Cold Ridge

Thirteen

Her cabin was cold and empty and had an odd nasty smell that she noticed the minute she walked through the back door. Ty located the cause before she did-a recently dead bat in her woodstove.

Lovely, Carine thought, and tried not to view it as an omen.

Ty carried the bat carcass out on a cast-iron poker, and she turned on the heat and stood in her kitchen as if she were a stranger. She touched the scarred, inexpensive countertop, ran her fingers over the small table, which barely fit in front of a window that looked out on the back meadow. The kitchen, bathroom and the small room that served as her studio were all on the back of the cabin. The great room stretched across the front, with its woodstove and hooked rugs, its comfortable furnishings. A ladder led up to a loft under one half of the slanted ceiling. Her bedroom. At night, she could peer through the balcony railing and watch the dying embers of the fire through the tempered-glass door of her woodstove.

It was, at most, a two-person house, all wood and dark greens, rusts, warm browns, intimate and cozy. Carine had done a lot of the work on it herself. Gus would help, Antonia and Nate-and Ty-when they were in Cold Ridge, even Manny Carrera a couple of times.

No one in town had believed Saskia North would sell Carine the one-acre lot. Saskia likes her isolation, they'd said. Her privacy. She's strange, weird. Indeed, she had been a solitary, intensely creative woman, in her late seventies when she surprised her doubters and sold Carine the lot. Even as a neighbor, Saskia was unreliable in many ways, not showing up when she said she would, making and breaking countless promises as if they were nothing. It was as if her brain was so cluttered up with ideas and whims, sparks of imagination, that little else could get in, never mind stick. Anything she thought of would be worth pursuing, at least for a while.

But only her best ideas grabbed her and held on, and when they did, she pursued them with a vengeance-a painting, a tapestry, a collage, whatever it was. That was something to see. Her folk art was sought by collectors, and had become even more popular since her death, although Ty seemed only vaguely aware of either the financial or the artistic value of what his mother did.

After she died, Gus had often said he didn't know which he liked less, having Carine out there alone, or having her out there alone with Tyler North.

Ty came in through the back door. "Bat's where it won't stink up the joint."

"Did you bury it?"

"No, Carine, I did not bury it or hold a memorial service for it. I threw it in the woods." He zipped up his jacket. "I'll leave you here and go back and finish up the wood. Take you to lunch in town?"

His words caught her off guard. Leave her on her own? Suddenly she didn't want him to leave, or perhaps she just didn't want to be here alone, raking up memories, trying to feel at home. But she didn't want him to notice her ambivalence. "That'd be good."

He winked. "It'll be okay. See you soon."

The door shut softly behind him, and Carine felt the heat come on, clanging in the cold pipes. She checked the refrigerator. Empty, no scum to clean out. She ran the water in the kitchen sink and walked down the short hall to her studio, her desktop computer, her easel, her worktable, her shelves tidy but dusty, as if she'd died and no one had gotten around to cleaning out her house.

"Damn," she breathed, darting outside into the cold air.

Nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same again.

She went into her one-car garage, her much-diminished woodpile just as she'd left it months ago. She loaded cordwood into her arms, one chunk of ash, birch and oak after another, until she was leaning backward against the weight of it. Gus had brought her two cords last fall, before the shooting, and dumped it in her driveway, figuring that'd spur her to get it stacked before winter. What was left was super-dry and would burn easily. But she'd need another two cords at least if she planned to spend any part of the winter here.

She dumped her sixteen-inch logs into the woodbox she'd made herself from old barnboards, then went back for another load.

A midnight-blue car with Massachusetts plates pulled into her dirt driveway, and Gary Turner waved from behind the wheel, smiling, as if he thought she mightbeonedgeandwantedtoreassureher.Heclimbed out, wearing a black pea coat with no hat, the slight breeze catching the ends of his white hair. "I was going to call, but I don't have your cell phone number-"

"That's okay. I don't have it on, anyway, and coverage out here is iffy at best." She brushed sawdust off her barn coat. "I heard the Rancourts were in town. I wasn't sure if you'd come up with them."

"I drove up this morning. I was going to drive up with Mrs. Rancourt last night, but Mr. Rancourt decided to join her, so they came on their own." He squinted at her, his eyes washed out, virtually colorless in the sunlight. "You look better, Carine. Being back here must agree with you."

She smiled. "I suppose it does."

