All Fall Down (3 page)

“You think you’ve found Rosalind Van Zandt,” Logan Quint said, looking at Blaine.

Blaine had been unaware of Robin slipping into the room and was surprised to hear her say evenly, “It
is
Rosie, Sheriff. I knew immediately from the long black hair it was Rosie.”

Robin was wrapped in a white terry-cloth robe, her eyes huge in her blanched face. Caitlin went over and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.

“She was reported missing a little over two hours ago,” Logan said. Cait had turned on a couple of lamps, and their soft light played over his features. Blaine noted the changes in the face she had once known so well. At thirty-two, Logan had an air of robust health and vitality that was tempered by lines of fatigue around his mouth and sadness in his dark eyes. His hair was as dead black as ever, though, and the Iroquois blood passed on to him by his mother showed in his prominent cheekbones and aquiline nose.

“Rosie was supposed to be in Charleston,” Robin said. “Instead she was lying out in that horrible creek—” She made a strangled sound, and Cait stroked her wet hair.

“Did she tell you she was going to Charleston?” Logan asked.

“Yes. She said she was going to visit her cousin Amanda.”

“Did she do that often—go away to visit Amanda?”

“Maybe three or four times a year. They were pretty close. There was a rock concert in Charleston Friday night. She said she and Amanda were going to it and then she’d spend the weekend, since her aunt didn’t like her driving at night.”

“Do you know Amanda?”

“Sure. She’s the same age as Rosie and I. She’s a really neat girl. I’ve spent the weekend at her house, too. There are six kids in the family. Amanda’s mother never cares whether there are a couple of extras.”

“But Rosalind didn’t invite you to come along this time?”

Robin hesitated. “No. But then, she knew I had to help Blaine move back in here.”

“You didn’t
have
to help,” Blaine said. “I could have managed our stuff just fine on my own. I didn’t know anything about the rock concert.”

Robin waved a hand in dismissal. “It doesn’t matter. She didn’t ask, anyway. Besides, I don’t even like the group that was playing.”

“I see,” Logan Quint said. Then he added, “Mrs. Avery, I suppose you’d better come with us to the woods to show us exactly where the body is.”

“Of course.” Blaine inwardly quailed at the thought of having to go back into those woods, but she wanted to appear strong for Robin and Cait. “Rob, will you be all right here with Caitlin for a little while?”

Robin nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Maybe Blaine would rather I go with you and let
her
stay here,” Cait said.

Blaine shook her head. “No. I know the woods better than you do.”

Stroud looked impatient. “Well, we’d better stop all this talkin’ and get goin’. It’s almost dark.”

“He’s right,” Logan said. “And I think I hear the emergency squad.”

He went to the front door, and Blaine looked out the front windows to see an ambulance and another police car pulling into the driveway. He glanced back at Blaine. “Is it a long walk to where you found the body?”

“The way I went this afternoon, yes. But unless the body’s floated away from the tree, we could get much closer to it by going back down Prescott Road and turning onto the access road at the south end of the property.”

“Access road?”

“There’s an oil well back in the woods. Trucks use that road about every two weeks to reach the storage tank. The well isn’t far from the body.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Blaine and Abel Stroud got in the sheriff’s car, and while Logan was talking to the drivers of the ambulance and the patrol car, Blaine caught Abel studying her closely in the rearview mirror. “You feelin’ okay these days, Miz Avery?”

“I’m fine.”

“I heard you had a pretty nasty case of the pneumonia. Out of your head for a while, weren’t you?”

“Yes, because of my fever, but I’m all right now. I’ll be starting back to school tomorrow.”

“That’s what my girl, Arletta, told me. You remember Arletta, don’t you?”

Oh,
did
she. “Yes,” she said without expression.

“You know, she was real hurt over that grade you gave her in English last year, but I told her, ‘Hell, honey, don’t anybody out in the big world care a thing about Shakespeare, so don’t you worry one little bit about it.’ ” So I’ve been put in my place, Blaine thought. Annoyed, she shifted her gaze out the window and didn’t answer. But Abel wouldn’t give up. “Takin’ that class over in summer school didn’t sit too well with her, though.”

