Moonlight Becomes You

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.