Nightshade

CHAPTER 20

THOUGH JOAN HAPGOOD hadn’t told Trip Wainwright what had brought Dan Pullman to her house that evening, the strain in her voice when she called him on the phone told him how worried she was, and the moment she opened the back door to let him into the kitchen, he could sense the tension. But it wasn’t until he saw the blood on Matt’s clothes that his lawyer’s instincts went onto full alert.

“Did you call Dr. Henderson?” he asked Joan, deliberately not asking what had happened, lest Matt say something he’d rather Dan Pullman not hear.

“It’s no big deal,” Matt protested before his mother could reply. “It’s not my blood anyway. It’s Pete Arneson’s.”

Wainwright sat down at the kitchen table and listened in silence as first Joan and then Pullman recounted what they knew. When both of them were finished, the lawyer turned to Matt, who, alone among the four of them, had remained standing. “Anything you want to add?” he asked.

Matt shook his head. “It’s like I said — I was looking for Kelly, and Pete and Eric jumped me.”

The lawyer shifted his attention back to Pullman. “From what I’ve heard so far, it sounds to me like you should be taking a complaint from Matt, not questioning him.”

The police chief’s eyes narrowed. “The Arneson kid says — ”

“I don’t really care what Pete Arneson said,” Wainwright cut in, certain that if Pullman had any intention of arresting Matt, he already would have done it. “Nor do I care if Eric Holmes swears to it. Given what’s been going on in this town the last few days, I’ve been half expecting someone to accuse Matt of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, for Christ’s sake! And you know as well as I do that both Eric and Pete are a lot bigger than Matt. So what’s this really all about?”

The frustration that had been brewing inside Pullman suddenly boiled. “It’s about me trying to do my job, Trip. Just like you’re trying to do yours. Maybe you ought to look at this whole mess from my point of view for a change. Matt’s stepfather is dead, his grandmother is missing, and now his girlfriend is missing too. What the hell am I supposed to think? What’s anyone supposed to think?”

Matt was about to protest, but the attorney held up a hand to stop him. “So far there’s nothing more than gossip to indicate that Bill’s death was anything other than an accident, unless you’ve got something you haven’t told me or anybody else about yet.”

He paused just long enough for Pullman to shake his head.

“Can we agree that it’s not fair to accuse anyone of doing anything to Emily Moore until you’ve found her?”

He paused again, extracting another nod from Pullman. “And now Kelly Conroe is missing?”

Once more Dan Pullman nodded.

When Wainwright resumed speaking, his voice had turned hostile. “How long has she been missing, Dan?”

Pullman could see what was coming. His jaw tightened. “A couple of hours,” he said, keeping his voice flat.

“A couple of hours,” Wainwright repeated. “She’s two hours late coming home from school, and you’re out searching for her? Would you say that’s standard operating procedure for your office?”

Pullman’s face reddened. “Of course it is,” he retorted. “I take it very seriously when one of our kids is missing.”

“Especially if she happens to be the daughter of the publisher of the newspaper.” He waited for Pullman to rise to the bait, which the police chief quickly did.

“That has nothing to do with it!”

“Then why did you tell Connie and Jim Delaney that you couldn’t do a thing for at least twenty-four hours when Valerie took off last spring?”

“That was different,” Pullman began. “Valerie wasn’t — ”

“Valerie Delaney was exactly the same age as Kelly Conroe, Dan,” Wainwright cut in coldly. “When she took off, she gave Connie and Jim the worst night of their lives. And you didn’t get involved. In fact, unless I’m completely mistaken, you told them the next day that if it ever happened again, they shouldn’t waste your time until she’d been gone at least twenty-four hours. Isn’t that right?”

A vein throbbed in Pullman’s forehead, and for a second he was tempted to deny it. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” he admitted.

“Or maybe you should have said exactly the same thing to Gerry Conroe when he called you tonight.” When Pullman made no reply, Wainwright pressed his advantage. “Then I think we’re done here, aren’t we? Unless Matt wants to file a complaint against Pete Arneson?” Matt shook his head, and Wainwright stood up. “Then perhaps I can see you out.”

Signaling Joan and Matt to stay where they were, Wainwright walked out to Pullman’s car with the police chief. “You want to tell me what’s going on, Dan?” he asked as Pullman opened the driver’s door and got in.

“What’s going on is that we’ve got one person dead, and two other people missing, Trip. And given where we found Emily Moore’s slippers, I’d sure like to know the real reason Matt was ‘looking’ for Kelly down by the waterfall.” He gave just enough emphasis to the word “looking” to let Wainwright know that he wasn’t accepting Matt’s story at face value.

Wainwright’s expression remained bland. “Did you ask the Arneson and Holmes boys why they went down there?”

