“So what am I supposed to do about that?”
“Help me find her. You and I are in this thing together, Lindstrom, and together we are going to see it through.”
Once Lindstrom’s astonishment at her pronouncement had faded, he smiled mockingly. “Ready to take her back again, are you?”
She glared at him.
“My advice is to embrace her philosophy: Cut your losses and run.”
“You forget, there’s another factor in the equation: Natalie. She’s a delicate child, has asthma. If Ard’s become unbalanced, she may neglect Nat’s health. I need to find them, bring them home, or at least to someplace safe. Afterwards I’ll decide about the relationship.”
“And you think I can help you find her?”
“Maybe. You could have some knowledge about her that I don’t. Something that will suggest what she might’ve done.”
But do I really believe that, or do I just want him here so I won’t feel alone?
He smiled, gently this time, as if he intuited her thoughts. “Okay, I’ll stay and try to help you—for a while. Where do we start?”
“Well, the major problem in Ard’s life recently—except for you showing up—is the trouble she’s having with the book. I think we should both go over the manuscript and her notes.”
He looked at his watch. “How long will that take?”
“Hours, probably.”
“Then I’d better make a phone call.”
Carly showed him to the cordless unit in the kitchen, listened as she ground beans and brewed a pot of coffee.
“Hi it’s—Yeah, I should’ve called. Don’t be upset. Something—No, not some
one
. I spent last night in Santa Carla—What d’you mean, the duct tape’s not holding? It’s a miracle fix…Well, just slap some more on, then. I’ll buy the joint I need on the way home tomorrow…No, I’m working on a major assignment and likely to be out all night…Assignment, not
ass
ignment! I’ll see you in the morning, and don’t forget about that tape.”
As he replaced the receiver, Carly folded her arms and regarded him with mock severity. “You don’t waste any time when you hit a new town, Lindstrom.”
“That was my landlady. I fix things in exchange for cheap rent.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, it
was.
”
“And just what did you put the duct tape on?”
“The pipe under the bathroom sink. It leaks, and I didn’t have the right—What’s so funny?”
“You. And believe me, Lindstrom, right about now I could use a laugh, however feeble.” She paused. “By the way, I think I should continue to call you John Crowe in public. People here know you as that. A change could complicate things.”
“Sev Quill knows I’m Matt Lindstrom.”
“I asked him not to tell anyone, and he won’t. Where’d you come up with your alias, anyhow?”
“Johnny Crowe’s the deckhand I mentioned. I figured if anybody here wanted to check on whether such a person used to live in Port Regis, he’s in the directory. And he said he’d cover, claim to be subletting his place from me.”
“This Millie Bertram, your alleged publisher—who’s she?”
“Owner of the Port Regis Hotel.”
“She was well coached.”
He was as clever and devious in his own way as Ard was in hers. And Carly herself had her moments. Perhaps together she and Lindstrom could outwit her missing partner.
“Okay, Matt,” she said, “grab a cup of coffee and let’s get started on Ard’s papers.”
Saturday, May 11, 2002
S
he stood naked on the threshold of the gold-and-cream ballroom, and one by one the beautiful, formally attired people turned to stare. Silence fell, punctuated only by the tinkling of the crystal chandeliers. She turned to flee, but the doors had become a solid wall, barring exit. As she searched frantically for a way out, a woman behind her said, “She is not one of us,” and a man agreed, “Definitely not one of us.” Then the others began chanting, “Not one of us, not one of us—”
Carly jerked up from where she was slumped on the wide armrest of the chair. Her shoulder throbbed, and her neck was stiff. She blinked, looked around, saw sunlight streaming through the windows of Ard’s office. Looked down and saw she was swaddled in one of the afghans from the living room. Her reading glasses hung over one ear.
The dream…
She hadn’t had it in more than two decades, since she willfully banished it during her senior year in college. But now it was back in vivid detail, reminding her of her humiliation…
Don’t go there. Not today. You have to stay focused.
Focused on what?
Oh…
The events of the previous night returned to her in a painful rush of memory. She groaned, put her hands to her face, winced at the tenderness in her neck. After a moment she looked around, saw a note propped on the keyboard of Ard’s computer, extricated herself from the afghan, and went to read it.
