All Night Long (6 page)

She took the chipped mug of tea back to the sagging couch and sat down. A heavy engine growled softly in the night. Luke had returned. She looked through the curtains and watched him get out of the SUV and let himself into Cabin Number One. Somehow, it helped knowing that he was in the vicinity.

She sat quietly and thought about the terrible summer of her fifteenth year, the summer when she had become, for three short, memorable months, Pamela Webb’s best friend. The summer her parents had been murdered.

At a quarter to three in the morning, she made her decision and reached for her phone.

Adeline Grady answered on the sixth or seventh ring.

“You’ve got Grady,” Adeline said in a sleepy voice that had been rendered permanently husky by a daily regimen of expensive whiskey and good cigars. “If this isn’t important, Irene, you’re fired.”

“I’ve got an exclusive for you, Addy.”

Adeline yawned audibly on the other end of the line. “Whatever it is, it had better be a lot bigger than the fight over the proposed dog park at the last city council meeting.”

“It is. Senator Ryland Webb’s daughter, Pamela, was found dead in the family’s summer home on Ventana Lake at—” She glanced at her watch. “Ten forty-five this evening.”

“Talk to me, kid.” The sleep disappeared miraculously from Adeline’s voice, leaving behind an edgy impatience. “What’s going on?”

“At the very least, I think I can guarantee that the
Beacon
will be the first paper in the state to break the news of Pamela Webb’s mysterious and untimely death.”

“Mysterious and untimely?”

“The local authorities are going to call it a probable suicide or an accidental overdose, but I think there’s more to it.”

“Pamela Webb,” Adeline said, sounding thoughtful now. “Is that who you went to Dunsley to see?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize you knew her.”

“It was a long time ago,” Irene said.

“Huh.” There were some rustling movements on the other end of the line and then the muffled click of what sounded like a light switch. “I seem to recall some rumors about her having done some time in rehab.”

Before Adeline had retired and moved to Glaston Cove to take over the
Beacon,
she put in thirty years as a reporter with one of the state’s major dailies. Irene was reassured to hear the unmistakable spark of interest and curiosity in her boss’s rough voice. There was a story here, she thought. Adeline sensed it, too.

“I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got in a few minutes, okay?” Irene said.

“You’re sure this is an exclusive?”

“Trust me, at this point the
Beacon
is the only paper in the entire world that knows Pamela Webb is dead.”

“How did we get lucky?” Adeline asked.

“I was the one who found the body.”

Adeline whistled softly. “Okay, that qualifies as an exclusive. You’ll get your byline and you’ll be above the fold. Under most circumstances, the death of a senator’s daughter would be nothing more than a private tragedy. But given that Webb is getting ready to make a run for the White House, this is a bigger story.”

“One more thing, Addy. Would you ask Jenny or Gail to go to my apartment, pack up some clothes and overnight them to me?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to be here in Dunsley for a while.”

“Thought you hated that town,” Adeline said.

“I do. I’m hanging around because I’ve got a hunch there’s more to this story.”

“I can feel lust growing in this old reporter’s heart. What’s going on?”

“I think Pamela Webb was murdered.”

M
axine blew in through the lobby door at nine o’clock, moving like the small whirlwind she was. She was an attractive, high-energy woman in her mid-thirties with blue eyes and a cloud of artificially blond hair that always looked as if it had been whipped up by the rotor blades of a helicopter. She controlled the wild hair with a headband. Luke had discovered over the past few months that she had an endless assortment of bands, each in a different color. Today’s was bright pink.

He found her enthusiasm for her job amusing, inexplicable and mildly exhausting.

She kicked the door shut and came to a halt, her arms wrapped around a paper sack that bore the logo of the Dunsley Market, and fixed him with an accusing glare.

“I just came from the market. Everyone’s saying that Irene Stenson is back in town and that she’s staying right here at the lodge and that the two of you found Pamela Webb’s body last night.”

Luke leaned on the desk. “The way gossip moves through this town probably ought to be a classified military secret.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maxine put the sack down on
the table she had selected for the morning coffee and doughnut service. “I work here at the lodge, for heaven’s sake. I should have been the first to know. Instead I had to hear the news from Edith Harper. Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me?”

“Irene Stenson phoned in the reservation yesterday morning while you were out running some errands. Checked in late yesterday afternoon after you’d gone home for the day. We didn’t find the body until a quarter to eleven last night. What with one thing and another, there hasn’t been time to bring you up to speed. Sorry about that.”

Maxine whistled softly and slung her coat over one of the antlers of the coatrack. “The whole town is talking. I doubt if there’s been this much excitement since the day Irene left all those years ago.” She frowned in genuine concern. “How is she, by the way? Finding Pamela like that must have been dreadful. They were best friends for a summer back in high school, you know.”

“Just one summer?”

“Pamela was usually only here during the summers. The rest of the time she was away at some fancy boarding school or skiing in the Alps or something. She and Irene made an odd match, to tell you the truth. They couldn’t have been more different.”

“Maybe that was the appeal.”

Maxine pursed her lips, considering the possibility, then shrugged. “Could be. Pamela was the classic wild child. She was into drugs and boys, and her daddy the senator gave her everything she wanted. She always had the newest, trendiest clothes, a flashy sports car the day she turned sixteen, you name it.”

“What about Irene Stenson?”

“Just the opposite, like I said. The quiet, studious type. Spent most of her free time in the library. Always had her nose buried in a book. Always polite to adults. Never got into trouble. Never had a date.”

“What did her parents do?”

“Her mother, Elizabeth, painted, although I don’t think
she ever made any money off her art. Her father, Hugh Stenson, was the chief of police here in Dunsley.”

