The Hidden (20 page)

“Someone rigged the moose, turned it into some kind of crossbow,” Diego said, rising. “Brett, give me a hand with this thing, will you? I’d like to get it out of the way, just to be safe. It was set on a spring system—Linda’s tap on the wall set it off. We need to get some engineering techs on this to figure out just how it was rigged.”

“Gotcha,” Brett said.

“So we’re safe now?” Clark demanded, rising and running his fingers through his short gray hair. “Gigi, get up. We’re going to our room right now, and then we’re out of here in the morning.”

“No one is out of here until they’ve been questioned,” Diego said, his voice ringing with authority.

“What? You can’t believe that Gigi or I had anything to do with this,” Clark said angrily. “We’re—we’re
retirees
!”

“Sir, you were here all day and you come here every year. I’m afraid you’ll have to answer questions just like everyone else,” Diego informed him.

“That’s preposterous,” Clark said, drawing himself up. “In fact, it’s criminal of you to even keep us here.”

“No, murder is criminal,” Adam said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Did anyone call an ambulance?” Terry asked, his voice pathetic.

“Terry, you don’t need an ambulance,” Gwen said. “I’ve had worse mosquito bites.”

“You weren’t hit,” Terry protested. “They weren’t after you, they were after me.”

“Medical help is on its way,” Brett said, heading over to Diego and the offending moose head. “All of you, give us some space.”

“Everyone into the parlor, please. Follow me,” Adam said, quietly but firmly taking charge.

Clark put an arm around Gigi’s shoulders and turned to stare at Ben. “You! You’re responsible for all of this. You found those bodies because you put them there! What was this? Your attempt to create a haunted house and compete with The Stanley? You’re a psycho. We’re out of here tonight.” He spun on Diego. “Arrest us if you want, but we won’t stay in this house a minute longer than you’re pointless questioning takes!”

Trisha stepped forward. “You’re right. You
will
get out of my house. My husband is not a psycho, much less a murderer, and you’re a complete ingrate. We’ve given you discounts, free nights. You outeat every guest every morning, and this is how you repay us? I can’t wait for you to go.”

“Trisha,” Ben said, “just let them go. We should have closed down as soon as we found the Parkers.”

“Everyone, please,” Adam said. “Let’s all be civil and head to the parlor.
Now
.”

Scarlet noted the strength in his voice and the ice in his eyes.

Adam was normally mild, calm and the complete opposite of pushy. But right now, when he spoke in that tone, no one was willing to argue with him.

Clark, his arm still fiercely around his wife’s shoulders, headed for the parlor. Terry, holding his arm and looking ready to collapse, left next, followed by Gwen and Charles. Ben looked at Adam and then said, “Trisha, my love, that means us, too.”

Gwen suddenly spun around, her expression shocked. “Oh, my God! Clark’s right—it
is
you, Ben! You were in here today, plastering or painting or something.”

“Painting. I was painting. Touched up some nicks and scrapes, which was probably only necessary because someone has been messing around with my house,” Ben protested.

Linda was still sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, looking incapable of getting up under her own steam. Diego offered her a hand, and she managed to stand with his help. She stood there for a moment and looked around.

“I have to clean up this mess,” she said.

“Not now,” Diego told her. “Not now. Just go ahead and join the others.”

Still looking distressed and disoriented, Linda left.

Adam glanced at Diego, then followed the group into the parlor. Once he was gone, Diego closed the door to the dining room and walked over to where Scarlet was standing.

His expression hardened when he saw the small silver arrows that had pierced the chair right after she had vacated it.

“You all right?” he asked, catching her by the shoulders and searching her eyes.

“Yes. Fine,” she assured him.

“The arrows don’t appear to have been aimed at anyone specifically,” Brett said.

“Despite the fact that Terry and Scarlet appeared to be targets, I agree with you. The perp couldn’t have known where people would be sitting—except maybe that Jane would probably be at the head of the table—or even that the weapon would be tripped tonight,” Diego said. “What do you think? Set to go off a while ago or only configured today?”

