Moonlight Becomes You

73

At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, Malcolm Norton walked downstairs from his bedroom and looked into the kitchen. Janice was already there, seated at the table, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

She made the unprecedented offer to pour him a cup, then asked, “Toast?”

He hesitated, then said, “Why not?” and sat opposite her.

“You’re leaving pretty early, aren’t you?” she asked.

He could see she was nervous. No doubt she knew he was up to something.

“You must have had a late dinner last night,” she continued, as she placed the steaming cup in front of him.

“Ummmm,” he responded, enjoying her unease. He had known she was awake when he came in at midnight.

He took a few sips of the coffee, then pushed his chair back. “On second thought, I’ll skip the toast. Good-bye, Janice.”

• • •

When he reached the office, Malcolm Norton sat for a few minutes at Barbara’s desk. He wished he could write a few lines to her, something to remind her of what she had meant to him, but it would be unfair. He didn’t want to drag her name into this.

He went into his own office and looked again at the copies he had made of the papers he had found in Janice’s briefcase, as well as the copy of her bank statement.

He could pretty much figure what she must have been up to. He had guessed it the other night when he saw that crooked nephew of hers hand her an envelope in the restaurant he had followed her to. Seeing her financial records only confirmed what he had suspected.

She was giving Doug Hansen privileged financial information about applicants to Latham Manor so that he could try to cheat rich old women. Maybe “attempt to defraud” charges wouldn’t stick against her, but they certainly wouldn’t help her in this town. And, of course, she would lose her job.

Good, he thought.

Hansen was the one who made a higher offer to Maggie Holloway. He was sure of it. And Janice had tipped him off about the upcoming change in the law. They probably planned to raise the ante until Holloway sold.

If only Maggie Holloway hadn’t come on the scene and spoiled it all, he thought bitterly. Knowing he could make a killing on the house, he would have found a way to keep Barbara.

Make a killing. He smiled grimly. That was rich!

Of course, none of that mattered anymore. He would never buy the house. He would never have Barbara in his life. He really had no more life. It was over now. But at least he had gotten even. They would know that he wasn’t the empty suit Janice had sneered at for years.

He moved the manila envelope addressed to Chief Brower to the far corner of the desk. He didn’t want it to get stained.

He reached for the pistol he kept in the deep bottom drawer. He took it out and held it for a moment, studying it thoughtfully. Then he punched in the number of the police station and asked for Chief Brower.

“It’s Malcolm Norton,” he said pleasantly, as he picked up the gun in his right hand and held it to his head. “I think you’d better get over here. I’m about to kill myself.”

As he pulled the trigger, he heard the final, single word: “Don’t!”

74

Maggie could feel the blood that matted the hair on the side of her head, which was sensitive to the touch and still ached. “Be calm,” she kept whispering to herself. “I’ve got to be calm.”

Where am I buried? she wondered. Probably in some isolated spot in the woods where no one can possibly find me. When she tugged the string on her ring finger, she could feel a heavy pressure on the other end.

He must have attached the string to one of the Victorian bells, she reasoned. She ran her index finger up inside the tube that the string was threaded through. It felt like solid metal and seemed to be about an inch in diameter. She should be able to get enough air through it for breathing, she decided, unless it became clogged.

But why had he bothered with all this? she wondered. She was sure there was no clapper in the bell, because she would be able to hear at least some faint sound if there had been one. That meant no one could hear her.

Was she in a real cemetery? If so, was there a chance that people might visit or attend a funeral? Would she be able to hear even faintly the sound of cars?

Plan! Maggie told herself. You’ve got to plan. She would keep tugging the string until her finger felt raw, until her strength gave out. If she was buried where someone might pass by, then there was always the hope that the moving bell might attract attention.

She also would try to shout for help at what she calculated to be ten-minute intervals. There was no way of knowing, of course, if her voice actually carried up the tube, but she had to try. She mustn’t wear out her voice too soon, though, and not be able to attract attention if she did hear sounds of someone nearby.

But would he come back? she wondered. He was insane, she was sure of that. If he heard her shouting, he might cover the air vent and let her suffocate. She had to be careful.

Of course, it might all be for naught, she realized. There was a strong likelihood that she was buried in a completely remote spot, and that he was visualizing her clawing at the lid of the casket and yanking on the string the way some Victorians reportedly had done when they realized they were buried alive. Only those people had someone waiting to hear their alarm. Wherever she was, she was certain that she was completely alone.

75

At ten o’clock, Neil and his father sat tensely in Chief Brower’s office and listened as he soberly revealed the contents of Malcolm Norton’s suicide note. “Norton was a bitter and disappointed man,” he said. “According to what he’s written, because of a change in environmental laws, Ms. Holloway’s property is going to be worth a lot of money. When he made the offer to Nuala Moore to buy her house, he obviously was prepared to cheat her by not telling her of its true value, so it’s very possible that he got wind that she was changing her mind about making the sale to him and killed her. He might well have been searching the house, trying to find her revised will.”

He paused to reread a paragraph of the lengthy note. “It’s very obvious that he blamed Maggie Holloway for everything having gone wrong, and although he doesn’t say it, he may have taken revenge on her. He’s certainly managed to get his wife in serious trouble.”

This can’t be happening, Neil thought. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and wanted to shake it off. He was afraid that sympathy would undermine his resolve, and he would not let that happen. He wasn’t going to give up. Maggie wasn’t dead. He was sure of that. She couldn’t be dead.

“I’ve talked to Mrs. Norton,” Brower continued. “Her husband came home at the usual time yesterday, then left and didn’t return until midnight. This morning when she tried to find out where he’d been, he wouldn’t answer.”

“How well did Maggie know this guy Norton?” Robert Ste phens asked. “What would make her agree to meet him? Do you think he might have forced her into her own car, then driven to where you found it? But then, what did he do with Maggie, and since he left her car there, how did he get home?”

Brower was shaking his head as Stephens spoke. “It’s a very unlikely scenario, I agree, but it’s an angle we have to pursue. We’re bringing in dogs to try to follow Ms. Holloway’s scent, so if she is in that area, we’ll find her. But it’s a long way from Norton’s home. He’d have to have acted in tandem with someone else, or he’d need to have gotten a ride home from a passerby, and frankly both of those options seem unlikely. This woman he was crazy about, Barbara Hoffman, is in Colorado visiting her daughter. We checked on her already. She’s been there since the weekend.”

The intercom rang, and Brower picked up his phone. “Put him on,” he said after a moment.

Neil buried his face in his hands. Don’t let them have found Maggie’s body, he silently pleaded.

Brower’s conversation lasted only a minute. When he got off, he said, “In a way, I think we have good news. Malcolm Norton had dinner last night at the Log Cabin, a small restaurant near where Barbara Hoffman lived. Apparently she and Norton ate there together frequently. The owner tells us that Norton was there until well after eleven, so he must have gone directly home.”

Which means, Neil thought, he almost certainly had nothing to do with Maggie’s disappearance.

“Where do you go from here?” Robert Stephens asked.

“To interrogate the people Ms. Holloway pointed us to,” Brower said, “Earl Bateman and Nurse Zelda Markey.”

His intercom sounded again. After listening without comment, Brower hung up his phone and stood. “I don’t know what kind of game Bateman is up to, but he just phoned to report that last night a coffin was stolen from his funeral museum.”

76

Dr. William Lane realized that there was very little he could say to his wife this Tuesday morning. Her stony silence indicated to him that even she could be driven too far.

If only she hadn’t come home last night and found him like that, he thought. He hadn’t had a drink in what seemed like ages, not since the incident at the last place he worked. Lane knew that he owed this job to Odile. She had met the owners of Prestige Residence Corporation at a cocktail party and had touted him for the director’s job at Latham, which was then being renovated.

Latham Manor was to be one of Prestige’s franchised residences, as opposed to fully owned and operated; but they had agreed to meet with him, and then later had submitted his résumé to the franchiser. Remarkably, he got the job.

All thanks to Odile, as she constantly reminded him, he thought bitterly.

He knew that the slipup last night was a sign the pressure was getting to him. The orders to keep those apartments filled; don’t let them pass a month unsold. Always the implied threat of being let go if he didn’t perform. Let go, he thought. Go where?

After the last incident, Odile had told him that if she saw him drunk even once, she was leaving.

As enticing as the prospect was, he couldn’t let that happen. The truth was he needed her.

Why hadn’t she stayed in Boston last night? he thought.

Because she suspected that he was panicking, he reasoned.

She was right, of course. He had been in a state of terror ever since he learned that Maggie Holloway had been looking for a sketch Nuala Moore had made that showed Nurse Markey eavesdropping.

He should have found a way to get rid of that woman long ago, but Prestige had sent her, and in most respects she was a good nurse. Certainly many of the residents valued her. In fact, he sometimes wondered if she wasn’t too good a nurse. She seemed to know more than he did about some things.

Well, whatever was going on between him and Odile, Dr. Lane knew he had to go over to the residence and make his morning rounds.

He found his wife drinking coffee in the kitchen. Uncharacteristically she hadn’t bothered to put on even a minimum of makeup this morning. She looked drawn and tired.

“Zelda Markey just phoned,” she told him, an angry glint in her eye. “The police have asked her to be available for questioning. She doesn’t know why.”

“For questioning?” Lane felt the tension run through his body, gripping every muscle. It’s all over, he thought.

