Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) (13 page)

“Who?”

“George Hotchkiss. An old guy—lived over on Lake Wallenpaupack.”

“Sure, I remember him—had one of the nicest places on the whole lake. Died a couple years back, I think.”

“Do you remember anything about the circumstances surrounding his death?”

“You mean like from the newspaper?”

“I can read the newspaper myself. You’re a waitress—you hear a lot of gossip—what did the locals have to say about it?”

“I don’t listen to gossip,” she said.

“Okay, then you ‘overhear a lot of conversations.’ Better?”

“I don’t remember much,” she said. “Just that some male nurse from up in Honesdale was supposed to look in on him but didn’t.”

“How do you know he didn’t?”

“The old man died, didn’t he?”

“Nobody lives forever. Maybe he just died from old age.”

“Maybe.”

“Where’s this nurse now? Has anybody seen him since the old man’s death?”

“Went back to Honesdale, I suppose—probably moved away ’cause of all the talk. I hope he changed jobs, anyway—I sure wouldn’t want that man lookin’ in on me.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” Nick checked the deputy’s contact sheet. The waitress’s memory was correct; Curtis Medlin had a Honesdale address. Nick searched for another address: the home of the deceased, George Hotchkiss. He looked up at the waitress: “The old man’s lake house—who owns the place now?”

“Probably some transplant from the eastern shore—that’s where they all seem to come from these days. Where you from?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just passing through. Hey—how about that new sheriff of yours?”

“Ed Yanuzzi? You know about him?”

“Just met him today. Your very own FBI agent—not bad for a small town.”

“Yeah, he’s terrific.”

“People here seem to like him then?”

“What’s not to like?”

“A couple of things come to mind . . . May I have my check please?”

The waitress looked down at Nick’s plate—it was empty. He had managed to consume his entire dinner during their brief conversation. She glared at him, then ripped a sheet from her pad and slapped it on the table.

“Can I charge this to my room?” he asked.

“You’re staying here?”

“Isn’t it wonderful? We’ll be able to see each other again and again.”

Nick left the restaurant and headed back to the front desk. Holly looked up at him and smiled as he approached, and Nick noticed that she seemed to tip her head from side to side slightly as she looked at him, as though she were considering different poses for a portrait.

“Hey. Here—those directions you asked for. I wrote them out for you.”

“Thanks. I’ve got another address I need help with—it’s on the lake.”

“Oh, sure, that one’ll be easy—that’s just a couple miles from here.”

Nick looked at her handwritten directions; they filled most of a page. “How long will it take me to get to this place?”

“Gosh. Hard to say. Maybe . . . I don’t know, more like—”

“An hour? Less? More?” Nick stopped—he was starting to talk like her.

“No, not more. Less, maybe. A lot of back roads out there . . .

Half an hour, I’d say.”

Nick checked his watch; with any luck he could make it out there, ask Keller’s widow a few questions, and make it back again in time for his nine o’clock phone call with Alena. It might be a little tight, but the alternative was to just sit around and wait until morning—and Nick didn’t like to sit around.

“Thanks for the directions,” he said.

“You going now? Out there? Tonight?”

“That’s right.”

“Who lives way out there?” she asked.

“A lady,” he said. “See you later.”

13

N
ick pulled over onto the shoulder and turned on the dome light to check the directions—for the fifth time.
What’s that woman’s problem?
he wondered.
How hard can it be to write out a simple list of directions? A bloodhound with a Garmin couldn’t follow this list
. Nick had once read a controversial study claiming that most women lack the spatial capabilities of men; it was as if Holly was trying to single-handedly prove the study true. He read from her directions again:

Turn left on Anderson and go 3 miles
But before you do that,
turn on Compton Woods

When you come to the fork, take it

Nick was awestruck by the woman’s ability to convert a logical sequence of thought into indecipherable gibberish. Holly seemed to dump random factual information into a mental blender and then serve it up like some sort of cognitive smoothie. It was truly a gift—a twisted, perverted gift from some dark corner of hell, yes, but a gift nonetheless—and he found himself despising it and marveling at it at the same time.
Who thinks like that?
he wondered.
Who reasons that way?
And then a terrifying thought crossed Nick’s mind . . .

Maybe all women do
.

Thirty minutes later he found the final turn. At least that desk clerk got one thing right: “Way out in the boonies” was no exaggeration. A winding gravel road took his car down into an isolated hollow where a rustic cabin sat askew in a small clearing. The cabin was rectangular in shape and had a shallow front porch overhung by a corrugated roof; the walls were made of wooden planks that appeared to have been left unfinished, but it was difficult to tell in the scant moonlight that filtered down through the surrounding tree-covered hillsides.