“They said they were looking for Kelly too.”

“So Matt having gone there is sinister, but the fact that two other boys — two big, strong boys who could easily have raped, killed, and disposed of a girl Kelly’s size — isn’t even questioned? I find that a little peculiar, Dan, especially given that they weren’t happy about Matt showing up.”

“They said Matt started the fight,” Pullman insisted again, but the lawyer only snorted dismissively.

“Matt’s story makes a lot more sense than what you’ve told me Eric and Pete said, and you know it, Dan. Unless you know something you’re not telling me, I’d say you came over here on a fishing expedition. So consider yourself instructed that neither you nor anyone else in your department is to talk to Matt without me being present.”

Pullman’s lips compressed into an angry line, but he nodded. “But if Kelly Conroe doesn’t show up within twenty-four hours, you can plan on hearing from me.” His eyes moved from the lawyer to the kitchen window, where both of them could see Matt standing by the counter, where they’d left him. “I’m going to want every minute of that kid’s time accounted for. Every single minute.”

Wainwright waited until Pullman’s car disappeared down the driveway, then went back into the kitchen.

“Is he gone?” Joan asked, the tension draining out of her. But when he answered her, she felt her nerves start to tingle again.

“He’s gone for now,” Trip Wainwright said, wishing he could spare them from what he had to say. “But he’ll be back. If Kelly Conroe isn’t found, believe me, he’s going to be back, and he’ll have a lot more questions.” The lawyer turned his attention on Matt. “He’ll want to know everything you did this afternoon, minute by minute. And if by some chance something actually has happened to Kelly, and she’s found anywhere near that waterfall, you’ll need a lot better explanation of why you were there tonight than ‘it’s where we always went.’ In fact, that particular explanation might very well work against you, rather than for you.”

Matt sat down at the table, his mother standing behind him now, her hands on his shoulders. She squeezed them reassuringly, and he heard her telling Wainwright that he couldn’t possibly have done anything to Kelly.

But as she spoke, he remembered the strange odor that filled his nostrils in the shed behind the garage.

Remembered the voice of his aunt, whispering to him.

Remembered the hour that had somehow vanished out of the afternoon when he’d severed the buck’s head.

What had happened during that hour? What had he done?

As if in answer to his unspoken question, he again recalled his aunt’s voice: “Do what you want to do… Do what you need to do… ”

Matthew Moore shivered with a chill that shook his soul.

* * *

DAN PULLMAN WAS still fuming as he drove down the driveway toward the gates at the end of the Hapgood driveway. Who the hell did Trip Wainwright think he was, talking to him like he didn’t know how to do his own job? But as he slowed to a stop at the gates before turning back toward town, his sense of fairness broke through the wall of anger he’d built up to defend himself from the lawyer’s tongue-lashing. Alone in the privacy of his car, without Trip glaring at him, he knew that Trip was right. A few months ago, when Valerie Delaney had disappeared overnight and there was no indication of foul play, he had indeed refused to take any serious action until the following morning, by which time Valerie had indeed come back.

Taking a deep breath, Dan turned in the opposite direction from the town and drove the additional half mile that took him to the Conroes’ large brick Tudor house. As he pulled into the driveway he almost changed his mind — he could just as easily give Gerry a call from home as speak to him directly. But when the front door opened and he saw Nancy Conroe framed in the bright light of the entry hall, he knew it was too late to change his mind. He got out of the car, slammed the door, and started toward the house. He could see the look of disappointment that clouded Nancy’s expression as she saw that he hadn’t brought her daughter home. Then, as he stepped up onto the porch, a flame of panic ignited in her eyes and she reflexively shrank from him, as if to shield herself from the horrible thought that had occurred to her.

“We haven’t found her,” Dan said quickly.

Gerry Conroe appeared behind his wife, laying his hands on her shoulders as if to steady her. “What about Matt Moore?” he asked. “Have you talked to him?”

“I talked to a lot of people,” Pullman countered. “And I’ll probably be talking to a lot more, Gerry. But not before tomorrow.”

Gerry Conroe’s eyes smoldered. “What the hell are you saying, Pullman?” he demanded, his use of the chief’s last name betraying his anger as clearly as the tightness of his voice.

Pullman braced himself. “I’m telling you that I’ve looked around, and I’ve talked to a few people, and I’ll have Tony keep an eye out while he’s on patrol tonight. But for now, that’s all I can do.”

“I don’t want to hear that, Dan,” Gerry Conroe replied, his voice low. “I want to hear you say you’re going to find my daughter!”

“Look, Gerry,” Pullman said, doing his best to keep his fraying temper in check, “I know how you feel, but — ”

“But nothing,” Conroe interrupted again. “A teenage girl is missing, and you’re not doing anything about it?”

