In the Dark of the Night

even know what happened yet.”

Merrill Brewster shifted again, her eyes boring into Jeff. “A boy is dead. What else has to happen?” She glanced first toward Ellen Newell, then Ashley Sparks. “Surely you don’t really want to stay here, do you?”

Ashley took a deep breath, then looked directly at her. “Carol Langstrom is my friend,” she said, keeping her voice steady by the sheer force of her will. “I’ve known Carol and Ellis a long time, and she’s going to need her friends right now.” She hesitated again, as if knowing how much her next words might hurt Merrill, but then went on: “So no, Merrill, I’m not going anywhere.”

“But—” Merrill began, but Dan, moving his hand from Ashley Spark’s to his wife’s, shook his head.

“Nobody’s going home, sweetheart,” he said softly. “At least not right now.”

“But the sheriff was here, Dan!” Merrill said, pulling her hand away from his. “He was asking the boys questions about Ellis right after he disappeared.”

“The sheriff?” Dan echoed, turning to Eric. “Am I missing something here? Do you guys know something about this?”

Eric shook his head. “We hardly even know him. One of his friends told the sheriff about something that had happened Monday night, that’s all.”

“‘Something’?” Dan echoed. “I think you’re going to have to do better than that. In fact, I think you’re going to have to tell me exactly what happened, and exactly why the sheriff wanted to talk to you about it.”

Reluctantly, Eric told his father the whole story of what had happened on the way home Monday night, and when he was done, he spread his hands helplessly. “That’s all that happened. And even if we’d wanted to go after them, it wouldn’t have been Ellis Langstrom. It would have been Mosler. He—”

Kent and Tad looked across the table at him and shook their heads, and Eric cut whatever he was about to say short and shrugged. “Mosler was the worst,” he finished. “Langstrom was just sort of going along with him.”

Dan studied the boys carefully. They looked traumatized, but they didn’t look guilty.

“Do they even know what happened to the Langstrom boy yet?” Jeff Newell asked.

After a short silence, Kent Newell finally spoke. “One of his arms was missing.”

Tad Sparks put his napkin to his mouth as the acid from his empty stomach rose in his throat.

“Honey, are you all right?” Ashley asked.

Tad took a breath. “I–I’ll be all right.” He sat back in his chair and stared down into his lap.

“One arm missing sounds like more than an accident,” Dan said. “But it doesn’t necessarily sound like murder — maybe an animal attack or something.” He turned to Kevin Sparks and Jeff Newell. “Either of you know the sheriff up here?”

“I’ve met him a couple of times,” Kevin said. “Nice guy, as far as I can tell.”

“Then let’s pay him a visit this afternoon,” Dan suggested. He turned back to his wife. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We won’t make any decisions right now. First we’re going to find out exactly what happened to the Langstrom boy, and what’s going on. And we’re certainly not all going to pack up and leave here while there’s an investigation going on — not after what Eric says happened Monday night.”

“I don’t care—” Merrill began, but Dan held up his hand.

“This was a terrible tragedy for everybody,” he said. “But it’s not the end of the world.” As Marci stood up to take her plate to the kitchen, Dan grabbed her and pulled her down onto his lap. “Besides,” he went on, “I need to see my little girl in the Fourth of July parade.”

As Merrill saw the happy grin that spread over Marci’s face — the first happy expression she’d seen so far today — she decided that Dan might be right.

Perhaps they should stay, at least until after the Fourth.

And maybe nothing else would happen.

RUSTY RUSTON TOOK a deep breath, then opened his office door to admit Gerald Hofstetter, the florid-faced, redheaded publisher of the Phantom Lake Times, and Ray Richmond, who had been the town’s mayor for more years than his boyish looks should have made possible. From the moment Richmond called him to set up the meeting, Rusty had been certain that sparks were going to fly. Sure enough, as soon as the office door closed behind them, the mayor came right to the point.

“I think we all need to talk about Ellis Langstrom’s death,” he began, looking directly at Hofstetter. “Particularly given our dependence on the summer trade.” Gerald nodded and smiled benignly, but Rusty saw him readying himself for what they both knew was coming next. “I want to know,” Richmond continued, “whether I can count on the media”—he looked pointedly at Gerald—“to be sensitive to the town’s needs.”

“The public has a right to know,” Gerald countered blandly, the very neutrality in his voice causing a muscle in Ray’s jaw to tense in frustration. Whenever Hofstetter used that tone, Richmond knew he was planning something particularly inflammatory.

“We don’t know anything yet,” Ruston interceded. “All we know is that Ellis was drunk the last time his friends saw him. What happened after he left them is a matter of speculation.”

“And speculation,” the mayor said, “is exactly what we don’t need. There’s enough of it on the streets already, and the last thing we need is for the newspaper to start in, too.” He turned to Ruston. “How long before we get the autopsy report?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Depends. There was the missing arm, and a pretty nasty head injury, but there was no definite evidence of foul play — no obvious bullet wounds or anything like that. If the coroner’s not too busy, I think we’ll have it within a few days.”

“I’d hate like hell to have someone else die because we were worried about a little speculation,” Hofstetter said, once more using the tone that never failed to get the mayor’s back up.

“We’re not going off half-cocked on this, Gerald.” Ruston laid his pen down on the desk and folded his hands. “And nothing you print before we know exactly what happened is going to change the facts of what happened.”

“But if it turns out it was a murder—” Hofstetter began, but this time Ray Richmond cut him short.

The mayor leaned forward. “I know you remember what happened when the Hanovers’ granddaughter was murdered. This town almost died, and we all know it was largely because you kept spreading it all over your damn paper, even when you didn’t have anything new to write about. So you sold papers, but the summer people all left.”

“And in the end, my advertising revenues dried up, too,” Hofstetter said. “I’m not a bad guy, Ray — I’m on your side. I want what’s best for this town, just like you. I just don’t want you to hobble me, and if Ellis Langstrom was murdered, the people in this town have a right to know it.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” the mayor said. “I’ll give the coroner’s office a call, and see if I can get Bicks to burn a little midnight oil and get us his report. I’m not asking you to bury the facts. I just don’t want you to stir up a panic before we know if anything really happened.”

Rusty looked up at the sound of the outer office door opening to see Kevin Sparks walk in along with another man. He tilted his head just enough to alert the other two men. “Here we go,” he said as he rose to his feet and moved toward the door.

Hofstetter and Richmond both turned around to look. “Who’re they?” Richmond asked.

“Kevin Sparks, one of the summer people from The Pines,” Rusty said. “I spoke with his son and two other Pines boys when Ellis first went missing. I’m assuming the other guy is the father of one of those boys.”

“What do they want?” Hofstetter asked.

“I can only guess,” Rusty sighed. “You two want to stick around to find out?”

“Sure,” the mayor said, putting on his best campaign smile for the benefit of the people who kept Phantom Lake’s standard of living one of the highest in the state.

Rusty opened his office door, beckoned Kevin Sparks inside, and shook hands with Dan Brewster as Sparks made the introductions. As soon as Rusty heard the name Brewster, he remembered the family’s bloodied and mutilated cat.

And he remembered praying that there was no connection between what had happened to that cat and Ellis Langstrom’s disappearance.

And he remembered talking to the boys, and his impression that they knew something they weren’t talking