Blood Red (4 page)

Sometimes, Casey seized the opportunity to stick around watching the house long after she'd disappeared inside, occasionally daring to scale a tree right on the property. Daring not because of the height—­Casey has always been exhilarated by great heights—­but because of the proximity to the house.

All any of them ever had to do was take a good, hard look, and they'd have seen me. But they never did.

Casey would sometimes stay late into the night until the last light was extinguished. Oblivious to a voyeur in their midst, the Mundy family went about their lives behind the sturdy plaster walls of the home that had been built well over a century ago—­one hundred and twenty-­seven years ago, to be exact.

Casey had left no stone unturned when it came to investigating Rowan's charmed life. One never knows when a seemingly irrelevant detail might come in handy.

An entire year of preparation has finally paid off.

November thirtieth has finally arrived.

The endgame has begun.

 

From the
Mundy's Landing Tribune
Archives

Real Estate

March 18, 2002

Just Reduced: Victorian Charmer

25 Riverview Road

Enjoy the ever-­changing Hudson Valley landscape from the rocking chair wraparound porch of this lovely historic 3200-­square-­foot, 6-­bedroom, 1.5-­bath Queen Anne. Vintage features include elegant front entry, double parlors, formal dining room with built-­in cabinetry, butler's pantry, full attic and cellar. Loaded with period charm including four fireplaces, stained glass transoms, and gabled dormers. Original oak, maple, and cherry floors, moldings, wainscoting, and pocket doors. Located minutes from business district on private 2 acre lot with mature trees and partial seasonal river views. Move-­in ready. Your TLC and decorating touches will restore this gem to its bygone splendor.

 

Chapter 2

M
ick Mundy has been eating in the wood-­paneled dining room at Marrana's Trattoria since the place was known as Marrana's Pizzeria. That was long before the owners replaced the red vinyl table coverings with white linen and started charging twenty bucks for a plate of pasta. Which is ridiculous, according to Mick's father—­although Dad's willing to pay even more than that for the Cavatelli a la Mama Marrana, the restaurant's sausage-­and-­cheese-­smothered signature dish.

In the three months since Mick started working here, he's come to see the place in a new light. At first, it was a novelty to know what was happening behind the scenes—­for instance, that the “world-­famous” gorgonzola salad dressing is just Italian dressing from a big plastic jug with a handful of cheese crumbles thrown in. At this point, though, that's old news. Now that he's the one who has to scrape the leftovers from diners' plates into the garbage, he's even lost his taste for Cavatelli a la Mama.

Still, for the most part, he likes his job. The place tends to get busier as the week goes on, and those lucky enough to pull weekend shifts make decent money. But Mick often has basketball games on those nights and is stuck with Monday through Wednesday, when his portion of the waitresses' tips amounts to barely enough to put a few gallons of gas in the car.

When he actually
has
a car.

Which he never will if he winds up having to pay for it himself. Not with this job, anyway.

Monday nights always mean lousy tips, but tonight is surprisingly busy.

“Why do you think that is?” he asks Brianna Armbruster, seizing any excuse to talk to her as they stand shoulder-­to-­shoulder loading desserts onto a tray.

“No clue” is her reply.

“Maybe it's because no one feels like cooking after Thanksgiving.”

“Maybe.”

Brianna walks off with a swing of her red ponytail. Not in a snotty way—­just . . .

Disinterested, basically. Which is the way most senior girls treat junior guys at Mundy's Landing High. It's not like he isn't used to it.

Still, he keeps trying with Brianna. Because this isn't school. He's not a junior here, he's a working man. This is the real world, where age doesn't matter. Well, anyway, it shouldn't, he thinks, staring after her. She fills out her waitress uniform—­a basic black polo shirt and jeans—­nicely.

He's known Brianna forever. You can't live in Mundy's Landing and not be acquainted with all the kids in town who are roughly your age. For two years, they played on the same youth soccer team. He didn't pay much attention to her, though—­didn't fall in love with her—­until the summer before his freshman year.

There he was, just riding his bike along Prospect Street on his usual morning paper route, tossing newspapers onto porches, when she jogged past with some guy. He hadn't seen much of her since she'd left middle school as a freckled tomboy with an overbite and orthodontic headgear. Now the braces were gone, and she was wearing skimpy workout clothes, and he couldn't miss the fact that she'd grown up—­not to mention out. He was so distracted he steered into a fire hydrant and found himself sprawled on the sidewalk with bloody hands and knees.

