Last to Die (18 page)

She stopped at the side of the road and rolled down her
window
. Saw leaves dripping with rain, branches bobbing in the wind. But there was no watcher in the woods, just that lifeless tree stump, masquerading as a menace.

Everything is under control
.

Yet her uneasiness remained as she passed through the gate and drove south through forest and then farmland. Perhaps it was the unrelenting rain and the dark clouds hanging low on the horizon. Perhaps it was the lonely road, with its abandoned houses with sagging porches and boarded-over windows. This place felt like the end of the world, and she might be the last human alive.

Her ringing cell phone shattered that illusion. I’m back in civilization again, she thought as she rooted around in her purse for the phone. Reception was weak, barely enough to carry on a conversation, but she could make out Frost’s fragmented voice.

“Your last email … spoke to Hillsborough PD …”

“Hillsborough? Is this about Will Yablonski’s aunt and uncle?”

“… says it’s weird … wants to discuss …”

“Frost? Frost?”

Suddenly his voice popped out loud and clear. The miracle of a good cell signal at last. “He has no idea what it all means.”

“You spoke to the Hillsborough cop?”

“Yeah. A Detective David G. Wyman. He said the case struck him as weird from the beginning. I told him about Claire Ward, and his attention
really
perked up. He didn’t know there were other kids. You need to talk to him.”

“Can you meet me in New Hampshire?” asked Jane.

There was a pause; then his voice dropped. “No way. Crowe wants us focused on finding Andres Zapata. I’m on stakeout tonight. The housekeeper’s apartment.”

“Crowe’s still going with robbery as the motive?”

“On paper Zapata looks good. Burglary priors in Colombia. He had access, opportunity. And his fingerprints are on the kitchen door.”

“But this is bugging me, Frost. These three kids.”

“Look, we’re not expecting you here till tomorrow. You’ve got time to make a little detour.”

She’d planned to be home tonight for dinner with Gabriel, and a good-night kiss for Regina. Now it seemed she was headed to New Hampshire. “Don’t say a word to Crowe.”

“Wasn’t planning to.”

“One more thing. Run a VICAP search on unsolved family massacres. Specifically the same year the Wards, the Yablonskis, and the Clocks were killed.”

“What do you think we’re dealing with?”

“I don’t know.” She stared ahead at the rain-slicked road. “But whatever it is, it’s starting to scare me.”

BY THE TIME
Jane pulled into the driveway, the rain had stopped, but clouds hung on, gray and oppressive, and the trees continued to drip moisture. No other vehicles were in sight. She stepped out of her car and approached the remains of what had once been the farmhouse of Will’s aunt and uncle, Lynn and Brian Temple. A dozen yards away the barn stood untouched, but the residence was now nothing more than a pile of charred timbers. Standing alone by the ruins, the sound of water dripping all around her, she could almost smell the stench of smoke still rising from the ashes.

Tires crunched across gravel, and she turned to see a dark blue SUV pull to a stop behind her Subaru. The man who stepped out was wearing a yellow rain slicker, which hung like a four-man tent on his hefty frame. Everything about him seemed large, from his bald head to his meaty hands, and although she was not afraid of him, in this isolated spot she was acutely aware of his physical advantage over her.

“Detective Wyman?” she called out.

He strode toward her, boots splashing through puddles. “And
you
must be Detective Rizzoli. How was your drive down from Maine?”

“Wet. Thanks for meeting me.” She looked at the ruins. “This is what you wanted me to see?”

“I thought we should meet here first, while there’s still daylight. So you could take a look around.”

For a moment they stood together, regarding the destroyed house in silence. In the field beyond it, a deer wandered into view and stared at them, unafraid. It was not yet acquainted with the crack of a rifle, the punch of a bullet.

“They seemed like decent citizens,” Detective Wyman said. “Quiet. Kept the property in good order. Never came to our attention.” He paused and gave an ironic shake of the head. “That’s one definition of
decent citizen
, I guess.”

“So you didn’t personally know the Temples.”

“I heard there was a new couple who were renting the old McMurray place, but I never met them. They didn’t appear to have regular jobs, so not many folks in town got to know them, except for their rental agent. They told her they were looking for a quiet life in the country, someplace where their nephew could enjoy the outdoors, breathe fresh air. Gas station, grocery store clerks saw them around town, but to everyone else the Temples were pretty much invisible.”

“What about their nephew, Will? He must have had friends around here.”

“Homeschooled. Never got a chance to mix in with any local kids. Besides which, I got the feeling he was sort of different.”

“How so?”

“Kind of big and clumsy. A real nerd, if you know what I mean. The night it happened, he told me he was standing out in that field there.” Wyman pointed to the pasture, where the lone deer was leisurely grazing. “He had this fancy telescope set up, and he was looking at the stars or something. Oh, I remember now. He was searching for comets.” Wyman laughed. “Now, I got two teenage
boys
of my own. And on a Saturday night, the last thing they’d want to do is stand out in a field with no TV and no Facebook.”

“So Will’s just standing out here by himself in this field, looking at the sky. And the house blows up.”

“That’s about it. I assumed it was just an accident. Furnace, propane tank, something like that. Then the fire chief checks it out, and finds what look like incendiary devices. That’s when we called in the State Police Major Crime Unit. It’s all in my report. I’ve brought a copy for you. It’s in the truck.”

