Listen to the Shadows (22 page)

“Or plans to,” she said dully.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke, then Katie said tentatively, “Do you think—Todd…?” The question had been nagging at her subconscious from the beginning. Now, finally, she had allowed it to surface, had given it voice. She hadn’t needed to complete the sentence.

“No, I don’t,” Jonathan replied too quickly, as if he’d been half-expecting the question all along. “I admit,” he said, “that the possibility did occur to me when…”

“When you saw that strawman in my room,” she finished for him.

“Okay, it’s true. But Todd Raynes is not alive, Katherine. The army is certain of that. He died in the war.”

She gave a short bitter laugh. “How can they be so certain? His body was never found. Maybe something happened to him in the war—something far worse than death—something with his mind.

Maybe…” The tears came unexpectedly, born of nerves, grief and frustration. She seemed to have no inner resources left. “I sent that picture to Todd, Jonathan,” she said, sobbing now. “It doesn’t make any sense that…” She drew herself together abruptly, wiping her eyes on a Kleenex provided by Jonathan. After a pause, she said, “I’d like to see the photograph again, please.”

He passed it to her on the square of tissue as if it might be the crown jewels. He watched her intently.

The young woman wearing shorts and a halter top, with shoulder-length hair blowing carelessly in the wind and her eyes shining with all the optimism of youth, smiled out at Katie. In the background was their old house, small and box-like, the picket fence in front. Who had taken the picture? Her mother, maybe? No face came to mind. But she did remember the day, the way it had smelled of sunshine and lilacs and summer rain. Another lifetime. A different person.

“I hardly recognize myself.” She handed back the photograph.

Accepting it, he said softly, “You’ve grown even lovelier. Where was this taken?”

“My hometown—Lennoxville.” Taking little note of the compliment he’d paid her, she said wearily, “When will it end,

Jonathan? When I’m on display, too?”

Taking her hands in his own, he looked steadily into her eyes. “I promise you, Katherine,” he said, “no harm is going to come to you.

You must believe that.”

“Why? Why must I believe that when the truth is neither you nor the police are one step closer to solving this case than you were in the beginning?”

His eyes dropped from her hers, his hands falling away. He looks exhausted. As tired as I feel. The lines in his face, especially those bracketing his mouth seemed to have deepened even since yesterday.

She wasn’t being fair. He was doing his best. She supposed everyone was. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. I’m just so…The truth is, I don’t know what I would have done without you here today.”

“You would have managed,” he said.

Back inside, Katie signed the guest book, then checked the signatures above her own. Only one was familiar—the first one—Peter Machum’s. Katie read down the page opposite: Clayton Jackson, Anne Jackson, Raymond Losier, Drake Devlin and printed at the bottom of the page in large, child-like letters that took up two full spaces, Joey Smith. It both touched and surprised her to see Joey’s name there. It was for her, of course, that he had come. Knowing that, and recalling her cruel verbal attack on Joey, she felt doubly bad.

“Joey used to ask me every day if I was still his `gurfriend’,” she said in a hushed voice, using Joey’s own pronunciation, as she stepped aside to allow Jonathan to add his own name in the guest book, beneath hers. As she had, Jonathan scanned the names. He stopped to give her an odd look. “Joey—Joey Smith from The Coffee Shop? ”

“Yes.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

He contemplated her answer, then turned to give Joey’s signature a harder look, and Katie was suddenly remembering again that Joey often drove The Coffee Shop van. “Don’t keep it out half the day,”

Mrs. Cameron had yelled at him. Was it possible…the police hadn’t been able to make anything solid of the tire tracks down by the lake except to say that they appeared to have been made by a half-ton.

Might they also have been made by a van?

Katie called up Joey’s face in her imagination, and for the first time his smile took on a sinister cast. Perhaps his seemingly innocent daily question was not so innocent after all. She knew the same thought had occurred to Jonathan. Perhaps there was an underlying…

But what about the photograph? There was no way on earth Joey could have come upon that photograph.

***

The grave site was located near the top of the hill, and the paved drive was carpeted with bright fallen leaves, damp and slippery from last night’s snow. They skittered among the rows of tombstones. It was windy here, so high up.

Katie found herself studying the many faces, some familiar, some not, for the one that would stand out among the others, one that would not be able to hide its evil in these solemn, holy proceedings. But she saw no such person. She glanced discreetly about for Peter, but didn’t spot him in the crowd. The line of cars snaked back a quarter of a mile.

Is the strawman here? she wondered. Is he watching now, deriving some sick pleasure…?

“… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for thou art with me…” The minister, a young, blond man in black robes that fluttered in the breeze, began to speak, thumbs held firmly down on the rattling pages, blue sky, soft billowy clouds behind and above him. Katie bowed her head. She let the words enter her mind, and repeat themselves in her heart.

The service was mercifully brief, and but for one, terrible, gut-wrenching moment as Jason was being lowered into the ground, when she could not help thinking how her dear friend would have feared the dark and the cold, Katie managed to hold herself together. Feeling her legs weak under her, she gratefully accepted Jonathan’s assistance back to his car. They would return to the parking lot tomorrow for hers, he said. She gave no argument.

The New Yorker smelled faintly of Jonathan’s aftershave and of showroom newness. Katie let herself sink against the plush upholstery. Jonathan switched on the ignition, and the big car purred to life. The same yellow sedan they had crawled behind on the way here led them back the way they had come, down and through and finally out of the cemetery.

Out on the highway, Jonathan felt a rush of relief like fresh air. After driving awhile, he switched on the radio, turning the dial until he found a station playing classical music—Chopin. He turned it low. Beside him, Katie appeared to be asleep. Her lashes shadowed her pale cheeks.

