Blood Red (29 page)

Rowan breathes a sigh of relief, ensconced, if only temporarily, in this familiar cocoon. Here, the old house scent that lingers in her attic at home blends with potpourri wafting from a cut-­glass bowl near the guest book and the scented votives flickering on the marble mantelpiece. The imposing grandfather clock loudly ticks in time with its swaying pendulum, and Christmas music is playing courtesy of scratchy vinyl on a vintage Victrola.

In Rowan's house, the staircase is carved of the same dark wood, but it's angular with a landing. Here, the stairs curve in a graceful, unbroken arc to a second-­floor balcony. Ora ducks beneath a velvet rope hung across its foot and ascends a few steps so that she can address the group from above.

At this time of year, visitors are restricted to the first floor, where it's all about mistletoe and holly. The notorious Mundy's Landing Collections—­archives relevant to the village's bloody past—­are housed in two large rooms above.

In one, among other seventeenth-­century artifacts, is a cast-­iron kettle that Jake's ancestors James and Elizabeth Mundy supposedly used to make stew from the disembodied limbs of their unfortunate fellow settlers. There are records from the trial and execution as well, written in pen and ink on crumbling parchment displayed beneath glass.

The other room contains a more extensive exhibit, given the relatively recent timing of the crimes. Included are bloodied clothing and hair ribbons that were found on the Sleeping Beauties' corpses, and notes that were purportedly left by their killer. There are yellowed newspapers—­the story made national headlines—­and police reports, along with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of original photographs.

Rowan remembers poring over the collection as a child, when the historical society was crammed into the library basement. She was particularly captivated by the macabre images that showed the corpses tucked into beds that weren't their own, arms folded neatly on the coverlets, faces serene, looking for all the world like sleeping children.

When she was growing up here, that exhibit was far more disturbing than the other one. Not so for Jake, though, or for their kids.

The overachieving descendants of James and Elizabeth Mundy stretched well above and beyond the realms of good citizenship in their efforts to redeem the tainted family name, and it's paid off.

For the most part, anyway.

Years ago, forensic testing was conducted at Hadley College on skeletal remains that showed indications of having been crudely butchered—­including the fractured skull of a young female. The lab results revealed that the fracture had occurred before—­and most likely had been the cause of—­the girl's death.

It's one thing to be descended from Early American settlers who valiantly resorted to the unthinkable in order to stave off death by starvation, and were cruelly executed in front of their children. It's another to be descended from cannibals who murdered their prey in cold blood.

“The truth has been lost in the mists of time,” Ora Abrams always concludes dramatically when she relates that chilling tale during the special exhibit tours during the summer convention.

Today, however, she tells the students only about the first-­floor exhibits.

“The front parlor is decorated to portray a typical Christmas Eve in 1860; the back parlor depicts what Santa would have left for the children of an upper-­middle-­class family in 1880; the scullery is in the midst of preparing breakfast on a Christmas morning in 1900, and the dining room is set for a formal New Year's Eve dinner in 1910. Any questions?”

There are plenty, as always.

“Where can we put our coats?”

“I suggest you leave them on,” Ora says. “You'll find that it's quite chilly in here.”

“Why don't you turn up the heat?”

“Because it's very expensive to warm this huge old mansion.”

“When do we get to eat cookies and drink cocoa?”

Ora chuckles delightedly. “So you've heard about the cookies and cocoa. Very soon, I promise.”

One last question—­an earnest one that comes from Billy: “How old are you?”

“Younger than I look and older than I feel,” is the good-­natured reply. “Shall we get started?”

She descends the staircase and begins leading the group toward the front parlor nestled in the base of one of the turrets.

“You have a nice bunch of students this year,” she tells Rowan. “Very well behaved.”

“They are. There are always a few live wires.”

“The live wires are my favorites . . . and as I recall, you were one yourself, my dear.” Eyes twinkling, she reaches out to touch the snowflake brooch pinned to Rowan's coat. “Oh my goodness. Where did you get this?”

“It was a gift from my Secret Santa. Isn't it unique?”

“It is. We have a few pieces in the collection, but nothing like this. I'd love to know where your Santa got it when she reveals herself.”

“I'll let you know. You have pieces like this in the museum? So you think it's an antique?”

“I'm sure it must be. Mourning jewelry was wildly popular in the late Victorian era.”

“I didn't know that's what it was called. I guess I'll have to make sure that I don't wear it at night.”

“Oh no, not morning.
Mourning
. The Victorians wore jewelry made from the hair of their dead loved ones.”

Taken aback, Rowan looks down at the intricate snowflake she'd assumed was crafted from red thread. “You think this is made from
hair
? Human hair?”

Ora nods. “I inherited a similar brooch from Great-­Aunt Etta but it's not nearly as striking. Yours is a rare piece. That's why I'd love to know where your Secret Santa got it.”

