Shadows on the Ivy (20 page)

Maggie swallowed a Tylenol, turned off the brass lamp on her bedside table, and snuggled down under the comforter. There was nothing else she could do tonight.

Morning would come quickly enough. She’d tackle her office, talk with Paul, and find a way to open Tiffany’s briefcase. In the meantime, both her body and her mind craved sleep.

She lay still, drifting into sleep, lulled by the usual creaks and moans of an old house on a chilly night in early November. The wind must have picked up, she thought drowsily. She trimmed her trees and bushes every summer so they wouldn’t hit the side of the house in winter snow and ice storms. But tonight the noises of the branches were different. She heard a scraping, or scratching, as though the wind were trying to get in through one of the windows.

It wasn’t the wind.

Maggie froze. Every nerve in her body was on alert. She listened intently. One after another she heard the windows on the first floor of the house shake. No wind would shake windows sequentially. Someone was trying to get into the house. A burglar? Someone looking for those photographs? Someone looking for her?

Maggie’s first instinct was to scream. But no one would have heard. Instead, she lay still in the bed, her body stiff with fear. She could hardly hear the windows shaking. All she could hear was her own heartbeat, which was suddenly the loudest noise in her universe.

She kept most of the windows locked at this time of year; she had put down the storm panes only a week ago. But she had left screens on several, in case warm late-fall days encouraged her to air the house out again before winter arrived to stay. Those windows she might have left unlocked.

She couldn’t hear anything now. Had she imagined it? Had she let her imagination and the events of the past two days convince her that someone was actually trying to break into her house? For a few instants she wondered. Then she heard the noise again. Whoever it was had passed the kitchen door and was now near the ramp she’d built as an alternative entrance to the French doors in her study. Convenient when Gussie visited in her chair; convenient for wheeling a dolly loaded with prints directly from her study to her van. Convenient for someone else tonight?

She’d double-checked all of her doors tonight. They were locked.

But—yes—someone was shaking the door at the top of the ramp, making sure it was secure.

Maggie felt cold and rigid. She could hardly breathe as she reached out to the telephone next to her bed. This was no time for bravery. She dialed 911.

The three rings felt like thirty. “Please?” Maggie whispered. “Someone is trying to break into my house…. Yes. Now!” They got her address from their caller ID system. How long would it take for someone to arrive?

Park Glen was a small town; after midnight few police were on duty. Suburban police departments often took turns covering for each other to save costs. There might be a patrol within a block of her house. Or, more likely, no one within fifteen minutes. Or the only policeman could be on another call somewhere. Somewhere far from her house.

Was the intruder looking for her? Or for something he thought she had?

She’d have to gamble that he didn’t want her. She’d parked her packed van in the garage tonight. Most nights she left it in the driveway. Whoever was in her yard might have assumed she wasn’t home.

Television commercials for burglar alarm systems—why had she never installed one?—said burglars didn’t want to confront people. She could hear the windows shaking in the study now. If the person still circling her house knew she was at home, would that scare them away?

Or would that give them an added incentive to break in?

She had to do something. Maggie reached over and turned the light on next to her bed. Then she got up, automatically put on the bathrobe she’d left at the foot of the bed, crossed to the door, and turned on the light in the hallway that ran the length of the second floor. She could still hear rustling and shaking. Emboldened by the light, she walked into the small bedroom next to hers, at the front of the house. The room that would perhaps someday be for her son or daughter. Tonight she was glad she was alone. How would a single parent deal with this situation?

She knew immediately. They’d be even more afraid than she was now, because they’d be afraid for their child as well as for themselves. And they’d have to be braver. They’d have to show their child that there was nothing to fear.

Inspired by that thought, Maggie walked to the front window and looked down at the street. Her feet were frozen, with cold and with fear. The night was dark; clouds covered the moon. But a car was parked two houses down, just visible beyond the glow of the imitation gas streetlight in front of Maggie’s home. It was unusual to have a car parked on this quiet street so late on a Tuesday night. In this neighborhood most people, and their guests, parked in driveways. She couldn’t see the color of the car or the license plate number; all she could tell was that it was a dark sedan. Not a sports car or compact. She wished she paid more attention to automotive ads.