“She also told me that Sarah Cushing gave strict orders that neither she nor you was to enter her mother’s room. It seems that Mrs. Bainbridge isn’t well, and Mrs. Cushing is making arrangements to transfer her immediately to the hospital.”

Odile looked at him accusingly. “You were supposed to be rushing home to see Mrs. Bainbridge last night. Not that you’d have been allowed anywhere near her, but I hear you didn’t show up at the residence till nearly eleven. What were you doing until then?”

77

Neil and Robert Stephens drove to the remote road where Maggie’s station wagon was still parked. Now it was surrounded with police tape, and as they got out of their car they could hear the yapping of search dogs in the nearby woods.

Neither man had spoken since they left the police station. Neil used the time to think through all he knew so far. It amounted to very little, he realized, and the longer he felt in the dark, the more frustrated he became.

It was good, even essential, to have the understanding presence of his father, he realized. Something I didn’t give to Maggie, he told himself bitterly.

Through the heavy woods and thick foliage, he could make out the figures of at least a dozen people. Policemen or volunteers? he wondered. He knew they had found nothing so far, so the search had spread out over a wider area. In despair, he realized that they were expecting to find Maggie’s body.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and bowed his head. Finally he broke the silence. “She can’t be dead,” he said. “I’d know it if she were dead.”

“Neil, let’s go,” his father said quietly. “I don’t even know why we came out here. Standing around here isn’t helping Maggie.”

“What do you suggest I do?” Neil asked, anger and frustration showing in his voice.

“From what Chief Brower said, the police haven’t spoken to this guy Hansen yet, but they found out he’s expected at his office in Providence around noon. At this point they consider him small potatoes. They’ll turn over the fraud information Norton left with his note to the district attorney. But it wouldn’t hurt for us to be at Hansen’s office when he comes in.”

“Dad, you can’t expect me to worry about stock deals now,” Neil said angrily.

“No, and at this moment I’m not worried about them either. But you did authorize the sale of fifty thousand shares of stock that Cora Gebhart didn’t own. You certainly have a right to go to Hansen’s office and demand some answers,” Robert Stephens urged.

He looked into his son’s face. “Don’t you see what I’m driving at? Something made Maggie mighty uneasy about Hansen. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that he’s the guy who fronted an offer on her house. You can get him on the defensive about the stocks. But the real reason I want to see him right away is to try and find out if he knows anything at all about Maggie’s disappearance.”

When Neil continued to shake his head, Robert Stephens pointed to the woods. “If you believe Maggie’s body is lying out there somewhere, then go join the search. I happen to hope-to believe-that she’s still alive, and if she is, I bet her abductor didn’t leave her in the vicinity of the car.” He turned to leave. “Get a ride from someone else. I’m going to Providence to see Hansen.”

He got into the car and slammed the door. As he was turning the ignition key, Neil jumped in on the passenger side.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I don’t know where we’ll find her, but it won’t be here.”

78

At 11:30, Earl Bateman was waiting for Chief Brower and Detective Haggerty on the porch of his funeral museum.

“The casket was here yesterday afternoon,” Bateman said heatedly. “I know, because I gave a tour of the place, and I remember pointing it out. I can’t believe anyone would have the insolence to desecrate an important collection like this just as a prank. Every single object in my museum was purchased only after meticulous research.

“Halloween is coming,” he continued, as he nervously thumped his right hand on his left palm. “I’m positive a bunch of kids pulled this stunt. And I can tell you right now that if that’s what happened, I will press charges. No ‘boyish prank’ excuses, do you understand?”

“Professor Bateman, why don’t we go inside and talk about it?” Brower said.

“Of course. Actually I may have a picture of the casket in my office. It’s an item of particular interest, and, in fact, I’ve been planning to make it the focal point of a new exhibit when I expand the museum. Come this way.”

The two policemen followed him through the foyer, past the life-sized figure dressed in black, to what obviously had been the kitchen. A sink, refrigerator, and stove still lined the far wall. Legal-size files were under the back windows. An immense old-fashioned desk stood in the center of the room, its surface covered with blueprints and sketches.

“I’m planning an outdoor exhibit,” Bateman told them. “I have some property nearby that will make a wonderful site. Go ahead, sit down. I’ll try to find that picture.”

He’s awfully worked up, Jim Haggerty thought. I wonder if he was this agitated when they threw him out of Latham Manor that time? Maybe he isn’t the harmless weirdo I pegged him for.

“Why don’t we just ask you a few questions before you look for the picture,” Brower suggested.

“Oh, all right.” Bateman yanked out the desk chair and sat down.

Haggerty took out his notebook.

“Was anything else taken, Professor Bateman?” Brower asked.

“No. Nothing else seems to have been disturbed. Thank God the place wasn’t vandalized. You should realize that this could have been done by someone working alone, because the catafalque is missing too, and it would have been no trouble to wheel the casket out.”

“Where was the casket located?”

“On the second floor, but I have an elevator for moving heavy objects up and down.” The telephone rang. “Oh, excuse me. That will probably be my cousin Liam. He was in a meeting when I called to tell him what happened. I thought he’d be interested.”

Bateman picked up the receiver. “Hello,” he said, then listened, nodding to indicate that it was the call he had been expecting.

Brower and Haggerty listened to the one-sided conversation as Bateman informed his cousin of the theft.

“A very valuable antique,” he said excitedly. “A Victorian coffin. I paid ten thousand dollars for it, and that was a bargain. This one has the original breathing tube with it and was-”

He stopped suddenly, as though interrupted. Then in a shocked voice, he cried, “What do you mean Maggie Holloway is missing? That’s impossible!”

When he hung up, he seemed dazed. “This is terrible! How could something happen to Maggie? Oh, I just knew it, I knew she wasn’t safe. I had a premonition. Liam is very upset. They are very close, you know. He called from his car phone. He said he just heard about Maggie on the news, and he’s on his way down from Boston.” Then Bateman frowned. “You knew Maggie was missing?” he asked Brower accusingly.

“Yes,” Brower said shortly. “And we also know she was here with you yesterday afternoon.”

“Well, yes. I’d brought her a picture of Nuala Moore taken at a recent family reunion, and she was very appreciative. Because she’s such a successful photographer, I asked her to help me by suggesting visuals for the television series I’m going to do about funeral customs. That’s why she came to see the exhibits,” he explained earnestly.

“She looked over just about everything,” he went on. “I was disappointed that she hadn’t brought her camera, so when she left I told her to come back on her own at any time. I showed her where I hide the key.”

“That was yesterday afternoon,” Brower said. “Did she come back here last night?”

“I don’t think so. Why would she come here at night? Most women wouldn’t.” He looked upset. “I hope nothing bad has happened to Maggie. She’s a nice woman, and very attractive. I’ve been quite drawn to her, in fact.”

He shook his head, then added, “No, I think it’s a safe bet that she didn’t steal the casket. Why, when I showed her the place yesterday, she wouldn’t even set foot in the coffin room.”

Is that supposed to be a joke? Haggerty wondered. This guy had that explanation right on tap, he noted. Ten to one he’d already heard about Maggie Holloway’s disappearance.

Bateman got up. “I’ll go look for the picture.”

“Not yet,” Brower said. “First I’d like to talk to you about a little problem you had when you gave a lecture at Latham Manor. I heard something about Victorian cemetery bells and your being asked to leave.”

Bateman angrily slammed his fist on the desk. “I don’t want to talk about that! What’s the matter with all of you? Only yesterday I had to tell Maggie Holloway the same thing. Those bells are locked in my storeroom, and there they’ll stay. I won’t talk about it. Got it?” His face was white with anger.

79

The weather was changing, becoming sharply cooler. The morning sun had given way to clouds, and by eleven the sky was bleak and gray.

Neil and his father sat on the two upright wooden chairs that, along with a secretary’s desk and chair, were the sole furnishings in the reception area of Douglas Hansen’s office.

The one employee was a laconic young woman of about twenty who disinterestedly informed them that Mr. Hansen had been out of the office since Thursday afternoon, and that all she knew was that he had said he would be in by about ten today.

The door leading to the inside office was open, and they could see that that room appeared to be as sparsely furnished as the reception area. A desk, chair, filing cabinet, and small computer were all they could see in it.

“Doesn’t exactly look like a thriving brokerage firm,” Robert Stephens said. “In fact, I’d say it looks like more of a setting for a floating crap game-set up so you can get out of town fast if someone blows the whistle.”

Neil found it agonizing to have to simply sit there, doing nothing. Where is Maggie? he kept asking himself.

She’s alive, she’s alive, he repeated with determination. And I’m going to find her. He tried to concentrate on what his father was saying, then replied, “I doubt he shows this place to his potential clients.”

“He doesn’t,” Robert Stephens answered. “He takes them to fancy lunches and dinners. From what Cora Gebhart and Laura Arlington told me, he can put on the charm, although they both said he sounded very knowledgeable about investments.”

“Then he’s taken a crash course somewhere. Our security guy who ran the check on him told me that Hansen’s been fired from two brokerage houses for just plain ineptitude.”

Both men spun their heads sharply as the outer door opened. They were just in time to catch the startled expression on Douglas Hansen’s face when he saw them.

He thinks we’re cops, Neil realized. He must already have heard about his uncle’s suicide.

They stood up. Robert Stephens spoke first. “I represent Mrs. Cora Gebhart and Mrs. Laura Arlington,” he said formally. “As their accountant, I’m here to discuss the recent investments you purport to have made for them.”

