Christmas Carol Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) (16 page)

“I care,” Lucy said, though she hadn’t the vaguest idea what Sara was talking about.

“And so do I, dammit,” Bill said, banging his fist on the table. “And I’ll tell you another thing. You’d be smart to get as far away from those college radicals as you can. That’s the sort of thing that can haunt you in later life, especially now when everything is on the Web. Some HR person will Google your name and a photo of you and that Seth Lesinski will pop up and you’ll be branded some sort of radical and you won’t get the job.”

“If that’s true, it’s too late because I’ve already been photographed with crazy radicals,” Sara said, yanking her napkin off her lap and throwing it on the table.

“Well, you better stop seeing them,” Bill yelled. “In fact, as your father, I forbid you to see them.”

Sara was on her feet, eyes blazing. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, yes I can,” Bill insisted. “As long as you’re living under my roof you’re going to abide by my rules!”

“We’ll see about that,” Sara said, turning and marching out of the room.

The three of them sat in silence, listening as she climbed the stairs and went to her room. Lucy braced for the slam of the door, but it never came. All she heard was the click of the latch.

It was Zoe who finally spoke. “What’s for dessert?” she asked.

Lucy didn’t expect to sleep well when she went to bed that night, and she did have trouble falling asleep, but once she drifted off she slept soundly. At one point she thought she heard an engine or motor, and the sound of wheels going back and forth on snow, and decided it must be a town snowplow out on Red Top Road. It was only when morning came that she discovered her mistake.

“Mom!” It was Zoe, and Lucy knew something was very wrong. “Mom!”

She tossed back the covers and ran into the hall, where she found Zoe standing in the doorway to Sara’s room.

“Look!” She was pointing at Sara’s bed, still neatly made. “She’s gone! Sara’s gone!”

Lucy ran to the window, where she saw a single line of footsteps through the snow, and tire tracks in the driveway. That wasn’t a snowplow she’d heard in the night; it was a car. Sara had called a friend to pick her up. Sara had run away!

“B
ill! Bill! Wake up!” Lucy shook Bill’s shoulder and he groaned, shrugging her off and rolling over, pulling a pillow over his head.

“Sara’s run away!” Lucy was insistent. This was a family crisis. “You’ve got to do something!”

Bill swatted the pillow away and rolled onto his back. “Sara’s gone?” he asked.

“Yes! She never slept in her bed last night.”

This information did not get the reaction Lucy expected. “Well, she couldn’t have gotten far in that storm. Is it still snowing?”

“No. There’s about nine or ten inches on the ground. Somebody must have picked her up in the night. There’s tire tracks in the driveway.”

“Must’ve had four-wheel drive,” Bill said.

“Well, that does narrow the field of suspects,” Lucy said sarcastically. Most everybody in town had at least one four-wheel drive vehicle.

“She’s obviously with a friend. She’ll come home when she gets tired of couch surfing,” Bill said, yawning. “You know, I could do with some pancakes this morning. Fuel for shoveling.”

“Make ’em yourself,” Lucy growled, disgusted.

“What? What’s the matter?” Bill was truly puzzled.

“Your daughter could be out there in the cold, stuck in a snowdrift, freezing to death, and you want pancakes for breakfast! That’s what’s the matter!”

“Be realistic, Lucy. She’s probably sipping a cappuccino in the college coffee shop, telling her friends all about her horrible parents who don’t understand her.” Bill was on his feet, yawning and scratching his stomach. “Any chance of those pancakes?”

Lucy glared at him, turned on her heels and marched out of the bedroom. She was down the stairs in a flash, throwing on her coat and hat and scarf and gloves and boots as fast as she could, right over her plaid flannel pajamas. Libby watched anxiously from her dog bed, fearful that all this unusual early morning activity might somehow mean her food dish would remain empty. Then Lucy grabbed the keys to Bill’s truck from the hook by the door and marched outside, into the clear, cold morning.

The snow wasn’t as deep as she thought, she discovered when she stepped off the porch, and it had drifted somewhat, leaving only a few inches in the driveway. That was no problem for the pickup, and she made it to the road without any trouble. The Tinker’s Cove Highway Department had been plowing all night and the road was clear all the way to Winchester College.

Suspecting that Bill might actually be right, she parked in the visitor’s lot and went straight to the coffee shop, which was crowded with students and faculty buying take-out cups to carry to their eight o’clock classes. She scanned the faces eagerly but Sara’s was not among them. Lucy did spot Fred Rumford, who was a professor, adding cream and sugar to his stainless steel commuter mug of coffee. She greeted him and asked if he’d seen Sara.

“No. I don’t think she has any early classes,” he said, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “I’ve never seen her on campus this early, anyway.”

“I just thought she might be here,” Lucy said, looking around.

“Family crisis?” Fred asked.

