Nightshade

CHAPTER 12

DAN PULLMAN LISTENED in silence as Trip Wainwright explained why he was once more needed at the Hapgood house. Dan, like nearly everyone else in Granite Falls, had attended Bill Hapgood’s funeral yesterday and — also like nearly everyone else — had found himself paying more attention to Matthew Moore than to the service itself. Hardly an hour had gone by since Bill Hapgood’s death that someone hadn’t called him to ask why the boy hadn’t been charged in his stepfather’s killing. Though most of his callers had at least made an attempt to feign nothing more than the interest of a responsible citizen, more than one had spoken what the rest thought but wouldn’t admit: “Everybody knows he did it.”

Dan, who had long ago learned that anything he might say would instantly be ground into unrecognizable dust by the Granite Falls rumor mill, had ventured nothing more than that the case was “still under investigation,” and that any charges to be brought would be filed “at such time as is deemed appropriate by the county prosecutor.” He’d steadfastly resisted the urge to tell the callers that what everybody knows often proves to be completely wrong, since he’d also learned very early in his tenure as the town’s police chief that when “everybody” knows something, the last thing they want to hear is even a hint of a contradiction.

Still, he’d kept a careful eye on Matt Moore at the funeral, trying to fathom what might be going on in the boy’s mind. Matt had looked pale and tired, but that was only to be expected. The question Dan had been trying to answer was whether his pallor and exhaustion were a product of grief or of guilt.

Either one could keep a person from sleeping; either one could drive someone to the ragged edge of emotional collapse. But as he’d watched Matt Moore, Pullman hadn’t been able to make up his mind which problem was preying on the boy. Certainly his display of emotion at the coffin seemed genuine, but even that could be interpreted in more than one way:

Matt could have been apologizing for being at the root of a terrible accident.

Or he could have been apologizing for a murder.

Indeed, Pullman had been pondering it when the call from Trip Wainwright came in, and even as the lawyer explained what had happened that morning, Pullman found himself wondering what part Matt might have played in Emily Moore’s disappearance.

None, he told himself as he drove the two miles from his office behind the fire station to the gates of Hapgood Farm. Emily Moore had Alzheimer’s, and most likely she just wandered off. Don’t turn into the kind of cop who sees crimes everywhere he looks.

But as he followed the same path that Trip Wainwright, Joan, and Matt had trod only half an hour earlier, he found himself wondering.

“The first slipper was right here,” Wainwright told him. “Joan picked it up before I could stop her.”

“I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong,” Joan said, her eyes begging him to understand. “When I saw it, I just — ”

“It’s all right,” Pullman assured her. “There’s no harm done. She probably didn’t even notice it was gone.” But in his own mind, Pullman wasn’t so sure — even if you were lost, you’d still feel your slipper go, feel the mud oozing between your toes. Though he’d said nothing, his eyes had quickly scanned the path for signs of a bare foot, but all he saw were the faint prints left by several pairs of shoes.

Nothing that looked like either a bare foot or one that might have been clad in a slipper. Of course, it was possible that whatever tracks Emily Moore might have left had simply been covered over by the three other people who had walked the path this morning.

They continued on, pausing at the spot where the scrap of cloth still clung to the broken branch. Again Dan Pullman found no signs of tracks that might have been left by a bare foot, but on the other hand, the path here was hard enough that he could barely make out the signs of any footprints at all.

Finally they came to the shelf of rock bordering the pool at the base of the falls, where Emily’s other slipper still lay. Now, as he listened to Joan Hapgood recount every detail of what had happened that morning, his eyes were drawn to Matt, just as they had been yesterday at the funeral.

The boy looked even paler than before, and more exhausted.

But there was something else in his face too.

Not guilt, exactly, but something close to it — a furtiveness, as if there was something he didn’t want to be asked about. When Joan finally fell silent, Pullman decided to take a shot in the dark.

“What happened last night, Matt?” he asked. The boy flinched, and Pullman knew he’d struck a nerve. When Matt said nothing, he pressed harder. “Something did happen, didn’t it, Matt?”

Matt’s eyes finally met Pullman’s, and the police chief could see the misery in them.

The boy’s eyes flicked away again.

Looking for a means of escape?

Then, hesitantly, Matt said, “I’m not sure,” choosing his words carefully. “I thought it was a dream, but now…” His voice trailed off, and he gazed off into the distance, as if he were looking at something far away.

“What, Matt?” Pullman asked, feeling faintly uneasy as he sensed that Matt might be on the verge of confessing something. Until now, most of the confessions Pullman had heard from frightened teenagers involved nothing more serious than minor vandalism or “borrowing” someone’s car for a joyride, and it had always been his hope that he would be able to retire without having to hear anything worse. Right now, though, it looked as if that might not happen. “What did you see?”

Slowly, Matt recounted hearing his grandmother’s voice and going out into the corridor to see if she was all right. Again the strange look came into his eyes, as if he were looking far into the distance. “I didn’t see Gram right away,” he said, his voice so low that Pullman had to strain to hear it. “I–I saw someone else.”

Pullman glanced at Joan, then at the lawyer. It was obvious that neither of them had heard this before.

“Someone else?” Pullman urged. “Someone you knew?”

Matt’s eyes darted as if he were once again seeking escape, but at last he nodded. “It was my aunt,” he said. “My aunt Cynthia.”

Pullman’s eyes narrowed. “Your aunt Cynthia,” he repeated, his brow furrowing. “Now come on, Matt, you know — ”

“I know she’s dead,” Matt broke in, his words suddenly coming in a rush. “That’s why I thought it was a dream! And after I saw Aunt Cynthia, Gram came out of her room, and she was calling Aunt Cynthia. Then Gram followed her downstairs!” Quickly, he recounted the rest of it: being so shocked by what he’d seen that he couldn’t move, then finally going to the head of the stairs and looking down.

Looking down, and seeing nothing.

“And that’s it?” Pullman asked when Matt was finished. “You didn’t see anything, so you just went back to bed? You didn’t even go downstairs to check on your grandmother?”

A look of panic came into Matt’s eyes. “I didn’t know what to do — I thought — oh, God, I don’t know what I thought.” His eyes shifted from Pullman to his mother. “I thought it was a dream, Mom.”

Joan slipped a protective arm around her son. “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re going to find Gram. We’re going to find her, and she’s going to be all right.” But even as she said it, Joan could see in the chief’s eyes that Pullman didn’t believe it would happen that way.