“No idea,” Brett said. “Maybe forensics can figure something out.”

Diego reached into his pocket for gloves before pulling one of the arrows from Scarlet’s chair and studying it. He shook his head.

“What?” Scarlet asked.

He turned to show her the arrow. The shaft was some kind of silver metal, but it was tipped with what looked like an old Native American stone arrowhead.

Brett walked over to study the arrow with them. “Our killer certainly seems to be fixated on history,” he said. “What do you think? How complicated was it, rigging that moose head?”

“Someone knew what they were doing with a trigger mechanism. I haven’t pulled it apart to check out the whole thing, but it looks like it was set with industrial-strength rubber bands. But that’s not rocket science. Anyone familiar with archery—especially crossbows—could have done it. When Linda knocked on the wall in the right place, she set off the firing mechanism, and the way the arrows were set, they followed one after another automatically.”

“But until now the killer seems to have chosen his victims carefully, and even this method was obviously no guarantee,” Scarlet said.

Diego didn’t look at her. “I don’t know. You were nearly hit, and Terry Ballantree actually was.”

“And let’s not forget that this
is
Ben’s house, so if anyone knew about the space behind the moose head where a weapon could be set up, it’s him,” Brett said.

Just then they heard the front door opening, followed by someone shouting, “Police!”

“Lieutenant Gray,” Brett said. “He said he’d be ready for our call, and he was.”

Diego nodded and headed to the dining room door, then stopped and looked back at Scarlet, a question in his eyes.

“Yes?” she said. She was loathe to leave the room.

Nathan Kendall had been there tonight. She had heard him, and she hadn’t been the only one. But it was her name he had spoken, and he’d said that she knew who had killed him. If only that were true, she thought.

“You can’t stay here alone. Come with us,” Diego said.

“Yes, of course,” she said with a sigh.

She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable, but she didn’t want to leave the room. She wanted to see if Nathan would return now that things had calmed down.

Brett walked past her on his way to the door and threw an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, kid, the fun and parlor games are just beginning.”

She nodded. “Yes, of course, I’m coming.”

But still she paused.

The dining room was different now. The glare of the electric chandelier fell differently on the antique furniture, the arrow-riddled chairs and the downed moose head. Despite the destruction, the room didn’t feel at all spooky. The magical aura of the séance was gone.

And yet...

They had found Nathan Kendall. Or rather, he had found them.

He had said that she knew who had killed him, but he hadn’t ruled out the possibility that he knew his murderer’s identity, too. So, did he know? And could he help them?

They had expected something to come from the séance, and it had, though it certainly hadn’t been anything they’d expected.

She wasn’t Krewe or any kind of law enforcement, but the ghosts of the Conway Ranch were coming to her. And that had to mean something, right?

Brett and Diego were waiting expectantly for her to join them, but she ignored them both.

“Nathan,” she said softly to the room. “Nathan Kendall. We need your help. Are you still here? Will you speak to me?”

She didn’t receive an answer in words.

But she could have sworn that a gentle hand touched her cheek.

“Scarlet?” Diego called.

“Come on,” Brett urged gently.

Reluctantly, she joined them as they went to greet Lieutenant Gray.

As Brett had said, the fun and parlor games were just beginning.

16

“T
his is ridiculous. Why are you questioning
us
?” Gwen asked indignantly. “We just came for our honeymoon. We stayed on after what happened because we didn’t want to be like rats deserting a sinking ship. But to suspect that Charles and I could be guilty of any of this is—is
preposterous
!”

“And I was nearly killed,” Linda said, tossing back her blond hair. “You can’t possibly believe I was stupid enough to rig up a weapon and then let it kill
me
.”

“No,
I’m
the one who was nearly killed,” Terry said, staring at her and holding up his wounded arm.

A paramedic had already seen to his injury, applying antibiotic ointment and, as Scarlet had predicted, a small bandage.

Lieutenant Gray was in the parlor, watching, listening, questioning. A crime-scene unit had been called, and they were working throughout the house, with a focus on the dining room.