“Their nephew, Will. What did you think of him? I mean, beyond the fact he’s a nerd.”

“I took a long look at the kid, of course. Wondered if maybe he had issues with his aunt and uncle, maybe wanted to get out from under their thumbs. But we’re pretty sure he couldn’t have done it.”

“You just told me he’s a smart kid. He could probably figure out how to build a bomb.”

“Not like this one.”

“What’s special about it?”

“Semtex, to start with.”

That startled her. “Plastic explosives?”

“Highly sophisticated design. According to the FBI, the components were French. That’s not what a fourteen-year-old kid would use to murder his aunt and uncle.”

Jane frowned at the blackened timbers. Came to the only possible conclusion.
A professional did this
. “Tell me about the Temples,” she said.

“They were the boy’s only surviving relatives. Lynn Temple was his mother’s sister. She worked as a librarian near Baltimore. Brian Temple was a physicist, worked at NASA-Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Will’s father Neil Yablonski also worked. The two men were friends and colleagues, and the couples were pretty close. After the boy’s parents were killed in the plane crash, Lynn and Brian got custody of Will. What happened after that is kind of a puzzle.”

“What do you mean?”

“Days after the boy’s parents died in the crash both Brian and Lynn quit their jobs. Just like that, Brian leaves a twenty-year career with NASA. They pack up, put their furniture in storage, and leave Baltimore. Few months later, they settled here.”

“Without jobs? How did they support themselves?”

“Another good question. The Temples died with five hundred thousand dollars in their bank account. Now, I don’t know how well NASA pays, but that’s quite a nice nest egg, even for a physicist.”

Daylight was fading. From the woods, two more deer emerged, a doe and her fawn, but they were cautious, eyeing the two humans as they ventured out, step by step, into the field. Come hunting season, that caution might be the extra margin of safety that would keep them alive.
But nothing will save you once you catch the hunter’s eye
.

“What were the Temples running from?” she said.

“I don’t know, but it’s pretty obvious they were running. Maybe they knew something about that plane crash.”

“Then why not go to the police?”

“I have no idea. The Maryland detective I spoke to, the one who investigated the Yablonskis’ deaths, sounded as baffled as I am.”

“Did Will know why his aunt and uncle moved him here?”

“They told him Baltimore was a dangerous town, and they wanted to live someplace safer. That’s it.”

“And this is where they end up,” she said, thinking of collapsing timbers, searing flames. A hellish death at the edge of a quiet wood.

“The thing is, this
is
a safe town,” said Wyman. “We get our OUIs, our stupid teens doing stupid stuff. Maybe a burglary, or some family hauling off at each other. That’s our police blotter. But this?” He shook his head. “I’ve never dealt with anything like it. And I hope I never will again.”

In the field, more silhouettes appeared. A whole herd of deer, moving silently through the twilight. For a city girl like Jane it was
a
magical sight. Here, where wild deer felt secure enough to wander into view, the Temples must have thought they’d found their own sanctuary. A place where they could settle, unknown and unnoticed.

“It’s just a matter of luck that the boy survived,” said Wyman.

“And you’re sure it was just luck?”

“Like I said, I did briefly consider him a suspect. I had to, just as a matter of routine. But that boy, he truly was shaken up. We found his telescope still out in the field, where he said he’d left it. It was a crystal-clear sky that night, just the kind of night you’d set up a telescope. And he got singed pretty good, trying to save his aunt and uncle.”

“I understand a passing motorist brought him to the hospital.”

Wyman nodded. “A woman was driving by and she saw the flames. She drove the kid to the ER.”

Jane turned to look at the road. “The last house I saw was about a mile from here. Does that woman live around here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“We never spoke to her. She dropped off the boy and left. Told the nurse her phone number, but there was some kind of mix-up. When we called the number, some guy in New Jersey picked up, had no idea what we were talking about. At that point, we weren’t thinking this was a crime at all. We thought it was an accident, so hunting for witnesses wasn’t a priority. It was only later, after we heard about the Semtex, that we realized we were dealing with a homicide.”

“She might have seen something that night. Maybe even passed the killer on the road.”

“We had no luck tracking her down. Both the boy and the ER nurse described her as blond and slim, in her forties. Matches the glimpse we caught of her in the hospital surveillance video.” Wyman looked up as a light rain began to fall. “So that’s the puzzle we’re left with. This thing is like an iceberg, with only a piece
showing
above the water. And a whole deeper story that we can’t see.” He pulled the hood over his head against the rain. “I got that file for you in my truck. Why don’t you look it over, call if you have questions.”

She took the thick bundle of papers he handed her. “Actually, I do have another question. About how Will ended up at Evensong.”

“I thought you were just there. Didn’t they tell you?”

“The school psychologist said Will was referred there from your state agency.”

“Fastest damn placement I ever saw. Day after the fire, while the kid’s still in the hospital, I got a call from the governor’s office. They put the boy under special protection. Then some guy in an unmarked car arrives, scoops up the kid, and off they go.”

“Some guy?”

“Tall, dark-haired fellow. Dressed all in black, like a vampire.”

All in black.
Anthony Sansone
.

“I NOW CALL
to order this meeting of the Jackals,” announced Julian.