“And I’m here to represent Maggie Holloway,” Neil said angrily. “Where were you last night, and what do you know about her disappearance?”

80

Maggie began to shiver uncontrollably. How long had she been here? she wondered. Had she drifted off to sleep, or lost consciousness? Her head hurt so much. Her mouth was dry with thirst.

How long was it since she last called for help? Was anyone looking for her? Did anyone even know that she was missing?

Neil. He said he would call tonight. No last night, she thought, trying to make sense of time. I was in the museum at nine o’clock, she reminded herself. I know I’ve been here for hours. Is it morning now, or even later than that?

Neil would call her.

Or would he?

She had rejected his expressions of concern. Maybe he wouldn’t call. She had been cold to him. Maybe he had washed his hands of her.

No, no, she prayed. Neil wouldn’t do that. Neil would look for her. “Find me, Neil, please find me,” she whispered, then blinked back tears.

His face loomed in her mind. Troubled. Concerned. Worried about her. If only she had told him about the bells on the graves. If only she had asked him to go with her to the museum.

The museum, she thought suddenly. The voice behind her.

Mentally she replayed what had happened in the attack. She turned and saw the look on his face before he crashed the flashlight down on her head. Evil. Murderous.

As he must have looked when he murdered Nuala.

Wheels. She hadn’t been totally unconscious when she felt herself being wheeled.

A woman’s voice. She had heard a familiar woman’s voice talking to him. Maggie moaned as she remembered whose voice it was.

I’ve got to get out of here, she thought. I can’t die; knowing this, I mustn’t die. She’ll do it again for him. I know she will.

“Help,” she shrieked. “Help me.”

Over and over she called until she finally was able to force herself to stop. Don’t panic, she warned herself. Above all, don’t panic.

I’ll count to five hundred very slowly and then call out three times, she decided. I’ll keep doing that.

She heard a steady, muffled sound from above, then felt a cold trickle on her hand. It was raining, she realized, and the rain was dripping down through the air vent.

81

At eleven-thirty, Chief Brower and Detective Haggerty entered Latham Manor. It was obvious that the residents knew that something was wrong. They were standing in small groups in the entrance hall and library.

The officers were aware of the curious gazes that followed them when the maid led them to the office wing.

Dr. Lane greeted them courteously. “Come right in. I’m at your service.” He indicated they should be seated.

He looks like hell, Haggerty thought, taking in the bloodshot eyes, the gray lines around the doctor’s mouth, and the beads of perspiration on his forehead.

“Dr. Lane, at this point we’re simply asking some questions, nothing more,” Brower began.

“Nothing more than what?” Lane asked, attempting a smile.

“Doctor, before you took this position, you’d been unemployed for several years. Why was that?”

Lane was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “I suspect you already know the answer to that.”

“We’d prefer to hear your version,” Haggerty told him.

“My version, as you put it, is that we’d had an outbreak of flu in the Colony Nursing Home where I was in charge. Four of the women had to be transferred to the hospital. Therefore, when others came down with flu-like symptoms, I naturally assumed that they’d caught the same virus.”

“But they hadn’t,” Brower said quietly. “In fact, in their section of the nursing home there was a faulty heater. They were suffering the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Three of them died. Isn’t that true?”

Lane kept his eyes averted and did not answer.

“And isn’t it true that the son of one of those women had told you that his mother’s disorientation did not seem consistent with flu symptoms, and even asked you to check for the possible presence of carbon monoxide?”

Again Lane did not answer.

“Your license was suspended for gross negligence, and yet you were able to secure this position. How did that happen?” Brower asked.

Lane’s mouth became a straight line. “Because the people at Prestige Residence Corporation were fair enough to recognize that I had been the director of an overly crowded, low-budget facility, that I was working fifteen hours a day, that a number of the guests were suffering from flu, and the misdiagnosis therefore was understandable, and that the man who complained was constantly finding fault with everything from the hot water temperature, to doors that squeaked, to drafty windows.”

He stood up. “I find these questions insulting. I suggest that you leave these premises immediately. As it is, you have thoroughly upset our guests. Someone apparently felt the need to inform everyone that you were coming here.”

“That would be Nurse Markey,” Brower said. “Please tell me where I can find her.”

Zelda Markey was openly defiant as she sat across from Brower and Haggerty in the small second-floor room that served as her office. Her sharp-featured face was an angry red, her eyes cold with rage.

“My patients need me,” she said tartly. “They’re aware that Janice Norton’s husband committed suicide, and they’ve heard a rumor that she’s been doing something illegal here. They’re even more distressed to learn that Miss Holloway is missing. Everyone who met her was very fond of her.”

“Were you fond of her, Ms. Markey?” Brower asked.

“I did not know her well enough to become fond of her. The few times I spoke with her, I found her very pleasant.”

“Ms. Markey, you’re a friend of Earl Bateman’s, aren’t you?” Brower asked.

“To me, friendship implies familiarity. I know and admire Professor Bateman. He, like all the family, were very solicitous of his aunt, Alicia Bateman, who was a guest at the Seaside Nursing Home, where I was formerly employed.”

“In fact, the Batemans were quite generous to you, weren’t they?”

“They felt that I was taking excellent care of Alicia and were kind enough to insist on rewarding me.”

“I see. I’d like to know why you thought a lecture on death might be of interest to the residents of Latham Manor. Don’t you think they’ll all be facing it soon enough?”

“Chief Brower, I am aware that this society has a horror of the word ‘death.’ But the older generation has a much greater sense of reality. At least half of our residents have left specific instructions for their own final arrangements, and, indeed, frequently even joke about it.”

She hesitated. “However, I will say that it was my understanding that Professor Bateman was planning to give his talk on royal funerals through the ages, which, of course, is quite an interesting subject. If he had stuck to that…” She paused for a moment, then continued, “And I will admit also that the use of the bells upset some people, but the way Mrs. Sarah Cushing treated Professor Bateman was unpardonable. He meant no harm, yet she treated him inhumanly.”

“Do you think he was very angry?” Brower asked mildly.

“I think he was humiliated, then perhaps angry, yes. When he’s not lecturing, he’s actually very shy.”

Haggerty looked up from his notes. An unmistakable softness had come into the nurse’s tone and expression. Interesting, he thought. He was sure Brower had noticed as well. Friendship implies familiarity. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, he decided.

“Nurse Markey, what do you know about a sketch that Mrs. Nuala Moore made with the late Mrs. Greta Shipley?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she snapped.

“It was in Mrs. Shipley’s apartment. It seems to have vanished after her death.”

“That is absolutely impossible. The room or apartment is locked immediately. Everyone knows that.”

“Uh-huh.” Brower’s tone became confidential. “Nurse Markey, just between us, what do you think about Dr. Lane?”

She looked at him sharply, then paused before speaking. “I’m at the point where even if it means hurting someone I’m very fond of, I’m willing to lose another job by speaking my mind. I wouldn’t let Dr. Lane treat my cat. He’s probably the stupidest physician I have ever dealt with, and, believe me, I’ve dealt with my share of them.”

She stood up. “I also have had the honor of working with magnificent doctors. Which is why I cannot understand how the Prestige people chose Dr. Lane to run this establishment. And before you ask, that is the reason I check so frequently on residents about whom I am concerned. I don’t think he is capable of giving them the care they need. I’m aware that sometimes they may resent it, but I am only doing it for their own good.”

82

Neil and Robert Stephens drove directly to Newport police headquarters. “Damn good thing you got that restraining order in yesterday,” Robert said to his son. “That guy was ready to skip. At least this way with his bank account tied up, we stand a chance at getting Cora’s money back, or some of it, anyhow.”

“But he doesn’t know what happened to Maggie,” Neil said bitterly.

“No, I guess he doesn’t. You can’t be an usher at a five o’clock wedding in New York, offer dozens of names of people who will state that you stayed for the entire reception, and be up here at the same time.”

“He had a lot more to say about his alibi than he did about his stock dealings,” Neil said. “Dad, that guy has nothing in that office to indicate that he’s dealing in securities. Did you see one financial statement, one prospectus, or anything like what you see in my office?”

“No, I did not.”

“Trust me, he’s not really working out of that dump. Those transactions are coming out of another place. And one that’s probably pulling this same sort of swindle.” Neil paused, looking grimly out the car window. “God, this weather is lousy.”

It’s getting cold and it’s pouring. Where is Maggie? he thought. Is she out in this somewhere? Is she scared?

Is she dead?

Once again, Neil rejected the thought. She couldn’t be dead. It was as if he could hear her calling to him to help her.

They arrived at the police station to find that Chief Brower was out, but Detective Haggerty saw them. “There’s nothing helpful to report,” he said candidly to their urgent queries about Maggie. “No one remembers seeing that Volvo station wagon in town last night. We’ve gotten in touch with Ms. Holloway’s neighbors here. When they passed her house on the way to dinner at seven o’clock, her car was in her driveway. It was gone when they returned at nine-thirty, so we have to assume that she left somewhere in that two-and-a-half-hour time frame.”

“That’s all you can tell us?” Neil asked, his tone incredulous. “My God, there’s got to be something more than that.”

“I wish there were. We know that she went over to that funeral museum Monday afternoon. We spoke to her before she left and after she returned.”

“Funeral museum?” Neil said. “That doesn’t sound like Maggie. What was she doing there?”

