Читать книгу Bogeyman - Gayle Wilson - Страница 9

Ada Pringle had been the librarian in Crenshaw since Blythe was a child. Despite the more than fifteen years since Blythe had seen her, the woman had changed very little.

Her hair and penciled brows were still coal-black, which made Blythe realize that the former had probably been dyed even then. And Ada’s eyes still peered disapprovingly at her over the top of a pair of tortoiseshell half glasses.

Although the library was deserted at this time of the afternoon, the effect of that look was the same as when Blythe had been twelve and asking for help to find information needed for school. As if she had no right to pester Miss Ada with a request for service.

“Good afternoon, Miss Pringle.”

“Blythe Mitchell, as I live and breathe. Heard you was back.”

Blythe waited, expecting the conventional welcome-home comments. None were forthcoming.

“For almost two months now,” she said with a smile.

“Not living at your grandmother’s, I hear.”

“Well, there’s moving home, and then there’s moving home.” It was quickly obvious her attempt at humor had fallen flat. There had been no change in the brown eyes. “We decided to get our own place.”

“Heard you have a little girl.”

“Maddie. She’s four. I’ve been meaning to bring her by. She loves books as much as I did when I was that age.”

“Children ain’t allowed till they start school. Same as it’s always been,” Ada said. “Now what can I do for you?”

Blythe suddenly remembered why, voracious reader that she had always been, she hadn’t enjoyed coming here. And if there were any other option for what she needed, she would be tempted to walk out now.

“As I remember, you have bound copies of the Herald.”

The Crenshaw Herald was a weekly, but it was the only game in town. Most of its pages were devoted to church and club activities and athletic events at the school. The editor had always thoughtfully included anything newsworthy that had happened between issues, although it was probable that everyone might already know all the details through the ever-efficient community grapevine.

“Since the beginning. Most libraries have gone to microfiche, but as long as the pages hold together, I’ll keep the papers themselves,” Ada said. “That’s how I like to read ’em. I figure I’m not the only one.”

“I’d like to see them, please.”

“Of course.” Ada’s words were abrupt, but she lifted the hinged section of the counter she’d stood behind, moving briskly past Blythe and toward the tall shelves at the back of the room. By the time Blythe arrived, Ada was pointing to a row of huge, leather-bound books, each marked in gold on the spine with the words Crenshaw Herald and a year.

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Accustomed to the anonymity provided by a city like Boston, Blythe hadn’t anticipated the question. Given the objective of her research, she didn’t intend to share that information with a gossip like Ada.

“Just a little local color.”

“Local color?”

“Stories about the people and the community. I have several years to catch up on.”

“You still writin’ those articles, are you?” Ada’s tone sounded slightly disapproving.

Blythe had written three or four short travel essays for one of the regional magazines while she’d been in college. She hadn’t thought about them in years, but she was sure Ruth had made certain everyone in Crenshaw was aware of them. She might even have donated copies of those issues to the library.

“It’s always a possibility,” Blythe said, seizing on the excuse Ada had offered. “If something interesting turns up.”

All she wanted was to be left alone back here with the newspapers. Maybe this was a wild goose chase, but she believed that if there had been any sort of violence associated with the house she was renting, it would be detailed in the Herald.

When she’d dropped her daughter off this morning, she had asked her grandmother to keep Maddie this afternoon as well, pleading the need to investigate a couple of opportunities for employment. She would do that, too, before she picked the little girl up, but only in the most current issue of the Herald, which came out today.

“What kind of ‘interesting’?” Ada prodded. “More touristy stuff?”

The deprecating tone rankled. Granted, Blythe didn’t consider herself a writer, but she had been paid for that work. “Whatever will sell. As I said, something interesting.”

Ada’s eyes considered her over the top of her glasses. “If you’re looking for something that’d make money…”

The librarian ran her finger along the row of books until she found the one she was looking for. “I know it happened this year. Same as the flood in Sanger. My aunt’s house was damaged in that. And I know it was in the winter, so…” She pulled a volume off the shelf and laid it on one of the long empty tables and began flipping pages.

“I’m sorry?” Blythe had no idea what Ada was looking for.

“Sarah Comstock,” the librarian said, glancing up at her quickly before she went back to thumbing through the newspapers.