“So would I,” Rowan murmurs, as the Gravitron picks up speed.

A
s Kurt covers the last few steps between the parking garage and his stepfather's Weehawken apartment building, he belatedly wonders whether he should have asked someone to come with him.

But who? This is a family matter, and he's the only one in the family available to tend to it right now. His half sister is at college in California, his half brother in Texas, and his brother, though he lives nearby in Brooklyn, is working.

“Daddy did leave me a message on Sunday,” Erin said when she returned Kurt's call late last night—­late for him, anyway. “But he didn't answer when I got back to him Monday night, and I left him a message but I haven't heard back.”

His brother said almost the same thing: Rick had left a message on Sunday saying he wanted to talk, but when he got around to returning the call Monday night, Rick hadn't answered.

As for Liam, who knows? He's ensconced in an Austin fraternity house and didn't pick up when Kurt tried to reach him last night. Nor did he answer his texts. Typical college kid.

Not that Kurt has much experience in that area. He'd lasted two semesters at Rutgers. Mom was dismayed when he flunked out, but Rick had his back.

“You mark my words. He'll make something of himself even without a college degree, Vanessa.”

She was dubious, but Rick was right.

Kurt fishes Rick's spare set of keys from his pocket as he walks into the lobby. The doorman, typing on his cell phone behind a desk, doesn't give him a second glance. Maybe he's new and assumes Kurt lives here. Maybe he just doesn't give a crap.

So much for security, he thinks, riding the elevator to the third floor.

“I know what you're thinking,” Rick said the first time he showed Kurt around the place, almost two years ago now. “Believe me, I was hoping for something with a better view.”

“I don't know how you can beat this,” Kurt said dryly, gazing at the brick wall across the way and Dumpster below. “Wasn't there anything on a higher floor? There must be awesome skyline views up there.”

“Maybe, but the price is right for this place. I can afford it.”

Maybe not. Last time he saw Rick, he had his doubts that his stepfather was even holding down his latest job. He'd been pretty broken up after Mom died.

Yeah, well, who hasn't been?

Heart pounding, Kurt walks toward apartment 3C, jangling the keys.

Maybe he should have waited until his brother got out of work to come here. Maybe he shouldn't do this alone. Maybe . . .

No. It was Rick who taught him how to be a man—­a real man. “You don't run away from the tough stuff. You face your responsibilities head-­on and you do what needs to be done.”

He takes a deep breath.

He turns the lock, opens the door, takes a few steps over the threshold—­and screams himself hoarse.

 

From the
Mundy's Landing Tribune
Archives

Sports Page

May 25, 2009

Local Team Wins Soccer Tournament

The Mundy's Landing River Rats defeated the Catskill Wildcats 7–1 in yesterday's championship match at the Youth Soccer Tournament in Albany. Led in scoring by Julia Williams and Carmichael “Mick” Mundy, the team, a co-­ed mix of ten-­to-­twelve-year-­olds, went into the final game with a pair of round robin wins.

Coach Ronald Calhoun told the
Tribune
, “These kids played hard and I'm proud of each and every one of them.”

 

Chapter 15

A
fter waiting around near Brianna's locker again this morning, Mick was forced to give up when the first bell rang.

She must be really sick, he decides as he sits through English class, chin in hand, staring absently at the teacher.

He's not feeling so great himself today, having remembered to take his medicine but forgotten, once again, to eat something with it.

He'd better grab a banana from the cafeteria when he goes to retrieve the gift box from behind the bags of prunes in the lunchroom. Operation Secret Santa will have to wait until Brianna's back in school.

When the bell rings, he heads swiftly down the hall to make the detour to the cafeteria before his next class. Above the noise of chatter and slamming locker doors, Mrs. Dunlop, the principal's secretary, is talking on the PA system.

“Will the following students please report to the main office immediately . . .”

As she begins naming names, all of them female, Mick recognizes that they're close friends of Brianna's.

Both his heart and his feet pick up their pace. The cafeteria is quiet and empty other than Denise, one of the workers, who's putting milk cartons into the refrigerated case near the register.

“Hi, Mick,” she says, looking up. “What's going on?”

“I just wanted to see if I could grab a healthy snack.”

“You know we're not open till fourth period.”

“I know, but . . . I missed breakfast this morning. Please?” Mick offers her his most charming smile, when it's the last thing he feels like doing.

Denise, who graduated from Mundy's Landing High School back in the eighties with Mick's dad, shakes her hairnetted head but smiles back. “Go ahead and grab something,” she says, “and I'll bill it to your account when I open the register.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Tell your parents I said hello.”

His stomach is churning but he bypasses the bananas, making a beeline for the prune display.

The gift box isn't there.