“According to Professor Bateman, she was helping him select visuals for some television series he’ll be doing,” Haggerty responded.

“You said ‘According to Professor Bateman,’” Robert Stephens said sharply.

“Did I? Well, I mean, we have no reason to doubt the professor. He may be a bit eccentric, but he grew up here, people know him, and he’s got no record of any trouble.” He hesitated. “I’ll be totally honest with you. Ms. Holloway seemed to indicate that there was something about him that bothered her. And when we checked, we did learn that, while nothing involving the police was in his history, he was responsible for a stir one afternoon among a number of the residents at the Latham Manor retirement home. Seems like they ended up throwing him out of the place.”

Latham Manor again! Neil thought.

“Bateman also volunteered that Maggie knew where the key to the museum was hidden, and that he had invited her to come back with her camera at any time.”

“Do you think she actually went there last night? Alone?” Neil asked incredulously.

“I wouldn’t think so. No, the fact is, there seems to have been a robbery at the museum last night-if you can believe it, a coffin is missing. What we are doing is interrogating some teenage kids from the general neighborhood who have given us trouble before. We think they’re probably responsible. We think they may also be able to give us some information about Ms. Holloway. If she had gone into the museum, and they saw her car parked there, I’ve gotta believe they would have made sure she was gone before they went in themselves.”

Neil stood to leave. He had to get out of there; he had to be doing something. Besides, he knew that there was nothing more he could learn here. But he could go back to Latham Manor and maybe find out something. His excuse would be that he wanted to talk to the director about the Van Hillearys’ possible application.

“I’ll check in with you later,” he told Haggerty. “I’m going over to Latham Manor and try to talk to some of the people there. You never know who might have some bit of information that could be of help. And I have a good excuse for visiting. I was by there on Friday to inquire about the facilities on behalf of a couple who are my investment clients, and I’ve just come up with a few more questions.”

Haggerty raised his eyebrows. “You’ll probably find out that we were there a little while ago.”

“Why?” Robert Stephens asked quickly.

“We spoke to the director and to one of the nurses there, a Zelda Markey, who it seems is a close friend of Professor Bateman’s. I can’t say more than that.”

“Dad, what’s your car-phone number?” Neil asked.

Robert Stephens took out a business card and scribbled the number on the back. “Here.”

Neil handed the card to Haggerty. “If there are any developments, try us at this number. And we’ll be calling in to you every hour or so.”

“That’s fine. Ms. Holloway’s a close friend, isn’t she?”

“She’s more than that,” Robert Stephens said brusquely. “Consider us her family.”

“As you wish,” Haggerty said simply. “I do understand.” He looked at Neil. “If my wife were missing, I’d be going through the same kind of hell. I’ve met Ms. Holloway. She’s real smart and, I believe, very resourceful. If there’s any way she can help herself, trust her to do it.”

The look of genuine sympathy on Haggerty’s face brought Neil to an acute awareness of just how close he might be to losing someone who, surprisingly, he now couldn’t imagine living without. He swallowed over the sudden lump in his throat. Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded, and left.

In the car, he said, “Dad, why do I feel that Latham Manor is at the center of all this?”

83

“Maggie, you’re not calling for help, are you? That isn’t wise.”

Oh God, no! He was back! His voice, hollow and echoing, was barely discernible through the rain beating on the earth above her.

“You must be getting wet down there,” he called. “I’m glad. I want you to be cold and wet and scared. I’ll bet you’re hungry, too. Or maybe just thirsty?”

Don’t answer, she told herself. Don’t plead with him. It’s what he wants.

“You ruined everything for me, Maggie, you and Nuala. She had begun to suspect something, so she had to die. And it was all going so well, too. Latham Manor-I own it, you know. Only the outfit that manages it doesn’t know who I am. I have a holding company. And you were right about the bells. Those women weren’t buried alive, maybe just a little bit sooner than God intended. They should have had more time. That’s why I put the bells on the graves. It’s my little joke. You’re the only one who really is buried alive.

“When they exhume those women, they’ll blame Dr. Lane for their deaths. They’ll think it was his fault that the medicines got mixed. He’s a lousy doctor anyway, with a terrible record. And a drinking problem. That’s why I had them hire him. But your stupid interference does mean I won’t be able to call on my little angel of death to help the little ladies along to an early grave. And that’s too bad; I want the money. Do you know how much profit there is in turning over those rooms? Lots. Lots.”

Maggie shut her eyes, struggling to blot out his face from her mind. It was almost as though she could see him. He was crazy.

“I guess you figured out that the bell on your grave has no clapper, haven’t you? Now figure this out: How long will you last when the air vent is clogged?”

She felt a rush of dirt on her hand. Frantically she tried to poke open the vent with her finger. More dirt tumbled down.

“Oh, one more thing, Maggie,” he said, his voice suddenly more muffled. “I took the bells from the other graves. I thought that was a good idea. I’ll put them back when they bury the bodies again. Sweet dreams.”

She heard the thump of something hitting the air vent; then she heard nothing. He was gone. She was sure of it. The vent was packed. She did the only thing she could think of to help herself. She flexed and unflexed her left hand so that the string on her ring finger would keep the mud from hardening around it. Please God, she prayed, let someone see that the bell is moving.

How long would it be before she used up all the oxygen? she wondered. Hours? A day?

“Neil, help me, help me,” she whispered. “I need you. I love you. I don’t want to die.”

84

Letitia Bainbridge had absolutely refused to go to the hospital. “You can cancel that ambulance or ride in it yourself,” she tartly informed her daughter, “but I’m not going anywhere.”

“But Mother, you’re not well,” Sarah Cushing protested, knowing full well that to argue with her was useless. When her mother got a certain mulelike look, there was no point in further discussion.

“Who’s well at ninety-four?” Mrs. Bainbridge asked. “Sarah, I appreciate your concern, but there’s a lot going on around here, and I don’t intend to miss it.”

“Will you at least take your meals on a tray?”

“Not dinner. You do realize Dr. Evans checked me out just a few days ago. There’s nothing wrong with me that being fifty wouldn’t cure.”

Sarah Cushing gave up the argument reluctantly. “Very well, but you’ve got to promise me one thing. If you don’t feel well, you’ll let me take you to Dr. Evans again. I don’t want Dr. Lane treating you.”

“Neither do I. Sneak that she is, Nurse Markey did see a change in Greta Shipley last week and tried to get Lane to do something about it. He, of course, couldn’t find anything; he was wrong and she was right. Does anyone know why the police were talking to her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, find out!” she snapped. Then in a quieter tone, she added, “I’m so worried about that wonderful girl, Maggie Holloway. So many young people today are so indifferent or impatient with old fossils like me. Not her. We’re all praying that she’ll be found.”

“I know, and so am I,” Sarah Cushing agreed.

“All right, go downstairs and find out the latest. Start with Angela. She doesn’t miss a thing.”

Neil had called on the car phone to tell Dr. Lane he would like to stop by to discuss the Van Hillearys’ interest in residing at Latham Manor. He found Lane’s voice curiously indifferent when he agreed to a meeting.

They were admitted to Latham Manor by the same attractive young maid they had seen before. Neil remembered that her name was Angela. When they arrived she was talking to a handsome woman who appeared to be in her mid-sixties.

“I’ll let Dr. Lane know you’re here,” Angela said softly. As she crossed the entrance hall to the intercom, the older woman came over to them.

“I don’t want to seem inquisitive, but are you from the police?” she asked.

“No, we’re not,” Robert Stephens said quickly. “Why do you ask? Is there a problem?”

“No. Or at least I certainly hope not. Let me explain. I am Sarah Cushing. My mother, Letitia Bainbridge, is a resident here. She has become very fond of a young woman named Maggie Holloway, who seems to have gone missing, and she is terribly anxious for any news about her.”

“We’re very fond of Maggie, too,” Neil said, once again experiencing the lump in his throat that now was threatening to undermine his composure. “I wonder if it would be possible to speak to your mother after we see Dr. Lane?”

Noting a look of uncertainty in Sarah Cushing’s eyes, he felt he had to explain. “We’re groping at straws to see if Maggie may have said anything to anyone, even casually, that might help us to find her.”

He bit his lip, unable to go on.

Sarah Cushing studied him, sensing his distress. Her frosty blue eyes softened. “Absolutely. You can see Mother,” she said briskly. “I’ll wait in the library for you and take you up when you’re ready.”

The maid had returned. “Dr. Lane is ready to see you,” she said.

For the second time, Neil and Robert Stephens followed her to Lane’s office. Neil reminded himself that as far as the doctor was concerned, he was here to discuss the Van Hillearys. He forced himself to remember the questions that he had intended to ask, on their behalf. Was the residence owned and operated by Prestige, or was it franchised by them? He would need proof of sufficient reserve capital.

Was there any allowance for the Van Hillearys if they opted to decorate and refurbish the suite themselves?

Both men were shocked when they reached Dr. Lane’s office. The man seated at the desk was so radically changed that it was like seeing and talking to a different human being. The suave, smiling, courteous director they had met last week was gone.

Lane looked ill and defeated. His skin was gray, his eyes sunken. Listlessly he invited them to sit down, then said, “I understand you have some questions. I’ll be happy to answer them. However, a new director will be meeting your clients when they come up on the weekend.”