Blythe hadn’t thought about the Comstock murder in years. She’d been a little girl when it had happened, maybe five or six years old. Just slightly older than Maddie, she realized.

Although no one had talked openly about the murder in front of her, she had known. All the children in Crenshaw had known that Sarah had somehow been stolen from her room, taken from a bed where she’d slept beside her sister, and brutally murdered.

Blythe had come to the library looking for some incident of violent death. Yet for some reason, she had never thought about Sarah Comstock’s.

The newsprint continued to turn under Ada’s long, thin fingers. Suddenly the librarian’s hand stilled. She smoothed the pages on either side of the open book so that they lay flat and exposed.

“December. Thought so, but I wasn’t sure. I’ll get the next one, too, ’cause I know those stories ran for months.”

She turned back to the shelf, leaving the first volume on the table. The grainy picture in the center showed several men in uniform standing in the area the locals had always called Smoke Hollow. There was no body visible in the photograph, and Blythe was infinitely relieved not to have to view even a picture of a child-size corpse. With the sickness that thought created in the bottom of her stomach, she almost reached out and closed the book.

Before she could, Miss Ada laid another beside it. “First few months of this one, too. I don’t think the paper carried the story in depth much longer than that. Not a lot to cover.”

“Thank you.” Blythe set her purse down on top of the picture in the opened volume, as if to claim ownership of it.

“Cold cases always grab the interest of the reading public,” Ada said.

“Cold cases?”

“Unsolved crimes. Particularly murders. Why, you remember Mark Furman, don’t you? Made a mint on that girl’s murder in Connecticut. Don’t re-shelve ’em when you’re done. Just leave ’em out, and I’ll do it. Most everybody gets it wrong.”

“No, I won’t. And thank you, Miss Pringle.” Despite the passage of years and her own maturity, Blythe couldn’t bring herself to call the woman Ada.

“Sorry for your loss.” The librarian’s words were slightly awkward. “Good you came on home, though. Your grandmamma needs you.”

Blythe opened her mouth, trying to think of an appropriate answer. Before she could, Ada had turned and headed back to her counter.

Left alone, Blythe took a breath before she looked down again at the newsprint, sliding her purse to the side to reveal the picture. With her other hand, she found the back of one of the wooden chairs that had been shoved under the table. Without taking her eyes off the story that surrounded the photograph, she pulled the chair out far enough that she could slip into it. As she began to unbutton her coat, her mind was already occupied by the words that had been written a quarter of a century before.

“Time to close.”

Blythe blinked as she looked up. Ada was hovering at her elbow, a black vinyl purse hooked over her arm.

As she’d moved, Blythe had become aware of a stiffness in her neck and shoulders. Not surprising, she acknowledged. If it was indeed closing time, she must have been reading in this same position for hours.

It wasn’t only the gruesome details that had emerged from the yellowed pages of the Herald that held her rapt. She had been fascinated by the microcosm of the rural county’s society the investigation into the little girl’s murder had revealed. Since she had known most of its principals all her life, she had become completely caught up in the unfolding story.

Law enforcement, in the person of Sheriff Hoyt Lee, had admitted from the start that the lack of physical evidence was not only baffling, but virtually insurmountable. The child’s mutilated body, stripped of its nightgown, had been washed clean by the swift, icy current of the stream that cut through the hollow. There was no trace evidence, at least none that the technology of the day had been able to discover. No footprints. And as there appeared to have been no sexual assault at the time of the murder, no DNA had been preserved.

“May I check these out?” Blythe asked.

She couldn’t come back here every afternoon. She had already imposed on her grandmother enough. Lost in the articles on the murder, however, she hadn’t even looked for anything relating to her house.

“The newspapers? Oh, those don’t circulate.”

“I’d be very careful with them, I promise.” The schoolgirl feeling had come flooding back.

“Can’t make exceptions. Then everybody expects them.”

As Blythe debated whether anything might be gained by further argument, Ada reached over and closed the first book she’d taken down. “You should talk to Hoyt.” She juggled her purse as she prepared to lift the heavy book back up onto the shelf. “He’s bound to know stuff that never made the papers. Evidence, I mean.” The three syllables of the word were individually and distinctly pronounced, the accent on the last.

