Читать книгу Death Falls - Todd Ritter - Страница 11

The cul-de-sac was quiet. Forbiddingly quiet, like a graveyard at night. Part of that could be attributed to its status as a glorified dead end, an afterthought by town planners, which jutted into the woods toward the water. But there were other streets in Perry Hollow just like it, and none of them were this silent, this still, this—

Haunted.

That was probably too dramatic a word to describe the cul-de-sac, but it perfectly summed up the vibe Kat got from it. There was no sidewalk, only high sycamores that towered next to the road, blocking out the bulk of the sun. In their leafy shadows, the street’s four houses looked dark and empty. Their lawns were vacant. Their front porches bare. It seemed to Kat like a ghost town.

She was sure Nick and even Eric Olmstead, who grew up there, felt the same way. The three of them walked down the middle of the street slowly and quietly, as if they were afraid of disturbing whatever spirits might lurk there.

Nick was the first to speak, pointing to a large brick home set far back on the opposite side of the street. It reeked of ostentation, from the curving driveway to the giant brass knockers on the front door.

“Who lives there?”

“That’s the Santangelo residence,” Kat said. “Lee and Becky.”

“Lee Santangelo. Where have I heard that name before?”

“He was a politician. State representative for, like, twenty years.”

Until Eric Olmstead hit the bestseller list, Lee Santangelo had been Perry Hollow’s most famous resident. The highlight of his tenure in Harrisburg was never taking a stand on anything and voting in whatever direction the popular wind was blowing. But people loved him. He was a former fighter pilot handpicked by NASA to train for the space program. His wife was a stylish beauty queen turned homemaker. They were Perry Hollow’s own JFK and Jackie.

Kat remembered how Lee would visit the elementary school each year, giving rambling speeches that encompassed everything from the importance of space exploration to state government. Even as a girl, she had thought him a bit too full of himself, a little heavy on the preening. Other girls disagreed. Even as Lee entered his forties, Kat still heard classmates talk about his sheer dreaminess.

“When was the last time you talked to Lee Santangelo?” she asked Eric.

“We’ve barely said ten words to each other our entire lives. The most we talked was when he’d put campaign signs in our yard every election, despite the fact that my mother always pulled them up and threw them in the street. They didn’t get along.”

“Why not?”

“My mother never talked about it. Which makes me think it had something to do with Charlie.”

Kat shot Nick a glance. Whether he meant to or not, Eric just gave them their first suspect.

They came to a stop again at the next house on that side of the street. About half the size of the Santangelo residence, it was a two-story clapboard. And although the lawn was mowed and curtains were hung in the windows, Kat didn’t need the FOR SALE sign at the end of the driveway to tell her it was vacant. It had that air of emptiness homes on the market often possessed.

According to the sign, the Realtor was Ginger Schultz, a former high school classmate. She and Kat had taken algebra together, and they’d spend the class sitting in the back row giggling and slipping notes. Now that Kat thought about it, a lot of those notes had to do with Eric Olmstead. That he and Kat were once again in the same place at the same time would amuse Ginger to no end.

“Who used to live here?” Nick asked.

“Ruth and Mort Clark,” Eric said with noticeable affection. “My mom actually liked them. They were good people.”

“When did they move?”

Kat, whose job required her to know as much as she could about everyone in town, took the liberty of answering. “They didn’t. They died. Mort sometime in the late eighties. Ruth was in the early nineties. The house has been on and off the market a lot since then.”

“Any particular reason?” Nick asked.

“No idea.”

Eric started walking again. “I’d say it was the street. People know what happened here. Word gets around. It makes the place feel …”

His voice trailed off, but Kat knew what word he had intended to use. It was the same word that had popped into her head earlier. Haunted.

As if they needed further proof of that feeling, Kat turned to the house across the street. Absurdly tall and run-down. The only way it could have looked more haunted is if there had been a cemetery in the front yard. Kat’s gaze started at the widow’s walk on the roof and slid down the house’s façade. The windows were wide and rounded at the top, giving the impression of many eyes staring outward. Some were cracked. Others were missing shutters. The siding—Kat assumed it had once been white—desperately needed stripping and a fresh coat of paint. The front porch was in equally bad shape. Holes gaped willy-nilly in the floorboards and a whole section of railing had broken off. It now lay on the ground, partially hidden by knee-high crabgrass.

