Kiss the Moon (20 page)

She swallowed, her throat dry, tight. A quick glance at Wyatt told her he agreed with his father’s hired detective, if not his rough tactics. She inhaled through her nose, tilted her head. “You mean he might put a gun to my head and force me into the woods?”

“That’s one scenario. There are others. Put a gun to Harriet’s head, your father’s, your mother’s. I’m sure there are a variety of ways to motivate you.”

“
Why?
It’s just a missing plane. I know two people were killed, but it’s not as if they robbed a bank before they took off!”

“That’s enough, Jack,” Wyatt said quietly.

“Just want to be clear here.”

“You were clear.”

Harriet had gone pale. She said to Penelope, “I’m keeping a room available for you tonight. Your mother—she’s gone up to your house—”

“Good, she’ll see Pop and he’ll calm her down before I have to deal with her. How’d she take it?”

“With her usual stiff upper lip.”

Jack grinned. “You Yankees,” he said and rolled toward the side door. “I think I’ll take a ride out to your place, Miss Penelope, and see if I can be of any service.” His humor reached his eyes. “No charge.”

He headed out the door, and Penelope turned to Wyatt. “If you want to go with him, go ahead. I’ll be fine here. Harriet can drive me out to the airport later on. I kind of like the idea of you keeping an eye on that guy.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“I don’t like him. There’s a difference.”

Wyatt laughed. “No one likes Jack. That’s one of his charms.”

Harriet made a mew of protest. “He’s been nothing but a gentleman toward me.”

“That’s because you’re not lying to him,” Wyatt said.

Harriet looked awkward and uncomfortable, but Penelope didn’t come down on Wyatt for his implication that she was a liar. She
was
a liar. But she’d waffled before. She was convinced she needed to be extra careful about changing her story a second time. She needed to think things through, not react to whatever was being thrown at her. The messages, the break-in, Wyatt, Jack—together, they compelled caution, thinking before she acted. She wanted to be deliberate and do what was right when it was right, not leap from impulse to impulse.

And what was this morning, she asked herself, if not responding to an impulse?

It was doing what was right when it was right.

“You look as if you have a lot on your mind,” Wyatt said. “I’d like to talk to Jack. You’ll be all right?”

She attempted a quick smile. “If Harriet has any Indian pudding left, I’ll be just fine.”

Harriet touched her arm. “Do you want it warmed up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?”

“Sounds like lunch to me.”

After Wyatt left, Harriet whispered to Penelope, as if someone might hear, “You sure you don’t want to follow Jack and Wyatt? You don’t seem to trust them—”

“It’s not a question of trust, Harriet. Right now I just want food. Besides, Pop has my truck. I’ll let all the men-folk do their thing. Dust for fingerprints, examine footprints, pontificate on the peculiarities of my life-style. They’ll give up after a while. Then I’ll go back up and make sure they didn’t miss anything.”

Harriet peered at her. “You don’t seem very upset for someone whose house was just ransacked.”

“Oh, I’m upset. I’m just not going to give Pop, McNally, Pete, Sinclair and that jerk Jack Dunning the satisfaction of falling apart in front of them, which I would do if I don’t get my Indian pudding and a few quiet minutes to think this thing through.”

“I don’t know why you have such a strong negative reaction to Jack. He’s been nothing but a gentleman to me. Of course, he has a job to do, and if he perceives you as being in the way, I can understand if he gets a little impatient. Well, I suppose there’s nothing you can do, provided you’re not lying—”

“Ah,” she said, “there’s the rub.”

Harriet snapped her mouth shut. After a few seconds she inhaled through her nostrils and said, “I’ll put two helpings of Indian pudding in the microwave.”

Thirteen

“S
o what did you do, Jack,” Wyatt said, “ransack Penelope’s house to put the fear of God into her?”

“Wish I’d thought of it. I think some little creep’s got it in for her. Either he’s having fun or there’s a larger purpose.” He eyed Wyatt. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Jack didn’t know about the threats. Neither did the police. Wyatt debated how long he’d give Penelope to come to her senses and tell all before he took the bull by the horns. “It’s not my place to say. Jack—this may be nothing, but I’m fairly certain my father hasn’t told me everything about my uncle’s plane crash or his affair with Frannie Beaudine. Do you think he’s holding back on you, as well?”