“I’m sure it didn’t.”

“Didn’t sit too well with me, either, her wastin’ a whole summer on a lot of impractical silliness.”

“Abel, Arletta didn’t flunk a course in Shakespeare, she flunked grammar.
Basic
grammar. And I don’t think learning to write intelligibly is a lot of impractical silliness.”

“Well, now, don’t get on your high horse.” Stroud craned around to look at her, his wide forehead puckering in mock concern. “You
sure
you’re feelin’ all right these days? You seem pretty tense to me.”

“I just found the body of my stepdaughter’s best friend on my property,” she snapped. “Wouldn’t
you
be tense?”

She caught Stroud’s half smile and could have kicked herself for letting him bait her the way he had done all through the investigation into Martin’s death. He was always careful not to do it in front of other people, though. She wondered whether he did it for fun or because he hoped to goad her into slipping and admitting something he thought she was hiding.

She was relieved to see Logan striding to the car. “Okay, we’re ready,” he said.

Daylight saving time made night fall uncomfortably early, Blaine noted. At six o’clock, the sky was already violet. In thirty minutes it would be black. She hoped she would be able to lead them right to the body and not lose her bearings in the woods. She had never been in them after dark, but she knew the location of the old willow. Surely the darkness wouldn’t completely destroy her sense of direction.

They turned right, onto the narrow, graveled access road, the ambulance and second police car following them. As they jolted over potholes, Blaine knew she would need to have new gravel spread soon. A lot had been lost in Saturday’s deluge. Maybe she would have it done next week, before bad weather set in. Then she thought how odd it was that your mind could fill itself with trivialities in the face of disaster. Maybe that was its means of self-protection.

They slowed as they reached the beginning of the woods. “Car parked up ahead,” Logan said.

Blaine leaned forward to see a red Toyota Celica convertible pulled to the side of the access road. She was very familiar with the car—it had been a gift from Rosalind’s aunt on her seventeenth birthday.

“That’s Rosie’s car,” she said.

They stopped and got out to look at it. The car’s tires were sunk about an inch into drying mud. “Look how clean the car is,” Logan said. “Someone parked it here before the storm yesterday. Otherwise, hitting those potholes even at a low speed would have splashed mud all over the lower half of it. Besides, it’s plastered with dead leaves brought down by the rain.”

Stroud nodded. “Haven’t you spotted this car before, Miz Avery?”

“No. It’s so far back it can’t be seen from the main road, and I haven’t been out here since I moved back yesterday morning. The truck hasn’t been here to pick up oil for over a week, either.”

“I guess that explains why it hasn’t been found,” Logan said. “Anything in there?”

Stroud pointed a flashlight beam into the window. “Empty.” He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and tried the door. “Locked.”

“We’ll look it over better later. Right now I want to get to that body.”

They started up again, going deeper into the woods. It was much darker here, with the trees crowding close to the road. About five hundred feet into the woods stood the oil well. Blaine remembered how disappointed she’d been when she first saw it, rising only about seven feet high; she’d pictured the towering rigs she had seen in the movie
Giant
. Martin had laughed. “I’m not running a big oil company here, sweetheart. Just one little well that brings in a few thousand dollars a year.” Near the pump stood a tall, pale green storage tank where the oil was kept until a truck came to collect it. Immediately beyond the well the road ended.

“We’ll have to walk from here,” Blaine said.

The three of them climbed out of the car. The ambulance attendants walked behind them, carrying equipment Blaine didn’t care to see. Maybe a gaffing hook. And certainly a body bag. The deputies had more flashlights, and Abel Stroud carried a camera.

The big flashlights put out yellowish beams in the dusk, lighting the winding path. No one said anything—the only sounds were those of twigs snapping under their feet, small animals scurrying through the underbrush, and a night breeze rustling hauntingly through the dying leaves on the trees. Blaine stopped. “Down there.” She pointed to the left. “There’s a big willow on the creek bank.”

“Lead the way,” Logan said.

Blaine drew in her breath. “You want me to go back there?”

“I don’t want us wandering around on the creek bank for ten minutes looking for the willow tree. The light’s almost gone as it is.”