"To be honest, I don't know why you left, man problems or not."

"It's complicated."

He laughed, surprising her. "Probably not as complicated as you think. You've just got a knack for complicating things, and that's not an insult. It's why you can do what you do with a picture of a bird. To most people-you know, it's a bird. With you, it's part of a bigger deal." He looked at her a moment, shaking his head. "You can see why I ended up in security work, not in the arts. How're you doing?"

"All right. I was just stacking wood."

He glanced around, sizing up the place. "I've driven past here a number of times. It's nice. Cute. Kind of like Little Red Riding Hood living out here all by yourself, though, isn't it?"

"It was her grandmother who lived in the woods."

"Yeah, she's the one who got eaten by the wolf. I read my fairy tales as a kid. My favorite was Rapunzel. What a little bastard that guy was, stomping his foot when he didn't get his way-" He grinned at Carine, pointing at her with a victorious laugh. "There! I knew I'd get you. A real smile."

"It feels good." She returned to the garage and squatted down, lifting a chunk of wood, its bark mostly peeled off. "But you didn't come out here to talk fairy tales and make me laugh," she said as she rose, grabbing another log on her way up. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"You're right. I have news." He sighed from the open garage doorway, his manner changing, suggesting there was nothing casual about this visit. "I thought you'd want to know. It's being reported in the media, and I have it confirmed by a source, that Manny Carrera was in Boston to recommend that Mr. Rancourt fire Louis Sanborn."

"Fire Louis? Why?"

"I don't have those details. Mr. Carrera arrived Tuesday night, and he went to see Louis on Wednesday around noontime-"

"Had Manny talked to Sterling already?"

"No. Mr. Rancourt knew Mr. Carrera was in Boston and expected to meet with him later Wednesday afternoon. The Rancourts had an appointment after lunch, that, obviously was canceled due to Louis's death. Mr. Carrera-"

Carine smiled at him. "You can't just use their first names?"

He seemed slightly self-conscious. "It's not my habit. I don't know for certain why he-Manny-went over to the house, but apparently it was to see if he could find Louis and talk to him ahead of his meeting with Mr. Rancourt. It's possible he wanted to give Louis a chance to explain whatever it was Manny had on him."

"I'm sure Manny's cooperating with the police." Carine picked up another log, another bald one, but she couldn't get a good grip on it and dropped it, narrowly missing her toes. She was grateful when Turner didn't jump to help her. "Do you have any idea why he thought Louis should be fired? He must have found out something."

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

"And the police and the media-this story's out there? It's solid?"

"Just that Mr. Carrera was in Boston to recommend Louis be fired. The facts are what they are, Carine. None of us can help that."

She squatted partway down and retrieved her dropped log. " Sterling -what's his role? I still don't understand why he hired Manny in the first place."

"Mr. Rancourt didn't ask Manny to investigate or make recommendations regarding personnel. He was to provide analysis and training. I admit," Turned added coolly, his eyes never leaving Carine as she loaded up her wood, "that I don't know anything about fast-roping out of a helicopter or treating combat injuries. Those aren't typically the skills one needs to do my job."

She peered at him over her armload of logs. "You think Sterling was wasting his time hiring Manny."

"His money, my time. But it wasn't my call. He and Mrs. Rancourt felt they owed Manny for saving their lives last November and wanted to help him get a start." Turner stepped forward, apparently just now noticing she was weighed down. "Can I help you?"

"I've got it, thanks." The load of wood was up to her chin, and she had to maneuver carefully out of the garage to avoid tripping and having it all go flying. "It feels good to get back to my old routines, actually. Did the Rancourts ask you to tell me about Manny and Louis? Is that why you stopped by?"

"It's one reason. They want to keep you up to date. So do I," he added, his voice lowering uncertainly as he followed her out of the garage. "Something's going on here, Carine, beneath the radar, so to speak. I think you should be extra cautious until the police make an arrest."

She paused, glancing back at him. "What do you mean?"

"I wish I could be more specific. Just be alert, more aware of what you say and do than you might normally be-and who you choose to be around." He hesitated, then said quietly, "It's easy for any of us to miss things when it involves our friends."

"Do you mean Manny? Or Ty North, too? You know he's in Cold Ridge, don't you? Gary -I don't get it. You're creeping me out."

He laughed. "Carine-you amaze me. For an artistic type, you're very direct, aren't you? Then again, I mustn't forget you're from New Hampshire."

