‘Glad you mentioned it.’ Stern’s face split into a smile. ‘I was just working up to the grand tour. And feel free to take all the photos you need.’
After leading them into the hallway, he expounded for several minutes on the house’s history, the provenance of the fanlight over the door, and the origin of the furniture, special-ordered from a Shaker community in upstate New York.
With a prickle of impatience, Erin listened with half an ear as Lydia snapped a couple of photos. They didn’t need an architect’s tour of the house, just a sense of its suitability for Tim. And it wasn’t the house that concerned her, but the location. The sense of isolation was acute, and they must be miles away from the nearest neighbour.
‘This room here is my den,’ Stern said, opening a door partway at the end of the hall, while keeping his hand on the knob. A mahogany desk faced a sash window, with the rattan blind half-drawn. On the bookshelf stood a row of hardbound law books.
Erin glanced in briefly and turned away, only to be caught up short by a faded photo tacked to a corkboard. Something about the configuration of the group struck a chord. Two men in patterned shorts and a blonde woman standing on a rock-strewn beach. Behind them, a boy crouched at the water’s edge. Something about the woman’s pose and the design of orange and white diamonds on her dress looked familiar. A gold medallion in the shape of a sun glinted on her deeply tanned chest.
‘Not much to see here,’ Stern said, closing the door, just as Lydia pressed the shutter. He gave her an aggrieved look, before bouncing back into the gracious mode of host. ‘Tim won’t be interested in anything here. It’s the barn he’ll like, and the grounds. And his bedroom, of course.’
They climbed the wooden staircase to the floor above. On a table by the hall window, a jade-green ceramic bowl held a dozen pinecones, artfully arranged.
He pointed across the landing. ‘Tim’s room has a wonderful view of the barn and the duck pond.’
The three of them stood in the doorway. Maplewood floors, blue walls the colour of a robin’s egg. Two sash windows looked out on the surrounding hills and the red barn, the one bright spot in the landscape. A single bed, covered with a patchwork quilt, appeared ready for its intended occupant. Paradise, after Greenlake, Erin mused. Or hell. So much space to contend with. Given Tim’s behaviour when they lunched in town, and his skittishness about venturing onto the clinic’s grounds, it was clear he had a fear of open places.
After a cursory look into Stern’s bedroom, hotel bland with its beige carpet and utilitarian furniture, they trooped downstairs to the kitchen. ‘Oh, look, there’s Lulu,’ Stern said, ‘wondering when I’m going to quit yakking and take her on our walk.’
Through the window, Erin spotted a sleek Irish setter standing in the yard, brown eyes hopeful. The three of them pulled on their coats and headed outside.
Lydia took a few snaps of the barn and the duck pond, where a cluster of mallards eyed them nervously. As they moved around the property, Erin discreetly checked the signal on her phone. Poor, fading to nothing in the hollows.
As they circled back to the house, Stern fell in step beside Lydia. ‘May I ask you, Ms Belmont, if you’re from the islands?’
She gave him a puzzled look as she buttoned the collar of her coat against the chill.
‘I thought I detected the hint of an accent.’
‘I was born in the Bronx,’ she said, primly. ‘Not long after my parents immigrated to New York from Trinidad.’
‘Ha!’ He smiled. ‘What did I tell you? I’ve always had a knack for accents.’
Erin stiffened. She’d seen enough. It was time to make their escape.
Back in the brightly lit kitchen, she couldn’t help but notice the shadows under Stern’s eyes, and the sagging skin on his cheeks. All this hopped-up enthusiasm had clearly worn him out.
‘There’s a powder room down the hall, if you need to freshen up before you go,’ he said. Just the excuse she was looking for. Erin was itching to get a closer look at that photo, and this might be her only chance.
Near the den, she listened to be sure Stern was still in the front room with Lydia. She eased the door open and in three quick steps stood before the photo. A much younger Stern held a cocktail glass in the air, while his other arm was slung around a dark-haired man in checked shorts and a lime-green polo shirt. The blonde woman in the orange and white diamond-patterned dress gazed at Stern, her eyes hidden by sunglasses, her mouth open in mid-laugh. Was that the murdered wife?
A memory flashed and faded away, slippery as a trout. She tried to haul it back. There was something about the design of the woman’s dress, and the white headband around the candyfloss hair, shining in the sun. Around her neck, the gold sunburst pendant glinted in the light. Erin had seen that necklace before.
‘Can I help you?’
Her heart stopped.
When she turned to face Stern, their eyes locked. ‘I was just looking for the bathroom.’
For a fraction of a second, the televangelist bonhomie vanished in a spasm of anger, before the smile flashed again. ‘It’s the door on the left. Easy to get lost when you don’t know the house.’ He beckoned her to follow and closed the door firmly behind him.
*
Erin and Lydia were silent as they drove away from the farmhouse. Halfway on the road to tiny Matlock, with nothing to offer but a general store and a lunchroom, a gunmetal-grey sedan barrelled past, nearly forcing them off the road. The woman at the wheel held a phone to