“Let me guess,” Nick said, “this one is also vacant.”

“You’d think that, from the looks of the place,” Kat replied.

Nick jabbed his cane in the house’s direction. “Someone actually lives there?”

Kat nodded. “Glenn Stewart. He’s the town’s recluse.”

Other than the fate of Charlie Olmstead, Mr. Stewart was Perry Hollow’s biggest mystery. Kat, who could recognize almost every one of the town’s residents, had never knowingly laid eyes on the man. She also didn’t know too many people who had. In order to see Glenn, you’d have to go inside his house or he’d have to come out. As far as she knew, neither of those things happened very often.

“He was here in 1969?” Nick asked.

“Yes,” Eric said. “But according to my mother, he didn’t leave the house back then, either. He just stays inside, in his own little world. If it wasn’t for the occasional light in the window, you wouldn’t know he was there at all.”

Craning his neck, Nick scanned each window that faced the street. “He can hear us,” he whispered.

Kat whispered back. “How can you tell?”

“Because he’s watching us.”

She tilted her head upward until she, too, saw what Nick was looking at. It was a lace curtain hanging in the window, yellowed by the sun. Holding it away from the glass was a pale hand. After a few seconds, the hand retreated and the curtain dropped into place.

“Weird,” Nick said.

“Very.”

“How much do you know about this guy?”

Kat struggled to come up with something—a random tidbit, a minor piece of gossip—and failed. She knew absolutely nothing about Glenn Stewart, a fact that bothered her immensely.

They moved forward, not speaking, until they reached the end of the cul-de-sac. A thick swath of trees created a green wall in front of them. Emerging from deep inside it, barely audible, was the muffled rush of water.

“It’s this way,” Eric said, pointing to the remnants of a path that had once cut through the woods but was now camouflaged by weeds and brush.

He led the way, tamping down the weeds in front of him. Kat went next, kicking away anything that had the potential to trip up Nick. When she checked to see how he was faring, she saw his eyes narrowed in concentration as he carefully made his way.

In the distance, the roar of Sunset Falls grew louder as they continued to trudge through the woods. Soon they cleared the trees and emerged along the water’s bank, where the sound enveloped them. It was a steady thrum that echoed off the trees and forced them to raise their voices.

“This is it,” Eric announced. “Sunset Falls.”

In front of them, the creek rushed along with abnormal speed. It had been an unusually rainy summer, with the clouds opening up more often than not. The result of all that precipitation was a swollen creek that sparked into white water near the lip of the falls.

A wooden footbridge spanned the width of the creek, about fifty feet. It was narrow—barely wide enough to let two people pass—and of dubious strength. The trail continued on the other side, although it looked more neglected than the one on which they stood.

“Where does that path go?” Nick asked.

“Nowhere,” Kat said. “It just slopes down to the bottom of the falls, where it dead-ends. It used to be a popular place for picnics and pictures. Then Charlie Olmstead vanished, and no one wanted to go down there anymore.”

“Is there any other way to get there?”

Kat knew where he was going with the question. If an abduction did occur at the falls, he wanted to know all the ways to get in and out of the area.

“Nothing. This street is the only way to reach it.”

She should have said it was the only way to reach it. The bridge leading to the trail was now closed, a decision made sometime between her father’s reign as police chief and her own. Signaling its closure was a rusted sign nailed to a decrepit sawhorse that sat in the way.

“Do you think it’s safe?” Eric asked.

Kat, who hadn’t been on the bridge in probably twenty years, said, “There’s only one way to find out.”

Moving the sawhorse aside, she contemplated the span. Age and exposure to the elements had turned the wood slate gray, and cracks and termite holes were visible everywhere. But the bridge seemed sturdy enough, so she took a single step onto it.

Nothing happened. So far, so good. Only about fifty more steps to go.

“You guys coming?”

Nick shook his head and backed away. “No thanks.”