There was a door dead center in the cabin with a window on either side, and the windows glowed with a warm orange light.
Somebody must be home
, Nick thought.
It’s a good thing, ’cause I’m sure not driving all the way out here again
. There was a car parked to the left of the cabin with a New York license plate; Nick pulled his car up alongside it and got out. He walked across the gravel drive and stepped up onto the hollow porch, surprised by the loudness of his footsteps in the dark, half expecting a face to appear in the window at any moment.

He knocked.

A moment later the door opened a few inches and he found himself looking into the face of an attractive woman with short black hair.

The woman looked him up and down. “Well, hello.”

“Sorry to bother you so late,” he began. “Are you Michelle Keller?”

“I might be. Who wants to know?”

“I’m Dr. Nick Polchak. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

“About what?”

“About your husband.”

She opened the door a little wider. “About Marty? What about him?”

“If you’ll let me come in, I’ll be happy to explain,” he said.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Sheriff Yanuzzi told me—he gave me this address.”

She paused. “Well, you must be telling the truth, ’cause Ed’s the only one who knows I’m here.” She stepped back and let the door swing open. “C’mon in, hon. Can I get you something?”

“No, thanks,” Nick said. “I’m good.”

“You don’t mind if I do? There’s not much else to do way out here.”

“It’s your house.” As he said those words he took a quick look around the cabin. The room appeared to be lit by oil lamp only. The walls were made of knotty pine, and the lamplight made the shellac look glossy orange. There was a kitchenette at one end of the cabin with a chipped Formica countertop and false veneer cabinets. The opposite end of the cabin was dominated by a queen-size bed on a simple black-iron frame. Judging by the trophy mounts on the walls and the spartan decor, it was
not
her house—it clearly belonged to a man.

She turned to Nick with glass in hand. “Go ahead—say it.”

“Say what?”

“‘Nice place you’ve got here.’”

“I’d be lying,” Nick said.

“And you’re not the kind of man who lies? Honey, I’ve heard that one before.”

Nick didn’t respond.

“It’s home,” she said with a shrug, “at least for a couple of days a month.”

“Where’s home the rest of the time? New York?”

She sat down on an old leather sofa covered with a web of faint white cracks and patted the seat cushion beside her. “Sit down, hon. Make yourself comfortable. Stay awhile—it gets lonely out here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because it gets lonely in New York too. It’s ‘Nick,’ right?”

“That’s right.”

“
Dr
. Nick, you said. Imagine that—way out here, late at night, all by my lonesome, and a handsome doctor comes knocking at my door.”

Nick wondered how much she’d had to drink. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “but I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m a forensic entomologist.”

“What’s that?”

“I specialize in the insects that are attracted to decomposing bodies.”

She shuddered. “Honey, you sure know how to change a mood.”

“That’s another specialty of mine.” He crossed to the opposite wall and adjusted his glasses to take a better look at two framed photographs that hung one above the other near the window. The top photo showed a grinning Ed Yanuzzi with his index finger hooked through the gill slit of a very large fish; in the bottom photo a rifle-toting Yanuzzi posed beside the rack of a glassy-eyed buck. Nick turned to Michelle. “Does this cabin belong to the sheriff?”

“Yes,” she said simply—and nothing more.

Nick made no comment.

“Shame on you,” she said. “It’s not like that at all.”

“If you say so.”

“Are you married, Nick?”

“Funny you should ask. I’m getting married on Saturday.”

“No kidding. Here in town?”

“No. In Virginia.”

“Wow—you’re a long way from home.”

“No problem. I know the way back.”

She paused. “You don’t seem like you’re in any hurry to get there.”

He didn’t reply.

“What are you doing way out here, Nick? Is it lonely in Virginia too?”

Nick decided it was time to change the subject. “I need to ask you a few questions,” he said. “Your husband, Marty— the sheriff tells me he died several months ago in a hunting incident.”

“That’s right. It was the beginning of deer season—just a stray bullet from out of nowhere.”

“And his death was ruled an accident.”

“Yes.”

“Are you satisfied with that?”

“Am I
satisfied
? What kind of a question is that?”

“What I mean is, do you have any reason to believe otherwise?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”

Nick took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa. “I had a friend,” he said, “a forensic botanist out of Philadelphia named Pete Boudreau. Did your husband ever mention him?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“They were working together shortly before your husband’s death—at least, they traded a number of phone calls.”

“Working on what?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. Your husband made a trip to Philadelphia just a month before his accident. Do you remember that trip?”

“Sure. Marty said he was working on some kind of old case and there were people in Philadelphia who might be able to help him solve it.”

“Did he tell you what the case was about?”

“Not really.”

“Did you ask?”

“You’re about to get married, right? Well, let me tell you something about marriage. You can start out loving someone, but if you’re not careful you can lose interest. One day you wake up and you don’t talk anymore; you don’t touch; you don’t have any friends in common; you don’t care about what they do anymore.”