sitting in this echoing space as the sun went down, surrounded by flying creatures that weren’t birds… she shivered. Then caught herself. She was thinking of the future, wasn’t she? At least, a future a few hours from now.
Her heart, painful, tender, hopeful, resurrected itself in her chest. He had really gone. She had time. She had an entire warehouse of possibilities. And tucked inside her sleeve, she still had the sharpened iron rod from the door hinge. She stood, a movement that was much easier from a crate than a floor. Better get started.
John Huggins was ticked off. “You mean it wasn’t Millie van der Hoeven?”
“No,” Russ said for the third time. He was in van der Hoeven’s study, sitting in the dead man’s chair, using the dead man’s phone. He was not a happy man at the moment.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” There was a pause. “I didn’t just decide to call off the search, you know. Mr. van der Hoeven told me his sister had been found. If anybody’s screwed up here, it’s him.”
Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Eugene was… mistaken. Did your searchers leave all together? Or did they straggle out one by one?”
“No, we always do a head count and equipment check before we break a search. We all left together.”
“What time was this?”
“Half past twelve or thereabouts.”
Right around the time when Becky Castle was being taken to town in the ambulance. “Did any of you see Eugene van der Hoeven?”
“Sure. He came out and thanked us all for our help.”
“Was he inside or outside when you left?”
“Inside. He went inside after he spoke with us. I figured he was fixing to head out to the hospital to be with his sister.”
“Did any of your team go inside the house before they left?”
There was a stack of catalogs by the phone. Russ picked up the top one. Hunting gear. He flipped through a few more. L.L.Bean, Eddie Bauer, army-navy surplus. It made sense. A man like Eugene van der Hoeven, phobic about leaving his house and grounds, probably did all his shopping over the phone.
“No. What the hell’s going on?”
Russ uncovered another catalog. “I can’t say right now. Did you notice anything odd or unusual, anything at all, in the time between breaking the search and leaving?”
“No.” Huggins paused, then said, “Yes. Sort of. When I was driving down the road to the county highway, I passed a car coming up. It wasn’t actually coming up right then. It had pulled off as far as it could to let us through. We make quite a wagon train when everybody’s truck starts rolling.”
“What sort of car?”
“It was a black Mercedes. Looked kind of new, but you know how they are. Hard to tell.”
“Do you know the model?”
Huggins laughed. “Do I strike you as a guy who spends a lot of time around Mercedeses? Ask me about Chevys, then I can help you out. It was a four-door hardtop, New York plates, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Did you see who was in it?”
“Some guy. I couldn’t make out any details from my angle. I ride a lot higher up than that Mercedes.” His voice turned serious. “Look, if Millie van der Hoeven is still missing, do you want me to reassemble the team?”
“You got your dog handler back?”
“She’s on her way down from Plattsburgh right now.”
Russ thought for a moment. “We’re in the middle of an investigation, so I can’t have your people up here until we’ve cleared the scene. But put everyone on hold. Especially the dog handler.”
“Okay.” Huggins was clearly consumed with curiosity, and only his image of himself as a hard-bitten professional was keeping him from breaking down and begging Russ to tell him what was going on.
Russ said his good-bye and got off the phone. Outside, Lyle MacAuley was squatting in front of the third bay of the garage, squinting at the garden cart stowed there.
“What do you think?” Russ asked.
“It’s been used. Today. Look.” He pointed to where a torn blade of grass, still green, clung to a dab of dark soil. “That’s fresh.” He stood, stretching. “I don’t need some fancy-pants statie technician to tell me that. And take a look at the handle.” He pointed. “Smear of blood.”
“Yeah, I noticed that as well.” Russ pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t see any open injuries on Ed when I took him into custody.”
“What about van der Hoeven’s body?”
Russ shook his head. “I asked Emil Dvorak to get the preliminary results to us as quickly as possible. There’s something about this whole situation”-he waved, indicating the cart, the house, and the wide woods beyond-“that sticks in my craw.”
“I dunno. I like Ed Castle as a suspect. He gets here, smashes into van der Hoeven with his SUV, and then dumps the body in the back of beyond.” Lyle spread his hands as if presenting a fait accompli. “We’re back home in time for the evening news.”
“Somebody else was here.”
Both of Lyle’s overgrown eyebrows rose.
“John Huggins saw a black Mercedes driving up the road to Haudenosaunee when the entire search team was making their way down.”
“Tight fit.”
“Huggins couldn’t identify the year or model, just that it was a sedan with New York plates.”
“Great. I’m sure there aren’t more than two, three hundred thousand Mercedeses in New York. Saratoga alone probably has more’n a hundred. I’ll get right on it.”
“We have a blank spot in van der Hoeven’s timeline as well,” Russ said. “An hour, an hour and a half between the time the search team left and you found him here with Ed.”
“Any possible witnesses?”
“He had a part-time housekeeper. I can’t remember her first name, but the last name’s Schoof. She’s Mark Durkee’s sister-in-law.”
“Lisa.”
“Good memory.”
Lyle leered. “You may be getting too old to notice, but the day I forget a good-looking woman’s name is the day you can haul me away in the garden cart.”
“I’m going to radio Kevin Flynn. Have him question her. Her husband came by to pick her up, so he may have seen something as well.”
“Kevin?” Lyle looked skeptical. “You sure about that?”
“He needs to start somewhere.”
“What about me?”
Russ grinned. “You’ve not only started, I think you’ve damn near finished as well.”
“Smart-ass. What do you want me to do?”
The
“You were going to tell me where you wanted me,” Lyle reminded Russ.
“Yeah. Get over to the hospital and take Becky Castle’s statement. She’s out of surgery.”
Lyle looked surprised. “The hospital called you?”
“Uh.” Russ forced himself not to look away from his deputy chief. “No. I was talking to Reverend Fergusson. She told me.”
“Ah.” Lyle paused. “You know, at fifty you’re supposed to be too old and too smart to be messing up your
