Something shady, p.23
Something Shady, page 23
part #2 of Stoner McTavish Mystery Series
She couldn’t believe her ears. “I thought you were…”
“Crazy?” Lily laughed. “I’m as sane as you, dear. Probably more so, if you’re doing what I think you’re doing.”
Stoner shook her head to clear it. “You’re... but everyone thinks...”
“Exactly what I want them to think,” Lily said, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve missed my calling. I should have gone on the stage.”
“This is very confusing,” Stoner said.
“It is, isn’t it? I’m a bit bewildered myself. What in the world are you doing here?”
“Looking for Claire Rasmussen.”
Lily tapped her fingertips together. “Poor Claire. I’m afraid she bit off more than she could chew. She found out something, you see.”
“Do you know what she found out?” Stoner asked, sitting beside her.
“I haven’t the slightest idea. They hide it very well. And I’ve felt it was better that I not show too much curiosity. They can turn very nasty.”
“Yes, I believe you.”
“My dear, as they used to say, ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet’.” She sighed. “And if I did manage to sniff out their secret, what could I do? Go to the authorities? In the eyes of the law, I’m mentally incompetent.”
“But you’re not.”
“I was. Shortly after Millicent came here, I went completely off my rocker. I suspect she put something in my food. Probably LSD or some such. I had some truly startling visions, let me tell you. As for what I actually did, I’m afraid that’s all a blank. Though I do recall reciting poetry from the rim of the town fountain. I hope it wasn’t bawdy.”
“I heard it was Whitman,” Stoner said, still in shock.
“Well, that’s not too bad.”
“Excuse me, Lily... I mean, Miz Lily…”
“Lily will do. I’m quite used to it.”
“What I don’t understand is, how did you let her get away with it? I mean, if you’re not very fond of her...”
“Oh, I’m not,” Lily said. “Not fond at all. Never was.”
“Then why did you let her in in the first place?”
Lily smiled. “When you’re getting on in years, relatives who haven’t given you the time of day in the past begin to flock around. They expect you to die any minute, you see, and they want to be in on the inheritance. Well, I told Millicent in no uncertain terms that there was nothing here for her. That was my great mistake. It forced her hand.”
“But you’re not drugged now.”
“During one of my rare moments of lucidity - I had a few, even then - it occurred to me that, if I didn’t make her think I’d gone completely ‘round the bend, I’d be taking LSD for the rest of my natural life. And I certainly didn’t want that. Goodness, I’ve had revelations about the Cosmic that would curl your hair.”
“Once your mind was clear,” Stoner said, “couldn’t you have run away?”
“At my age?” she laughed. “My dear, I may have all my mental faculties in-tact, but my days of leaping over hill and dale like a jackrabbit are long gone.” She fingered her smock. “Dan is dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid he is.”
“Poor boy,” Lily said, shaking her head sadly. “I imagine Delia is taking it hard.”
“Well, she keeps going, but I know she hurts.”
“I do wish there were something I could do. Maybe I can, if you can get to the bottom of things.”
Stoner kneaded her face. “I’m afraid I’m not doing very well with it.”
“Nevertheless, here you are. The answer to my prayers, and just as I was about to give up hope. Isn’t life amazing?”
There were footsteps in the hall, coming their way.
“Oh, dear,” Lily said. She got up. “They watch me like a hawk. We’d better not meet like this again.”
“Lily,” Stoner said, “you’re a fantastic woman.”
“Thank you, dear. But please do what you have to do in a hurry. I don’t think I can hold on much longer.”
She scurried from the room.
“There you are,” Becky said from the hall. “Wandering again. You’re supposed to be in O.T. now, remember?”
“O.T., O.T., O.T.,” Lily sang.
The footsteps receded.
Stoner gazed at the empty doorway. Two years, and I couldn’t even make it through a day.
Enough self-pity. I came to do a job, and by God I’m going to do it!
She went to the bathroom, washed the puffiness from her eyes, and ran downstairs to meet Jerry.
***
He was pacing the conservatory, taking random swipes at the tabletops with his dust cloth. Magazines lay in unruly piles. One sofa cushion was askew. Not exactly a pig sty, but anyone knowing Jerry would raise a questioning eyebrow.
He saw her coming and bounced up to her. “Can we go get her now?”
“We have to talk first,” she said firmly.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Not here in plain sight.”
He dragged her into the shadows of a corner. “We can’t just mess around,” he said urgently. “They’re doing things to her.”
“What things? And who’s doing them and why?”
His face fell. “I don’t know.”
“All right, that’s why we have to be careful. We don’t know what we’re up against.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to take you into my confidence. But you have to promise you won’t reveal a word of what I tell you.”
“I promise,” he said quickly.
“I mean this, Jerry. If anyone finds out, or even guesses what we’re doing, our lives could be in danger. Claire’s life could be in danger. Do you understand?”
“Sure. I’m not stupid.”
“Nobody must know what we’re up to. Not even your therapist.”
“I never tell him anything. He’s a dumb cluck.”
“If anyone suspects, they might try to intimidate you, to make you tell.”