Carly:
I’ve finished the manuscript and gone to fix my landlady’s leaky pipe. (I really do fix stuff in exchange for cheap rent!) Didn’t want to wake you. I’ll call or come by as soon as I can. “Johnny”
She crumpled the note and tossed it in the wastebasket, anchored her glasses atop her head, and went to the kitchen for coffee. The maker was still on, and the dregs of the carafe she’d brewed last night had distilled to sludge. She ran water into it and, while it soaked, got out the cleaning supplies that she’d need to remove the evidence of Ard’s latest betrayal.
An hour later—after purging the hallway, taking a quick shower, and dressing—she was back in Ard’s office looking for the manuscript Crowe had been reading while she’d examined the legal pads and index cards full of notes. It was neatly stacked in a tray on the workstation. When she picked it up, its slenderness surprised her, and she flipped to the last page, numbered 130. Less than half the amount of pages Ard had led her to believe she’d written, and even at twice that number she’d’ve had trouble meeting her July first deadline.
At what page had Ard told her she’d rather she didn’t read any more until the book was done? One hundred, and that had been over six months ago. Yet nearly every night she proofed her day’s work after dinner. Where had those pages gone?
Carly moved to the file cabinet and scanned the disks in their holder: financial records, copies of stories going back to when she worked for the paper, correspondence, idea files—but nothing beyond page 130 on the manuscript, working title
Cyanide Wells.
Strange. Ard was paranoid about losing her work in case of a crash; she put it on disk every day.
My God, has she been sitting here for six months, staring at a blank screen? Proofing the same pages night after night? Are those one hundred thirty pages all she has to show for two years’ efforts? Granted, she had to do a lot of research, but…
Ard must’ve been hopelessly blocked and afraid to admit it. But why? Because she was afraid of botching her first book—one that she considered a memorial to their murdered friends? Because it meant so much to her? What was it she’d said a few weeks ago?
“Reality’s starting to interfere with the writing. I have nightmares about that morning.”
And Carly had replied, somewhat unsympathetically, “You’re bound to come face-to-face with reality. The book’s a fact-based account.”
Ard had given her a look whose meaning she couldn’t decipher and had gone back to proofing what she claimed was the current batch of pages.
Now Carly returned to the armchair and located the stack of legal pads containing Ard’s handwritten notes. Some had slipped to the floor; another was mashed down the side between the cushion and the arm. She smoothed out its rumpled pages and—
“Carly?”
She started, looked around. Lindstrom, back from the plumbing wars.
“Sorry for just walking in on you,” he said. “I left the door unlocked in case you were still asleep when I got back. Hope that was okay.”
“That’s fine. We always left our doors unlocked before Ronnie Talbot and Deke Rutherford were killed. Our friends felt free to just walk in.”
“But that changed.”
“Yeah, it did. Everything changed.”
“In what way?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do.”
“Why? Ard’s your ex-wife; I’d assume it would be painful to hear about her new life, particularly because…”
“Because she made that new life with a woman?”
She nodded.
He went over to the computer, examined the screen saver. “Roses,” he said, “she’s always loved them.”
Biding his time, because whatever he wants to say has to be said just right, or we’ll lose the connection that’s growing between us. And he wants that connection because he’s still unsatisfied with what he’s found out about Ard’s disappearance.
He turned the desk chair around, sat facing her. “You know, I was thinking about her new life the whole time I worked on the plumbing. And I concluded that Ardis Coleman is no longer Gwen Lindstrom. She’s someone else entirely, the evolution of a woman I once loved but probably didn’t know. In a sense we reinvent the people we love to our own specifications, and that’s what I did with Gwen.”
“Then why’re you here now? Having realized that, you could’ve walked away.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because I like you. Or I feel for your little girl. And even though I didn’t know Gwen, I loved her very much. I suppose I care about the woman she became.”