“You could say that,” Lucy said, suddenly remembering that Fred had a much bigger problem in his family. She’d just learned a few days earlier that his younger brother, Geoff, was ill and needed a kidney transplant. “Oh, forgive me!” she exclaimed. “How is Geoff?”

Fred shrugged and sipped his coffee. “Doing okay, for the time being. They’re looking for a match, but no luck so far. I got tested but I’m no good. Apparently nobody in the family is suitable.”

“That’s too bad,” Lucy said. “I suppose there’s dialysis.”

“They’re trying to avoid that. They say he’s a really good candidate for a transplant. They just have to find him a kidney. He’s on a list, so it’s just a matter of time.”

“I’ll be keeping him in my thoughts,” Lucy said. “And if you see Sara, will you give me a call?”

“Do you want me to give her a message?” he asked, looking concerned. “Tell her to call home?”

“Uh, no,” Lucy said, imagining how negatively Sara would react to such a request. “I just want to know she’s okay.”

Fred nodded. “That’s probably the best course of action. Give her some room and she’ll come to her senses.”

“Thanks,” Lucy said, wishing she shared Fred’s optimism. She was considering her next step when she noticed the coffee shop’s enticing smell and decided she might as well have a cup while she considered her options. She got herself a double Colombian and took a seat at the cushioned banquette that ran along the café walls. After a couple of sips of coffee her head seemed to clear and she decided to do the obvious thing, wondering why on earth she hadn’t thought to simply call Sara on her cell phone. She rummaged in her big purse and found her phone, took a deep breath and scrolled down her list of contacts until she got to Sara, then hit Send.

She got voice mail, so she left a message. “Hi! It’s Mom. Just want to know that you’re okay. Give me a call, send me a text. Whatever works for you. Love ya, bye.”

Flipping the phone closed, she realized she hadn’t felt this low in a really long time. She might as well wallow in it, she decided, staring into her coffee. She’d give herself until she finished the coffee and then she’d pick herself up and get on with her life.

When she drank the last swallow, she’d worked through her emotions, beginning with self-pity (
I’m the world’s worst mother.
), gradually transitioning to resentment (
I may not be the world’s greatest mother but I don’t deserve this.
), and concluding with a surge of anger
(The nerve of that girl!
). She decided to take a quick tour around the quad, just in case she might see Sara, and had reached the science building when she slid on a patch of ice. A kid grabbed her arm, saving her from a nasty spill, and she looked up to thank him, recognizing Abe Goode. He was one of Sara’s friends, and he’d even come to the house for dinner a couple of times.

“Mrs. Stone! Are you okay?” he asked. Abe was a big guy, a freckle-faced carrot top, wearing one of those Peruvian knit caps with ear flaps, and he was carrying a pair of cross-country skis over his shoulder.

“I’m fine. Thanks for catching me.”

“No problem. This snow’s something, isn’t it? Fresh powder. I can’t wait to get out on the trails.”

“What about your classes?” she asked.

“I’ll get the notes from somebody,” he said. “No problem.”

“Say, you haven’t seen Sara this morning, have you?” Lucy asked. “I need to talk to her.”

“I haven’t seen her, but she texted me that she’s moved in with that gang on Shore Road.”

“Shore Road?”

“Yeah, the social action crowd, Seth Lesinski and his buds. They’ve got a squat there in a foreclosed house. Some kind of protest.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “It’s not my thing. Talk, talk, talk, when you could be skiing.”

Lucy smiled. “You’ve got a point.”

Back in the truck, Lucy weighed her options. She finally decided to go to the squat in her role as an investigative reporter. If Sara just happened to be there, it would be a coincidence. She wasn’t going there in search of Sara; she was just following up on a tip for her story about Seth Lesinski. And if Sara believed that, she decided, she might just try to sell her the Brooklyn Bridge.

Shore Road, which meandered along a rocky bluff fronting the ocean, was the town’s gold coast. It was lined with huge shingled “cottages” built as summer homes in the early 1900s, as well as more modern mansions notable for their numerous bathrooms and ballroom-sized kitchens. One recently constructed vacation home, she’d heard, had eight bedrooms and twelve bathrooms, which made her wonder if the owner had been over-toilet-trained as a child. All the houses, old and new, had amazing ocean views, and most were empty for ten months of the year.

Lucy had no difficulty finding the squat; it was the house with eleven cars in the driveway. She added Bill’s truck to the collection and made her way up the snowy path trodden by numerous feet and onto the spacious porch. The door, surprisingly, was ajar on this cold winter day. She stepped inside the enormous hallway, with its curving stairway and gigantic chandelier, and yelled hello, her voice echoing through the cold, empty rooms that had been stripped of furniture and personal effects.

“Hey, welcome,” a girl with long blond hair said. Dressed in jeans and several sweaters, she was carrying an armload of firewood.