"Louis called me a granite-head."

"He was a charmer, wasn't he?"

"I liked him. Look, Gary -" She dumped her logs on her small back deck, caught one before it rolled off into the grass. "If you're holding back because you have no choice, I can understand, but if it's to spare me, then please don't."

"I'm not holding back," he said. "I've told you as much as I know. The rest-instinct, experience, speculation. Nothing more. It's easy for me to see the people around you in a different light than you do, because I don't know them as well."

"That can work the other way around, too."

"Of course. Just be vigilant."

"I will. Thanks for the advice."

She thought he'd leave, but he didn't. She sat on her deck, reluctant to invite him in. The air was cool, with a periodic breeze stirring, and she could feel the mountains all around her, Cold Ridge rising up from the wide, flat meadow. A friend of hers from the Midwest, another photographer, had found the mountains oppressive, the valley beautiful but claustrophobic. Not enough flat space. Not enough sky. At least, not until she was atop a high peak gasping at the stunning, panoramic views. Hikers on Mount Washington on a crystal-clear day could see the ocean to the east and as far as Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks, a hundred and thirty miles to the west.

Before she'd moved to Boston, Carine wouldn't have even noticed the ridge on a day like today.

"I didn't come here to upset you." Gary placed one foot on the deck next to her. He wore good hiking boots, but she saw they weren't new. "But I'm not just here about Manny Carrera wanting to recommend Louis be fired. Carine-you took pictures the other morning."

His words caught her off guard, but she was immediately aware of the disk in her inner pocket. She'd almost forgotten about it. "A few, yes. Why?"

He glanced down at her. "Mr. Rancourt would like them."

"I haven't uploaded them-"

"You can give me the disk."

"Actually, I can't. I don't have it with me." She didn't know why she lied, but she had no intention of giving him the disk. "Anyway, now that I think about it, shouldn't I give it to the police?"

"I don't see why. You took the pictures hours before you found Louis."

"Ninety minutes." She could feel herself digging in. "I took the last one ninety minutes before I found him."

"I can't imagine they'd have any significance to the investigation." Turner's manner was calm, almost as if he himself didn't understand why he'd been sent on this errand. He straightened, putting his foot back on the ground. "If you're uncomfortable turning the disk over to me, you can take it up with Mr. Rancourt. I certainly didn't come here to argue with you or force you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

Carine stretched out her legs, the grass damp and soft, the icy morning frost long melted. She felt chastised, as if she was being petty and stubborn. "I can provide them with prints and a separate disk of just their pictures, as I have right along."

Turner considered her words, then nodded. "I'll tell them."

Ty's truck pulled into the driveway and bounced over a rut before it came to a stop alongside Turner's car. Ty climbed out, his manner casual, easy-going-deceptively so, Carine thought. "I brought you a load of wood," he told her. "Enough for a few days."

She got to her feet, feeling a self-conscious rush. He'd think Turner showing up proved Manny's point that she needed to have Ty stick to her, keep an eye on her. If she didn't ask for trouble, it'd find her.

The two men introduced themselves and shook hands briefly. "I thought you and I'd get the chance to meet each other before now," Gary said. "I guess we've just missed each other."

"Guess so." Ty walked back to his truck and opened up the tailgate, playing the good neighbor, but Carine could feel his intensity. "Don't let me keep you two."

"I was just leaving," Gary said.

"Glad I didn't block you in."

But, of course, he deliberately hadn't parked behind Turner-he meant to run him off, if not to be rude about it. He wasn't even being that subtle. Carine didn't know if she should be relieved, because he wasn't a bad guy to have on her side and Turner had just been ratcheting up the pressure over the pictures, or annoyed, because she'd had the situation under control and Turner was, in fact, taking no for an answer.

Turner shifted back to her, his pale eyes almost transparent in the late morning light. "Now that I've mentioned the memory disk, I know you won't be able to resist looking at it. I warned Mr. Rancourt this could happen if I asked you for it, but it's the risk he decided to take." He smiled faintly. "He knew I wasn't going to wrestle you for it."

" Gary, I honestly don't know what you're talking about-"

"I know you don't. Think back to this conversation when you view the pictures." He seemed more tired, even ill at ease, than irritated. "Remember that I tried to be discreet."

He nodded politely at North, who'd obviously taken in every word as he dumped wood out of the back of his truck. Then, without another word, Turner got into his car, started the engine and backed out.