She glared at him. The tree was huge—they couldn’t miss it, and what difference would five minutes make? Was Logan trying to make this as hard as possible for her? If so, his gaze didn’t waver guiltily, and she felt Abel Stroud’s little eyes watching her closely with what she thought was amusement. Well, she wouldn’t give either Logan or Stroud the satisfaction of seeing her cower on the path like a terrified little girl. “Follow me,” she said, her voice hard-edged as she tried to cover her fright.

“Wait a second.” Logan pressed one of the flashlights into her hand. It felt heavy and only slightly warmed by his touch.

“Thank you,” Blaine said coldly.

They plodded into the undergrowth. The creek ran just short of one hundred feet from the path, but Blaine felt as if they were walking through miles of withering vines covering muddy earth that sucked at their shoes. She was scared out in the woods Martin had loved so well, leading these men to Rosalind’s body. Oh, God, her aunt would have to formally identify her, Blaine thought in horror. Joan Peyton. She had been the guidance counselor at the high school since Blaine was a student. Joan had moved in with her parents, Ned and Edith Peyton, after finishing graduate school in the early seventies. She was devoted to her family and devastated when Ned Peyton died of cancer a year ago. But it was Rosalind on whom she had doted, Rosie, the daughter of Joan’s sister, Charlotte, who had been killed in a chartered plane crash in Brazil when Rosie was ten months old. Rosie was the center of Joan’s world, and while her death would be bad enough, seeing her body in this condition would be a nightmare from which Joan would never recover.

Blaine was suddenly freezing, although the temperature was around forty. Above her head two bats darted and swooped. She cringed, even though she knew they were more interested in catching insects than in tangling themselves in her hair. Still, she shifted the flashlight to her left hand and with her right twisted her long hair into a loop and stuffed it down under the collar of her windbreaker. In the distance came the unsettling, trembling call of a screech owl, its whistle running down the scale like the sound of doom. Blaine couldn’t help thinking that in the Egyptian system of hieroglyphics, the owl symbolized death, night, and cold. Should she tell Abel Stroud that? she wondered with nervous facetiousness. He’d think she was crazy.

As if he knew she was thinking of him, he asked sharply, “We gettin’ anywhere
near
, Miz Avery, or are you lost?”

Blaine gritted her teeth. “We’re near, Abel.”

They finally arrived at the creek bank, and Blaine spun the flashlight to the left. The beam picked up the willow. She took a few more steps forward and shone the light downward. Rosalind’s stiff hand with its rigid fingers swayed as the night breeze shifted the willow limbs. She appeared to be waving a macabre hello, while the black holes where her eyes had been seemed to burn through Blaine. “There,” Blaine said roughly, quickly shifting the light away from the ravaged face.

She stood back while two brawny young men went to work with gaffing hooks. Logan leaned forward, grabbed the willow limbs, and with surprising force tore them loose from Rosalind’s arm. Blaine turned away as, with a great sloshing of water and muttered warnings—“Be careful! She’s stiff as a board. Don’t lose her!”—they dragged the body up on the bank. Vaguely Blaine was aware of Logan kneeling to examine Rosalind. “Fish and birds been at her eyes,” Abel Stroud said. Blaine repeatedly swallowed to wash down the hot water flooding into her mouth at the thought of Rosie’s missing eyes. She was determined not to be sick in front of all these people. Then Abel exclaimed, “Well, goddamn, will you look at that!”

“Blaine,” Logan said, “I want you to come here and look at her.”

Damn him! She thought. What’s the purpose in
my
looking at her? But she closed her eyes briefly, then turned around and took a couple of steps closer.

The girl rested among the weeds, her rigid legs splayed. One foot wore a white leather running shoe, the other only a muddy sock. Her lips were bluish, her face dead white except for the red bite lesions where muscle showed through. Her hair lay in filthy strings.

“That’s Rosalind,” she said weakly.

Logan nodded. “I know. But I want you to look at something else. I wouldn’t have seen this if I hadn’t pulled her arm loose from the tree.” He rolled back the sleeves of Rosalind’s grimy sweater to reveal deep, vicious gashes in both her wrists. In one gash rested a silver bracelet with
Rosalind
engraved in beautiful script.