“Nice going, carrot top,” the guy called, laughing.

Brianna whirled on him and pointed out that she, too, was a carrot top. He stammered a lame apology, which she ignored as she came over to make sure Mick was okay. She even held his arm as he got to his feet. He kind of wished he wasn't okay, because then she'd have to call an ambulance and ride with him to the hospital and keep a bedside vigil as he convalesced, maybe wearing a little white nurse's uniform, or—­

“Could she be less into you?”

He turns to see Zach Willet grinning at him as he stares after Brianna.

“Yeah, she could be into
you
,” he shoots back illogically.

“That makes zero sense.”

“Cut me a break, will ya, Lou? Can't you see I'm lovesick over here?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry 'bout that, Lou.”

He and Zach always call each other Lou when they're here at work. He can't remember how it started, but it's become a
thing
, and they talk to each other in exaggerated mobster accents. Well, Zach's is dead-­on, like he stepped out of the movie
Goodfellas
, but Mick's needs work.

They never hung out much in the past. Zach is part of a different crowd, the drama club kids. But they've gotten to be pretty good friends working together over the past few months.

Mick puts a plate containing a powdered-­sugar-­dusted cannoli onto his tray and consults the order.

“By the way—­” Zach drops the wiseguy accent. “I heard she's going out with some college guy.”

Mick's heart plummets. “What? Brianna? Since when?”

“Since a few days ago.”

“Where'd you hear that?”

“I swore on my life I wouldn't tell.”

That means it came from Gina Marrana, aka Jiffy Pop. Her parents own the restaurant, and she's the only other high school kid here tonight. She always seems to know everything about everyone in town. On slow nights, she brings Mick up to speed on the gossip.

“You swear on your life you won't tell?” Gina always asks, wearing her usual I'm-­bursting-­with-­news-­and-­I'll-­explode-­if-­I-­don't-­tell expression that spawned her nickname.

Mick always swears, although he's broken that vow quite a few times. But he's still alive, so . . .

“Why would Brianna go out with a college guy?” he asks Zach.

“Dude. Come on. Seriously?”

“Okay, well, what else do you know?” Might as well size up the competition.

“He's from New York but he's a freshman at Hadley and I think his parents have a summer house near Saugerties,” Zach rattles off. “Oh, and he went to private boarding school in New England.”

So he's rich. Mick thinks of the wealthy ­people—­most of them from New York City—­who have homes in the area. Back on Columbus Day, he served a middle-­aged Manhattanite who called his a “country estate,” which you'd think would make him a big tipper, but he left ten percent. Jerk.

“When you say going out,” Mick says to Zach, “do you mean she's going to go on a date with him in the future? Or going out like boyfriend and girl—­”

“I hate to break up your little chill sesh back here,” Jiffy Pop herself interrupts, “but my mother's looking for you guys.”

Zach follows her back out into the dining room as Mick goes back to his dessert order.

Tiramisu . . .

Biscotti . . .

Which reminds him of the crazy package that came in the mail today.

The way his mother reacted, you would have thought someone had sent her a severed human head instead of just a bunch of burnt cookies.

Mom tried to cover up how freaked out she was, though. First she claimed it was probably from her Secret Santa after all. But he reminded her that it wasn't exactly a present and anyway, she'd said that didn't start until next week. Then she said it was just a joke, and that one of her old college friends had sent it.

He didn't believe that for a second.

She didn't seem amused. She seemed terrified.

Even more troubling: she told Mick not to tell his father about it.

“You want me to lie to Dad?” he asked, just to be clear.

“No! I don't want you to lie. Just don't mention it unless, you know, he asks about it.”

“So, like, if Dad comes walking in and says, ‘Hey, by any chance did someone send Mom a weird package in the mail today?' then I can say—­”

“Don't be a wiseass, Mick.” She was almost her usual self in that instant, but in the next, she was digging through the box like a
Survivor
contestant digging for the hidden immunity idol.

That's what Mick told her, adding, “That's a simile. Pretty good, huh?”

She failed to appreciate his literary genius, which wasn't like her. She just told him to go get changed for work. And when he returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Are you all right?” he asked as she pressed a hand to her chest like she was having a heart attack.

“I'm fine.”

But she wasn't. She was totally pale and jumpy, and she locked the house when they left. She never bothers to do that.

“Why don't you want Dad to know?” he asked her when they were in the car heading toward the restaurant.

“Know what?” she asked, even though he knew she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“About that package.”

