As Gouda as Dead (4 page)

O'Shea raced out of the pub and nearly flew to the precinct parking lot. I made it into the passenger seat of his SUV seconds before he tore off. As he zoomed toward the farmland in the north part of the county, I pulled my cell phone from my purse. Following the first wild turn, I was forced to grab the bar above the passenger side window. So much for being able to dial Urso. Where had the deputy learned to drive that way? Had he trained with NASCAR racers, or had the academy taught him the skill? His teeth looked cemented together.

“Deputy, please slow down.”

“Roads are dry.”

“We can barely see the pavement.” The sky was pitch-black. There was no moon. The pastoral areas beyond the town's main roads weren't lined with street lamps. “All it takes is a patch of ice kicked up by one of the sleighs to make us spin out.”

“Don't worry.”

Easy for him to say. My fingers were tingling from gripping the bar. I didn't dare let go.

We rounded the bend by Windmill Crest. The ancient windmill at the top was doing its level best to fight off a blustery wind. A Camaro whizzed past us. I couldn't see the driver's face, but I recognized the car. Its owner was a young man who worked at Providence Pâtisserie and often delivered the bread we purchased. Right after he zoomed past, we came upon a sleigh moving along the side of the road, just beyond the buildup of old snow.

“Do you see the sleigh, Devon?” Saying his name made me think of the bachelorette party and the way the girls had hooted after uttering his name. How long ago that seemed.

“I'm not blind.”

He slowed ever so slightly as he passed the sleigh and then resumed speed. I glanced back. The couple, draped in blankets and lit by the glow of hurricane candles mounted on either side of the driver, looked happy and totally oblivious to our plight. If only I was riding in a sleigh with Jordan and not a partner on this wild adventure.

“There's the Bozzuto Winery,” I said. Torchlights lit the winding road that led to the winery. It looked so inviting. All week long, expressly for the Lovers Trail festivities, the winery was having a wine tasting, twice daily and once nightly. “Pace Hill is beyond.”

“I know,” he grumbled.

Don't shoot the messenger, I thought.

Pace Hill Farm is an artisanal farm that raises its own cows and turns out about eighty thousand pounds of cheese a year. Seasonally, tourists are encouraged to walk the hiking trails and visit the cheese-making facility. On a typical day in spring, the drive to Pace Hill Farm would have taken us through brilliant green swales and knolls dotted with oak. We would have smelled the sweet aroma of grass wafting through the open windows of the SUV, but today, following a week of snow and temperatures hovering in the teens, all we smelled was the car's interior, and all we saw were white hills and dales framed by the dark of night.

The deputy hit the brakes and made a sharp turn onto the road leading to the farm.

“What if your uncle didn't come here?” I asked. “What if he thought better about whatever he was setting out to do and went home? We should have gone there first.”

“But we didn't. We're here.”

“I'll try to call him.”

“His cell phone glitched out. Don't you remember?” Venom filled the deputy's tone.

I refused to buckle. “What's his home number?”

O'Shea rattled it off. I dared to release my hold on the overhead bar and dialed Tim's number, but it didn't ring through. I glanced at the readout; my cell phone had lost its signal. I reflected on the conversation with Violet and Paige back at the pub. We really could use another cell tower in the area. What if we decorated it with those fake trees to mask it? Would Councilwoman Bell get on board then?

My cell phone trilled. Heartened, hoping it was Tim—maybe he'd glimpsed that I had called him at home, and he was returning the call; crisis averted—I answered.

“Charlotte,” Rebecca said. She sounded out of breath. “Where are— Where's Dev—” Her words kept cutting off. A wheeze of what sounded like air but had to be electric static echoed in the background. “I'm at the pub with Delil— We came looking for— We got worr— What's going on?”

My insides felt cinched tight. “We're on our way to Jordan's place. Urso's there.”

“Why do you—” More dead air. “Urso?”

“I can barely hear you, and I can't talk now. Tim's missing. I'm hanging up. I'll call you when we learn something. It's probably nothing.” Another icier-than-all-get-out chill coursed through me. I chalked it up to me channeling the deputy's worry. Nothing was wrong. Nothing.

At the top of the drive, O'Shea swerved around the many cars and trucks parked in front of Jordan's ranch-style house and screeched to a halt. We bounded from the SUV at the same time.

“Look!” He pointed. “That's my uncle's truck.”

At the far left of the driveway, a blue 1995 Chevy Silverado stood at an angle. I remembered when Tim bought it. I was still in high school, but my grandparents took me into the pub for a burger. Tim was behind the bar bragging about the truck and how he was going to rebuild the engine and upgrade the radiator from a single-core to a three-core because the lesser wasn't good for towing. Like he towed anything, his conversation mate had teased. Now I recalled a more recent boast by Tim; the Silverado had over two hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. He claimed it was the most reliable buddy a guy could ever have. My grandfather said Tim would make a great spokesman for Chevrolet.

O'Shea darted to the truck and peeked through the driver window. “He's not inside. Follow me.”

Not one to argue with the law—okay, sometimes I did, but I wasn't about to tonight—I obeyed.

O'Shea sprinted to the main house and up the triplet of steps to the porch. He lifted the lion's-head-shaped doorknocker and rammed it against the wood. From inside, I heard men laughing.

When Delilah and Meredith had
kidnapped
me, they hadn't let me grab my gloves. I rubbed my fingers to warm them. Not good enough. I cupped them and blew into them. “Deputy . . . Devon . . .” Were my teeth chattering? “I think we might be overreacting. I'll bet your uncle came here to join the party. He and Jordan are friends. Maybe he was trying to tell you he saw an invitation. He forgot to RSVP. He was going to call Urso to tell him he was on his way. Maybe this party was a surprise like mine was. Maybe—”

“No.” O'Shea was adamant. “Uncle Tim refuses to go to bachelor parties. He hates them. He hates all celebrations.”

