled-up wad of tape littered the sink basin. Doug lifted one long strip gingerly with his pen.

Short strands of wispy gray hair dangled like spider legs from the tape. Abigale felt as if someone had socked her in the stomach. “That looks like Margaret’s hair.”

“Yeah.” Doug dropped the tape back in the sink and gave her a look that left little doubt what he was thinking.

She shook her head. “No. I know what you’re thinking. Manning would never harm his mother.”

“I don’t think he would either, Abigale, but we have to consider the possibility. You yourself said you could tell something wasn’t right with Manning when you talked to him. And given the blood—” he shot a look at the sink—“and Margaret’s hair…”

Abigale looked away and Doug gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “If Manning held Margaret captive here—even if, God forbid, he harmed her—we’ll get help for him, I promise you. But right now we need to find him. And find Margaret.”

She nodded, swallowing the salty tears that stung her throat. “I know.”

“Okay, so think back carefully to your phone conversation. Did Manning say anything that provided a clue to where he might be?”

Abigale replayed the conversation in her mind. It did seem as though Manning had been giving her clues. He’d talked about developing pictures, obviously referring to this room. And he’d mentioned the photo of her hunt horn. What exactly was it he’d said? Something about riding back to get it in the storm—

Duchess scrambled away from the sink and banged into Abigale’s legs, almost knocking her off balance. The Lab’s golden coat rose into a ruffled line down her back and she let out a low growl, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Abigale listened, then heard the sound of men’s voices, heavy footsteps.

“Sounds like the deputy’s here,” Doug said.

To Abigale’s surprise, Lieutenant Mallory and another deputy followed Smitty into the room. She hadn’t asked for Mallory when she’d called 9-1-1. Was it a coincidence he’d shown up?

Mallory must have seen the look of surprise on her face, because he said, “Just so happens we were checking out a flooding situation on Hibbs Bridge Road, so we were close by. What have we got here?”

Mallory listened without interrupting as Abigale recapped what she’d found. When she finished, he said, “Just so I get this straight, when you spoke with Manning on the phone this afternoon he told you he was in his car on his way home from Pennsylvania.”

“Yes.”

His expression hardened. “But the evidence in this room tells us he and Mrs. Southwell probably never went to Pennsylvania.”

Evidence
. The word shot through Abigale like shards of ice. “Maybe not.”

“Manning’s car went somewhere, though,” Smitty said. “I saw it parked out front when I drove out late yesterday afternoon, and when I went back to check on the hounds last night it was gone.”

“Okay. He hid the car somewhere so no one would come here looking for them.” Mallory’s eyes swept across the three of them. “Any barns or buildings on the property where he could stash it?”

Smitty nodded. “Yes sir, a couple.”

“We’ll have you show those to us when we finish in here.” Mallory surveyed the room. He glared at Duchess, who had plopped down in front of the utility sink. “Let’s get the dog out of here. We don’t need the scene compromised any more than it already has been.”

“I’ll get her,” Abigale said. “Come on, Duchess.”