Fatal Voyage (27 page)

 “Purse? Car keys?”

 “Negative. Looks like she may have left the room on her own, but she
wasn’t planning to be away overnight.”

 Crowe listened while I described my own visit to the inn, leaving out
nothing but my larcenous intentions.

 “Why do you suppose Ralph went into her room?”

 “Your intuition may have been right. Curiosity. Or maybe he knows
more

 than he’s letting on. Maybe he wanted to get something out. I don’t
have

 that yet, but we will be watching Mr. Stover. We’ll also talk to
anyone

 acquainted with the victim, look for witnesses who might have seen
her

 during the time she was missing. You know the drill.“ ~

 “Round up the usual suspects.”

 “In Swain County, that ain’t many.”

 “Was there nothing in that room to suggest where she might have gone?
An address? A map? A toll ticket?”

 The line hummed.

 “We found two numbers next to the phone.”

 As she read the digits, my stomach tightened.

 The first rang at High Ridge House. The second rang the cellular on my
belt.

 An hour later I lay in bed, trying to sort and evaluate what I
knew.

 Fact: My mysterious foot did not belong to Daniel Wahnetah.
Possibility:

 The foot came from a corpse at the courtyard house. The ground stain
contained volatile fatty acids. Something had decomposed there.

 Possibility: The foot came from Air Trans South 228. Bio-hazard
containers and other problem body parts had been recovered near the wreckage.

 Fact: The foot and its dossier were now missing. Possibility: Primrose
Hobbs had kept the material. Possibility: Primrose Hobbs had returned the material, which was
then taken by someone else.

 Fact: The remains of Jean Bertrand and Pepper Petncelh had not been
identified. Possibility: Neither man was on the plane. Possibility: Both the detective and his
prisoner were on board, their bodies pulverized by the explosion.

 Fact: Jean Bertrand was now a suspect.

 Fact: A witness claimed to have seen Pepper Petricelli in upstate New
York. Possibility: Bertrand had been turned. Possibility: Bertrand had been burned.

 Fact: I had been accused of stealing evidence. Possibility: I was no
longer trusted because of- my relationship with Andrew Ryan, Bertrand’s partner. Possibility: I
was being set up as a scapegoat to prevent me from participating in the investigation. But which
investigation, the plane crash or the courtyard house? Possibility: I was at risk.

 Somebody had tried to run me down and had trashed my room.

 A tickle of fear. I held my breath, listening. Silence.

 Fact: Primrose Hobbs had been murdered. Possibility: Her death was a
random act of violence. More likely: Her death was related to the missing foot.

 Fact: Edward Arthur obtained the property at Running Goat Branch in
1933 through his marriage to Sarah Livingstone. He rented it as a campground, then built a lodge,
then sold the land in 1949 to a man named Prentice Dashwood, but title was taken in the name of
H&F Investment Group, LLP Arthur had not erected any stone walls or a courtyard. Who was
Prentice Dashwood?

 I turned on the lamp, retrieved Mcmahon’s Delaware fax, and scurried
back to bed, my lips chattering. Huddled under the covers, I reread the names.

 W.G. Davis, F.M. Payne, C.A. Birkby, F.L. Warren, P H. Rollins, M.

 P. Veckhoff.

 The only name that was remotely familiar was that of Veckhoff. A
Charlottean named Pat Veckhoff had served in the North Carolina senate for sixteen years. He had
died suddenly the previous winter. I wondered if there was a link to the M.P. Veckhoff on the
list.

 Returning the room to darkness, I lay back and searched for connections
among the things I knew. It was hopeless. Images of Primrose kept disrupting my
concentration.

 Primrose at her computer, glasses on the end of her nose. Primrose in
the parking lot. Primrose at the scene of a commuter plane crash, 1997, Kinston, North Carolina.
Primrose across a card table, playing bid whit. Primrose in Charlotte. The Presbyterian
Hospital cafeteria. I was eating vegetarian pizza made with canned peas and asparagus. I
remembered hating the pizza, but not why I had met Primrose there.

 Primrose lying in a body bag.

 Why, dear God?

 Was she carefully chosen, researched, stalked, then overpowered as part
of an elaborate plan? Or was she selected by chance? Some psycho’s sick impulse. The first blue
Honda. The fourth woman to exit the mall.