Frowning, he roots around trying to find it, but it's definitely gone. Realizing Denise is watching him, he grabs a bag of prunes just as the bell rings signaling the start of next period. He shows it to her, saying, “I'll take this. Bill me for a banana, too, okay? I grabbed one yesterday when no one was here. Thanks, Denise.”

“No problem. Now get moving.” As he heads for the hall, he hears her laugh and repeat, “
Get moving
. Hah! Good one.”

Mick is too concerned about Brianna and the missing gift to be mortified.

Passing the bulletin board in the empty hallway, he pauses to lift the Toys for Tots flyer, intending to remove the written clue he'd left there for Brianna.

It, too, is missing.

Since he's already late for class, he detours past a few other spots where he planted notes, only to find that all have been removed.

Even more disturbing: through the glass window of the main office, he can see a pair of uniformed police officers along with several of Brianna's friends—­all of whom are crying.

A
fter spending the night combing case files, Sully got home at four in the morning to find that her upstairs neighbor was apparently spending the night at her boyfriend's because her teenage son—­an avid drummer—­was having a party. And the insomniac old man downstairs was blasting his television so loudly that she could hear every word of
Life Begins for Andy Hardy
on Turner Classic Movies.

Reminded of her father, who had been a big fan of old movies and Mickey Rooney, she downed a shot of Irish whiskey, crawled into bed, and managed to sleep soundly until nine. She'd have kept right on sleeping if she hadn't been awakened by a call from Barnes, reporting that a teenage girl had gone missing up in the Hudson Valley and she might have crossed paths with their redhead stalker.

Maybe. But probably not. Brianna Armbruster is younger than the other victims, still living at home with her parents. She vanished on a sunny morning, not on the heels of a catastrophic storm.

When small-­town teenage girls go missing, the vast majority of them disappeared voluntarily. Often, they've had a fight with their parents or boyfriend, or they're simply in the mood for a change of scenery or searching for some big-­city excitement.

Still, she lived on the Hudson River just up the Taconic Parkway from New York, and she's an attractive girl whose most striking feature is her long red hair.

At that news, Sully bounded out of bed and jumped into the shower. Now she's juggling rest stop tea and a bagel in the passenger's seat as Stockton follows the foggy gray ribbon of highway stretching along the Hudson River with the Catskill Mountains looming to the west. They're well aware that the trail is fairly cold by now. The girl had likely been missing for hours before anyone realized she was gone. No one had seen her since she'd gone to bed on Monday night.

“Those poor parents.” Sully shakes her head. “Can you imagine the guilt?”

“I can. That's why I've never had kids. It doesn't mix with this job.”

Both Armbrusters are successful professionals, with demanding state government careers in Albany. They'd assumed when they left for work yesterday morning that their daughter was out jogging, as was her early morning habit.

“At least they're both cleared as suspects,” Barnes points out. “That saves everyone a whole lotta extra anguish.”

Yes, the ­couple's solid alibis spared them the unique hell Sully and Stockton have encountered many times in the past. Parents often fall under the umbrella of suspicion in a child's disappearance, and it's a challenge to stride the fine line between compassion and skepticism when investigating a case like that.

“It's just incredible that in this age of overcommunication, the system failed so spectacularly,” Sully says with a sigh, giving up on the bagel and shoving the remains into Barnes's coffee cup parked in the console.

“Hey!”

“It's empty. This is garbage.”

“I thought you were starved.”

“I was. But even I have to draw the line somewhere. Like I said, that's garbage. You can't get a good bagel north of the George Washington Bridge.”

She brushes the crumbs from her hands and pulls out her notes, going over the facts of the case.

When Brianna didn't show up at school yesterday morning, the attendance office assumed she was out sick and followed procedure, which was to leave a message at the house to confirm the absence. No one was home.

After school, her younger brother was wearing gaming headphones and parked in front of the Xbox console in his room, too engrossed to notice that his sister hadn't come home as usual. When the parents arrived later that night, they found nothing amiss and assumed their daughter had come and gone to her waitressing job. It turned out she'd never arrived there, either, but when the restaurant called looking for her, the twelve-­year-­old video game junkie never heard the phone ring.

“The thing that gets me is that the parents never checked their voice mail when they got home,” Barnes comments, shaking his head.

“I don't bother to do that very often, either,” Sully tells him. “If ­people want to reach me, they call my cell. Lately, only the telemarketers bother calling my landline.”

“But you don't have kids.”

“True. But I can imagine these ­people are probably like every other working parent we've ever met. Overextended, overwhelmed, overtired from a long day, long commute . . .”

“You're right. And they really didn't have any reason to think anything was wrong until they realized their daughter hadn't come home from work.”

She nods. It was well past ten o'clock when the Armbrusters began to worry, belatedly discovering the messages from the school and the restaurant. They panicked and called the police.