“Suicide,” Abel Stroud pronounced.

Blaine stumbled away from the body. “I don’t believe it.”

“I know,” one of the ambulance attendants said sadly. “It’s hard to believe a young kid would kill herself. I’ve got a girl about this age myself.”

“If she hadn’t gotten caught in the tree roots, she would have sunk, and we might not have found her for weeks,” Logan said. He looked up at Blaine. “I’m going to take you home now. We have a lot of work to do here.”

Blaine nodded, beyond speech. They trudged in silence through the vines and down the path back to the sheriff’s car. Logan muttered curses as he struggled to turn the car around on the narrow access road with the ambulance and the police cruiser so close behind and trees on either side, and Blaine realized he was more shaken by what he had seen than he’d appeared at first. But then, Logan had always been reserved, his feelings revealed only by small, unconscious gestures. The thought floated away, though, as they sped over the access road, the car spitting gravel behind it, and headed back toward the main road.

Finally Logan spoke. “When Abel said ‘suicide’ back there, you said you didn’t believe it.”

“How can I believe that girl committed suicide
here
, just six months after Martin shot himself?”

“Maybe that’s why she chose this place—because there had already been one
suicide
here.” Blaine heard his emphasis on the word
suicide
, but kept quiet. “I just can’t understand why the dog didn’t find her before now.”

“Stop playing cat and mouse with me, Logan. The police have watched my every move for months, and you know very well the dog and Robin have been with me at Cait’s house for five weeks since I had pneumonia. Ashley wasn’t brought back here until I came yesterday morning, and I kept her confined in the enclosed side yard or in the house until we took our walk a couple of hours ago.”

“That explains it. But why did you stay at Cait’s so long? It doesn’t take five weeks to get over pneumonia.”

Blaine gritted her teeth, resentful of having to explain herself once again to the police. “I needed some time away from this house. I wish Robin and I could have gone somewhere this summer, but there were so many questions about Martin’s death. You people put me through hell.”

“Look, Blaine,” Logan said evenly, “I know you’ve been furious with me ever since the investigation into Martin’s death, but I was only doing my job.”

“With a great deal of gusto, it seemed to me.”

“And what was I supposed to do? Go easy on you so everyone could say I was protecting a woman I was once involved with?”

“When we were teenagers? You actually think people even
remember
we dated way back then?”

“They remember, all right. They remember everything around here, especially the Indian and Jim O’Connor’s daughter. We were considered a colorful couple,” he said dryly.

“I don’t think colorful is quite the word they used.”

“It doesn’t matter. Those days are long gone. Besides, there’s no point in going into a tailspin over the investigation of Martin’s death now. You were never even charged with the murder.”

“Only
suspected
. That was enough. Half the town has already tried and convicted me. I’m surprised they even let me keep my job at the high school.”

Logan sighed. “Okay, let’s drop this for now.”

“That’s fine with me,” Blaine snapped, annoyed by the tremor in her voice. She had thought the nightmare was over, but it seemed to be starting again. She was scared. All evidence to the contrary, Blaine had always believed Martin committed suicide. She’d lived with him—she’d known the depth of his depression. And who would murder Martin? But the police believed someone had, and she’d been the prime suspect. Now another death had occurred on this property, but Blaine was certain
this
one was not a case of suicide. She knew with a bone-chilling certainty that someone had killed Rosie. And here she was in the middle of things again. What she needed was a few comforting words, a sign of confidence in her good character, but Logan appeared to be carved out of stone, a lawman to his very bones. She felt as if she hated him at that moment as he drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the steering wheel.

“You knew Rosalind Van Zandt. Did you ever get any indication she might be suicidal?”

“No,” Blaine said firmly, trying to swallow her hostility and shock and be as accurate as possible. “She was beautiful. Outgoing. Very bright.”

“I know all that. She was one of those kids who has their picture in the paper every week for doing something outstanding, like being the county fair queen or heading up the student council drive to collect money for the homeless. How about boyfriends?”

“Nothing serious that I know of. Joan was pretty strict with her. The only guy I’ve seen her with is Tony Jarvis.”