 The next black. Was death part of the plan, or did things go badly
wrong, spinning out of control to one irreversible moment?

 Violence against women is not a recent phenomenon. The bones of my
sisters litter history and prehistory. The mass grave at Cahokia. The sacred cenote at Chichen
Itza. The Iron Age girl in the bog, hair shorn, blindfolded and leashed.

 Women are conditioned to be wary. Walk faster at the sound of
footsteps. Peek through the hole before opening the door. Stand by the controls in the empty
elevator. Fear the dark. Was Primrose simply another marcher in a random parade of female
victims?

 Who was I kidding? I knew the reason. Had no doubt.

 Primrose Hobbs had been killed because she fulfilled a request. My
request. She had accepted a fax, taken measurements, and provided data.

 She had helped me, and in doing that she had threatened someone.

 I’d gotten her involved, and that someone had butchered her for it. The
guilt and sorrow formed a physical weight pressing on my chest.

 But how had Primrose posed a threat? Had she uncovered something that I
did not know? Had she realized the significance of that discovery, or had she been unaware of its
importance? Had she been silenced for what she knew, or for what someone feared she would figure
out?

 And what about me? Was I also a threat to some homicidal madman?

 My thoughts were interrupted by a soft wailing from below. Throwing
back the covers, I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and slipped into my deck shoes. Then I
tiptoed through the silent house and out the back door.

 Boyd was sitting beside his doghouse, nose pointed at the night sky. On
seeing me, he sprang to his feet and waggled the entire back half of his body. Then he dashed to
the fence and went bipedal. Leaning on forepaws, he stretched his neck and gave a series of
yips.

 I reached over and scratched his ears. Boyd lapped my hand, giddy with
excitement.

 When I entered the pen and leashed him, the dog went hyperactive,
spinning and kicking up dirt.

 “Be cool.” I pointed a finger at his snout. “This is against the
rules.”

 He looked at me, tongue dangling, eyebrows dancing. I led him across
the yard and into the house.

 Moments later we lay in the dark, Boyd on the carpet beside my bed. I
heard him sigh as he settled chin on forepaws.

 I fell asleep with my hand on his head.

 THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE EARLY, FEELING COLD AND EMPTY but unsure why.
It came to me in a thick, dreadful wave.

 Primrose was dead.

 The combined agonies of loss and guilt were almost paralyzing, and I
lay still a long time, wanting nothing to do with the world.

 Then Boyd nuzzled my hip. I rolled over and scratched his ear.

 “You’re right, boy. Self-pity does no one any good.”

 I rose, threw on clothes, and sneaked Boyd out to his run. During my
absence a note appeared on the door to Magnolia. Ryan would be spending another day with Mcmahon
and wouldn’t need his car. The keys I’d left on his bureau were now on mine.

 When I turned on my phone, I had five messages. Four journalists and P
& T. I called the repair shop, dumped the rest.

 The job was taking longer than anticipated. The car should be ready by
tomorrow.

 We’d gone from “could” to “should.” I was encouraged.

 But what now?

 An idea rose from deep in my past. The favorite refuge of a worried or
restless little girl. It couldn’t hurt, and I might uncover something useful.

 And for a few hours, at least I would be anonymous and
inaccessible.

 Following toast and Frosted Flakes, I drove to the Marianna Black
Public Library, a one-story redbrick box at the corner of Everett and Academy. Cardboard
skeletons flanked the entrance, each with a book held in its hands.

 A tall, spindly black man displaying several gold teeth occupied a
counter at the main entrance. An older woman worked beside him, securing a chain of orange
pumpkins above their heads. Both turned when I entered.

 “Good morning,” I said.

 “Good morning.” The man showed a mile of precious metal. His
lilac-haired companion eyed me suspiciously.

 “I’d like to look at back issues of the local paper.” I smiled

 disarmingly.

 “The Smoky Mountain Times}” asked Mrs. Librarian, laying down her
staple gun.

 “Yes.”

 “How far back?”

 “Do you have material from the thirties and forties?”