Carine exhaled, almost choking on tension. "Damn. Ty, listen, I don't know what the hell's going on, but I need-I need to go back to your house and get my camera."

He tossed another couple of hunks of cordwood onto her driveway. He wasn't wearing his work gloves, and she noticed he'd scraped a knuckle, not badly. "Uhhuh. You want to give me a hint what this is all about?"

"First you tell me if you knew Manny planned to recommend Sterling Rancourt fire Louis Sanborn."

"It came up. Why, is it out there?"

"Apparently."

"Pissed I didn't mention it?"

"Does it matter?"

He shrugged, unapologetic. "It doesn't explain anything."

"Then why not tell me? You don't need a security clearance, Ty. Keeping your mouth shut comes naturally to you."

"That's what my third-grade teacher told the security guys when they came up here and checked me out."

"You're making that up."

He jumped out of his truck, landing lightly on the dirt driveway. "Is Gary Turner going to break into my house and steal your camera if we don't get over there?"

"He might, but I think he credits himself with playing by the rules."

North examined his skinned knuckle, then shrugged it off. "Depends on whose rules we're talking about, doesn't it?"

"Anyway, it won't do him any good if he does steal the camera," Carine said. "I have the disk he's after in my coat pocket."

"Well, well, aren't you lucky he didn't frisk you?"

"I thought about taking pictures today-I didn't want to use the same memory disk. I had my camera with me yesterday when my apartment was searched. If it was searched."

"Rancourt and Turner both saw you yesterday with the camera." Ty frowned at her, thinking. "I take it you didn't have it with you during lunch on Wednesday?"

She shook her head. "I left it in the hall of the Rancourt house." She swallowed, not relishing what she had to do. "I hope Gary 's wrong and there's nothing on the disk but pictures of the drawing room mantel."

Ty stood very close to her, smelling of wood, reminding her of their intimacy yesterday in her apartment. She'd known he wouldn't refuse her. Somehow, she'd known that.

Had someone slipped into her apartment to find her digital camera?

What was on the damn disk?

Ty smiled at her. "You look like someone's asked you to eat a dead bug."

"That's one way to put it."

"I've done it, babe. It's not so bad."

Her shoulders sagged, and she almost managed a laugh. "Ty, damn it-"

"Come on. Hop in my truck." He slung an arm over her shoulders, still playing the good neighbor, the buddy who'd been at her side for as long as she could remember, even if it was sometimes so he could push her out of a tree. "Let's go see if someone borrowed your camera at lunch and took incriminating pictures before, during or after poor Louis Sanborn got shot with a.38 in the library."

Carine angled a look at him. "You don't know it was a.38."

"It's an educated guess."

"Whose? Yours or Manny's?"

"Colonel Mustard's. Come on, Carine. Give me a break."

"What else did Manny tell you that you haven't told me?"

"That you'd be a meddling pain in the ass if I didn't keep you occupied." He dropped his arm, opening the truck door. "He fed some line about you having a strong moral compass."

She climbed into the passenger seat, fighting an urge to let him take the disk and see what was on it while she stayed here and stacked wood. "I have a feeling if my strong moral compass was working, I'd have given Gary Turner the disk."

Carine could have popped the memory disk back into her camera and looked at the pictures on its tiny LCD screen, but she waited to boot up the computer in Ty's den, attaching a USB cable to the corresponding port on her camera. A screen came up on the monitor, with a contactlike sheet of all the photos on the disk. It was a fresh disk. The only photos on it, at least as far as she knew, were those she'd taken Wednesday morning on Commonwealth Avenue, before lunch, before she found Louis.

She was supposed to click on what she wanted to do with the pictures-copy them to the hard drive, view a slide show, print them-but she was so stunned, all she could do was gape at the monitor.

The few pictures she'd taken were there, idle shots of the drawing room mantel and chandelier-she hadn't expected to keep any of them. But it was the four pictures she didn't take that had her attention.

All four depicted a mostly naked Jodie Rancourt up against the library wall, her legs wrapped around the waist of an apparently fully clothed Louis Sanborn. His back was to the camera, but there was no question of his identity-or what he and Jodie were up to.

Ty whistled, peering over Carine's shoulder. "I wonder who took these last four shots."