“A job that probably didn’t provide for unlimited teenage wardrobes, new cars and ski trips.”

“You got that right.” Maxine scowled at the empty platter on the coffee service table. “You didn’t put out any doughnuts for the guests.”

“I threw the last batch away yesterday. It was either that or weld them together to make a new anchor for the boat. Besides, there’s only one guest at the moment, and something tells me she isn’t going to get excited about doughnuts, at least not the kind the Dunsley Market sells.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. Luckily I picked up a fresh package this morning.” Maxine took a box out of the paper sack, ripped it open and began arranging doughnuts on a plastic tray. “It looks inviting to have a few pastries and some freshly brewed coffee available in the mornings. All of the better-class hotels and inns do it.”

“I like to think that the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge is in a class by itself,” Luke said. “Tell me the rest of the Stenson story.”

“Well, as I was saying, for whatever reason, the summer Pamela Webb turned sixteen, she decided to make Irene her best friend.” Maxine tipped her head slightly to the side, looking thoughtful. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Pamela liked the contrast she and Irene made. She probably figured that having quiet, unfashionable little Irene in her orbit made her look even more glittery and exciting. At any rate, for about three months they were inseparable. No one understood why Irene’s folks allowed her to associate with Pamela, though.”

“Pamela was held to be a bad influence, I take it?”

Maxine grimaced. “Worst possible influence. Lot of busybodies took it upon themselves to warn Mr. and Mrs. Stenson that if they didn’t keep Irene away from Pamela, she would come to a bad end. It was widely predicted hereabouts that sooner or later sweet little Irene Stenson would fall victim to the evil forces of sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

“Ah, the innocent pleasures of youth.”

“Yep, the good old days,” Maxine agreed. “But for some reason, which no one in town could understand, the Stensons didn’t seem to object to the friendship between the two girls. Maybe they liked the idea of Irene hanging out with the daughter of a U.S. senator, although I never thought the Stensons were impressed by that kind of thing.”

Luke studied the view of Cabin Number Five through the trees. Most of the lights had been left burning all night. The last time he had checked, sometime after four in the morning, the glow in the bedroom had diminished to a dim, silvery blue. He had concluded that Irene had finally gone to sleep with a night-light in that room.

“Go on with the story,” he said. It was going to be bad, he thought. He could feel it in his bones.

“One night Hugh Stenson shot his wife to death in the kitchen of their home. Then he turned the gun on himself.”

“Damn.” He’d known it would be rough, he reminded himself. “What about Irene?”

“She was out with Pamela Webb that night. When she got home she found the bodies.” Maxine paused. “She was only fifteen years old, and she was alone when she walked into the house. Still gives me the creeps just thinking about it after all this time.”

He said nothing.

“It was incredibly tragic. Really shook up the community. Later there were rumors that Elizabeth Stenson had been having an affair with someone in Dunsley and that Hugh went crazy mad when he found out.”

“Crazy mad?”

Maxine nodded somberly. “There was also a lot of talk about how Hugh had seen some heavy combat during his time in the Marines and that he suffered from that post-trauma thing.”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“That’s it.”

He looked at Cabin Number Five again and saw Irene coming through the trees toward the lobby. She was dressed
much as she had been yesterday, in a pair of sleek black trousers and a black pullover. The long black trench coat was unfastened. The hem swirled around the tops of her gleaming black leather boots.

The family history certainly explained the shadows and secrets he had seen in those amazing eyes, he thought.

“Wow.” Maxine peered through the window at Irene. “Is that Irene?”

“That’s her.”

“I never would have recognized her. She looks so…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Maxine admitted. “So different, I guess. Not like that poor, brokenhearted girl I remember seeing at the funerals.”

“Where did Irene go to live after the deaths of her parents?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. On the night of the murder-suicide, one of the police officers, a man named Bob Thornhill, took Irene home with him. The next day an elderly aunt arrived to take charge of Irene. We never saw her again after they buried her folks.”

“Until now.”

Maxine did not take her eyes off Irene. “I can’t get over how she’s changed. She’s so sophisticated-looking. Like I said, she never even dated back in high school.”

“Probably dates now,” Luke said. “A lot.”

He could not imagine any man ignoring that cool, subtle, feminine challenge.

“Who would have guessed she’d turn out so classy and stylish?” Maxine went back to the coffee table and got very busy. “Let’s see, she would be about thirty-two now. Still using her own name, too. Sounds like she never married. Or maybe she’s divorced and took back her own name.”

“She didn’t mention a husband,” Luke said. He would have remembered that. “No ring, either.”

“Wonder why she came back?”

“To see Pamela Webb, apparently.”

“Then she goes and finds Pamela’s body.” Maxine
dumped the used coffee grounds into the trash. “I mean, unless you’re a cop or something, what are the odds that you would accidentally stumble over
three
dead bodies in your entire life, let alone before you even turn forty? Most people only see bodies at funerals, which isn’t the same thing at all.”

“You were with your mother when she died.”

“Yes, but—” Maxine paused, frowning a little, as though not certain how to explain. “She had been ill for a long time and undergoing hospice care. Her death wasn’t sudden or violent or unexpected, if you know what I mean. It was peaceful in an odd way. More like a transition of some kind.”

“I understand,” Luke said quietly.

She was right, he thought. The violently and the unexpectedly dead looked very different. The living who were unfortunate enough to come upon them without any warning or preparation had no time to process the awful reality in a normal, careful way.

And some things were too terrible to ever be completely processed, he thought. You either learned to lock them away or you went under.