Kat bobbed up and down on the bridge’s first plank, testing its sturdiness. “It seems fine to me. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“The last time I felt adventurous,” Nick said, tapping his right knee, “this happened. So I’ll just lean against a tree and watch.”

This was unlike him, cane or no cane. Kat knew only one thing could keep Nick from going out on that bridge: an ulterior motive. He was giving her time alone with Eric, presumably so the two of them could get reacquainted.

As Nick gingerly backed himself against a nearby oak, Kat faced forward again. She took another tentative step, practically on her tiptoes. Although the bridge seemed fairly solid, she did the same with her next two steps as she gripped the waist-high railing. After another two steps, she eased up on the caution and was walking normally.

The bridge creaked slightly under her weight, but that wasn’t cause for concern. All bridges creaked. It wobbled, too, which worried Kat more than the creaking. But by that time it was too late. She was at the halfway point. Through the cracks between the bridge’s planks, she saw the creek flowing swiftly beneath her. If the bridge collapsed, there was nothing she could do about it.

To her left, the creek was a ribbon of water that curved slightly through the trees. A couple of large rocks jutted through the surface, sending the water swirling around them in ripples that caught the sun. On the right side of the bridge, the water picked up speed. It gathered in long white streaks that slipped over the falls and vanished from view. If she fell in, there was very little to prevent her from tumbling down the falls.

Her only hope, Kat noticed, was a low-hanging branch from an oak tree next to the creek. Strong and sturdy, it stretched over the water at the point where the stream ended and Sunset Falls began. If she managed to grab the branch and hold on tight, she could survive. If she missed, then she’d be dead.

Thankfully, Eric caught up to her and she no longer had to think about survival plans, which made her nervous. To put her mind at ease, she engaged in small talk instead.

“How long are you going to be in town?”

“A few more weeks,” Eric said. “I still have to pack everything up and put the house on the market.”

“Your mother was a good woman. I was sorry to hear about the cancer.”

Kat had considered going to Maggie Olmstead’s funeral but eventually decided it wasn’t a good idea. Seeing Eric again under those circumstances would have been awkward for both of them. Being alone on the bridge with him was awkward enough.

Yet it was also oddly exhilarating. For a moment it felt as if she was once again that shy freshman finally freed of braces and Eric had become that cute senior in Buddy Holly glasses. Memories she hadn’t thought of for decades suddenly flashed through her mind. Most of them were good. Only one was bad.

“Should we push on?” she asked.

They crossed the bridge to the other side, where the path was practically invisible. Now a strip of dirt, it slanted downward, pointing the way to the bottom of the falls. Kat took a deep breath and began the descent, with Eric following close behind. It was rough going. A few rogue branches swiped at their heads while weeds scraped their legs. The waterfall, plunging directly to their right, sent off clouds of mist that stuck to their skin and made the ground muddy and slick beneath their feet.

“So,” Eric said, “are you and Nick Donnelly …”

His voice trailed off, letting Kat pick whatever euphemism she wanted. Dating? An item? Lovers?

“We’re just friends,” she said. “Good ones.”

“How do you two know each other?”

“Nick used to be with the state police,” Kat said. “He helped me with a murder investigation last year.”

“I heard about that. It’s hard to believe something like that could happen in Perry Hollow.”

It was also difficult to imagine Eric’s brother being snatched by a stranger in the woods. Certainly, it was possible. About 80 percent of child abductions by strangers were committed a quarter mile from the victim’s home. But this was a remote area, with only one way in or out. Someone on the street would have noticed a stranger coming or going.

They had reached the base of Sunset Falls. The path leveled off and the trees receded a bit, giving way to a pebble-strewn shore. The waterfall emptied into a deep pool that swirled and churned from the impact. According to official town records, the drop was thirty feet. But from Kat’s vantage point, it looked much higher.

“If someone went over, do you think they could survive?”

“I doubt it,” Eric said. “But someone could get lucky.”

They’d have to be very lucky. A handful of ragged rocks jutted from the water at the base of the falls. They looked sharp and menacing, making Kat think of dinosaur teeth waiting to catch and destroy whatever fell their way.

