Dancing in the Dark (9 page)

As they entered the first room, Diane was charmed. The walls were
painted a pale lemon yellow with bright white gloss on the baseboard
and window trim. Twin brass beds were well polished and covered with
clean, white, hand-crocheted spreads. A blue knotted rug decorated with
garlands of yellow and white summer flowers covered the middle of the
waxed pine floor. A series of botanical prints matted in blue and
framed in white had been artfully hung. There were candles on the
Victorian-style oak dresser, and a small pile of books and magazines
were stacked on the bottom shelf of the night table between the beds.

“I call this room.”

Diane turned to see Michelle in the doorway. She tried to keep her
eyes trained on her daughter’s face rather than on her body.

“Somebody’s going to have to double up, honey,”

“Not me. C’mon, Mom. I want my own room.” Michelle walked over to
the window and pulled back the eyelet curtain. “Look. This one has a
great view of the beach.” There was more enthusiasm in her daughter’s
voice than Diane had heard in a long while.

Diane looked at Emily while figuring out the arrangements in her
head. Anthony should have a room to himself. That left two rooms for
the three females. But would it be better if Michelle wasn’t left alone?

“What do you think, Em?”

“I don’t mind sharing, if you don’t.”

“All right,” Diane decided. “We won’t be in the rooms that much
anyway. You can have this one, Michelle.”

Carlos beckoned to them to follow him across the hall. “Well, then,
that decides who will get the other rooms. There’s a double bed in the
Nautical Room and twin beds in the Shell Room. So, Anthony, this is
your room.”

Again, Diane was pleased. Pale blue walls, white trim, a fresh navy
bedspread on the knobbed pine bed. The prints on these walls displayed
sailing vessels, and a sisal rug covered the floor.

Anthony nodded, grudging but approving as he tried out the mattress.
“Not bad.”

“Okay then. On to the Shell Room.” Carlos led them down the hallway,
stopping at a small doorway. “Here’s the bathroom.”

“
The
bathroom? As in the
only
bathroom?” Michelle asked with
alarm. Carlos nodded.

“It’s not the end of the world, Michelle, if we have to share a
bathroom,” Diane said, trying to keep the annoyance from her tone.

“I’m sorry there’s only one bathroom up here,” Carlos apologized.
“We plan to put in another one, but for now there are plenty of clean
towels, and we will collect and replace them every day.”

“It’s no problem at all, Carlos,” Diane said, refraining from giving
Michelle the withering glance she felt her daughter deserved. “This
will be just fine.”

A few minutes later, Diane and Emily were dividing up the drawers
and unpacking their things. “Smell this sachet,” Diane said as she held up the silk pouch she had
pulled from the dresser drawer. “They’ve thought of everything, haven’t
they?”

Emily laughed. “What do you expect, Di?”

“What do you mean?”

“Duh. Carlos and his partner are gay.”

Diane shrugged her shoulders as she replaced the sachet in the
drawer. “Well, they sure know how to put the charm into a hotel.”

Helen had finished making up the beds and was in the kitchen stacking
the breakfast dishes in the sink when she heard three raps on the front
door frame. She pulled a tea towel from the rack, wiping her hands and
wondering if Jonathan and the girls were back so soon from their walk
into town to buy a newspaper. Why didn’t they just come in? Opening the
wooden door, she was greeted by a blast of hot air and two uniformed
police officers, who stood on the narrow porch. “Mrs. Richey?”

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions, ma’am.”

Helen noticed the sheen perspiration on the foreheads of both
policemen. “Would you like to come inside, where it’s cooler?” she
asked.

“Thank you, ma’am. We would.”

One man was a good five or six inches taller than the other, but
both were broad-shouldered and solidly built. Their looming presence
crowded the small front room of the tent.

“Please, sit down.” Helen indicated the wicker chairs. “Would you
like something to drink? I have lemonade all made.”

“No thank you, ma’am,” said the taller one.

Helen took a seat on the edge of the bottom bunk bed and looked
across the room at the policemen. “All right then. What can I help you
with?”

“Mrs. Richey, did you have a babysitter here last night?” the
shorter one asked as his partner took a notebook from his shirt pocket.

“Yes. Carly. Carly Neath. Why?”

They ignored her question and continued with their own. “Carly’s
mother says her daughter has worked for you before. Is that right?”

“Yes, Carly’s been here several times this summer. My girls are
crazy about her.”

“What time was she here?”

“She came at seven o’clock and stayed until we got home around eleven. Actually, it was just about
eleven-thirty.” Helen absentmindedly fingered the fringe of the kitchen
towel as the front door opened and her husband and daughters entered
the tent. Jonathan stopped short when he saw the policemen but quickly
introduced himself and shook hands with the officers.

“Why don’t you girls go outside and water the flowers while Mommy
and I talk to these nice policemen?” he suggested.

As soon as the girls were out of earshot, Helen explained what had
been going on. “The police want to know about Carly. I was just telling
them that we got home around eleven-thirty.”

“So you got home about eleven-thirty,” the officer taking the notes
pondered out loud. “And then what happened?”

“I wanted to walk her home, but Carly insisted on going alone. We
paid her, and she ran out the door before we could stop her,” Jonathan
answered.

Helen bit her lower lip and didn’t contradict her husband. “Please,
tell me. Has something happened to Carly?” she asked.

The officers rose from their chairs. “We hope not, ma’am. But her
parents say Carly didn’t come home last night. That’s not necessarily
something to get riled up about. Kids pull this kind of stunt all the
time, and normally, we’d wait to see if she turned up later today or
tomorrow. But with what happened earlier this week with the Patterson
girl, we’re getting involved right away.”