The village is small enough that the police chief lives a few blocks away and was once their daughter's soccer coach. He wasted no time in ruling out a runaway scenario. That conclusion seems based not just on assumption and emotion but on intuition, and Sully has been in this business long enough to respect that.

“If our perp is escalating,” she muses, “then he's not holding off until he has a weather-­related reason to travel farther from home. He either found himself up here for a different reason, or he singled out the girl because she crossed his path somewhere else and he hunted her down.”

“Maybe online. Hey, what's the exit number? These mountains are messing with the GPS signal.”

She quickly opens a search engine on her phone and Googles the name of the village, Mundy's Landing.

“That's why it sounded familiar,” she says, more to herself than Barnes.

“What? Why?”

“It's that town where they have that big murder festival every summer.”

“
Murder
festival? What?”

“Unofficially known as Mundypalooza,” she reads off her phone. “Crime buffs gather from around the world in an attempt to solve the Sleeping Beauty murders of 1916.”

“Oh, right.” Barnes nods. “That's the case where ­people were waking up in the morning to find dead girls in their beds. It doesn't get much creepier than that.”

“No, it doesn't. Do you think what happened to this Armbruster girl has anything to do with it? Maybe it's a copycat killer. Next summer is the hundredth anniversary of the murders and the three-­hundred-­fiftieth anniversary of the town, and they're already gearing up for a media circus.”

“I wouldn't put that past some sicko. But at least this girl hasn't turned up dead in someone else's bed. She's just disappeared.”

“I know.” Sully stares past him at mountains cloaked in somber gray. “Let's just pray she doesn't turn up bald and shrink-­wrapped.”

“M
r. Walker? I'm so sorry for your loss.”

Kurt looks up to see a middle-­aged man standing over him. Everything about him is puffy: curly blond hair, navy down jacket, even his face and breath, both of which bear the florid evidence of boozy nights.

He lowers himself into the seat opposite Kurt. They're in a small office just off the building lobby, where the first cops on the scene escorted Kurt to get him away from his stepfather's dead body.

That was almost an hour ago. He has no idea who summoned the police. Most likely one of the third-­floor neighbors called in response to his screams. Or maybe the doorman heard the commotion from two floors below.

Still huffing a little and mopping his brow with a handkerchief, the man in the chair introduces himself as Detective Lindgren with the local police force. Kurt wonders whether he's sweaty and out of breath from the exertion of taking an elevator and walking a few yards, or if the bloodbath upstairs got to him.

“Can I get you anything?” the man asks. “Glass of water?”

“No, thank you.”

One of the cops had asked him the same thing, and so did the doorman. It happened when his mother died, as well. Why, he wonders, do ­people assume that proximity to death is accompanied by great thirst?

“I need to tell my brothers and my sister what happened,” he tells Detective Lindgren.

“Are they close by?”

“One is. I'll go tell him in person. I'm going to have to call the younger two. They're away in college. They're going to have to make travel arrangements, and . . .” He looks at his watch. “They'll want to come right away. Today.”

“I understand. I just have a few questions for you, if you feel like you can answer them right now? I know this is a terrible time but the sooner we get this out of the way, the better.”

He inhales and exhales shakily, nodding. “I'll answer them if I can.”

“Thank you. When was the last time you saw your father?”

“I don't know . . . it's been a while.”

“Why did you come over here this morning?”

“To check on him. None of us had heard from him since . . . I don't know, Monday, I guess.”

“None of us . . .”

“Me, my brother, my half sister and half brother. And my dad's friend, Bob—­he's in Florida. We were all worried.”

“So he was your stepfather, correct?”

“Yes, but he adopted me and my brother when he married our mother.”

“When was that?”

“Twenty years ago last summer. I was six, and my brother was four.”

“And your father's friend Bob—­who is he?”

“Bob Belinke. He lives in Florida.”

The detective wants more information, including Bob's contact information.

As Kurt answers the questions, he realizes his mouth is dry. Now he wants the glass of water, but if he asks for it, the cop might think it's an attempt to distract his line of questioning.

Why is he questioning me anyway?

Rick committed suicide. He slit his wrists and he left a note, just like Mom. There can't possibly be any question about that . . . can there?

“What about your father?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your biological father.”

“What about him?” Kurt presses his hands against his cheeks, suddenly exhausted. “I haven't seen him in at least ten or fifteen years.”

“His name?”

Why does that even matter here? What the hell is going on?

He answers the question: “It was Kurt. Kurt Clark.”

“Same as yours.”

“My name is Kurt Walker.” Now, anyway. But even as a child, long before Rick came along, he resented being named after his deadbeat dad. His mother and brother called him by any number of nicknames that evolved from God only knows where—­Cookie, Kiddo, Buddy, KitKat . . .

“And you're estranged from your biological father?”

“We all are.”

“All?”