Gray was standing by the mantel. He had the look of a man who had unexpectedly found himself in the middle of a freak show.

Brett had headed over to the stables and asked Angus to join them, so the grizzled old stable master was there now as well, his expression clearly saying that he thought he’d landed in the middle of an asylum.

“We didn’t do this,” Ben insisted to Gray. Trisha, sitting next to him, nodded.

“Don’t look at us,” Clark said.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re through with Estes Park,” Gigi said firmly. “The area’s absolutely ruined for us now.”

“Thank the Lord Almighty I wasn’t here for that idiotic séance,” Angus muttered.

“There’s absolutely no reason to hold us all here. If anything, we’re victims, too. What about Scarlet? She’s the one who had those awful photos on her camera. She’s the one who brought in her quote-unquote friends. Some special agents, nearly getting us all killed. She’s far more suspicious than anyone else I can think of.”

“Scarlet was seen in town by dozens of people the night the Parkers were killed,” Lieutenant Gray told them. He looked at Ben almost apologetically. “While you and your wife were here. Yes,” he said, turning to stare at Gwen, “and so were you, Mrs. Barton, along with your husband. So if any of you knows anything, now would be the time to talk to me.”

Diego didn’t blame Gray for being angry. He felt as if he had stepped into an Agatha Christie mystery himself, except that there would be no drawing-room conclusion tonight.

The people at the Conway Ranch were all behaving like rats confined too long in a cage that was far too small, attacking one another with a vengeance.

He walked into the center of the room. “Could I see whatever’s in your pockets, please?” he asked. “And your purses, ladies.”

“Certainly not,” Charles Barton said angrily. “This is America.”

“Yes, where everyone is subject to the rule of law, which would be me. Let’s take this from the beginning. I want to know who moved the statue of Nathan Kendall up the stairs at the museum the other morning,” Diego said.

“What?” Trisha said.

“Someone was in the museum the morning after Candace and Larry Parker were killed. That someone carried the statue of Nathan Kendall up the stairs and set it at the foot of Scarlet’s bed for reasons unknown, maybe hoping to give her a heart attack, or maybe to scare her into leaving. At the moment the why doesn’t matter. I need to find out the who,” Diego said.

“The museum is kept locked,” Gwen said, shifting closer to her husband and taking his hand. “How could any of us—other than Ben and Trisha and Scarlet—have gotten in and done something so bizarre? Maybe they’re in it together—Ben and Trisha and Scarlet. They could have moved that stupid statue just to make it look like someone else was behind everything.”

“Until recently, the museum had no alarm system, and it wouldn’t have been all that hard for someone to ‘borrow’ the key and make a copy,” Diego said. “Someone has that key. So, please, your pockets and purses.”

“Do you have a warrant?” Clark demanded.

Gray stepped forward before Diego had a chance to respond and said, “Since you’re interested, I
do
, so,” he said, reaching into his jacket, “I’ll let you all know now that it includes the house and grounds, all buildings on the grounds, and all vehicles parked on the grounds. In other words, it covers pretty much everything here. You’re all welcome to read it at your leisure.”

“Let me see that,” Gigi said, leaping to her feet.

Lieutenant Gray politely passed her the warrant.

“Take care with that,” Adam warned her quietly.

“I don’t know why you’re looking so hard for a suspect when you have several right in front of you, as Gwen has pointed out,” Clark said. “Ben has both a key and the physical strength to move a mannequin. You don’t even know that the incident with the statue is connected to the murders. Maybe it was Ben’s idea of a joke. Or maybe Scarlet did it herself. Look at her history, excavating graves, for heaven’s sake. Maybe all that death drove her crazy.”

“Mr. Levin, trust me, I am not crazy,” Scarlet said with quiet dignity.

Diego glanced over at her, trying not to smile. She was completely controlled. She really did have more inner strength than he’d ever expected when they first met.