He’s been fired, Neil thought. Why? he wondered. He decided to plunge ahead. “Look, I don’t know what’s been going on here, obviously, and I’m not asking you to explain the reasons behind your departure.” He paused. “But I am aware that your bookkeeper had been giving out privileged financial information. That was one of my concerns.”

“Yes, that’s something that has just been brought to our attention. I’m very sure it won’t happen again in this establishment,” Lane said.

“I can sympathize,” Neil continued. “In the investment business, we unfortunately always seem to face the problem of insider trading.” He knew his father was looking at him curiously, but he had to try to learn if that was the reason Lane was being fired. Secretly he doubted it and suspected that it had something to do with the sudden deaths of some of the residents.

“I’m aware of the problem,” Lane said. “My wife worked in a securities firm in Boston -Randolph and Marshall-before I took this position. It would seem that dishonest people crop up everywhere. Ah, well, let me try to answer whatever questions you have. Latham Manor is a wonderful residence, and I can assure you that our guests are very happy here.”

When they left fifteen minutes later, Robert Stephens said, “Neil, that guy is scared stiff.”

“I know. And it’s not just because of his job.” I’m wasting time, he thought. He had brought up Maggie’s name, and Lane’s only response was an expression of polite concern for her welfare.

“Dad, maybe we should skip meeting with anyone here,” he said as they reached the entrance hall. “I’m going to break into Maggie’s house to search it. Maybe there’s something there that will give us some idea of where she was going last night.”

Sarah Cushing was waiting for them, however. “I phoned up to Mother. She wants very much to meet you.”

Neil was about to protest but saw his father’s warning glance. Robert Stephens said, “Neil, why don’t you pay a visit for a few minutes? I’ll make some calls from the car. I was about to tell you that I happened to keep an extra key to the new lock on Maggie’s door, in case she ever forgot hers. I told her about it. I’ll call your mother and have her meet us there with it. And I’ll call Detective Haggerty, too.”

It would take his mother half an hour to get to Maggie’s house, Neil calculated. He nodded. “I’d like to meet your mother, Mrs. Cushing.”

On the way up to Letitia Bainbridge’s room he decided to ask her about the lecture that Earl Bateman gave at Latham Manor, the one that got him banished from the place. Bateman was the last person to admit seeing Maggie yesterday, he reasoned. She had spoken to Detective Haggerty later, but no one had reported seeing her.

Had anyone thought about that? Neil wondered. Had anyone checked to confirm Earl Bateman’s story that he had gone directly to Providence after he left the museum yesterday afternoon?

“This is Mother’s apartment,” Sarah Cushing said. She tapped, waited for the invitation to enter, then opened the door.

Now fully dressed, Mrs. Letitia Bainbridge was seated in a wing chair. She waved Neil in and pointed to the chair nearest her. “From what Sarah tells me, you seem to be Maggie’s young man. You must be so worried. We all are. How can we help?”

Having deduced that Sarah Cushing had to be nearly seventy, Neil realized that this bright-eyed, clear-voiced woman had to be around ninety or more. She looked as if she missed nothing. Let her tell me something that will help, he prayed.

“Mrs. Bainbridge, I hope I won’t upset you by being absolutely frank with you. For reasons I don’t understand as yet, Maggie had begun to be very suspicious about some of the recent deaths in this residence. We know that only yesterday morning she looked up the obituaries of six different women, five of whom had resided here, and who died recently. Those five women died in their sleep, unattended, and none of them had close relatives.”

“Dear God!” Sarah Cushing’s voice was shocked.

Letitia Bainbridge did not flinch. “Are you talking about neglect or murder?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Neil said. “I just know that Maggie started an investigation that’s already leading to an order for the exhumation of at least two of the dead women, and now she’s disappeared. And I’ve just learned that Dr. Lane has been fired.”

“I just found out that too, Mother,” Sarah Cushing said. “But everyone thinks it’s because of the bookkeeper.”

“What about Nurse Markey?” Mrs. Bainbridge asked her daughter. “Is that why the police questioned her? I mean because of the deaths?”

“Nobody is sure, but she’s mighty upset. And, of course, so is Mrs. Lane. I hear that the two of them are closeted in Markey’s office.”

“Oh, those two are always whispering together,” Letitia Bainbridge said dismissively. “I can’t imagine what they have to say to each other. Markey may be terribly annoying, but at least she has a brain. The other one is as empty-headed as they get.”

This isn’t getting me anywhere, Neil thought. “Mrs. Bainbridge,” he said, “I can only stay a minute longer. There’s one other thing I’d like to ask you. Were you at the lecture Professor Bateman gave here? The one that apparently caused such an uproar?”

“No.” Mrs. Bainbridge shot a look at her daughter. “That was another day when Sarah insisted I rest, so I missed all the excitement. But Sarah was there.”

“I can assure you, Mother, that you wouldn’t have enjoyed being handed one of those bells and being told to pretend you were buried alive,” Sarah Cushing said spiritedly. “Let me tell you exactly what happened, Mr. Stephens.”

Bateman has to be crazy, Neil thought as he listened to her version of the events.

“I was so upset that I gave that man a real tongue-lashing and nearly threw the box with those appalling bells after him,” Sarah Cushing continued. “At first he seemed embarrassed and contrite, but then a look came over his face that almost frightened me. I think he must have a fearful temper. And, of course, Nurse Markey had the gall to defend him! I spoke to her about it later, and she was quite impudent. She told me that Professor Bateman had been so upset that he said he now feared he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of the bells, which apparently had cost him quite a bit of money.”

“I’m still sorry I wasn’t there,” Mrs. Bainbridge said. “And as far as Nurse Markey goes,” she continued reflectively, “in perfect fairness, many of the residents here consider her an excellent nurse. I just find her to be nosy and pushy and intrusive, and I want her kept away from me whenever possible.” She paused, then said, “Mr. Stephens, this may sound ridiculous, but I think that whatever his faults and shortcomings, Dr. Lane is a very kind man, and I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

A half-hour later, Neil and his father drove to Maggie’s house. Dolores Stephens was already there. She looked at her son and reached up and took his face between her hands. “We’re going to find her,” she said firmly.

Unable to speak, Neil nodded.

“Where’s the key, Dolores?” Robert Stephens demanded.

“Right here.”

The key fit the new lock on the back door, and as they walked into the kitchen, Neil thought, it all started right here, when Maggie’s stepmother was murdered.

The kitchen was neat. There were no dishes in the sink. He opened the dishwasher; inside were a few cups and saucers, along with three or four small plates. “I wonder if she had dinner out last night,” he said.

“Or made a sandwich,” his mother suggested. She had opened the refrigerator and seen a supply of cold cuts. She pointed to several knives in the utensils basket of the dishwasher.

“There’s no message pad near the phone,” Robert Stephens said. “We knew she was worried about something,” he snapped. “I’m so damn mad at myself. I wish to God that when I came back here yesterday, I had bullied her into staying with us.”

The dining room and living room both were orderly. Neil studied the vase of roses on the coffee table, wondering who had sent them. Probably Liam Payne, he thought. She mentioned him at dinner. Neil had only met Payne a few times, but he could have been the guy Neil had glimpsed leaving Maggie’s Friday night.

Upstairs, the smallest bedroom contained the evidence of Maggie’s packing up her stepmother’s personal effects: Neatly tagged bags of clothing, purses, lingerie, and shoes were piled there. The bedroom she had used initially was the same as when they had fixed the window locks.

They went into the master bedroom. “Looks to me as though Maggie planned to stay in here last night,” Robert Stephens observed, pointing to the freshly made bed.

Without answering, Neil started upstairs to the studio. The light that he had noticed last night, when he parked outside waiting for Maggie to come home, was still on, pointed toward a picture tacked to the bulletin board. Neil remembered that the picture had not been there Sunday afternoon.

He started across the room, then stopped. A chill ran through his body.

On the refectory table, in the glare of the spotlight, he saw two metal bells.

As surely as he knew that night followed day, he knew that these were two of the bells that Earl Bateman had used in his infamous lecture at Latham Manor-the bells that had been whisked away, never to be seen again.

85

Her hand ached and was covered with dirt. She had continued to move the string steadily back and forth, hoping to keep the tube open, but now no more dirt seemed to be falling through the air vent. The water had stopped trickling down, too.

She couldn’t hear the beating of the rain anymore either. Was it getting colder, or was it just that the dampness inside the coffin was so chilling? she wondered.

But she was actually starting to feel warm, even too warm.

I’m getting a fever, Maggie thought drowsily.

She was so lightheaded. The vent is sealed, she thought. There can’t be much oxygen left.

“One… two… three.. . four…”

Now she was whispering the numbers aloud, trying to force herself to stay awake, to start calling out again when she reached five hundred.

What difference would it make if he came back and heard her? What more could he do than he already had done?

Her hand was still flexing and unflexing.

“Make a fist,” she said aloud. “All right, relax.” That’s what the nurses had told her to do when she was little and they were taking a blood sample. “This is so you’ll get all better, Maggie,” they had said.

After Nuala came to live with them, she had stopped being afraid of needles. Nuala had made a game of it. “We’ll get that out of the way first and then we’ll go to a movie,” she would say.

Maggie thought of her equipment bag. What had he done with it? Her cameras. They were her friends. There were so many pictures she had planned to take with them. She had so many ideas she wanted to try out, so many things she wanted to shoot.

“One hundred fifty… one hundred fifty-one.. .”