The familiar stains of piano , together with the rolling wheels on pavement, had lulled Katie into the gray zone between sleep and consciousness. Never before in her life had she felt so completely drained, both in mind and body. She almost wished she would never have to wake up. She thought of Peter. Would he be all right? Maybe Jonathan would talk to him. That was foolish: he couldn’t very well go about solacing patients. It would be different if he knew Peter. And certainly Peter would resent such presumptuousness.

Because she’d closed her eyes even before they’d left the cemetery, Katie had no way of knowing that once through the iron gates, Jonathan, rather than turning left, had taken a right turn, and that now they were heading in the direction opposite to Black Lake.

Her beige leather purse clutched in her lap like some childhood security toy, Katie sank gradually deeper into sleep, oblivious to how, little by little, her head had dropped down and down until it now rested comfortably on Jonathan’s shoulder.

It seemed to her she’d slept only minutes when the jostling over bumps and ruts in the road drew her partly awake. They must be getting close to home, she thought. Even so, with Jonathan’s car so much bigger and newer than her own, the ride was smoother than she could remember. Suddenly conscious of the feel of soft wool fabric pressed against her cheek, she eased herself with a small moan to a new position, pretending to be still asleep.

At last the car slowed, and moments later came to a full stop. She was home. She heard the motor cut to silence, heard Jonathan’s door open, then shut with the softest click. Reluctantly, wishing the drive could have gone on and on into infinity, Katie willed herself fully awake and opened her eyes. And stared out the window. Expecting to be greeted by her own familiar surroundings—the blaze of maples, the lake, the brown house on the hill—it both startled and bewildered her to see that they were parked in front of a ranch-style house built entirely of logs, smack in the middle of the woods. Her gaze traveled to the side of the house where more logs had been cut and stacked for firewood. Beneath the huge picture window facing her, a red shiny wet wheelbarrow lay on its side.

The passenger door opened, and Jonathan was standing with a tentative smile on his face, offering his hand. “Welcome to Stoneybrook,” he said with a note of self-conscious pride. “This is home. At least when I can manage to get out here. I thought you might like to see—my own haven from the world.”

Awed by the beauty of her surroundings, and not yet recovered from the shock of finding herself here, in fact disoriented as though she were still asleep and dreaming, she stepped mutely from the car, her hand in Jonathan’s.

Here and there on the forest floor, patches of snow sparkled in the sunlight slanting through the trees. Not as many maples here as at Black Lake, but instead a forest of fir and pine and cedar interspersed with bright ambers and golds among the evergreens, their branches still laden with clumps of newly fallen snow. The air was crisp and fragrant with woodsy smells, blending with that of newly-sawn lumber.

“It’s a little rough underfoot,” he apologized, as Katie stepped carefully over sprawling tangled roots the size of arms, and fallen branches. “There’s still a lot of work to do. More trees to clear away, some landscaping. Maybe a bit of lawn, some flowers. There’s not too much more I can do until spring.” He slid the key into the lock and opened the door.

“You built this place?” Katie said, the first words she’d spoken since they arrived.

“Mmm hmm. Step into my humble abode, m’lady.” He bowed and gave a grand sweep of his hand.

Inside, the first thing that struck Katie was the warmth that greeted them. She’d been unconsciously prepared for that same bone-chilling, damp cold of her own house when the fires had been out for awhile.

“Electrically heated,” Jonathan said as though reading her thoughts. “We’re really not all that far from the main road—maybe half a mile. This place has all the conveniences of modern civilization.” He flashed a devilish grin. “You see, I’m only half Indian.”

Despite her heavy mood, Katie smiled. “This is a beautiful room,

Jonathan,” she said, taking in the warm honey-glow of natural wood walls and floor, the beamed ceiling, the rich earth tones of good but simple, comfortable furniture, all of it enhanced by splashes of colorful Indian artifacts and hanging green plants. “I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to leave this place.”

His face lit with pleasure and, she thought, relief. It surprised her that Jonathan would need anyone’s approval until she remembered that his confidence had been badly shaken recently. Her gaze moved to the mantel over the huge stone fireplace to her left, and to the photographs she saw there. Jonathan’s family? Lona? She resisted taking a closer look.

“Oh, I hardly think a log cabin in the middle of the woods is every woman’s dream house,” Jonathan was saying, smiling at her.

“Well, this is hardly just a log cabin, and you know it.” And then she thought of her mother and knew Jonathan was right. “Considering where I live,” she said, “it’s pretty safe to assume I like trees—and the privacy.”

“And the quiet.”

She grinned. “You know perfectly well the woods aren’t quiet. Not if you really listen.” Her attention was taken with the bookcase facing them, which took up most of one wall. “I see you like to read.”

“When I can find the time.”

He followed her to the bookshelves, standing so close that Katie caught the remembered, faint scent of his aftershave and of Jonathan himself. She had an almost overwhelming urge to turn around and let herself move into his arms, knowing how good it would feel just to have him hold her. She concentrated instead on the books. Those on the top shelves were devoted to psychiatry, and beneath them books on Indian culture—art, medicine, religion.

From eye-level on down she noted the revered names of Shakespeare, Maugham, Poe, Twain, Fitzgerald, Hemingway…All the classics were there. Her fingers traced their spines like the features of old friends. “Have you read all these?”

“Most of them over the years. I’m also a big whodunit buff.

Agatha Christie is one of my favorites.”

“Really? She was my Aunt Katherine’s favorite, too.”

“What about you, Katherine? What do you like to read?” A casual question, but there was intensity in his eyes. He really wanted to know.

It seemed so strange that they should be standing here so calmly discussing books when only an hour before they’d been attending Jason’s funeral. Katie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Just about anything. But I suppose I’m partial to the biographies of great artists—and historical romances.”