Beyond them, the creek continued its journey, cutting a path through the land toward the horizon. Was Charlie Olmstead’s body somewhere along its banks? Maybe dragged underwater by branches or lying somewhere in the trees, hidden from view. That was assuming, of course, that he had gone over the falls at all.

“Do you really think my mother was right?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know. But Nick will find out as much as he can.”

Despite tagging along with him, Kat still didn’t want to get involved in the investigation. Her intention had been to stop by, see how Eric had changed—for better or for worse—and let the two of them try to solve the unsolvable mystery that was Charlie Olmstead. She had no desire to waste time before coming to the same conclusion her father had reached.

So Kat took one last look at the falls before retracing her steps along the path. This time, the climb made it even more arduous. By the time they reached the top, both she and Eric were out of breath. Back on the bridge, Kat saw Nick climb to his feet with the help of his cane. Apparently alone time with Eric was over.

“I think the native is getting restless,” she said.

Eric took the lead and crossed the bridge quickly. “Nick seems like a pretty determined guy. Am I right?”

“You have no idea. Once he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t quit until he gets it.”

Kat, following Eric off the bridge, heard a loud creak that stopped her cold. The noise came from beneath her feet, soon changing from creaking to outright cracking. Then, before Kat had a chance to move, the plank beneath her splintered and fell away.

She managed a strangled yelp before falling with it, slipping helplessly into the gap the missing board had created. She came to a stop halfway through it as her rib cage and chest lodged between the boards on either side of her. Kicking her legs, Kat felt one foot splash into the creek. The broken board knocked against her ankle as it floated on the water’s surface. It soon slipped past her and headed toward the falls.

In a flash, Eric was standing over her, gripping her arms. Kat, who had a prime view of his sneakers, saw the board beneath him start to bend from the weight and movement.

“Stop,” she said. “Get on your stomach. Distribute the weight.”

Cautiously, Eric moved into a crouch. Then he was on his stomach, sliding toward her. Just over his shoulder, Kat saw Nick step onto the bridge.

“Kat? Are you hurt?”

He took several quick steps, his cane smacking against the boards. Beneath them, the support beams groaned under the sudden addition of a third person. Kat felt herself drift backward an inch or so as the entire bridge shifted. She and Eric proved that it could support two people. There was no way of knowing if it could handle a third.

“Get off the bridge!” she yelled. “It’s too much weight.”

Nick shuffled backward until he was once again on land. Eric moved backward, too, gripping Kat’s forearms and shimmying until she had enough space to pull herself up and out of the hole. When she heaved herself forward onto its surface, the bridge shifted again, this time in the opposite direction.

Kat got to her feet with Eric’s help. The bridge still felt wobbly as they crossed to solid ground, but she suspected the sensation was just her body, which was shaking uncontrollably. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself. For the most part, she was unscathed. Other than her trembling body, the only sign of her close call was a streak of dirt across the front of her uniform. Kat tried to wipe some of it away as she turned back toward the bridge.

“Someone,” she said, “needs to take a chain saw to that thing.”

A half hour later, Kat was on the phone in her office. She was talking to a skeptical Burt Hammond about the danger posed by the bridge over Sunset Falls. The mayor, probably because he was still miffed about earlier that morning, wasn’t buying it.

“I understand your concern, Chief,” he said, “but that bridge has been closed for going on fifteen years now.”

“Putting a sawhorse in front of it isn’t the same as closing it. It needs to be demolished. I practically fell through the thing this morning.”

“Why were you on the bridge in the first place?”

It was a question Kat should have seen coming. But still rattled from the bridge incident, she hadn’t considered what the mayor would say once she called him. She only knew she couldn’t give him the real reason. Burt Hammond would consider that a waste of manpower.

“It doesn’t really concern you,” she said weakly. “But the condition of that bridge should concern everyone.”

“The town council and I will consider that.”

Which meant they wouldn’t consider it at all. In order to get any results, Kat needed to put it into terms the mayor could understand.

“If someone steps on the bridge and falls through it, he’ll most likely go over the falls,” she said. “If that happens, he’ll probably die and his family will sue the town. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want an expensive settlement on our hands.”