“Tony
Jarvis!
I thought you said Joan Peyton was strict.”

“I know they seemed like an unlikely pair, and I don’t think Joan was too pleased about their friendship, but from what Robin told me, their relationship was casual. They mostly got together to work on music for Tony’s rock band. Tony wrote the music, and Rosie did the lyrics.”

“Are you sure that’s all it was?”

“No, I’m
not
sure. Rosie spent a lot of time at our house, but she didn’t confide in me about her romantic life, and Robin and I aren’t close. That’s all I know. Maybe Robin would tell you more.”

“Okay, what about Rosalind’s background? How did she feel about her parents’ death?”

“She didn’t even remember them.”

“I was in high school when they died. I remember the hubbub caused by their accident, especially since Joan was the guidance counselor at school and had to take some time off, but I don’t remember the details.”

They’d turned into the driveway and Logan had switched off the engine, but he obviously did not want to go into the house until he’d finished questioning her. Blaine settled back against the vinyl seat and took a deep breath as she dredged up the story she hadn’t thought about for many years. “Rosie’s father was an engineer. He went to Brazil to build a bridge. Charlotte, Rosie’s mother, came here for a visit with Rosie right after he left. Rosie was a baby. Then Charlotte decided to go on to Brazil alone, and a month later Joan was to take Rosie down. Except that in the meantime, Charlotte and Derek, her husband, were killed in a plane crash. I’ve always thought that was one reason Rosie and Robin got to be such good friends—they’d both lost their mothers when they were very young. Robin was only one when Gloria died, you know. And, of course, Martin was a good friend of the Peytons.”

“Did he know Charlotte well?”

“Yes, I think so. He knew Joan better, though. She was closer to his age.”

“Did Martin ever meet Rosalind’s father?”

“If he did, he never mentioned it. Rosie said her parents were married in Boston, her father’s home. I don’t think he got along too well with the Peytons, and he didn’t come around much.”

“Why didn’t he get along with them?”

“I have no idea, Logan. I don’t think Rosie knew, either. Maybe they thought he just wasn’t good enough for Charlotte, or maybe they weren’t happy that his work took him all over the world and therefore took Charlotte away from them. They were crazy about her, but they hardly ever saw her after she got married, or so Martin said once.”

“Did Rosalind talk about her parents’ deaths?”

“Not really. One time she showed me pictures of each of them. Her father was really handsome. Charlotte wasn’t a beauty, not like Joan. She
did
wonder what they’d been like, especially her mother. Rosie said Charlotte couldn’t possibly be the paragon everyone claimed she was.” Logan threw her a sharp look. “Oh, she said it with amusement, as if she fully understood how people aggrandize the dead. But there didn’t seem to be any emotional scars because of her parents’ deaths. She was so young when the accident happened, and her aunt and her grandparents adored her. She certainly wasn’t starved for affection.”

Logan nodded. “I see,” he said reflectively. Blaine glanced at the moon hovering clear and sharp-edged over the house. How different it looked from the way it had the other night, when fog diffused its light to a creamy glow.

The other night? Blaine thought, stiffening. What night? What exact night had she taken a drive out to the house? Thursday? It must have been Thursday. But it wasn’t, a clear, frightened voice said in her head. It was Friday, the night when Rosie had told her aunt she was going to Charleston.

“Blaine?”

She whipped her head around. “What?”

“I asked if something was wrong.”

Tell him, her conscience said. But caution won out. “Nothing is wrong beyond the obvious.”

“You just seemed to blank out on me for a minute.”

“I’m cold and tired and overwhelmed. This is all so awful.”

Her voice, her very wording, sounded unnatural, and she knew Logan noticed, but he let it go. Instead he glanced toward the big picture window at the front of the house where Robin stood peering out at them. “I have to question her, you know.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I know the drill,” Blaine said.

Robin gazed at them with an almost frightening calm when they came inside. The hair around her face had dried, but she still wore the white robe, her feet encased in ragged, fuzzy slippers. She looked like a frightened child. Cait and Ashley stood protectively beside her.

“Did you find Rosie?” she asked Logan.