“Or maybe you still want that confrontation. To tell her what a despicable woman she is.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t seem important now. The woman you describe is troubled, needs help. It occurred to me while reading her manuscript that what she did yesterday may be less related to me than to a disturbance brought on by having to relive your friends’ murders. Maybe if you tell me more about the circumstances surrounding them, we can figure out what’s happening with her.”
A good man. A kind, thoughtful man. Possibly better than his Gwen, my Ardis, deserved.
“Thank you,” she said. “Where would you like me to begin?”
“Wherever you care to.”
“Well, Ronnie and Deke were closer to Ard than me, although we were friends, too. Deke was a painter, very innovative and talented. Ard met him when she interviewed him about a big show he was having at a San Francisco gallery. Ronnie inherited the mill before he met Deke, and put its management into Gar Payne’s hands, claiming he didn’t have a good head for business, but I think that was just an excuse to get out, because a few years later he took over as Deke’s manager and did a great job. He dealt with the galleries, arranged for the shipping of the canvases, handled their finances and investments.”
“Gar Payne—that’s the mayor?”
“Right. The mayor’s job is only part-time. Of course, when Ronnie sold the mill, Gar had to go back to trying to peddle the unsold lots in the Meadows. As you witnessed on Thursday, he’s been cranky ever since.”
“Is he just a salesman there or the developer?”
“The developer, along with a partner, Milt Rawson. Only about half the lots have been sold in the ten years since they bought and subdivided the land, and there’ve been problems with the homeowners’ association over how the place should be run.” Lindstrom gave her a questioning look, and she added, “Don’t ask. The Meadows is a hotbed of petty intrigue. Too many affluent people with too much time on their hands. But why’re you so interested in Payne?”
“When the two of you were arguing at the paper, I recognized his voice. He’s the man who made an anonymous phone call to me and told me where to find Gwen.”
“Gar? Why would he do that? And how did he know about you in the first place?”
“That’s what I’ve wondered. Is it common knowledge that Ardis was married before she came here?”
“Only her close friends are aware of that, and most of them don’t know your name.”
“And Payne’s not one of those friends?”
“Hardly.”
“Then how…? Well, no use speculating on it now. You were telling me about Ronnie and Deke.”
“Right. Ard hit it off with both of them, and pretty soon they were in and out of here all the time, as we were at their house near the Knob.”
“I thought the Knob was in the Eel River National Forest.”
“It is. Ronnie and Deke’s house backs up on the forest—very secluded, on nearly a hundred acres that Ronnie inherited from his father.”
“Ardis’s newspaper accounts made the two of them sound like special people.”
“They were.” She pictured Ronnie delicately removing a painful foxtail from the nose of Gracie the cat. Deke, doing his campy Toulouse-Lautrec impersonation. Ronnie, picking up and comforting Natalie after she took a tumble from the pony he kept for the enjoyment of friends’ children. Deke, producing with a flourish his “world infamous” chorizo enchiladas. Ronnie, in a ridiculous pink bunny suit at their annual Easter egg hunt. Deke, clumping the seven miles from his house to theirs on snowshoes to bring them a sackful of candles and emergency rations during an unusually severe winter storm.
She said, “They were caring. Loyal. They’d go out of their way to help a friend—or a stranger. In all the time I knew them, I never heard them exchange a harsh word.” She paused. “Of course, we all know appearances can be deceiving. Ard and I have never exchanged a harsh word in public, but at home they fly.”
Lindstrom seemed to prefer to let the comment slip by. He said, “Okay, the murders. I’ve read both the newspaper accounts and the account in Ardis’s manuscript. They’re quite different.”
“Well, the facts are the same, but the newspaper accounts are controlled; she let her professionalism take over. But she deliberately made the book’s version emotional. Too much so, in my opinion. I suspect she was working something out through the writing.”
The morning she discovered their friends’ bodies, Ard had called her, gasping for breath, her words practically unintelligible. Carly wouldn’t have been able to figure out where she was, except she’d mentioned at breakfast that she planned to stop by to deliver a load of the zucchini she’d overplanted. “Even if Deke and Ronnie aren’t crazy about the stuff, I’d rather share the bounty with friends than be forced to sneak around leaving it in strangers’ parked cars and mailboxes,” she’d joked.