“Is Seth here?” Lucy asked. “I’m from the local newspaper.”

“Cool,” the girl said. “Follow me.” She led the way into a large living room where a fire was burning in the fireplace, and a collection of air mattresses and cheap plastic lawn furniture was filled with a motley crew of youthful activists. Seth was leading a discussion, pointing to a whiteboard filled with economic terms: national debt, CEO salaries, progressive taxation, redistribution of wealth, economic justice. He paused, greeting her. “Hi, Lucy. Everyone, this is Lucy Stone, from the newspaper.”

“Hi, Lucy,” they all chorused.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” Lucy said, scanning the group and looking for Sara. “I just have a follow-up question.”

“Right. We’ll go in the library.” He led the way through the group, and Lucy followed, but she didn’t see Sara. Once inside the adjacent room, where the walls were lined with empty bookshelves, he turned to face her. “What did you want to ask me?”

“Well, for one thing, what’s going on here?” she asked.

“The house is abandoned, it’s in foreclosure, and we want to make the point that people are being forced out of their homes, being made homeless, when there are plenty of empty houses. There’s no need for anybody to be homeless. The answer is simple: put the homeless people in empty houses.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Lucy said. “Somebody owns this house. It isn’t yours.”

“A bank owns it. What’s the bank going to do with a house? The bank can’t move into a house,” Seth said.

“What you’re doing is illegal,” Lucy said. “You’re trespassing. What are you going to do when the cops come to evict you all?”

“Nonviolent resistance,” Seth said. “I hope you’ll cover it, when they come.”

“Absolutely.” Lucy added as if it were merely an afterthought, “By the way, is my daughter Sara here?”

“I’m not sure,” Seth said. “We’ve got quite a crowd. Some are in the kitchen, making soup for lunch. Maybe she’s there.” He cocked his head toward the other room, where the group was waiting for him. “I gotta go. We’re having a planning meeting.”

“Right,” Lucy said. “Thanks for your time.”

He went back to the meeting and Lucy wandered out into the hall, searching for the kitchen. She found it in the back of the house, flooded with sunlight and featuring ocean views, and she found Sara, too. She was standing at the expansive granite-topped center island, chopping carrots, next to a Coleman camp stove topped with a huge, steaming stockpot.

“Hi,” Lucy said.

“What are you doing here?” Sara demanded, her voice bristling with resentment.

“Just checking that you’re okay.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m fine.”

“Great,” Lucy said. “I think you should consider coming home.”

“Why do you think that? I’m happy here, with my friends. We’re doing something important.”

“This is illegal. Sooner or later the cops will come and arrest everyone.”

“So what?”

“Trust me, you won’t like it. Jail’s no fun, not even for a few hours, or a night.”

“Well, I’m ready to make sacrifices for my beliefs,” she said self-righteously, tossing her head.

Lucy sighed. “All right. It’s up to you.” She went to the door. “Give me a call now and then, okay?”

Sara didn’t answer.

Lucy didn’t know what to think, or feel, when she got back in the truck and headed home. She was running late, now, and needed to get out of her pajamas before she went to work.

Kids, she thought, shifting into reverse and backing the truck out onto Shore Road. She loved Sara, of course she did, but at this moment she’d cheerfully throttle the ungrateful little witch. She’d been through similar crises before, she remembered, driving the familiar route. Toby had dropped out of college after a single year in which he’d concentrated on partying rather than studying and ended up on academic probation. And there had been numerous flare-ups, especially arguments with his father, that had made his teen years rather difficult.

Elizabeth hadn’t exactly been easy, either. She’d insisted on chopping her hair into spikes and wore only black during her senior year of high school, and had developed a surly attitude toward other family members. Her grades had always been good, though, and she continued to succeed academically at Chamberlain College in Boston, although she did have a few unfortunate conflicts with the dean.

Lucy didn’t know why she’d expected things to be any different with Sara, but she now knew she’d been lulled into complacency by her third child’s easygoing nature. Easygoing until now, she thought, flipping on the signal and turning into her driveway.

The house was empty. Only Libby was home, greeting her with a wagging tail and a big, toothy dog smile. You could always count on your dog, she thought, scratching Libby behind her velvety ears.

There was a note stuck on the fridge with a magnet, from Zoe. It was just a big heart, with a Z in the middle. Lucy smiled when she spotted it, trying hard to ignore the evil little voice that was telling her, “She’s a sweetie now, but just wait a few years!”

Minutes later, dressed in her usual jeans and sweater, she added a quick slick of lipstick, tossed the dog a biscuit, and left the house. First stop on Tuesday was always the town hall, where she picked up the meeting schedule for the upcoming week. She always made a point of chatting up the girls in the town clerk’s office, often picking up a lead on a story. This week, however, there was an awkward silence when she presented herself at the clerk’s window.