Emboldened, she left the window, where she might be seen, and turned on the light in that room, in the other front bedroom, and then in the second-floor bathroom. There was a switch for the light over the staircase to the first floor. Should she turn it on, too?

She listened again. Her feet felt like weights. Frozen weights. Did she dare go down the stairs where she might be seen? She needed to know who it was.

Footsteps crackled in the dry leaves below her as she stood next to the window in the hallway. Maggie lifted the lid of the pine captain’s chest she kept in the hall for storage of extra blankets and towels and…flashlights. The large torch she used during electrical outages was right where it should be. Next to it was the box cutter she used to remove prints from books with broken bindings. She must have left it here after taking that volume of Volland nursery rhymes apart in her room a couple of weeks ago. She slipped the box cutter into the pocket of her bathrobe and picked up the flashlight.

Pointing the light toward the floor, she clicked the button to turn it on. Nothing. Damn. Could she have forgotten to replace the batteries? Her heart sounded louder with every beat. She shook the torch and pushed the button again. It lit. She started to raise the hall window. Would the light shine down far enough so she could see who was there? She listened. She could still hear footsteps in the leaves. Whoever was there hadn’t been discouraged by the lights on the second floor.

She hesitated. What if he—or she—had a gun?

She couldn’t think about that. Gently she opened the window. Thank goodness she’d oiled the inside of that frame last summer. It didn’t stick. But she’d have to raise the screen, too, to be able to see out. The screen squeaked no matter how carefully she moved it.

She pushed it up, holding her breath as though that would silence it. It didn’t. But there was no sound from below. Maggie leaned out, directing the torch so it would point into her yard. The beam only covered a small area. She couldn’t see anyone. Slowly she turned it so she could see more of the yard.

As she looked the sound of a siren and the flash of a revolving light broke the stillness. Police!

The cruiser pulled up and parked in front of her house. Maggie began to breathe again. She rotated the beam of the large flashlight around the yard once more. All was quiet.

She backed her upper body in through the window, bumping her head on the frame. Hard. The flashlight slipped from her hands and fell into the yard.

“Hey, lady! You the one who called 911?”

Maggie looked down. A uniformed officer was standing there, rubbing his head.

“There was someone here. He tried all of the windows. I could hear them shaking.”

As she spoke, a nearby car started up and accelerated. The patrolman ran toward the noise as Maggie went downstairs. She met him on the small porch in front of her house.

“Did you see the car?”

“It drove off too fast. Are you sure no one got into your house?”

Maggie felt like a quivering, helpless female, but under the circumstances she didn’t care. “I don’t think so. But I don’t know for sure.” She realized she was standing in bare feet, wearing her blue flannel nightgown and old robe, shaking with cold and fear. But she did have a box cutter in her pocket.

“I’d like to check the house to make sure,” said the patrolman, and Maggie nodded, filled with relief. “My partner can check your yard.”

“Yes, please,” she said quietly. “Can I make you some tea or coffee?”

“No thanks, ma’am. You just sit right here by the door, and if you hear or see anything unusual, you scream. Promise?”

Maggie nodded. Right now she didn’t care if she was being treated like a ten-year-old. The relief of having someone else in charge for a few moments was too much. She started to cry.

Sniveling idiot, she told herself with embarrassment. She ignored the patrolman’s instructions and went into the kitchen, got some tissues, and blew her nose. Everything was as she’d left it. Winslow meowed at her from the top of the kitchen table. She moved him to the floor. “Big help you were,” she scolded. She sat down and waited for her pulse to return to normal.

After a few minutes the policeman returned, and his partner handed Maggie the torch. “Wicked weapon you’ve got here,” he said, grinning, and rubbing the back of his head. “Unfortunately it got one of the good guys.”

“Sorry.” Maggie could see the torch had major problems; the plastic lens had split and the side was dented. She hoped the patrolman’s scalp was in better shape.

“There was someone here, ma’am; the ground next to the house is just damp enough to show some footprints outside the windows in the back, and by the ramp. But whoever it was has left. Make sure you lock up tight. We’ll take a drive through every hour or so to check, but I don’t think you’ll have any more company tonight.”

Maggie felt numb. “There’s nothing else you can do?”