Despite her annoyance at being treated like a child, Blythe had to admit the idea was intriguing, but not because of the Comstock case. The former sheriff would be the ideal person to ask about the house she was living in. Not only would he know if anything had happened there, he would never gossip about her inquiry.

Hoyt had shown her extraordinary kindness while she’d been growing up. Maybe because he’d been friends with her father. Maybe he’d felt sorry for her because of his untimely death. Whatever the reason, he had treated her like a fond uncle, even escorting her once to a father/daughter church banquet.

“That’s a very good idea, Ada. Thanks for the suggestion,” Blythe said, pushing back her chair and gathering up her coat and purse.

The librarian’s eyes had widened at her use of her given name, a reaction that Blythe found surprisingly satisfying.

The Sheriff’s Department had expanded to take in the adjoining buildings in the years she’d been away. Obviously there was a greater need for law-enforcement officers with the growth of the population and the county’s changing demographics.

In the few weeks she’d been back, Blythe had become aware of the problem of meth labs, which seemed to spring up overnight in this mostly rural area. Even the redoubtable Sheriff Lee would no longer have been able to control things with only three or four deputies. Judging from the row of patrol cars parked in front of the building, there were far more than that now.

As she approached the door, her eye was caught by the neat gold letters, all caps, on its top half. DAVIS COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. And below that, in both lower and upper case, Sheriff Cade Jackson. She had already reached out to grasp the doorknob when memory stopped her hand in midair.

Cade Jackson. She hadn’t thought about the object of her first teenage crush in at least a decade, but the image evoked by his name was still colored by those long-ago fantasies.

The reality would probably be much different. She’d run into a couple of her former classmates, both of whom had succumbed to the dangers of a regional diet heavy on fried foods and starches. Their bellies had drooped over their belt buckles, and one had already begun combing his thinning locks across his pate in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the aging process.

It would verge on blasphemy if that had happened to Cade, she thought. Given that he was still living here in Crenshaw, however, it was probably inevitable.

And why would you care if he’s fat and bald?

She would, she realized. Something about schoolgirl dreams and first loves. Even if Cade had never known about either.

She debated turning around and going back to her car. She had come here to see Hoyt, and it was obvious he was no longer employed by the county. Cade would probably know no more about the history of the house she was living in than she did.

Despite that logical conclusion, she turned the knob and pushed the heavy door inward. The kid at the desk looked to be about the same age as Cade the last time she’d seen him. A high-school senior, he’d soon left the county, heading to Tuscaloosa and a football scholarship at the University of Alabama.

Blythe, who had been twelve at the time, had grieved with all the emotion she’d been capable of. Which, as she remembered it, had been quite a lot.

That had been her first experience with loss. Although the memory of that pain had faded with the passing years and especially with the reality of true loss, within her chest stirred a shred of the apprehension she would have felt as a pre-adolescent had she known she was about to come face-to-face with Cade Jackson.

“Help you?” the young deputy asked.

“Sheriff Jackson, please?”

“May I ask what your inquiry is in reference to?”

At least the kid had been well trained. The question was both polite and efficient. Score one for Sheriff Jackson.

Tell him I’m trying to discover if my house might be haunted.

Since she couldn’t divulge the truth, she said, “I’m trying to get in touch with Hoyt Lee.”

The kid held her eyes a moment, his assessing. Then he reached for the phone on the desk in front of him, holding the receiver in the same hand he used to punch in a couple of numbers.

“Lady out here wants to talk to you about locating Sheriff Lee.”

He listened, lips pursing slightly at whatever was said by the person on the other end of the line. His eyes met hers again as he nodded in response to what he’d been told.

He put down the phone and nodded toward another glass-topped door at the end of a short hall. “You can go on in. Sheriff’s expecting you.”

“Thanks.”

She had taken only a couple of steps when the door she was headed toward opened. A man stepped through it and out into the hall. Although the overhead light cast a shadow on his face, his body in the light-colored uniform he wore was silhouetted against the darkness behind it.

If anything, Cade was leaner than when he’d played quarterback for the Davis County Warriors. The shoulders were still as broad. His height the same, of course.

As he walked toward the well-lit reception area, her mouth went dry. Her first thought was that he hadn’t changed at all, but he had, of course.