“No, Scarlet is not crazy,” he said, before turning back to the others. “We’ve already acknowledged that three people had the key legitimately. But copying a key is one of the easiest things in the world to do. In fact, Lieutenant Gray, perhaps in the morning you could check local hardware stores and find out if anyone in this room has been in recently to have a key duplicated. Now, for the last time, pockets and purses.”

For a second there was silence. Then Clark stood in aggravation. “Look, here’s me, emptying my pockets. I have keys to my house, my Lincoln back home and my room here. That’s it. Pat me down, feel me up, search wherever you like.”

“Here, my purse,” his wife offered. She stood up from the antique sofa where she’d been sitting and dumped the contents of her little over-the-shoulder handbag onto the coffee table. A packet of tissue, a lipstick, reading glasses, and a little leather case that held ID and credit cards fell out.

“My pockets,” Charles said, rising and pulling them out. Change fell onto the rug and rolled across the hardwood floor.

“My purse is upstairs,” Gwen said.

“Since I live here, so is mine,” Linda said.

“Then you won’t care if we search your rooms, right?” Lieutenant Gray asked.

“Go ahead,” Charles said, his tone furious. “Knock yourselves out. You want a strip search, too?”

Angus grinned and looked over at Jane. “You can strip-search me—as long as it’s one of the pretty agents who does it.”

Gigi made a disgusted noise and shuddered.

“Sure as hell wouldn’t want it be you, you old prune,” Angus said.

“Enough!” Gwen said. “I’ll go up and get my purse for you. I assume you’d like to send someone with me to make sure I don’t take anything out of it first?”

“Thank you, Gwen,” Diego said. “Jane will go with you.” He addressed the room again. “People nearly died here tonight. I would think that anyone who’s innocent would want us tearing the place apart.”

“You go right ahead and tear our room apart,” Gwen said. “Because Charles and I are leaving.”

“Not before Gigi and I do,” Clark said.

“You’re not leaving until Lieutenant Gray says you’re leaving,” Diego said firmly.

“You’re not leaving,” Gray said.

“Arrest me, then,” Clark said, daring him.

“All right,” Gray said, “you’re under arrest for murder.”

“What?” Clark demanded.

“Let’s just sit down and wait,” Gigi begged him.

As if on cue, one of the crime-scene techs came in, his countenance grim. He walked straight over to Lieutenant Gray and whispered to him. Gray nodded toward Diego, who joined him for a quick sotto voce conference.

“Apparently,” Diego said to the group, “they’ve found something in Mr. Ballantree’s room.”

Terry leaped to his feet. “I didn’t put it there.”

“You didn’t put
what
there?” Diego asked.

“That key—that wretched key.”

“What makes you think they’ve found the key?” Diego asked.

“Well, I—I... We were talking about the key, so of course I assumed—”

Diego smiled. “Well, Terry, they did in fact find the key in your room.”

Terry exhaled in surrender. “Okay, I admit it. I did it. I moved the statue up the stairs and into Scarlet’s bedroom. But, that’s it! It was a joke, just a joke. I kind of had a thing for her, and I figured she’d freak out and maybe come to me for protection or something. But she didn’t. And then you guys showed up and I realized it was pointless anyway, she was never going to look at me twice. But I didn’t
murder
anyone. I was in town when the Parkers were killed, too, so I couldn’t have done it.”

“You will come down to the station, and we will talk further,” Lieutenant Gray said quietly.

“But it was just a joke. I didn’t mean any harm,” Terry said, his voice high with fear and his face ashen.

“And I guess you didn’t mean any harm tonight, either, right?” Linda demanded. “You might have killed all of us!”

“I had nothing to do with tonight. I swear it,” Terry said. “For God’s sake, I’m the only one who got hurt.” He turned back to Diego and Gray. “And you don’t understand. That key
can’t
be in my room. It’s impossible. I threw it in a stream. I’m not stupid. I got rid of the damned thing immediately. So if you found a key in my room, I’m telling you now, it’s not the key I had made.”

“Listen,” Clark Levin said. “You’ve got your man, so for the love of everything holy, can the rest of us go?”