“I always work from that assumption.”

They were in Jack’s car, driving fast over the bumps, ruts, potholes and frost heaves. The sun and snow had done a job on Penelope’s dirt road, making it almost impassable. Wyatt decided he shouldn’t believe nine-tenths of what Jack told him.

“The girl’s in over her head,” Jack said.

Wyatt sighed. “I know it.”

Jack pulled in behind Penelope’s truck. Her father was still pacing in her driveway. He’d pulled his cigar out of the snow and had it lit, his wife waving a hand, batting away the smoke as she talked to him. Wyatt quickly got the gist of what she was telling him. Their daughter was a menace to herself and everyone else and needed therapy, peace, quiet. What she
didn’t
need was a Sinclair and a private detective badgering her. “And put that thing out, you’re going to get cancer of the lip.”

“These people,” Jack muttered beside Wyatt.

When she came up for air and noticed them, Robby Chestnut had the self-possession not to look embarrassed, if not happy, either. “The police would like to talk to both of you.”

“Good,” Jack said, “I want to talk to them.”

Lyman regarded Wyatt, cigar stump still in his mouth. “Where’s my daughter?”

“Having Indian pudding with Harriet. Any news here?”

“No. Andy’s checking up the road for witnesses. This time of year, you don’t get many people up this way. He’s got it in his head that a few hours later his daughters could have been here helping Penelope with her maple sugaring and they’d all have gotten themselves killed.”

“That’s a leap.”

“He’ll get over it. Right now he’s not a happy man.” He turned to his wife, his expression softening. “Robby, I’ve got to get back to the airport. You sticking around?”

“For a few minutes,” she said tightly. “I hate this, Lyman. If she really did find that plane, or if someone refuses to believe she made a mistake—” She shuddered, obviously thinking things she didn’t want to be thinking. “But I don’t know what difference it could possibly make. It’s not as if Colt and Frannie robbed a bank and there’s a million dollars sitting up in their plane. It was a tragedy. All anyone will find is the wreckage and human remains.” She caught herself, winced at Wyatt. “I’m sorry. I forget Colt was your uncle.”

Wyatt acknowledged her apology with a nod. “Did you know him?”

She took a sharp breath, and suddenly he could see some of her daughter in her. “I knew Frannie, too, although not well. She had such energy and optimism—it was contagious. Her death touched us all. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She skirted past him, making her way ably through snow, ice and mud to her car, which she’d parked alongside the road, not on the driveway.

“Your family weren’t the only ones left bereaved,” Lyman said, watching his wife’s retreating figure. He leveled his green eyes on Wyatt. “Frannie Beaudine had her faults, but she was well-regarded around here. A lot of people mourned her passing.”

“I understand.”

“Yep. I figure you do.”

Without further comment, he climbed into his daughter’s truck. Jack and the Cold Spring detective came out of the house, walked down the steps and around front. Wyatt went in the opposite direction, across the muddy dirt road. In one spot he sank to his ankles. He passed between two old maples with sap buckets hanging from taps and made his way into Penelope’s woods.

He had no trouble finding his way to Bubba Johns’s shack. This wasn’t the Amazon rainforest. There was no sign of the hermit, and Wyatt stood on the path, squinting against the brightening light and debating whether to have a look around the place. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t consider it. But Bubba Johns had been spotted lurking around Penelope’s cabin, and Wyatt wanted to know why.

How the hell did an old man get away with living in the woods? Never mind that he’d set up housekeeping on Sinclair land—what about zoning, the IRS, the Census Bureau, the Board of Health?

Then again, this was Live Free or Die country, and Cold Spring was a small town where the people were willing to bend the rules for one of their own. Although they didn’t seem to know much about him, they obviously considered Bubba Johns one of their own.