The features that had been almost too fine at eighteen had strengthened. The straight nose had at some point been broken, so that a narrow ridge marred its perfection. The lips were thinner, more mature. More masculine, she conceded.

And far more sensual.

She was shocked by the thought. More shocked by the physical reaction that had produced it.

Cade Jackson had been a good-looking boy. He was a compellingly attractive man.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had responded to a man in this way. Other than John, of course. And John had been dead for almost a year.

Maybe this was simply a natural progression in the long process of grieving. Maybe nature had decided it was time she began to notice members of the opposite sex again.

Sex.

Something else she hadn’t thought about in a long time, she realized. And didn’t want to think about right now.

Especially not as the man who had epitomized every adolescent daydream she’d ever had advanced toward her across the room, holding out his hand. If Ada Pringle’s rudeness could reduce her to an adolescent state, what effect would placing her hand into Cade’s have?

“Cade Jackson.”

It was obvious he didn’t remember her. But then, she was very different from the twelve-year-old she’d been when he’d left Crenshaw. Maybe she should have been flattered that he didn’t make the connection.

“Blythe Wyndham.” She put her fingers in his, aware of their calloused hardness.

His handshake was firm and brief, without any of the cheesy lingering hold men sometimes used to prolong contact with an attractive woman.

Because he doesn’t find you attractive?

“Wyndham?” A tiny furrow appeared between the dark brows.

His eyes hadn’t changed either, she realized. Surrounded by thick, dark lashes, they were an unusual blue-green, almost aquamarine. Their paleness contrasted to the darkness of his skin, still deeply tanned despite the season.

“Née Mitchell,” she offered, and then wondered if he would even know what that meant.

“Blythe Mitchell. Of course. I heard you were back.”

She waited for the obligatory expression of sympathy, but he didn’t offer one. Maybe the town gossip hadn’t provided him with the information about her husband’s death. Or maybe he’d forgotten it.

She became aware that he, too, was waiting. After all, she had asked to talk to him.

“I have what may seem a strange request.”

The lips she’d just thought of as being sensual quirked slightly at the corners and were quickly controlled. “I doubt it’s any stranger than most of the ones we get in here.”

He glanced at the kid at the desk, who, Blythe realized, had been hanging on their every word. Despite the convenient excuse Ada Pringle had suggested, Blythe didn’t want it spread around that she was investigating the town’s most notorious murder. That would only provoke more gossip about her situation, something she’d had enough of.

“Do you think we could talk in your office?”

She knew by the momentary hesitation before he answered that she’d taken Cade by surprise. It took only a second or two for him to recover. He turned, using his hand to direct her toward the hallway and the still-open door.

She stepped past him, once again aware of him physically. Of his size. Of the faint aroma of soap or aftershave that seemed to cling to his body along with the scent of laundered cotton.

She wondered who did his laundry. Maybe he had a wife, someone who had taken the time to lovingly put that knife-edge crease into the khaki pants.

Then, concentrating on what she’d come here for, she determinedly banished any thought of Cade Jackson, the man. He was simply the current sheriff of Davis County.

That was the only role she was now interested in having him play in her life. She had long ago outgrown the other.

His office was small, but neat. There were only two chairs, a battered leather swivel on the far side of the desk—obviously Cade’s—and a straight-back wooden one, very like the chairs in the library, on the other. Blythe waited until he entered behind her, leaving the door open. She watched as he crossed the room to stand behind his desk. He gestured, indicating that she should sit down.

“Jerrod said you want to get in touch with Hoyt Lee.” He had waited until she was seated before he settled into his own chair. “That doesn’t seem such a strange request to me, although I would think Miz Ruth would have been able to help with that.”

“Actually, I didn’t realize he wasn’t sheriff anymore. I came here thinking I could talk to him.”

“Would you like for me to call him? Set up an appointment?”

“No. You’re right. My grandmother will have Hoyt’s number. Actually…” She was repeating herself, she realized. Of course, she’d never been very good at prevaricating. “I do freelance articles for magazines,” she began again. “At least I did.”

“And you want to write an article about Hoyt?”

Cade’s elbows were on the arms of the chair, long brown fingers tented so that their joined tips touched the slight depression in the middle of his chin. It wasn’t deep enough to be classified as a cleft, but it had always fascinated her. It was a little disconcerting to realize that it still did.