Carine shook her head, stunned. "It wasn't me. Someone must have used my camera while I was at lunch. The pictures-the angle-" She paused, making herself breathe, and tried again. "Whoever took the pictures must have stood in the doorway to the hall. My camera was right there on the radiator."

"Talk about nature photography."

She elbowed him. "That's lame, North."

"Just trying to ease the tension in the room. Damn. You didn't have any idea-"

"No. None. Jodie Rancourt and Louis Sanborn? He'd only worked for the Rancourts for two weeks."

"Doesn't looked forced on her part, does it?"

"No," Carine said. "No, it doesn't."

Ty squinted, eyeing the pictures more closely, then gave another low whistle. "Agreed. I guess you never know what goes on between two people."

But Carine's throat was tight, her heart racing. "My blood pressure must be a thousand over a thousand. Ty, I swear, I never had an inkling they were having an affair."

"Maybe it was a moment," he said, "not an affair."

"Well, it was a 'moment' not long before one of the two people involved in it was killed. Louis asked me if I wanted a ride while I was on my way back from lunch-he and Jodie must have-" Carine hesitated, trying to steady her breathing, calm herself. "They must have had their liaison before he went out."

"Liaison?"

"Ty, please."

"Babe, they were screwing each other blind. Facts are facts. How long were you gone? About ninety minutes?"

She nodded, transfixed by the pictures on the screen, embarrassed for the participants. But if they'd wanted privacy, they could have skipped the library and gone somewhere else. Had there been any clues, any hints she'd missed? Did Sterling know? Turner? "I wasn't in a hurry. There wasn't much going on at the house…that I knew about, anyway."

"Ninety minutes is plenty of time for a quickie in the library." Ty shook his head tightly, obviously as uncomfortable with what they were seeing as she was. "Jesus. What a nasty business. They took a hell of a risk if they didn't want to be caught. Anyone could have walked in on them-"

"Obviously someone did and took pictures."

Carine sank back in the chair, an ergonomic design that she'd helped choose when Ty purchased his computer. The den was tucked in the southwest corner of the house, a sun-filled room with original 1817 twelve-over-twelve paned windows that looked onto the front yard. It was prosaically furnished with a pullout couch, a beat-up leather club chair, a rolltop desk and the computer table. One of Saskia's collages hung on the back wall, depicting images of the White Mountains.

"Do you think Manny knew?" Carine asked quietly.

Ty shook his head. "I don't know."

"What if-" She cleared her throat, her hands shaking as she turned back to the computer screen. "What if he walked in on Jodie and Louis?"

"Manny didn't take those pictures."

"No, but maybe he came in after someone else had. I wonder if he said something to the police, if Turner found out- Gary obviously knew, or at least guessed, these pictures existed. He said he was asking me for the disk on Sterling 's behalf, but I'm not sure now."

"Maybe Turner took the pictures."

Carine sighed. "Lots of questions, no answers."

"It's not our job to come up with answers," Ty said.

She stared at the screen. "I didn't take these pictures."

"I didn't ask."

"Someone will. I don't think there's a way I can prove it, but-I didn't take them. Why would anyone do such a thing?"

"Blackmail. Titillation. To humiliate and embarrass one or both of the two lovers, or the jilted husband."

"The possibilities are endless, aren't they?" Carine quickly completed the process of uploading the pictures to Ty's hard drive, as a backup to the disk in case something happened before she could get it to the police. "We should notify the detectives on the case. If Jodie Rancourt told the police she was out shopping, and instead she was with Louis-"

"She could have told the police the truth," Ty said.

"They might just have kept it to themselves. For all we know, this is old news to them."

"I hope so. I hate the idea of being the rat." Carine popped out the memory disk and disconnected the USB cable. "Gary Turner said to remember he tried to be discreet."

"Right," Ty said skeptically. "Maybe that's why he took the trouble of using a key instead of a crowbar when he broke into your apartment yesterday."

She tucked the disk into her coat pocket. "We don't know that was him."

"A lot happened on your lunch hour, that's for damn sure."

"And I didn't have a clue."

Ty straightened. "We can call the Boston cops on the way to lunch and ask them what they want us to do with the disk."

"Us? Ty, there's no reason for you to get involved."

"Too late. The minute you found Louis Sanborn, I was involved." He headed for the door, glancing back at her, his eyes a soft green, a real green, but as unreadable as if they'd been green rocks. "But you knew that, didn't you?"

"Maybe I did," she said, and slipped past him into the hall.