She had known Neil was sitting behind her that day in the theater. He had coughed a couple of times, a peculiar little dry cough that she had recognized. She knew he had to have seen her, to have seen her unhappiness.

I made it a test, she thought. If you love me, you will understand that I need you-that was the thought she had willed him to hear and to act on.

But when the film ended and the lights went on, he was gone.

“I’ll give you a second chance, Neil,” she said aloud now. “If you love me, you’ll know that I need you, and you’ll find me.”

“Four hundred ninety-nine, five hundred!”

She began to cry out for help again. This time she screamed until her throat was raw. There was no use trying to save her voice, she decided. Time was running out.

Still, resolutely she began to count again. “One… two… three...”

Her hand moved in cadence with the count: flex… unflex.. .

With every fiber of her being, she fought the urge to sleep. She knew that if she slept, she would not wake up again.

86

While his father started downstairs to phone police headquarters, Neil hesitated for a moment, studying the picture he had found pinned to the bulletin board.

The inscription on the back read, “Squire Moore Birthday Anniversary. September 20th. Earl Moore Bateman-Nuala Moore-Liam Moore Payne.”

Neil studied Bateman’s face. The face of a liar, he thought bitterly. The last man to see Maggie alive.

Aghast at what he feared his subconscious was telling him, he dropped the picture next to the bells and hurried to join his father.

“I have Chief Brower on the phone,” Robert Stephens said. “He wants to talk to you. I told him about the bells.”

Brower came immediately to the point. “If these are two of the same bells Bateman claims are locked in the storeroom of his museum, we can bring him in for interrogation. The problem is that he’ll know enough to refuse to answer questions, and he’ll call a lawyer, and everything will get delayed. Our best bet is to confront him with the bells and hope that he’ll say something to give himself away. When we talked to him about them this morning, he went berserk.”

“I intend to be there when you confront him,” Neil said.

“I have a squad car watching the museum from the funeral parlor parking lot. If Bateman leaves the premises, he’ll be followed.”

“We’re on our way,” Neil said, then added, “Wait a minute, Chief, I know you’ve been questioning some teenagers. Did you find out anything from them?”

He heard the hesitation in Chief Brower’s voice before he answered. “Something that I’m not sure I believe. We’ll talk about it when I see you.”

“I want to hear about it now,” Neil snapped.

“Then please understand we don’t necessarily credit the story. But one of the kids admitted that they were in the vicinity of the museum last night, or more specifically that they were across the street from it. At about ten o’clock that kid claims he saw two vehicles-a hearse, followed by a station wagon-drive out of the museum’s parking lot.”

“What kind of station wagon?” Neil asked urgently.

“The kid isn’t sure of the make, but he swears it was black.”

87

“Take it easy, Earl,” Liam Moore Payne said for the tenth time in an hour.

“No, I won’t take it easy. I know how much this family has ridiculed the Batemans, and me especially.”

“No one’s ridiculed you, Earl,” Liam said soothingly.

They were sitting in the office of the museum. It was nearly five o’clock, and the old-fashioned globed chandelier spread a murky glow over the room.

“Look,” Liam said, “you need a drink.”

“You mean you need a drink.”

Without answering, Liam got up, went to the cupboard over the sink, got out the scotch bottle and glasses, then the ice tray and a lemon from the refrigerator.

“Double scotch on the rocks, with a twist, coming up, for both of us,” he said.

Mollified, Earl waited until the drink was set in front of him, then said, “I’m glad you stopped by, Liam.”

“When you called, I could tell how upset you were. And, of course, I’m more than upset about Maggie’s disappearance.” He paused. “Earl, I’ve dated her casually over the last year or so. You know, I’d call and we’d go out for dinner when I was in New York. But that night at the Four Seasons, when I realized she’d left without saying a word to me, something happened.”

“What happened was that you ignored her because you were glad-handing everyone at the party.”

“No, what happened was that I realized what a jerk I’d been, and that if she told me to go to hell, I’d have crawled there on my hands and knees, trying to make it up to her. But besides making me realize how important Maggie has become to me, that night gives me hope that maybe she’s okay.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The fact that she walked out without saying a word when she was upset. God knows she’s had plenty of reason to be upset since the minute she arrived in Newport. Maybe she just needed to get away.”

“You seem to have forgotten that her car was found abandoned.”

“For all we know she got on a plane or train and left her car parked somewhere and someone stole it. Maybe even kids joyriding.”

“Don’t talk to me about joyriding kids,” Earl said. “My theory is those same kind of juvenile delinquents committed the theft here last night.”

The shrill sound of the doorbell startled both men. Earl Bateman answered his cousin’s unasked question: “I’m not expecting anyone,” he said, and then smiled brightly. “But then, maybe it’s the police telling me they found the casket.”

Neil and his father joined Chief Brower in the funeral museum parking lot, and the chief cautioned Neil to control his tongue and to leave the questioning to the police. The bells from Maggie’s house had been placed in a shoe box, which Detective Haggerty now carried unobtrusively under his arm.

When Earl took them to the museum office, Neil was startled to see Liam Payne sitting there. Suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of his rival, he greeted him with minimum courtesy, although he took some comfort in knowing that neither Earl nor Liam knew of his relationship with Maggie. He and his father were introduced simply as two of her concerned friends from New York.

Bateman and Payne went to get chairs for the men, taking them from the funeral scene in the front room. The irritation was clear on Bateman’s face when they returned. He snapped at his cousin. “Liam, your shoes are muddy, and that’s a very expensive carpet. Now I’m going to have to vacuum that whole viewing room before I leave.”

Then, in an abrupt shift, he turned to the detectives. “Have you any news about the casket?” he asked.

“No, we don’t, Professor Bateman,” Brower said, “but we do have news about some other artifacts we think you own.”

“That’s ridiculous. Nothing else is missing except the catafalque,” he said. “I checked. The casket is what I want to know about. You have no idea the plans I had for it. The outdoor display I told you about. That casket was going to be part of the most important exhibit there. I’ve even ordered mannequins of horses with black plumes, and I’m having a replica built of the kind of funeral carriage the Victorians used. It will be a stunning display.”

“Earl, take it easy,” Liam Payne said soothingly. He turned to Brower. “Chief, is there any new information about Maggie Holloway?”

“No, unfortunately there isn’t,” Brower told him.

“Have you considered my suggestion that Maggie simply wanted to escape the terrible pressures of the last week and a half?”

Neil looked at Liam scornfully. “You don’t know Maggie at all,” he said. “She doesn’t try to escape problems. She faces them head on.”

Brower ignored both men and spoke to Bateman. “Professor, at this point we’re simply trying to clarify a few matters. You’re not required to answer our questions. You do understand that?”

“Why wouldn’t I answer your questions? I have nothing to hide.”

“All right. From what we understand, the bells that you had cast for your lecture on Victorians who feared being buried alive are all packed away. Is that true?”

The anger was clear on Earl Bateman’s face. “I simply will not go into that Latham Manor incident again,” he said sharply. “I’ve told you that.”

“I understand. But will you answer the question, please?”

“Yes. I packed the bells away. Yes.”

Brower nodded to Haggerty who opened the shoe box. “Professor, Mr. Stephens found these bells in Maggie Holloway’s home. Are they similar to the ones you have?”

Bateman paled. He picked up one of the bells and examined it minutely. “That woman is a thief!” he exploded. “She must have come back here and stolen these last night.”

He jumped up and ran down the hall and up the stairs, the others following him. On the third floor, he threw open the door of the storeroom and hurried to a shelf on the right-hand wall. Reaching up, he yanked at a box that was wedged between two others and pulled it out.

“It’s too light. I can tell already,” he muttered, “some of them are missing.” He rifled through the protective plastic popcorn until he had satisfied himself as to the carton’s contents.

Turning to the five men standing behind him, his face a deep crimson, his eyes blazing, he said, “There are only five of them here. Seven are missing! That woman must have stolen them. No wonder she kept harping on them yesterday.”

Neil shook his head in dismay. This guy is crazy, he said to himself. He really believes what he’s saying.

“Professor Bateman, I must ask you to accompany me to police headquarters,” Brower said, his tone formal. “I have to inform you that you are now a suspect in the disappearance of Maggie Holloway. You have a right to remain silent-”

“You can forget your damned Miranda warning,” Earl shouted. “Maggie Holloway sneaked back in here, stole my bells -and maybe even my casket-and you blame me? Ridiculous! I think you should be looking for the person who helped her. She never did this alone.”

Neil grabbed the lapels of Bateman’s coat. “Shut up,” he shouted. “You know damn well Maggie never took that stuff. Wherever she found the two bells she had, they meant something mighty significant to her. And you answer me something. Some kids saw a hearse and Maggie’s station wagon leave here around ten o’clock last night. Which one were you driving?”

“You shut up, Neil,” Brower ordered.

Neil saw the anger on the police chief’s face as Robert Stephens yanked him away from Earl Bateman.

I don’t give a damn, he thought. This is no time to tiptoe around this liar.

“You mean my hearse?” Bateman asked. “That’s impossible. It’s in the garage.”

More rapidly than he had ascended the stairs, Bateman rushed down them and directly outside to the garage. He yanked up the door and ran inside, closely followed by the other men.

“Someone did use it,” he exclaimed, peering through the vehicle’s window. “Look at it. There’s dirt on the carpet!”