Instead of going straight to the shack, Wyatt followed a footpath to the brook. He needed to think. Snow clung to rocks, clear water spilling around them. That was all he could hear, the sound of water. He closed his eyes a moment, listening, clearing his mind, breathing in the cool, clean air. He could smell the pungent evergreens, the wet, dead leaves along the edges of the brook where the snow had melted.

When he opened his eyes, a tall, thin, white-haired and white-bearded old man had materialized on the opposite bank. He wore overalls and a frayed wool shirt, and he leaned against a walking stick that was taller than he was. His gray eyes were level, neutral. Two big mutts panted at his side.

Bubba Johns.

Wyatt decided to be formal and straightforward. “Mr. Johns, my name’s Wyatt Sinclair. I came up from New York after Penelope Chestnut said she’d found my uncle’s plane.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

The hell it didn’t. Whatever happened in these woods, Wyatt instinctively suspected this old man would know about it. “She’s received threats—she hasn’t told the police yet, which makes me think she suspects you and wants to protect you, prove to you she’s going to keep her mouth shut.” But how could a hermit handle a computer, a fax machine? “Right now the police are at her house. Someone broke in and took a look around.”

“And you think that was me?”

“I don’t know. I’m keeping an open mind. No one believes her story about finding a dump. They think she found my uncle’s plane.”

Wyatt paused, but the old man said nothing, just stared at him with those penetrating eyes.

“My family owns this land. We have no quarrel with you staying here, provided you haven’t committed a crime.”

“And how would I prove that to you?”

“I figure you must know these woods pretty well. Even if you haven’t found the plane wreckage yourself, I bet you have a good idea where Penelope was on Sunday.” Using his toe, Wyatt rubbed the snow off a rock. “I’d like you to take me out there and let me see for myself. Maybe I can take some of the heat off her. I suspect someone’s trying to keep her off balance while they search for the wreckage. She’s not going to change her story again until she’s sure it won’t hurt anyone.”

“You’re a suspicious sort, Wyatt Sinclair,” the old man said.

Wyatt grinned. “Hell, you sound like half the women in my life.”

Bubba Johns smiled slightly and straightened, holding on to his walking stick with one hand. “I first saw Penelope stepping stones in this brook on a hot summer day. She’d wandered up from the lake—she was about ten. She was so caught up in what she was doing she didn’t realize how far she’d come.” The probing gray eyes fastened on Wyatt. “Sometimes she doesn’t realize the dangers around her, and she forgets how far she’s gone into the wilderness. Once, I had to lead her home.”

“Meaning?”

The old man grinned. “I’ll take you to the wreckage.”

Wyatt went still. He didn’t want to jump to any premature conclusions. The old hermit could be lying, exaggerating, mistaken. But before Wyatt could ask him any questions, Penelope shouted,
“Bubba!”
from above them, bolted from behind a hemlock and charged down the hill, undeterred by snow that was almost knee-deep in places and brush whipping against her legs and torso.

She stopped at the brook’s edge, and for a second Wyatt thought she might walk right through the water to get to Bubba Johns.

“Bubba,” she said, “look at the mess we’ve got when it’s a
dump
I found in the woods. Can you imagine what’ll happen if I change my story again? You’ll have reporters crawling through the woods. They’ll film your house, they’ll scare your dogs. You’ll have investigators and historians and more Sinclairs and—and—and God knows what kinds of cretins. You should see this private detective, Jack Dunning, already skulking around here.”

Bubba had no visible reaction to this tirade. “He searched my house this morning.”

“There, you see what I mean?”

“Perhaps truth is our best recourse.”

“Bubba, trust me. Our best recourse is to say I didn’t see anything on Sunday.”

“But you did,” the old man said.

She groaned.

Wyatt had the feeling Bubba didn’t have much use for people. But he did like Penelope. He turned to Wyatt. “It’s too far to go today, and I’m tired. Be here in the morning.” He added, “Early.”

Penelope threw up her hands in frustration. “Give this thing a few more days to die down.”

But two people, one of them Penelope Chestnut, were apparently more than Bubba Johns could handle at one time. He motioned to his dogs, and they jumped up and trotted at his side as he turned his back on Wyatt and Penelope and walked up the hill.