“Oh, good God!” Linda suddenly announced. “Trust me, Terry didn’t kill the Parkers.”

“And how do you know that?” Brett asked her.

“Because he was my date that night,” Linda said, shaking her head.

“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?” Diego asked her.

Linda shrugged and glanced at Ben. “There’s an unspoken rule here that we don’t date guests. I was afraid of losing my job.”

“I don’t understand why you’re wasting time with any of this,” Gigi complained. “This is Ben’s house. Obviously he’s the one who booby-trapped the moose.”

“I’m afraid that’s not obvious,” Lieutenant Gray said.

“Why not?” Clark demanded, gruff as a bulldog, ready to defend his wife.

“Because we base our conclusions on evidence, not supposition. The forensic team and the techs back at the station will be able to tell us more about things like the way the trigger mechanism was set, and when. That information will help us home in on a suspect.”

“But this is Ben’s house,” Gwen said. “I don’t go into other people’s houses and start excavating behind their walls.”

“Most people don’t,” Diego agreed. “But most people don’t commit murder, either.”

Diego could see that they weren’t getting anywhere. Accusations were flying. Lieutenant Gray arrested Terry Ballantree for stealing the key and breaking into the museum, but that wouldn’t get them any closer to finding their killer.

For the moment, he had to pin his hopes on forensics. With luck he would get something useful from that scrap of the burlap, as well as from tonight’s search of the house and grounds. Additionally, with Gray’s help in the manpower department, they had the ability to follow everyone here. Earlier they’d wanted to bring them all together to see how they reacted at the séance, now they needed to see who would do what once they were apart.

“With the exception of Mr. Ballantree, none of you is under arrest or even being held. Mr. and Mrs. Barton, Mr. and Mrs. Levin, you are free to check out and find another hotel, but I must ask you not to leave the immediate area. Terry, suggest you do the same once—or if—Lieutenant Gray releases you,” Diego said.

“Instead of a hotel, you might want to check into the hospital for that arm, don’t you think?” Gwen said derisively.

“All of you, out,” Diego said, thoroughly sick of every single one of them by that point.

“We’ll be escorting you into town to ensure you find room at a hotel of your choice,” Jane said.

“Well, I, for one, am happy to be leaving this place,” Clark said, rising and reaching a hand down to his wife.

“I’ll escort you,” Brett told them.

“Just remember,” Lieutenant Gray said, “don’t leave the area and be sure we have your contact information in case we need to get in touch with you.”

“Our lives will be at your convenience,” Gigi said, not even bothering to hide her contempt. “Clark, let’s go.”

“What about us?” Gwen asked. “Who’ll go with us?”

“I will,” Jane said.

“Great, we get séance lady,” Charles muttered.

“I’m sure Lieutenant Gray has a uniformed officer who can assist you instead,” Jane said.

Diego lowered his head to hide his smile. Jane was a master of holding her cool no matter what. All that mattered to her was getting the job done. He was going to like being part of the Krewe.

“I’d like to come back as soon as the police let me go. You’re not going to close the place, are you, Ben?” Terry asked.

Ben just shook his head, looking shell-shocked. “Who knows what will happen?”

For a long moment everyone in the room just stood there silently.

“Freedom. We’re out of here,” Clark said, turning to Brett. “We’ll be packed in ten minutes.”

Terry and the Bartons followed quickly on the Levins’ heels. Adam excused himself at that point, too, saying he wanted to do the paperwork on that night before the details started to fade.

“What now?” Trisha asked, looking at Diego.

“We’ll see what the forensic crews turn up,” he said. “The killer will make a mistake somewhere.”

Scarlet walked over to him. “I know you have work to do here, but I should get back. Lara is still at the museum—alone,” she said softly.

Brett heard her and walked over. “Lara is fine. Meg and Matt drove up just as I was running over here earlier, so they went up to hang out with her.”

Scarlet smiled. “Still, I’d like to get back home.”

“And there isn’t much reason for me to be sitting here anymore,” Angus said, evidently listening in. “Horses are much safer—and most of the time much nicer—than people.”