“Oh, because my friend Carolyn sent it, and . . . you know Dad doesn't like her.”

Mick barely knows who Carolyn is, other than that she went to the University of Buffalo with Mom and lives outside Rochester. “Why doesn't he like her?”

“He thinks she talks too much.”

“He thinks all your friends talk too m—­ Look out!”

Mom slammed on the brakes. She'd almost driven right through a stop sign into oncoming traffic.

“Geez, Mom, you could have gotten us killed,” he said mildly.

“I'm sorry! Oh my God! I'm so sorry!” She just sat there for a second with her forehead resting on the steering wheel. Then someone honked behind them and she drove on, but he could see her hands shaking and she kept biting her lip.

Mick is sure there's a lot more to that box of burnt cookies than a stupid joke. Too bad he can't mention it to his father.

Then again, he didn't swear on his life.

C
asey's headlights illuminate a green sign announcing the next exit. From there, it'll be just a fifteen-­minute drive up the local road until the picturesque cluster of gabled rooftops and steeples comes into view.

It's been a long day on the road already, but Casey had no problem making the two-­hour detour in rush hour traffic. Too many days have passed without seeing Rowan. A glimpse of her might be too much to hope for, but sometimes it's enough just to drive by the big old house and imagine her inside, utterly unaware that her perfect little world is about to come crashing down around her.

From the exit, it takes fourteen minutes to reach the chamber of commerce billboard that reads Welcome to Mundy's Landing.

Alongside it is a traffic sign indicating that the speed limit has dropped from fifty-­five to thirty and is “strictly enforced.”

When Casey first visited, there was a third sign here as well: a temporary one directing visitors toward the center of town and the historical society on Prospect Street, the hub for the annual convention colloquially known as Mundypalooza.

Casey took full advantage of the hordes of tourists that descended upon the little village to commemorate its claim to fame as the murder capital of the world—­unofficially, of course. It's not as though the local government has embraced that slogan and printed it on bumper stickers.

Yet.

The local election campaigns this fall pitted the old guard against fresh blood. Casey followed them with interest. John Ransom, Mundy's Landing's longtime mayor—­whose bloodline reportedly links him to the notorious first settlers, as with many other longtime locals, including Rowan's husband—­doesn't like to acknowledge, much less draw attention to, the infamous murder sprees that unfolded here in the mid–1600s and then again almost a century ago.

Ninety-­nine years, five months, and seven days ago, to be precise.

Casey enjoys being precise.

Mayor Ransom was soundly defeated by a relative newcomer who'd won the vocal support of local business owners. They might not admit to capitalizing on the village's bloody past, but they certainly benefit from the annual invitation that draws increasingly large flocks of crime buffs, historians, and media from all over the world every summer.

Can you solve the Sleeping Beauty murders?

The question was printed on posters taped to every store window and lamppost in town and echoed in countless newspapers and all over the Internet.

How amusing.

What does it matter now whether the killer is identified? It's not as though the culprit still roams these brick-­paved streets by night, preying on innocent schoolchildren. Solving the ancient murders would accomplish nothing—­other than to erase the very reason for Mundypalooza's existence.

Clearly, the powers-­that-­be haven't thought of that.

Fools.

With next summer marking not just ML350—­the town's three-­hundred-­fiftieth birthday—­but also the centennial anniversary of the unsolved Sleeping Beauty murders, the upcoming Mundypalooza promises to be more popular than ever. By then, Casey's work here will be done. Too bad, because it would be even easier to get lost in increasingly larger crowds, moving in and out of circles that orbit and intersect those of Rowan and her family.

It's tricky, at this time of year, to slip in and out of their world unnoticed. But not impossible.

“Sunday, bloody Sunday . . .” Singing, Casey drives slowly past the Mundy home, turns around in a driveway down the road, and drives past it again. It would be nice to spot Rowan's silhouette in the window, which has happened many times. But it doesn't happen tonight.

It would be even nicer to park the car a short distance away, slip back through neighboring yards, and climb the massive elm behind the Mundy house. Perched high in its branches at night, camouflaged by dense foliage, Casey watched the family inside their home throughout the summer and into early fall.

That became too risky after the leaves fell.

But eventually, frustrated by the lack of proximity, emboldened by the knowledge that November thirtieth was looming, Casey tried a new tactic.

The Mundy family is careless about locking doors: their cars in the driveway and even the back door of the house are often left unlocked. Not that it matters. They keep a key hidden under a planter on the back step.