“Gerry, let him finish,” Nancy Conroe said, sensing that her husband’s temper was about to get the best of him.

Choosing his words carefully, Pullman repeated much of what he’d just heard from Trip Wainwright. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Gerry,” he finished, “but I can’t accuse Matt Moore — or anyone else, for that matter — of having done anything to Kelly. Not yet.”

Conroe’s eyes, cold with fury, bored into the policeman.

Pullman, with a tight grip on his own anger, went on: “Unless you’ve got something a lot stronger than your own suspicions about Matt Moore to go on, you and Nancy are just going to have to wait until morning. You know as well as I do that in ninety percent of cases like this — ”

“My daughter isn’t ninety percent of anything, Pullman,” Conroe snapped. “You’re acting like she’s the same kind of trash as Valerie Delaney. Everybody knew she was out getting laid, but my daughter isn’t a slut. She’d never do anything like that. The only mistake she ever made was getting involved with Matthew Moore.”

“Gerry, please calm down,” Nancy pleaded once more, but Gerry shook her words off as easily as he brushed her hand away from his arm.

“I’m telling you, Pullman,” Conroe insisted, “there’s something wrong with that boy! There’s something way wrong with him, and I intend to find out what it is. No one knows who his father is, no one knows where he came from. And I always say — ”

Pullman had finally had enough. “Everyone in town knows what you always say, Conroe — God knows you say it often enough. But I’m not going after Matt Moore or anyone else just because I don’t know who his father was.” Conroe started to interrupt, but Pullman raised a hand as if to fend off his words before he could utter them. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

“You won’t have your job long enough to give anyone special treatment by the time I get through with you,” Conroe warned.

Dan Pullman’s voice dropped dangerously low. “Don’t threaten me, Gerry,” he warned. “Right now, I don’t give a damn what you think you can do to me. You find anything that implicates Matt Moore in whatever might have happened to your daughter — assuming she didn’t just get as sick of your snobbery as I am and just take off — and I’ll do something about it. But until then, don’t tell me how to do my job, and don’t threaten me with what you think you can do with your two-bit gossip sheet.” Without waiting for a reply, Pullman wheeled around, strode to his car, and drove away into the night.

“You want to know about Matt Moore?” Gerry Conroe whispered as he watched the departing car. “I’ll find out everything there is to know about him!” Even as the car vanished, carrying the object of his wrath with it, Conroe’s fury continued to grow. “You’ll see…”

* * *

JOAN HADN’T REALIZED she’d been asleep until she heard the eleventh stroke of the clock. Certainly she hadn’t been sleeping deeply — both her body and her mind felt as exhausted as when she turned off the lights downstairs before going up to bed an hour ago. Her eyes had fallen on the TV as she’d passed through the den, and more to put off going upstairs and facing what she knew would be a sleepless night than because she was interested, she flipped on the television and dropped onto the sofa. She’d tried to concentrate on the local news, but instead of hearing the anchorman, she kept thinking about what Trip Wainwright had said: “He’s going to want to know everything you did this afternoon, minute by minute.” She’d seen the look on Matt’s face as the lawyer spoke, the flash of panic that had come into his eyes, and she knew then that there was something Matt hadn’t told her.

Hadn’t told her, or couldn’t remember?

Now, with the news still droning in the background, she tried to convince herself that she’d imagined it, that there was no reason for Matt to hide anything from her. As the soft note of the clock’s chime faded away, she told herself that it would be all right — if Kelly weren’t home already, certainly she would turn up tomorrow. She reached for the phone, to call Nancy Conroe, but changed her mind before lifting the receiver. If Kelly had come home, she would have heard. Maybe not from Nancy or Gerry, but surely they would have called Dan Pullman and he would have called her. And the last thing she needed tonight was to hear Gerry accusing her son. Turning off the television and the lights, she went through the downstairs once more, checking the windows and doors.

Checking them against what?

In all the years she’d lived in this house, even though it stood alone, surrounded by the forest, she had never felt frightened. Yet tonight, as she moved from room to room, she felt uneasy.

Exposed.

As if there were someone — or something — lurking in the darkness outside.

Looking in at her.

Watching her.

There’s nothing, she told herself. There’s never been anything out there to worry about, and there still isn’t! Yet as she turned off the last light, plunging the downstairs into a darkness that no eye could penetrate from outside the house, the uneasiness refused to leave her, and as she started up the stairs, it grew worse.

She paused at the top of the stairs, listening.

All around her the old house creaked and groaned.

Like it always does, she reminded herself. Nothing’s different tonight.

Nothing!

She started toward her own room, but paused at the door to Cynthia’s room. Though it was closed, she could almost feel a presence behind it.

Her sister’s presence? Of course not — her sister was dead!

