The Night Is Forever

Olivia automatically liked her for that reason.

They seemed to fit; Abby Anderson was striking, with tremendous blue eyes and pitch-black hair. She managed to look like an agent, smart and savvy and agile. But Malachi had told Olivia that Abby’s heritage included a many-times-great-uncle who’d been a famous—or infamous—pirate known as Blue. Whether that was because of the darkness of his hair or the blueness of his eyes, no one knew. The distinctive coloring had been passed down through the family.

“Mason is supposedly off seeing the Hermitage. He’s never been there for some reason,” Olivia said. “I’m not sure what Mariah’s doing. She said she’d go by the Horse Farm today. And we heard Sandra say that she was going home to sedate herself.”

“Sedate herself,” Dustin repeated. “That did make me wonder...”

“I’m sure she’s talking about Valium or something like that,” Olivia said quickly.

“Who at the Horse Farm knows about drugs and sedatives?” Dustin asked. “All of you?”

“We all know the rudiments,” Olivia told him. “We’ve had to tranquilize rescue horses now and then—and once a pit-bull mix that wanted to chow down on Drew when he was trying to help him. We all know what we’re doing. Everyone there knows where we keep the tranquilizer gun and how to use it.”

Dustin stared at her, frowning. “How can you know how much it’s loaded with at any given time? Some of your horses are close to a thousand pounds, but a pit bull mix, you’re looking at forty or fifty.”

“It’s always loaded for a seven-hundred-pound horse,” she said. “But, in the tack room, we have different size...tranquilizer darts.”

Dustin stood. “I’m on my way to the autopsy. “I can drop Sloan at the Horse Farm first and give him the keys to the rental, and then drop Jane at the station.” He turned to the now-fading ghost of Marcus Danby. “Did you know about the affair, Marcus? Sandra and Aaron?”

“Sure,” Marcus said. “But I didn’t care. I don’t know why they thought they had to be secretive about it.”

“And Sandra really did love Aaron?” Dustin asked.

“As best I could tell,” Marcus replied, his voice faint. “I never asked either one of them but I could tell from the way they talked to each other, looked at each other...but I figured it was their business. They’d say something when they felt like it. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m trying to figure out if she’d conspire with anyone to kill him,” Dustin said. “Or you....”

“We’ll try to sort out motives later,” Malachi said briskly. “Let’s meet up at the Horse Farm in a few hours.”

“It’ll be close to dusk,” Abby pointed out.

“That’s all right. It will be dusk,” Malachi said. He smiled at Olivia and she returned his smile, so glad he was there. “The general always had a tendency to prefer dusk.”

* * *

Despite the fact that he was at a morgue looking at the electrocuted body of a man he’d known and tried to save, Dustin felt confident that they were finally starting to get somewhere.

Sloan Trent had been an immediate hit with Sydney and Drew—because he knew horses. He talked about his own, and how the move from Arizona to northern Virginia had been interesting for him and his horses, and they were soon discussing feed, hay, saddles and tack. Sydney and Drew both seemed to forget, for a few minutes at least, that they’d lost two bosses in less than three weeks.

Jane Everett also did well at the station; she charmed Frank Vine, Jimmy Callahan and the other deputies milling around her. She described how researching the general’s picture—determining who’d created it and how it had ended up in the woods—might help them uncover just what was going on.

At the morgue, Dr. Wilson had already cut into Aaron Bentley. His assistants were sewing up the body when Dustin arrived, but Dr. Wilson showed him just what electrocution did to the body.

Blood samples had been sent to the lab and Wilson suspected they’d find trace elements of whatever medication Aaron had been given in the hospital—but nothing else. Too much time had passed. However, it appeared that he’d died because of his own carelessness in knocking the iPod charger into his bathwater.

“It’s like a closed-door mystery,” Wilson said, frustrated. No way in, no way out.” He shrugged, asking, “Do you think Aaron might’ve just been tired and sloppy? After all, there was no one else in the house.”

“There was no one else that we know of,” Dustin reminded him.

“I wish I could help you more—that the body was telling me more,” Wilson said. “But in this case...it really does appear to be accidental.”

He shook his head. “If only a corpse could talk...”

Dustin stared at the corpse, wondering if this one could. At the moment, he saw nothing, felt nothing, to suggest that Aaron Bentley could suddenly speak to him, tell him what happened.

“Naturally, when I get the lab results, I’ll let you know immediately,” Wilson said.

Dustin thanked him and drove to the police station to collect Jane. By the time he arrived, she was ready to leave, having taken dozens of photographs and done considerable research on the internet. She summarized what she’d discovered thus far.

“The cheesecloth is cheap and available in almost every art store in the United States. The rendering of the general was done in chalk and watercolor—and wouldn’t withstand a rainstorm. The artist was fairly decent, so I’d say you’re looking at the work of an art student, either someone who went to a good school or is still taking classes. That’s what I have so far.”

“So,” Jimmy Callahan said, “we’re looking for someone with access to the workers at the Horse Farm, someone who knows their hours and their habits. This someone also knows the campsite and the surrounding area. And he or she knows about tranquilizer drug concoctions that don’t show up in blood tests at a customary autopsy. And this person happens to be a fairly decent artist.”

“Except maybe our killer doesn’t need to be an artist at all, decent or not.”

“Yes,” Jane agreed. “This person—the killer—could have bought the image.”

Dustin nodded. “The murderer knew that Mariah would go snooping if she thought she was about to see the general. Although I don’t think she ever got to see this picture of the general floating in the forest mist. She happened on the pieces of coyote-torn cow first.”

Frank sat on the edge of his table and shook his head. “How did this person lure Mariah out—and hit Aaron Bentley with a dart at the same time?”

“It could’ve been done,” Dustin said. “The plans would have had to be laid the night before. And then the killer had to count on luck, as well. But most people know that Mariah is the local historian and ghost-queen. An eerie sound would definitely have caught her attention. Not a rebel yell or anything like that—too loud. A whisper? A distant bugle? Whoever this was came prepared.”

Frank shook his head again. “You still think Sandra?”

“At the very least, I think she knows something.”

“What’s your plan?” Frank asked.

“I’ll take a group riding—retrace our steps again, see what we can discover,” Dustin told him. “I particularly want to check out the stream.”

“My partner and I will be at the Horse Farm,” Jane told him quickly.

Frank looked at Jimmy. “Go pay Sandra Cheever a visit. Tell her you’ll be watching over her so that she can get some rest. See if you can stay inside at her place, rather than out in the car.”

“Yep, you got it.” Tipping his hat to Jane, Jimmy left the room.

“Is this crazy, or what? Is everyone at that place supposed to die in some kind of presumed accident?” Frank asked.

“Could be. What’s still eluding us is the reason,” Dustin muttered.

“You’ll be watching over Olivia, right?”

“A killer would have to get to her over my dead body,” Dustin assured him. “And you know that Malachi Gordon—Olivia’s cousin—is here, too.”

Frank nodded. He walked around to his desk and rummaged in his bottom drawer, then handed Dustin an outdated walkie-talkie. “You can reach the station with this. Keep me apprised of your movements.”

Dustin agreed to do that. As they drove back to the Horse Farm, he asked Jane, “There was nothing else you could get from that image of the general?”