“Let him go,” Wyatt said.

Naturally Penelope turned on him. “I
knew
you’d sneak out here.”

“Starting to think like a Sinclair, are you?”

“You don’t trust me.”

“Apparently with good reason. You found Colt and Frannie’s plane.”

She had the good grace to squirm. “I was trying to do the right thing.”

“How is it right to lie to Colt’s family? His body must be in the wreckage.”

Her eyes met his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t fully consider your family’s feelings. I figured if Frannie and your uncle had been dead all these years—well, they could rest in peace. The plane’s in a beautiful location, quiet, isolated. As graves go—but that’s not my call. I realize that now. I didn’t think about closure for your family…what you must have gone through all these years.”

“Because we’re Sinclairs?”

She didn’t duck the question. “Maybe.”

“People around here demonize us, blame us for Frannie’s death. If Colt hadn’t swept her off her feet, she’d still be alive.”

“Frankly, I think people see it that Frannie got killed. They assume Colt would have died young, anyway. He just took Frannie with him. I’m not saying that’s what I think—I don’t know what went on between Colt and Frannie. I just thought it’d be best if I found a dump on Sunday instead of a plane wreck.”

“The threats didn’t play a role in changing your mind?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t start until afterward.”

They walked up the icy path to Bubba Johns’s shack. He had a neat woodpile under a tarp, an ax on his chopping block, a homemade wheelbarrow. Everything was rustic and functional. Wyatt noticed plants in his windows—chives and parsley. The hermit had marked out a vegetable garden in a small clearing.

“Bubba’s big on bartering,” Penelope said. “He’s doing sap now—he’ll collect fiddleheads later in the spring.”

“He’s an enterprising fellow for someone who lives at a subsistence level. Is there any evidence of mental illness?”

“Beyond living alone in the middle of the woods? He keeps to himself, and he’s never bothered anyone. He’s not violent, he doesn’t peek in people’s windows, he doesn’t run naked down Main Street. I guess we still believe in harmless eccentrics.”

“Do you know what brought him out here?”

She shook her head. “I think he’s shy, introverted—a gentle soul in a fast-paced, violent world. He’s awkward around people, but I don’t think of him as a misanthrope. I guess he’s more like a monk.”

“Your own Saint Francis of Assisi?”

“Well, I don’t know about his religious convictions. I just mean his sensibilities. He’s careful out here. He gets his water from an above-ground spring nearby, and he doesn’t dump his garbage in the woods or use chemicals on his garden. He’s old for a hippie, but he’s more of your crunchy-granola type than your Unabomber type.”

Wyatt gave her a penetrating look. “How long do you think he’s known about the plane wreckage?”

“I can’t even hazard a guess. He wouldn’t consider it any of his business, and it’s not as if he knew Colt and Frannie. He might not have realized the plane’s been missing all these years.”

“Unlike yours, his curiosity is limited.”

She smiled, taking no offense. “I guess you could say that.”

“The plane—when you saw it on Sunday—”

“I’m not positive it was their plane, Wyatt, or even that it
was
a plane, although there doesn’t seem to be much doubt. It’s on a very steep, rocky hill, and with the snow and ice and the late hour, I didn’t risk a close look.”

“Did you go back?”

“No. I made that up. I didn’t want more tracks for someone else to follow. As it was, even with the snow we’ve had I’ve been concerned that someone knowledgeable and determined could have found my tracks and followed them—not that it’s a direct route. I
was
lost.”

“That part was true?”

“Everything was true except the stuff about the dump, which no one believes, anyway. I’ve always been such a lousy liar. You? Are you much of a liar?”

“I’ve never had much call to lie.”

“A do-as-you-please Sinclair,” she said airily, without criticism, and cut a smile at him.

When they arrived at her cabin, only Andy McNally remained. He informed Penelope that they’d finished their investigation and she was free to go inside. “I don’t think I want Jane and Rebecca up here until we know more about what’s going on.”

“I understand. Sap’s been slow the last couple of days, anyway.”