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“Her wrists are slashed. It looks like suicide.”

“Oh, no!” Cait whispered while Robin blinked at him a couple of times, her face motionless. But Blaine saw her fists tightening in the pockets of her robe.

After a moment of silence, Cait said in a thin, strained voice, “I’ve already put on a pot of coffee. I think Blaine needs it. Do you want some, Logan?”

“Yes, that would be fine. I’ve got a few questions to ask Robin, too.”

Logan didn’t seem taken aback by Robin’s unnatural calm. He’s seen it before, Blaine thought, last May when her father died.

Blaine and Logan followed Cait and Robin to the kitchen. The three of them sat down at the glass-topped table while Cait began pouring coffee. Blaine noticed that Cait’s hands were shaking. Her own felt numb.

As Cait set the cups on the table, sloshing more than a little coffee into the saucers, the doorbell rang for the second time that night. “I forgot to tell you,” Cait said. “Rick called. He said he’d come right over.”

Before Blaine could rise from the table, she heard the door open and Rick call, “Blaine? Robin?”

“We’re in the kitchen,” she answered.

Richard Bennett was the town’s only orthopedist and had treated the broken shoulder Martin had also received in the accident that left him a paraplegic. Rick had been a good friend of Martin’s long before his marriage to Blaine, and after Martin’s death he had remained a friend to her, one of her steadfast supporters when so many people in town thought she might have killed her husband.

Cait was already fixing a fourth cup of coffee when Rick walked in. His dark brown hair with its streak of premature gray along the right temple was slightly tousled, his hazel eyes sharp beneath dark brows drawn together in a frown. He looked tired and alarmed, his normally youthful, jaunty manner gone. “Are you three all right?” he asked in a voice gravelly with fatigue.

“We’re not physically hurt, if that’s what you mean,” Blaine said. “I guess Cait told you earlier what’s going on.”

“I just happened to call to see how you were settling in.” His face looked ashy beneath the remains of a summer tan. He glanced at Logan. “Rosalind Van Zandt is dead? It was really her out in the creek?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Good Lord.” Rick let out a long, slow breath. “I was just at her house an hour ago, checking on her grandmother. Chronic congestive heart failure, not to mention a broken hip. Joan told me Rosalind was missing. She was frantic, but then, she’s so overprotective I didn’t really take her panic too seriously. What happened to Rosie?”

“They say she committed suicide,” Blaine said.

“Suicide!” Rick burst out. “That’s crazy!”

“Her wrists were slashed,” Logan said.

“
Slashed…
” Rick gaped at Logan, his jaw slackening. “Are you sure?”

“Kind of hard not to be. The cuts were extremely deep.”

Rick walked slowly across the kitchen and sat down at the table, reaching over to cover Blaine’s hand with his. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“Everything happened so fast, Rick,” Blaine said, flushing at his proprietary manner. Although she felt in desperate need of friendliness and warmth at the moment, she couldn’t forget that rumors had swirled in the spring about her and Martin’s handsome young doctor. Some who later believed she had murdered Martin claimed an involvement with Rick was part of her motive for wanting her paralyzed husband out of the way, and although Blaine knew Rick had more than a professional interest in her, she wished he wouldn’t be so blatant about it in front of Logan. She kept her voice cool. “Naturally I called the police first. Then I had to go back out there with them.”

“I wish I could have been here to go with you, or at least to stay with Robin.”

“Well, you couldn’t know if no one called you, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, Cait was here, thank goodness. Why don’t you take off your coat?”

Rick looked down at his camel’s hair coat almost as if he weren’t aware of having it on. He stood and shrugged out of it to reveal khakis and a white sweater. It was a familiar outfit, his favorite when he wasn’t at his office or the hospital, but it looked more rumpled than usual. “You say she cut her wrists?” he asked incredulously. Logan nodded. “And she was in the creek?” Logan nodded again. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she slash her wrists, then throw herself into the creek?”

“Maybe she just fell in. We’ll know more when we’ve had a chance to look the area over in the morning.”

“God. Who’s going to tell Joan?”

“I will,” Logan said. “Just as soon as I talk with Robin.”