But she’d heard her sister’s voice, heard her laughter.

Seen her.

Memories, she reminded herself. The voices and laughter she’d heard were nothing but memories! And it’s not Cynthia’s room! It’s a guest room. My guest room! But still, her hand closed on the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

The room was empty.

Joan stood just outside the doorway, staring into the darkness at her sister’s dimly perceived things. But they weren’t her sister’s, not anymore. Her sister was dead, and the dead couldn’t own anything. But as her eyes fell on the shadowed portrait of Cynthia, she heard her sister’s voice, as she had before.

“They’re still mine, Joan. Everything you have is mine.”

“No,” Joan whispered, unaware that she’d spoken aloud.

“It is, Joan. You know it is. I’m taking it back, Joan. I’m taking it all back!”

“It’s not true,” Joan whispered, snapping on the light and scanning the clutter in the room.

The pictures on the walls.

The makeup on the vanity.

The small bottle of Nightshade, its powerful scent hanging in the air, even though its stopper was in place.

Junk, Joan told herself. It’s nothing but junk, and tomorrow — first thing — she would rid herself of it all, empty the room of everything that reminded her of Cynthia, get it all out of the house.

Get it out, and burn it.

That was it — she’d take all her sister’s things, along with all the terrible memories they were kindling, and burn them in the old incinerator behind the carriage house.

Her hand still gripping the doorknob, she scanned all her sister’s belongings once more, but now she saw them in flames, the dresses burning on the hangers, smoke curling from the robe that lay across the chair next to the bed, the makeup on the vanity charring into gray ash. Just the vision of it in her imagination added to her resolve, and she pulled the door closed, turning her back on the room.

Ten minutes later she was in her bed, the lights off, the door closed, the window open to let in the cold autumn air and the sounds of the night. For a few minutes she lay awake, her eyes open in the darkness. The house creaked around her; she could hear the breeze soughing through the trees beyond the window. For a moment she felt the comfort she’d always felt in this bed, in this room, in this house.

She was almost able to convince herself that in a moment the door would open and Bill would come into the room, and a moment or two after that slip into the bed beside her and take her in his arms. Then reality crept in.

Nothing in her life would ever be as it had been only a week ago. Everything had changed — everything had been shattered. And there was nothing she could do — nothing anyone could do — to put it back together again. Her eyes stung with tears, but she refused to give in to them.

Matt, she thought. I still have Matt. Forcing herself to turn away from her grief, her worries, and her fears, she conjured an image of her son — her perfect son who, no matter what anyone else thought or said, could never have done any of the things of which he was being accused. Not Matt.

Not her perfect Matt.

Clinging to the thoughts — and to the image — Joan finally drifted into sleep.

* * *

WHEN SHE AWOKE again, the blackness of the night still surrounded her, but its sounds — the faint murmuring of birds and insects, the soft whisper of the wind, even the familiar creaking of the house — had fallen silent.

Then, as the silence seemed to close around her, she felt it.

She was no longer alone in the room.

But that wasn’t possible — of course she was alone. Who would have come in? The doors and windows downstairs were all locked — she’d checked them herself.

But as she tried to reassure herself, her heart began to race. She could hear it throbbing in the silence, feel it pounding in her chest.

And whatever had crept into her room drew nearer.

Matt! It had to be Matt!

“Matt?” she whispered, her voice preternaturally loud in the silence. “Is that you?”

It was as the echo of her words died away that she heard it.

Laughter.

Cynthia’s laughter, barely audible, but coming from everywhere. Everywhere and nowhere.

She tried to reach for the light, but it was as if her limbs had frozen, and she lay helplessly where she was, unable to move.

The presence was close to her now. She could feel it all around her, reaching out to her, groping for her in the darkness.

Her skin tingled with anticipation, and her body grew moist with a sheen of sweat. Then she felt it.

The first caress was feather light, almost as if she hadn’t been touched at all. But then she felt it again, this time like the touch of a lover’s fingers, stroking her limbs, tracing strange patterns on her skin.

Hands were moving over her, exploring her.

“No,” she whimpered. “Don’t… please don’t…”

She squirmed, writhing her body in an effort to escape the strange sensations, but no matter how she moved, the touch followed her. Followed her, and found her, reaching deeper and deeper within her.

“No,” she whispered again. “No… oh, please, no…” But it was too late. Whatever had come for her, whatever had her in its embrace, held her firmly in its grip, and she knew there was no escape. Now a new blackness began closing around her, a blackness far deeper than that of the night.

The blackness of unconsciousness.

She reached out to it, embracing it. As she let herself fall into its welcoming arms, she heard Cynthia whisper, “Go to sleep. Just go to sleep… ”

Her sister’s voice echoing in her mind, Joan let herself fall away into the blackness.