“I thought Leslie Patterson faked her own abduction. That’s what I
heard anyway,” Helen said.

“We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, ma’am.”

“No, of course not. I understand that. But if something has happened
to Carly—if she was kidnapped or something— maybe there really is some
sort of lunatic out there.”

The policeman didn’t respond. But Jonathan put his arm around his
wife’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, honey,” he said.

As Helen watched the officers walk down the steps, she replayed the
events of the night before in her mind. The babysitter had rushed out
before Jonathan had gotten back from parking the car. In fact, it had
been a good thirty minutes after Carly left before Jonathan had
returned to the tent. Helen had just assumed that her husband had had a
hard time finding a parking spot. If she were honest with herself, she
had been hoping it would take him as long as possible. Helen was
determined to avoid doing her wifely duty. She didn’t want to fight
with him about it.

Helen dreaded marital intimacy in the close confines of the tent.
The girls were sleeping so nearby, and the neighbors were able to hear
the slightest noise. She’d pretended she was already asleep when she
heard the screen door creak open, knowing that Jonathan would soon be
nudging at her. But he hadn’t. Her husband had undressed, slipped
between the cotton sheets, and fallen asleep without even touching her.

Last night, she had been relieved. This morning the half hour that had led to her reprieve was time
unaccounted for, time she wasn’t sure where her husband had been. And
just now, Jonathan had deliberately misled the police, indicating he
had been here in the tent all along.

She waited until Sarah and Hannah were getting their bathing suits
on and then beckoned to Jonathan to follow her to the kitchen.

“Why did you tell them that you wanted to walk Carly home? That we
paid her? You weren’t even here, Jonathan. Why did you lie?” Helen’s
clean, scrubbed face appeared solemn and worried as she whispered.

“Would it have been better for me to say I wasn’t here, Helen?” he
countered. “I heard about Carly going missing in town just now. I don’t
want the cops looking at me as a suspect. Do
you!”

“Hi. It’s Matthew. I’m in the lobby.”

“Okay. I’ll be right down.”

Diane flipped her cell phone closed. Turning to her sister, she
said, “I’m sorry, Em, but I have to get going. Please tell me again
that you’re all right with this.”

Emily slid her emptied suitcase under her twin bed and stood up.
“Will you stop worrying, Diane? We’re going to be fine. The kids and I
will find plenty to do. The first thing on the agenda is getting our
suits on and hitting the beach.”

“What would I do without you, Em?”

“Don’t worry, you can pay me back when I have kids—if you aren’t too
old to handle it by then.”

“Funny, Emily. Very funny.”

Diane grabbed a bottle of sunscreen and threw her sunglasses and
cell phone in her canvas tote bag. Pulling out her wallet, she counted
off several twenty-dollar bills and handed them to Emily. After making
hurried stops in Michelle’s and Anthony’s rooms to say good-bye, she
rushed down the wooden staircase.

Matthew stood at the foot of the stairs, dressed in a red KEY News
T-shirt, khaki Bermuda shorts, and brown sandals.

“You lucky dog. I wish I could be wearing what you are.”

“That’s why it’s great to work behind the camera.” Matthew smiled as
he gestured toward the door at the side of the lobby. “Want to go in
there and sit down? We can get organized before we head out.”

No one was in the old parlor, but a pitcher of iced tea and
sparkling glasses were arranged on a gleaming silver tray on the
refectory table at the side of the room. A basket packed with daisies
sat on the mantel. They were nice touches in an otherwise tired space.
Diane looked around, noticing the intricate molding along the edges of
the high ceiling, the carved stone that framed the fireplace, the
dulled bronze chandelier. The room had been neglected for years, but it
had good bones. With some attention and good taste, it could be a
Victorian showplace.

They poured themselves some iced tea and took seats on either end of
the sofa. Matthew began to outline his game plan. “First and foremost,
of course, we need to get Leslie Patterson. Our story cries for an
interview with her.”

Diane nodded. “That’s my job. I’m going to call her mother again as
soon as we finish here.”

Matthew took a small spiral notebook from his knapsack and flipped
back a few pages. “You could do that. But maybe it would be a better
approach to go see her in person.”

Diane wasn’t enthusiastic about this suggestion. “You mean just go
over to her house and knock on the door? I hate doing that.”

“Actually, I was thinking that you could go to her store.” He
consulted his notes. “The mom runs a gift shop called Lavender &
Lace. The Pattersons used it as a headquarters for the volunteers who
searched for Leslie.”

“I guess I could do that,” Diane mused as she took a sip of tea.
“But I’ll go alone, without you or the crew. I don’t want the poor
woman to feel like she’s being ambushed. Are you sure she’ll even be
there?”

“Well, she’s supposed to be. I stopped over there when I got down
here late yesterday afternoon, and a letter was taped to the front
door. It thanked the community for their concern about Leslie and said
that the store would reopen for business this weekend.”

Diane jotted down the Main Avenue address in her own notebook. “What
else?” she asked.

“The police have scheduled a noon press conference.”

“About charges being pressed against Leslie?”

“I doubt it. That will probably come from the D.A.’s office. No, I’m
not sure what the cops want to say. But I’ll go over and cover it with
the crew.”

“That reminds me,” said Diane. “What’s with Sammy Gates using one of
my rooms here?”

“Oh, God.” Matthew groaned. “I’m sorry, Diane, but when Sammy saw
his room in our motel, he threatened to go back to New York. I had to appease him. I just wish it wasn’t at your
expense.”

Diane was skeptical. “You mean the place you’re staying at is worse
than this?”

Matthew uttered a low laugh. “The hole we’re staying in makes the
Dancing Dunes Inn look like a palace. These accommodations were the
best I could do on such short notice. The shore places are booked
months in advance.”