When Burt responded, it was with a subdued, “I hadn’t considered that.”

Kat couldn’t resist a smug smile of satisfaction. Her mission had been accomplished.

“I’m glad we agree on this matter,” she said. “Maybe it means we can agree on a police budget, too.”

Her smile faded when Burt said, “Considering all you’re asking for, I highly doubt that.” He then bid her a terse good-bye and hung up.

“Asshole,” Kat muttered.

Nick, who was sitting in front of her desk, looked up in surprise. “Was that for me or the mayor?”

“The mayor, of course.”

“I was just checking. You did slam a door in my face earlier today, although I think I deserved it.”

“You did deserve it,” Kat said. “But I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

“Deal.”

Between them was a club sandwich and French fries picked up from the Perry Hollow Diner. Kat grabbed a quarter of the sandwich and nibbled off a corner. Nick practically inhaled a fry and grabbed the file on Charlie Olmstead, which they had retrieved from the basement. When he opened it, a tuft of dust rose from the pages.

He read the report with care, not skipping a single word. In all her years as a cop, Kat had never known such concentration existed until she met Nick Donnelly. When he investigated something, it was like a spell had been cast over him.

“This is interesting,” he said. “After Charlie vanished, your father questioned everyone on the street.”

“Including Glenn Stewart?”

“Yep. He said he went to bed at nine and missed all the commotion.”

“Convenient alibi,” Kat said.

“Speaking of alibis, Lee Santangelo also said he was home alone that night. His wife was out of town. But according to Maggie Olmstead, Mrs. Santangelo was also there. She saw her in an upstairs window.”

“What did Becky Santangelo have to say about it?”

Nick grabbed his own piece of club sandwich and chewed slowly, lost in thought. With his mouth full, he said, “That she was visiting her sister that night. The sister backed up her story. So did half a dozen other guests.”

“At least my father was thorough,” Kat said, grabbing a French fry, “although I doubt he ever imagined I’d be looking through one of his old police reports.”

“Your father didn’t write the report.”

Kat froze, the French fry drooping an inch from her mouth. “Who did?”

“Deputy Owen Peale. Know him?”

“No. But I know someone who most likely does.”

They left her desk and edged out of her office. Lou van Sickle sat at her workstation, chowing down on her own club sandwich. When Lou saw them approach, she instinctively covered her fries.

“What do you know about the Charlie Olmstead case?” Kat asked.

“That was forty-two years ago,” Lou said. “How old do you think I am?”

Kat called her bluff. “Old enough.”

Lou gave her the stink eye, which was reserved for occasions when she was especially pissed off. Still, she answered the question. “I know what everyone else does. It’s no great mystery what happened to him. Or is it?”

Kat loved Lou like family, even though she was the town’s gossip champion. There was no way she was going to tell Lou how they were investigating the Olmstead disappearance.

Nick, however, showed no such discretion.

“His mother thought he was kidnapped,” he blurted out. “And we want to talk to the deputy who wrote the report.”

Since she had already used the stink eye, Lou gave Kat a you-know-better-than-to-get-yourself-messed-up-in-this look. Kat had seen it many times before, most notably when she had started sleeping with the colleague who would later become her ex-husband. That time, Kat should have followed Lou’s silent advice. This time, she plowed ahead.

“His name was Owen Peale,” she said. “I didn’t know him, so he had to have stopped working here when I was very young.”

Lou swiveled her chair until she was once again facing her lunch. “He quit before you were born. Went into private security because it paid more and he had three mouths to feed. Left without incident or animosity. I baked his good-bye cake. Vanilla with chocolate icing. Not my best work, if I recall. Anything else?”

“Is he still alive?” Nick asked.

“Last I heard he was. You can find him at Arbor Shade nursing home in Mercerville, because I know that’s what you’re going to ask me next.”

Kat gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. “You rock, Lou. Seriously, you do.”

Nick also approached Lou, but instead of a kiss, he stole one of her French fries. Lou slapped his hand until he dropped it.

“Try that again,” she said, “and I’ll break your other leg.”