“You're kidding. He owns the most rousing place in town.”

“I know.”

“And he was the one who talked you into posing at my bachelorette party.”

“
I
can celebrate.
You
can celebrate. Not him.”

“I don't get it. Why does he hate celebrating so much?”

“You don't know?” O'Shea rammed the doorknocker into the wood again. “He got dumped at the altar twenty years ago.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I barely knew him then. I was in high school.”

“Yeah, of course. Dumb me.”

To the deputy, I would bet anyone over thirty was ancient.

“Tim was the youngest brother,” O'Shea continued. “After all of his older brothers got married, he was feeling the pressure to follow in their footsteps. So he got engaged to a girl he didn't love. Respectable, but, well, you know.” O'Shea grimaced. “Sometime before the big date, he decided to quit farming and buy the bar. I guess he forgot to tell his intended. On the morning of the wedding, she called it off. She didn't want to have anything to do with someone who supplied liquor to people.”

“Who was she?”

“Maggie something.”

“Does she still live in town?”

“No. She moved away about a year later. Tim told me she never married. He swears he ruined her for everyone. Some couples aren't meant to be, I guess.”

I wondered how Tim tolerated Tyanne's career as the town's premier wedding party planner. Tyanne had never mentioned his loathing for celebrations.

O'Shea knocked a third time. His boot drilled the porch while he waited. “C'mon, open up,” he grumbled.

“Try the knob. It's not breaking and entering.”

He did. It was unlocked. He pushed the door open. “Uncle Tim?”

Jordan's home was very male, filled with leather and wood furniture. The aroma of beer and ribs drowned out the normal aroma of pine and musk. The party appeared to be made up of about fifteen males. A couple of them were playing darts. A few others were seated at tables playing cards. I don't know what I had expected Jordan's bachelor party to be, but this wasn't it. The word
tame
came to mind.

I didn't spy Tim among the group, but I caught sight of Jordan, who was standing with his back to the door chatting up another farm owner. Despite the tension of the moment, my insides did a happy dance. In three days, I would be his bride. But that wasn't why we were here. “Jordan!” I yelled.

Jordan pivoted. His mouth turned up in a quick grin. He set down his glass of beer and strode toward us, rolling up the sleeves of his work shirt as he approached. Call me nuts, but whenever I saw him saunter toward me, I thought of hunky cowboys in romantic movies. He grasped my elbow and leaned in for a kiss. “Hello, my love. What a nice surprise, but you know you're not supposed to be here.” In an exaggerated way, he glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder and back at me. “You might see something you don't want to.”

“A stripper perhaps?”

“Alas. None to be found,” he teased. His jocular mood quickly disappeared when he took in Deputy O'Shea. “What's up?”

“Is my uncle here?” O'Shea asked.

“No.”

“His truck is.” He pointed.

Jordan peered beyond us. “Huh. The devil.” He swung around and surveyed the room. “Tim!” he bellowed.

Tim didn't emerge from the pack.

Jordan yelled to the crowd, “Has anyone seen Timothy O'Shea?”

Like a big bear, Umberto Urso, our chief of police, muscled his way through the group, a can of beer in his hand. He and Jordan had the same dark hair and the same lover-of-the-outdoors tanned skin, but that was where the match ended. Urso stood a good four inches taller than Jordan and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. “Deputy, why are you here?”

“I think my uncle came looking for you. He called me. Did he call you?”

“No.” Urso withdrew his cell phone from his pocket and scanned the readout. “I see a missed call. No message, though.” He pocketed the phone. “What's this about?”

I had known Urso since we were kids. He was an expert at separating business from pleasure. He urged the four of us to move to the porch, and he closed the door.

“Tim called me. He sounded upset.” O'Shea replayed the bits and pieces he had gleaned from Tim's voice mail. “At first he said he
heard
something, but then revised that to say he
saw
something. I'm not sure what he saw, but it sounded urgent. He said he was going to track you down. I've got to find him.”

O'Shea didn't wait for a command from his superior. He turned on his heel and strode to Tim's truck. He crouched down and clicked on the flashlight application of his cell phone. Peering at the surrounding ground like a seasoned tracker, he pointed and said, “I see a boot print pointing this way.” He strode toward the cheese-making facility, about fifty yards from the main house, where Jordan's staff made the farm's specialty—Pace Hill Farm Double-cream Gouda.

While Jordan's house was designed in the American Western style of a working ranch, the cheese-making facility was state-of-the-art. The exterior was streamlined. It only had one long window near the top of the building to allow in light.

O'Shea went to the front entrance, put his hand on the doorknob, and twisted. The door opened. He stepped inside.

Jordan, Urso, and I crowded in behind him. No lights were on. A sense of gloom hung in the air.

“Uncle Tim, are you in here?”

No response. I didn't even hear the hum of machinery.

“Out of my way, deputy.” Jordan hurried to a panel of switches and flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights.

The facility was as cold as a morgue. The room wasn't vast, measuring about forty-by-twenty feet. A large stainless steel vat, a third of the size of the room, stood in the middle of the linoleum floor. Long whisklike prongs were attached to a metal arm above the vat; the prongs, when swirling, assisted the cheese makers with the coagulation process. Paddles, ladles, skimmers, and sieves hung on hooks on the far wall.

At the far end of the room—

I looked at the vat. It was filled with milk, ready for cheese making. “Jordan!” I pointed. “Milk.”

“Oh no.” His hushed tone matched mine.

Urso said, “What's odd about that?”