She wondered if she should just tell Cade the truth. Wouldn’t he be bound by his office to keep anything she told him confidential? If she’d been willing to confide in Hoyt, why not in the current sheriff of Davis County?

“My grandmother suggested that doing so again might provide…a source of income.”

His brows lifted slightly. “And…”

“I’ve spent the afternoon researching the town’s history. Reading back through the old issues of the Herald, trying to find something that might be interesting to the outside world.”

“Did you?”

“Ada reminded me of the Comstock murder. And that it’s still unsolved.”

“That’s right.”

Judging by the shortness of his answer, she wondered if Cade disapproved of what she said she’d come here to do. Again she fought the urge to tell him the truth. He might believe she was an idiot, but at least he wouldn’t think her a ghoul.

“Was that a case where the police knew the killer, but couldn’t prove it?”

“Not in my opinion.”

“Then you’ve read the file?”

“I read through all the unsolved cases when I took office.”

The sheriff of Davis County was an elected official. Blythe wondered what credentials Cade had brought to the job other than some long ago prowess on the football field. Of course, in this state that might have been recommendation enough.

“May I look at it?”

“Why?”

“I told you—”

“I know what you told me.” He lowered his hands, resting them on the edge of his desk. “Now I’d really like to know why you’re so interested in a murder that happened twenty-five years ago.”

“Cold cases catch the public’s attention,” she said, repeating Ada’s words. “And maybe editors’.”

“So you’re thinking of a book deal?”

“I really haven’t gotten that far. Besides, there may be nothing there—”

“There’s plenty there. For the curious. There’s just no evidence. Certainly not enough to lead to an indictment. And no way you’re going to be able to come up with the murderer.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What kind of story would you have without a conclusion?”

She relaxed a little, believing that she understood his objection. “I’m not trying to solve the case, Sheriff Jackson. I don’t have the skills to do that. I assure you I’m interested in doing exactly what I said. Writing an article. Preferably one I can sell,” she added.

There was another of those thoughtful silences. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

When Cade began the sentence, she had believed he was about to apologize for giving her a hard time. By the time he finished it, she realized that he had connected John’s death with the article. He obviously believed she needed the money. Which was the truth, she acknowledged.

“Thank you.”

“I’ll have Jerrod get you the file. There’s an office across the hall you can use. I can’t let you take anything out of course, but there’s a copier in the reception area.”

Cade stood, indicating that their conversation was over. Except she hadn’t asked him anything she’d come here to find out. She had been morbidly fascinated by the Comstock murder, and it had provided an excuse for her research, but what she really needed to know…

“Are there any other…” She hesitated, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to ask.

“Murders as gruesome as Sarah’s?”

Again she sensed his disapproval. “Acts of violence,” she said, finishing her interrupted question. “Other incidents of violent death.”

“A few brawls and farm accidents. Are those the kinds of things you’re looking for?”

“Not really. Someone mentioned that something violent had happened in the house I’m renting. It’s the two-story frame house at the end of Wheeler Road.”

“Not that I’ve ever heard of. However, your grandmother or Hoyt would be a better source for that kind of information than I am. Both have lived here all their lives.”

“You’re right,” she said, finally getting to her feet. “I’ll check with them. Thank you for your time.”

She turned and walked through the door of his office, aware that he was following her. The kid watched as they came into the reception area. She smiled at him as she passed the desk.

“Jerrod, would you get Ms. Wyndham the file on Sarah Comstock, please?”

Realizing that she had been about to walk out without looking at the material she had professed to want to see, Blythe turned, making a point of glancing down at her watch. “Actually…” Again. “Would it be all right if I come back another day and read through the material? I’m late picking up my daughter. They’ll be wondering what’s happened to me.”

“Of course. Whenever Ms. Wyndham is ready, Jerrod.”

“Yes, sir,” the deputy said. “Anytime, ma’am.”

“Thank you. Thank you both.” She started to the door.

“Good to see you again,” Cade said. “And since I didn’t say it before, welcome home.”

She smiled her thanks. A smile he didn’t return. Cutting her losses, she opened the door and escaped those considering blue eyes by stepping out into the cold twilight.