Neil wanted to throttle the man, to beat the truth from him. How had he gotten Maggie to follow him in that hearse? Or was someone else driving her car?

Liam Payne took his cousin’s arm. “Earl, it’s going to be all right. I’ll go with you to headquarters. I’ll call a lawyer.”

Neil and his father refused to go home. They sat in a waiting area at the police station. From time to time, Detective Haggerty joined them. “The guy has refused a lawyer; he’s answering everything. He insists that he was in Providence last night and can prove it with phone calls he made from his apartment during the evening. At this point, we simply can’t hold him.”

“But we know he’s done something to Maggie,” Neil protested. “He’s got to help us find her!”

Haggerty shook his head. “He’s more worried about his casket and the dirt in that old hearse than he is about Ms. Holloway. His scenario is that she brought someone with her to steal the casket and bells, someone who drove the casket away in the hearse. The ignition key was in clear sight on a hook in the office. In a few minutes, his cousin is going to take him back to the museum to pick up his car.”

“You can’t let him go,” Neil protested.

“We can’t not let him go,” Haggerty said.

The detective hesitated, then said, “This will come out anyhow, and it’s something you’d be interested in knowing. You know we also are looking into accusations of improprieties at Latham Manor, thanks to the suicide note of that lawyer who killed himself. While we were out, the chief got a message. He’d made it top priority to find out who really owns Latham Manor. Guess who does? None other than Bateman’s cousin, Mr. Liam Moore Payne.”

Haggerty looked around cautiously as though afraid Payne would appear behind him. “I guess he’s still inside. He insisted on staying with his cousin during the questioning. We asked him about owning Latham. Readily admitted it. Says it’s a sound investment. But apparently he doesn’t want it known that he owns the place. Says that if people knew, he’d have the residents calling him with complaints or requests for favors. That kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?”

It was nearly eight o’clock when Robert Stephens turned to his son. “Come on, Neil, we’d better get home,” he urged.

Their car was parked across the street from police headquarters. As soon as Stephens turned the ignition key, the phone rang. Neil answered it.

It was Dolores Stephens. She had gone home when they left for the museum. “Any word about Maggie?” she asked anxiously.

“No, Mom. We’ll be home soon, I guess.”

“Neil, I just received a phone call from a Mrs. Sarah Cushing. She said that her mother, Mrs. Bainbridge, is a resident at Latham Manor, and that you were talking to her today.”

“That’s right.” Neil felt his interest quicken.

“Mrs. Cushing’s mother remembered something that she thought might be important and called her daughter, who looked up our number trying to track you down. Mrs. Bainbridge said that Maggie mentioned something about a bell she had found on her stepmother’s grave. She asked if placing a bell like that was some sort of custom. Mrs. Bainbridge said it just occurred to her that Maggie might have been talking about one of Professor Bateman’s Victorian bells. I’m not sure what any of this means, but I wanted you to know right away,” she said. “I’ll see you in a while.”

Neil gave his father the details of the message Dolores Stephens had passed along. “What do you make of it?” Robert Stephens asked his son as he started to put the car into drive.

“Hold it a minute, Dad. Don’t pull out,” Neil said urgently. “What do I make of it? Plenty. The bells we found in Maggie’s studio must have been taken from her stepmother’s grave and from someone else’s, probably one of the women from the residence. Otherwise why would she have asked that question? If she did go back to the museum last night, which I still have trouble believing, it was to see if any of the bells Bateman claimed were in that box were missing.”

“Here they come,” Robert Stephens murmured as Bateman and Payne emerged from the police station. They watched as the men got into Payne’s Jaguar and, for a few minutes, sat in the car, talking animatedly.

The rain had ended and a full moon brightened the already well-lighted area around the station.

“Payne must have taken dirt roads when he came down from Boston today,” Robert Stephens observed. “Look at those wheels and tires. His shoes were pretty messy, too. You heard Bateman yell at him about that. It’s also a surprise that he owns that retirement place. There’s something about that guy I don’t like. Was Maggie dating him seriously?”

“I don’t think so,” Neil said tonelessly. “I don’t like him either, but he obviously is successful. That residence cost a fortune. And I checked on his investments operation. He has his own firm now, and clearly he was smart enough to take with him some of Randolph and Marshall’s best clients.”

“Randolph and Marshall,” his father repeated. “Isn’t that where Dr. Lane said his wife used to work?”

“What did you say?” Neil demanded.

“You heard me. I said that Lane’s wife used to work at Randolph and Marshall.”

“That’s what’s been bugging me!” Neil exclaimed. “Don’t you see? Liam Payne is connected to everything. He owns the residence. He must have had the final say in hiring Dr. Lane. Doug Hansen also worked for Randolph and Marshall, although for only a brief time. He has an arrangement now whereby his transactions go through their clearing house. I said today that Hansen had to be operating out of another office, and I also said that he’s clearly too stupid to have worked out that scheme for defrauding those women. He was just the front man. Someone had to be programming him. Well, maybe that someone was Liam Moore Payne.”

“But it doesn’t all quite fit together,” Robert Stephens pro tested. “If Payne owns the residence, he could have gotten the financial information he needed without involving either Hansen or Hansen’s aunt, Janice Norton.”

“But it’s much safer to stay a step removed,” Neil pointed out. “That way, Hansen becomes the scapegoat if anything goes wrong. Don’t you see, Dad? Laura Arlington and Cora Gebhart had applications pending. He wasn’t just turning over the apartments of residents. He was cheating applicants when there were no apartments.

“It’s obvious that Bateman uses Payne as a sounding board for his problems,” Neil continued. “If Bateman had been upset because Maggie inquired about the Latham Manor incident, wouldn’t he be likely to tell Payne about it?”

“Maybe. But what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that this Payne guy is the key to all this. He secretly owns Latham Manor. Women there are dying under what seem to be unexceptional circumstances, yet when you consider how many have died recently, and factor in the similarities -all of them pretty much alone, no close family to check on them-it all starts to look suspicious. And who stands to gain from their deaths? Latham Manor does, through reselling those now-empty apartments to the next name on the list.”

“Do you mean to say that Liam Payne killed all those women?” Robert Stephens asked, his tone incredulous.

“I don’t know that yet,” his son replied. “The police suspect that Dr. Lane and/or Nurse Markey may have had a hand in the deaths, but when I talked to Mrs. Bainbridge, she made a point of saying that Dr. Lane was ‘kind,’ and that Markey was a good nurse. My hunch is, she knows what she’s talking about. She’s sharp. No, I don’t know who killed those women, but I think Maggie had come to the same conclusion about their deaths, and she must have been getting too close for comfort for the actual killer.”

“But where do the bells come in? And Bateman? I don’t get it,” Robert Stephens protested.

“The bells? Who knows? Maybe it’s the killer’s way of keeping score. Chances are, though, that if Maggie found those bells on graves and looked up those women’s obituaries, she had started to figure out what really happened. The bells might signify that those women were murdered.” Neil paused. “As for Bateman, he seems almost too weird to be able to take part in anything as calculating as this. No, I think Mr. Liam Moore Payne is our connection here. You heard him make that idiotic suggestion to explain Maggie’s disappearance.” Neil snorted derisively. “I bet he knows what has happened to Maggie and he’s just trying to ease the pressure of the search.”

Noting that Payne had started his car, Robert Stephens turned to his son. “I take it we’re following him,” he said.

“Absolutely. I want to see where Payne is going,” Neil said, then added his own silent prayer: Please, please let him lead me to Maggie.

88

Dr. William Lane dined at Latham Manor with some of the charter members of the residence. He explained Odile’s absence by saying that she was devastated to be leaving her dear friends. As for himself, while he regretted having to give up something that had been so pleasant an experience, it was his firm belief that, as the axiom goes, “the buck stops here.”

“I want to reassure everyone that this sort of outrageous indis cretion will never happen again,” he promised, referring to Janice Norton’s violation of privileged information.

Letitia Bainbridge had accepted the invitation to dine at the doctor’s table. “Do I understand that Nurse Markey is filing an ethics complaint against you, stating that, in effect you stand by and let people die?” she asked.

“So I gather. It isn’t true, of course.”

“What does your wife think about that?” Mrs. Bainbridge persisted.

“Again, she’s truly saddened. She considered Nurse Markey a close friend.” And more the fool for it, Odile, he added to himself.

His farewell was gracious and to the point. “Sometimes it is appropriate to let other hands take the reins. I’ve always tried to do my best. If I am guilty of anything, it is of trusting a thief, but not of gross negligence.”

On the short walk between the manor and the carriage house, Dr. Lane thought, I don’t know what will happen now, but I do know Whatever job I get will be on my own.

Whatever happened, he had decided he wasn’t going to spend another single day with Odile.

When he went upstairs to the second floor, the bedroom door was open and Odile was on the phone, apparently screaming at an answering machine. “You can’t do this to me! You can’t just drop me like this! Call me! You’ve got to take care of me. You promised!” She hung up with a crash.

“And to whom were you speaking, my dear?” Lane asked from the doorway. “Perhaps the mysterious benefactor who against all odds hired me for this position? Don’t trouble him or her or whoever it is any longer on my account. Whatever I do, I won’t be needing your assistance.”

Odile raised tear-swollen eyes to him. “William, you can’t mean that.”

“Oh, but I do.” He studied her face. “You really are frightened, aren’t you? I wonder why. I’ve always suspected that under that empty-headed veneer, something else was going on.