 Her frown deepened. “The collection begins in 1895. It was the Bryson
City Times back then. A weekly. The older publications are on microfilm, of course. You can’t
view the originals.”

 “Microfilm will be fine.”

 Mr. Librarian began opening and stacking books. I noticed that his
nails were buffed, his clothes immaculate.

 “The viewer is in the overflow room, beside the genealogy section. You
may only have one box at a time.”

 “Thank you.”

 Mrs. Librarian opened one of two metal cabinets behind the counter and
withdrew a small gray box. “I’d better explain the machine.”

 “Please, you mustn’t bother. I’ll be fine. I’m familiar with microfilm
viewers.”

 I read her expression as she handed me the microfilm. A civilian loose
in the stacks. It was her worst nightmare.

 Settling at the machine, I checked the box’s label: 1931-1937.

 An image of Primrose flashed into my mind, and tears blurred my
vision.

 Stop. No grieving.

 But why was I here? What was my objective? Did I have one, or was I
merely hiding out?

 No. I had a goal.

 I was still convinced that the courtyard property lay at the center of
my problems, and wanted to learn more about who had been associated with it. Arthur had told me
he’d sold his land to one Prentice Dashwood. But beyond that, and the names on Mcmahon’s fax, I
was unsure what I was looking for.

 In truth, I held little hope of finding anything helpful but had run
out of ideas. And I had to do something about the charges against me. I couldn’t return to
Charlotte until my car was repaired, and I was barred from any other form of inquiry. What the
hell. History should teach something.

 A poster had decorated Pete’s office during his stint in uniform,
guiding words embraced by JAG attorneys uncommitted to the military system: Indecision Is the Key
to Flexibility.

 If the maxim was good enough for officer-lawyers of the United States
Marine Corps, it seemed good enough for me. I’d look for everything.

 I inserted the film and wound it through the viewer. The machine was a
hand-crank model, probably manufactured before the Wright brothers went flying at Kitty Hawk.
Text and pictures swam in and out of focus.

 Within minutes I felt a headache begin to organize.

 I flicked through spool after spool, making trip after trip to the
front desk. By the late 1940s, Mrs. Librarian relented and allowed me a half dozen boxes at a
time.

 I skimmed over charity events, car washes, church socials, and local
dramas. The crime was mostly petty, involving traffic offenses, drunk and disorderly, missing
property, and vandalism. Births, deaths, and weddings were announced, garage and barn sales
advertised.

 The war had claimed a large number from Swain County. From ‘42 to ’45
the pages were filled with their names and photos. Each death was a feature story.

 Some citizens did manage to die in their beds. In December of 1943, the
passing of Henry Arlen Preston was front-page news. Preston had been a lifelong resident of Swain
County, an attorney, a judge, and part-time journalist. His career was recounted in radiant
detail, the highlights being a term in Raleigh as a state senator, and the publication of a
two-volume work on the birds of western North Carolina‘. Preston died at the age of eighty-nine,
leaving behind a widow, four children, fourteen grandchildren, and twenty-three
great-grandchildren.

 The week following Preston’s death, the Times reported the
disappearance of Tucker Adams. Two column inches on page six. No photo.

 The obscure little notice touched something in me. Had Adams enlisted
secretly, then died overseas as one of our many unknowns? Had he returned, surprised his
neighbors with tales of Italy or France, then gone on to live his life? Had he fallen from a
cliff? Run off to Hollywood? Though I searched for a follow-up, nothing more on Adams’s
disappearance was reported.

 The rugged terrain had also claimed its victims. In 1939 a woman named
Hilda Miner left home to deliver a strawberry pie to her granddaughter.

 She never arrived, and the pie tin was discovered beside the swollen
Tuckasegee River. Hilda was presumed drowned, though her body was not located. A decade later the
same waters took Dr. Sheldon Brodie, a biologist at Appalachian State University. A day after the
professor’s body washed up, Edna Farrell was thought to have fallen into the river.

 Like Miner, Farrelps remains were never found.

 I leaned back and rubbed my eyes. What had the old man said about
Farrell? They should have done better by her. Who were “they”? Done better in what way? Was he
referring to the fact that Farrell’s body wasn’t recovered? Or was he unhappy with the quality of
Thaddeus Bowman’s memorial service?