He laughed. It had the rusty sound of an unused hinge. “Did you ever go to military school?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know what intimidation really is.”
Stoner smiled. “You’re right. I apologize.”
He shrugged self-consciously.
“Okay, here’s what I know. Nancy Rasmussen, Claire’s sister…”
“Claire talks about her a lot,” Jerry said.
“Nancy’s worried about her. So last weekend my friend and I…”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Yes, my girlfriend. We came up here to see her. They claimed she was away on vacation.”
“She wasn’t. She was right here.”
“My friend saw her. Later, we sneaked back onto the grounds. We found her car in the woods, in an old cellar hole.”
His eyes got big.
“They caught my friend, but they didn’t see me. That night, two men tried to beat her up.”
“Two men beat up on a girl?”
“On a woman. We think they did it to scare us off. That was Saturday, the night you say Claire disappeared.”
“Gosh,” he said. “Then they know who you are.”
“It was dark. I don’t think they recognized me.”
“I’d recognize you.”
“I’m counting on them not being as perceptive as you.”
He squared his shoulders and nodded solemnly.
“There’s more,” Stoner said. “Delia, who owns the Clam Shack…”
“I’ve been there. It‘s a nice, clean place.”
“I’ll tell her you said so. Coming from an expert, she’ll take it as quite a compliment.”
He fidgeted. “Get to the point, okay?”
“Delia’s husband drowned about a year ago. She thinks he was murdered because of something he found out.”
“About this place?”
“She believes there was a cover-up. That’s why she can’t go to the police. We don’t know who might be in on it.”
“What did he find out?”
“He never got a chance to tell.”
Jerry chewed that over. “Far out,” he said.
“Now, it’s possible Claire found out something, too, and that’s why they’re ‘doing things’ to her.”
“Why didn’t they kill her?”
“I don’t know. Afraid of too many unexplained deaths, maybe. And she was on parole. They might know that, and be afraid the police will start poking around if she disappears.”
“So they make her crazy instead.”
“It’s occurred to me,” Stoner said. “But what good would that do?”
“Simple,” Jerry said. “If she’s crazy, and she talks, no one will believe her.”
“Jerry, that’s brilliant!”
“Well,” he said diffidently, “I’ve had some experience along those lines.”
“And since this is a mental hospital, they could claim they kept her here to cure her.”
“Shit-heads.” He glanced at her. “Pardon me.”
“If the Department of Corrections came asking questions, they’d say they didn’t know she was on parole, turn her over, and that would be that.”
“Okay,” Jerry said. “Let’s go find her.”
“Not so fast. We have to find out what she found out.”
“Why?”
“Suppose we find her. Do you think they’re going to open the gates and send us off with a picnic basket and best wishes for a happy life? More likely we’d end up like Claire. And if we escape without evidence, we’re just three escaped mental patients. To get the police to even listen to us, we have to find out the truth and be able to prove it.”
“That’s going to take forever.”
“Not if we plan it right.”
“What do you figure? Another day?”
Stoner clenched her fists. “Jerry, please. We have to think this out.”
“Okay, think.”
“You say you’ve searched the building?”
“I told you that.”
“Including the cupola?”
He frowned. “Nobody goes up in the cupola.”
“Do you know that?”
“If anyone was up there, they’d have me clean it, wouldn’t they?”
“Not necessarily. I think that’s where Claire was last night.”
“It isn’t heated.”
“I’m sorry.”
His face turned crimson. “Nobody’d be that mean.”
“Jerry, anyone who’s capable of murder would be that mean. Do you have a key?”
“Not to up there.”
“Well, they’ll probably move her, if they haven’t already. How about the cellar?”
“There’s only a root cellar. Nobody cleans root cellars. Why would they move her?”
“Because I told Millicent Tunes I heard screaming…”
“Why did you do that?” he yelled. “For crying out loud!”
She grabbed him by the shoulders. “It was a mistake. I didn’t think. Keep your voice down.”
“They’ll kill her!” Jerry rasped.
“I doubt it. If they suspect someone might notice, they’ll be more careful. And we have to be careful.”
“Careful?! You call what you did careful?”
“Jerry!” she said sharply, “if you want to help me with this, you have to control yourself. I have dangerous work to do. I can’t take the time to argue with you every step of the way. So make up your mind. Either settle down and do what I tell you, or I’ll walk out of here and forget the whole thing.”
He hung his head. “I’m sorry. I’m just so scared for her.”
“It’s all right to be scared. I’m concerned, too. But I’ve done this kind of thing before.” Hell, in a world full of treachery, what’s one little lie? “I know what I’m doing. I have contacts...” She lowered her voice. “In the FBI.”
He gazed at her, awestruck. “Far out,” he breathed.
“So,” she said roughly, “which is it? Do we do it my way, or do I do it alone?”
He pulled himself to attention. “What’s the drill, Chief?”
She frowned sternly at him. “Make me a map of this house. Every room, and who or what’s in it. Try to find a book on the history of the place. It’s old enough, there might be one. Look for any clue to secret passageways or hidden alcoves.”