“Not that I’m interested,” he continued, as he opened his closet and reached for a suitcase. “Just a bit curious. After my little relapse last night, I was somewhat foggy. But when my head cleared, I got to thinking and made a few calls of my own.”

He turned to look at his wife. “You didn’t stay for the dinner in Boston last night, Odile. And wherever you went, those shoes of yours got terribly muddy, didn’t they?”

89

She couldn’t keep track of the numbers anymore. It was no use.

Don’t give up, Maggie urged herself, trying to force her mind to stay alert, to remain connected. It would be so easy to drift away, so easy just to close her eyes and retreat from what was happening to her.

The picture Earl had given her-there had been something about Liam’s expression-the superficial smile, the calculated sincerity, the practiced warmth.

She should have guessed that there was something dishonest about his sudden attentiveness. He had been more in character when he abandoned her at the cocktail party.

She thought back to last night, to the voice. Odile Lane had been arguing with Liam. She had heard them.

Odile had been frightened. “I can’t do it anymore,” she had wailed. “You’re insane! You promised you’d sell the place and we’d go away. I warned you that Maggie Holloway was asking too many questions.”

So clear. For the moment so clear.

She could barely flex her hand any longer. It was time to scream for help again.

But now her voice was only a whisper. No one would hear her.

Flex… unflex… take short breaths, she reminded herself.

But her mind kept coming back to just one thing, the first childhood prayer she had ever learned: “Now I lay me down to sleep…”

90

“You could at least have told me that you owned Latham Manor,” Earl Bateman said accusingly to his cousin. “I tell you everything. Why are you so secretive?”

“It’s just an investment, Earl,” Liam said soothingly. “Nothing more. I am completely removed from the day-to-day operation of the residence.”

He drove into the parking lot of the funeral museum, stopping next to Earl’s car. “Go home and get a good night’s sleep. You need it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Boston. Why?”

“Did you come rushing down today just to see me?” Earl asked, still annoyed.

“I came because you were upset, and I came because I was concerned about Maggie Holloway. Now, as I’ve explained, I’m not as concerned about her. My guess is that she’ll show up soon.”

Earl started to get out of the car, then paused. “Liam, you knew where I kept the key to the museum, and the ignition key to the hearse, didn’t you?” he asked.

“What are you driving at?”

“Nothing, except to ask if you told anyone about where I keep them?”

“No, I didn’t. Come on, Earl. You’re tired. Go on home so I can get on my way.”

Earl got out and slammed the door.

Liam Moore Payne drove immediately out of the parking lot to the end of the side street. He didn’t notice a car pull out from the curb and follow at a discreet distance when he turned right.

It was all unraveling, he thought glumly. They knew he owned the residence. Earl had already started to suspect that he had been the one in the museum last night. The bodies were going to be exhumed, and they’d find that the women had been given improper medications. If he was lucky, Dr. Lane would be blamed, but Odile was ready to crack. They would get a confession out of her in no time. And Hansen? He would do anything to save his own skin.

So that leaves me, Liam thought. All that work for nothing! The dream of being the second Squire Moore, powerful and rich, was gone. After all the risks he had taken-borrowing from his clients’ securities; buying the residence on a shoestring and pouring money into it; figuring out Squire-like ways to get other people’s money-he was, after all that, just another failed Moore. Everything was slipping through his fingers.

And Earl, that obsessed fool, was rich, really rich.

But fool though he was, Earl wasn’t stupid. Soon he would start to put two and two together, and then he would know where to look for his casket.

Well, even if he figured it all out, Liam thought, he wouldn’t find Maggie Holloway alive.

Her time had run out, of that he was certain.

91

Chief Brower and Detective Haggerty were about to leave for the day when the call came in from Earl Bateman.

“They all hate me,” he began. “They like to ridicule the Bateman family business, ridicule me for my lectures-but the bottom line is they’re all jealous because we’re rich. We’ve been rich for generations, long before Squire Moore ever saw his first crooked dollar!”

“Could you get to the point, Professor?” Brower asked. “What do you want?”

“I want you to meet me at the site of my planned outdoor exhibit. I have a feeling that my cousin Liam and Maggie Holloway together have played their version of a practical joke on me. I’ll bet anything they took my casket to one of the open graves at the exhibit and dumped it there. I want you to be present when I find it. I’m leaving now.”

The chief grabbed a pen. “Where exactly is your exhibit site, Professor?”

When he hung up, Brower said to Haggerty, “I think he’s cracking up, but I also think we may be about to find Maggie Holloway’s body.”

92

“Neil, look at that!”

They were driving along a narrow dirt road, following the Jaguar. When they left the main road, Neil had turned off the headlights, hoping that Liam Payne wouldn’t realize they were there. Now the Jaguar was turning left, its headlights briefly illuminating a sign Robert Stephens strained to make out.

“Future site of the Bateman Outdoor Funeral Museum,” he read. “That must have been what Bateman was talking about when he said the stolen casket was going to be part of an important exhibit. Do you think it’s here?”

Neil did not answer. A fear so terrible that his mind could not tolerate it was exploding within him. Casket. Hearse. Cemetery.

If Liam Payne had been ordering residents of Latham Manor to be murdered, and then placed symbolic bells on their graves, what would he be likely to do to someone who had put him in danger?

Suppose he had been in the museum last night and found Maggie there?

He and someone else, Neil thought. It must have taken two of them to drive Maggie’s car and the hearse.

Had they killed her and taken her out in that coffin?

Oh, God, no, no, please!

“Neil, he may have spotted us. He’s turning around and coming back.”

Neil made an instant decision. “Dad, you follow him. Call the police. I’m staying here.”

Before his father could protest, Neil had jumped out of the car.

The Jaguar raced past them. “Go,” Neil shouted. “Go!”

Robert Stephens executed a precarious U-turn and pressed down on the accelerator.

Neil began to run. A sense of urgency so profound that it permeated every nerve ending in his body made him race onto the construction site.

The moonlight illumined the muddy, bulldozed acreage. He could see that trees had been felled, undergrowth cleared, paths staked out. And graves dug. Scattered, the holes yawned all around the area, seemingly at random, next to some of them, great piles of clay.

The cleared area seemed huge, extending almost as far as he could see. Was Maggie here somewhere? Had Payne been insane enough to dump the casket with her inside it in one of those open graves and then cover it with earth?

Yes, clearly he was that insane.

Neil began to crisscross the site, shouting Maggie’s name. At one open grave, he slipped, tumbled into it, and wasted precious minutes trying to get a toehold to scramble out. But even then he kept shouting, “Maggie… Maggie… Maggie…”

Was she dreaming? Maggie forced her eyes open. She was so tired. It was too much effort. She just wanted to sleep.

She couldn’t move her hand anymore. It was so stiff and swollen. She couldn’t scream anymore, but that didn’t matter. There was no one to hear her.

Maggie… Maggie… Maggie…

She thought she heard her name. It sounded like Neil’s voice. But it was too late.

She tried to call out, but no sound came from her throat. There was only one thing she could try. With painful effort she grasped her left hand with the fingers of her right hand and forced it up and down, up and down…

Vaguely she sensed from the tugging of the string that the bell must be moving.

Maggie… Maggie… Maggie…

Again she thought she heard her name being called, only it seemed fainter, and so very far away…

Neil was sobbing now. She was here. Maggie was here! He was sure of it! He could feel her presence. But where? Where was she? Was it too late? He had gone over almost all of the bulldozed area. She might be buried under any one of those mounds of dirt. It would take machines to dig through them, to move them. There were so many.

He was running out of time. And so was she. He could sense it.

“Maggie… Maggie…”

He stopped and looked around despairingly. Suddenly he noticed something.

The night was still. There wasn’t even enough breeze to stir a leaf. But over in the far corner of the lot, almost hidden by one of the giant piles of soil, something was glistening in the moonlight. And it was moving.

A bell. Moving back and forth. Someone was trying to signal from the grave. Maggie!

Running, stumbling around open pits, Neil reached the bell and saw that it was attached to a pipe, its opening almost packed with mud.

With his hands he began to claw at the dirt around it, claw and dig and sob.

As he watched, the bell stopped moving.

Chief Brower and Detective Haggerty were in the police car when the call from Robert Stephens was relayed to them. “Two of our guys have picked up the chase on the Jaguar,” the dispatcher said. “But Stephens thinks that the missing woman may have been buried on that outdoor museum site.”

“We’re almost there,” Brower said. “Dispatch an ambulance and emergency equipment out here now. With luck we’ll need both.” He leaned forward. “Turn on the siren,” he ordered.

When they arrived, they found Neil, using his hands like shovels, digging and clawing at the wet clay. An instant later, Brower and Haggerty were beside him, their powerful hands joining in the effort, digging, digging, digging.

Under the surface the soil became looser, less packed. Finally they reached the satiny wood. Neil jumped down into the hole, scraping dirt off the surface of the casket and hurling it away. Finally he yanked out the clogged air vent and brushed the entry site clear.

Sliding to the side of the wide grave, he got his fingers under the casket lid and with a superhuman effort yanked it partially open. He held it that way with his left shoulder as he reached in, grabbed Maggie’s limp body, and lifted it up to the eager hands reaching down from above.

As her face brushed his, he saw that her lips were moving and then heard her faint whisper, “Neil… Neil…”

“I’m here, love,” he said, “and I’ll never let you go.”