“What good’s a book going to do?”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“Sorry, Chief.”
“Good detective work requires a lot of research. It isn’t glamorous, and it isn’t exciting, but it is necessary.”
“Right.”
“I want you to think about all the patients who’ve disappeared from here in unusual ways. Try to remember anything you can about them, no matter how unimportant it seems.”
Jerry beamed. “That’s how they always solve mysteries, isn’t it? Something that looks unimportant at the time...”
“This isn’t a novel. Don’t get your hopes up. But it can’t hurt. I’m going out to search the grounds. After lunch, I’d like you to take me to Claire’s room.”
“You’re supposed to be in O.T. after lunch.”
“I’ll handle it. You be ready, and meet me by the door to the staff quarters. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“Remember, behave normally.”
“I’m not normal.”
“Whatever’s normal for you.” She gestured at the room. “And clean up this mess. Anybody with a grain of sense would know your mind’s somewhere else.”
He made a dive for the nearest pile of magazines. She caught his arm. “One more thing.” Tearing a corner off a newspaper, she plucked a pencil from his pocket and wrote down Delia’s phone number. “Memorize this, and destroy it. If anything happens to me, call this number and say, ‘Stoner’s in trouble.’ Nothing more. Do you understand?”
His eyes were like saucers. “Is that a code?”
“Sort of.”
“Gosh!”
“And remember, Jerry. If you do anything to tip them off, we’re all dead.”
***
A chilling mist probed the seams of her clothes. She shivered, pulled her jacket tighter, and breathed the salty air of freedom. Millicentunes had been true to her fashion-plate word. The aide had let her go with only a disapproving glance.
She poked at a pebble with her toe. Strange, that sudden change of mind. For all their talk about obeying rules, not making trouble... just when it seemed she had cooked her goose in one outburst of temper, she got her way.
Had she made such a spectacle of herself that Millicent felt sorry for her? That was a chilling thought.
Or maybe the woman just likes being shouted at. It fits in with her “professional interests.”
More likely it was a display of power. Millicent giveth, and Millicent taketh away. Blessed be the name of Millicent.
Anyway, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It might have Millicent’s teeth.
She whistled a little under her breath. If she’s willing to let me look around, she can‘t be very suspicious of me.
Unless this is a trap.
She stopped whistling.
Sometimes they wander over the cliff.
She strolled casually along the path to the parking lot, and whirled suddenly to look up at the house.
No one was watching her. No one was following.
Still, eternal vigilance is the best defense.
She cut across the brittle lawn to the cliffs edge. The sea was the place to start, where Dan had seen whatever he had seen. Glancing back periodically, she ambled to the south, then turned and started back. The ocean lay a hundred feet below at the bottom of a perpendicular granite wall. Through the gathering mist, she could make out a frosting of barnacles, but no mussels. The tide was somewhere between high and low. As far as she could tell, there was no way up or down that glistening wall.
The water was calm today, rocking lazily beneath a sky turned slate. Mist coalesced, dispersed, coalesced like phantoms toying with substance. A gentle surf hid the greedy undertow.
She pushed on.
Then she saw it, a section of rock, cracked by frost and eroded by time, fallen away from the land. Boulders lay tumbled at the bottom like a tower of blocks pushed over by a bored child. The rocks were slippery as oil. Moving carefully, crawling from boulder to boulder, she made her way steadily downward. A natural staircase.
At the edge of the water she stopped, panting a little with cold and exertion. So far, so good. It would be possible - not easy, but possible - to move cargo up the cliff from here. But even a rowboat would have to tie up somewhere. She looked around for a mooring.
A tide pool, black with cold, lay at her feet. Droplets from a breaking wave shattered its glassy surface. She studied the puddle, then gazed out to sea. Choosing a wave, she followed it to shore. It crashed against the rocks. Spray exploded skyward, and rained down into the pool. She followed another, then another. On the eighth try, the surface of the tide pool lay unbroken. The tide was going out.
She backed up against the cliff, out of reach of the wind, hardly feeling the cold, and watched the receding sea edge. She wondered if Jerry had memorized the phone number yet, and pictured him in an agony of indecision - wanting to follow orders and destroy the slip of paper (by eating it, no doubt), but needing to check it one more time to be sure he had it right.
What if he had eaten it, but didn’t have it right?
What if they needed help, he had time for one quick call, dialed, said “Stoner’s in trouble,” hung up, and had the wrong number?
Her best friend, Panic, stopped by for a visit.
He won’t get it wrong. Jerry would never make a mistake. Jerry’s compulsive. You can always count on a compulsive to get things right.
Dear God, don’t let him be cured before we need that number.
Blue mussels appeared, plastered to the sides of half-submerged boulders at her feet.
Mussels don’t live in air.
Low tide.
In the instant of stillness before a wave swept over the rocks, something caught her eye. She scrambled toward it. A large, rusty iron ring embedded in the rock. Mooring, check.
She turned and surveyed the cliff rim. Anyone docking here at low tide would be invisible from the house. But the way she had come down would take them directly beneath the east windows. There had to be another way.