“Probably it was someone trying to pick up computers or jewelry to sell for drug money. I’m surprised he didn’t disappear when you turned on the upstairs lights. That’s what they usually do.” He looked at Maggie. “You’ll be fine. We’ll file a report. If you should hear anything, call 911 right away, all right?”

Maggie nodded.

The police left. She checked all of the doors and windows again, this time locking the couple of windows she’d left open before. She locked the ones on the second floor, too, just in case.

By the time she got back into bed it was almost three. She lay stiffly under the comforter, no longer lulled by the night.

The world had become too frightening, too close.

Her office…and now her home. Her sense of security was gone. Who would do this to her?

Who would poison Sarah and Tiffany?

The world of Somerset, New Jersey, where she had always felt comfortable and at home, no longer felt safe.

She finally fell asleep, but only into dreams of falling and footsteps and fear.

Maggie’s night was too restless and too short. At seven she forced herself to get out of bed, poured a soda, and logged on to her computer.

Maggie sighed and read over the message. She had planned to clean her own house and reorganize portfolios during Thanksgiving break. But after the events of the last few days, spending her first Thanksgiving without Michael alone didn’t sound like fun. Being alone at all didn’t sound like fun. Although it was a lot easier when the sun was shining.

If only she could tell Will what was happening…but there was too much, and it was too complicated. Soon, Maggie thought. Soon it will be a “you’ll never guess what happened” story, and I’ll be able to share it. Long-distance relationships had their challenges.

And even when Michael had been there, Maggie had managed most of life on her own.

She deleted the four junk e-mails that had arrived overnight and skimmed a notice from an international adoption agency headquartered in Pennsylvania that was hosting an orientation meeting on Saturday. She would have liked to attend. But the Morristown Antique Show would keep her occupied this weekend. She wrote back to the agency asking when the next Saturday orientation meeting would be. Not Thanksgiving weekend, she hoped, turning the regard ring on her finger. It would be hard to choose between Will and the adoption meeting; between Will and children; and this morning she didn’t feel up to making difficult decisions.

Before today gets any more complicated, Maggie told herself, you are going to school and getting that briefcase. She put on a long, red-plaid flannel skirt and a red turtleneck and picked up the large navy canvas tote bag she sometimes used for shopping. It would be big enough to cover the briefcase from prying eyes.

As she’d hoped, she was the first this morning to get to the American Studies office area. She unlocked her office and tried not to look at the mess left after the trashing and then the fingerprinting. Her hand shook a little as she isolated the correct key on her key ring and unlocked the desk drawer. Tiffany’s briefcase was right where she’d left it. She hastily slipped it in the canvas bag, relocked the desk and office, and walked back to her van, trying not to look behind every tree to see if anyone was watching. But if she didn’t count the one student who had arrived early and was sipping his coffee on the steps of the administration building, no one was nearby.

At home, Maggie pulled her bag of tools from the van and took the briefcase inside. It had a combination lock. Maggie looked at the other side of the case. She hated to ruin the soft leather. But there was no other way. She found her narrowest screwdriver, a small brass hammer, and two clamps she used to fasten Peg-Boards to the back of tables at antique shows. She clamped the briefcase to the wide, heavy table she used for matting to hold it steady as she carefully inserted the screwdriver between the top and bottom of the hinges. It wasn’t easy. It took more than a few minutes. And the briefcase would never be the same again. But Maggie was finally able to pry it open far enough to start sliding papers out.

A small address book. Maggie was tempted to stop there, but she wanted to see everything that was in the case. Were there photographs? She felt her pulse racing as she pulled out the next item. An appointment calendar. No appointments were listed for the night Tiffany was killed. But the initials O.W. did fill at least one night a week for the past month.

So Tiffany had been seeing Oliver Whitcomb!

Several pages of notes from a mathematics class.

A picture of Tyler with a clown at what looked like an amusement park. Maggie hesitated. Did she really want to see what Tyler’s mother had in this case? The police should be doing this. Probably everything she was looking at should be fingerprinted. But, then, everything here was Tiffany’s. It shouldn’t have any prints other than hers.

And now Maggie’s.

A paper from an English class. An overdue credit card bill. A tiny, free sample lipstick from a department store cosmetics counter.

A large brown paper envelope.

As soon as Maggie pulled it out, she knew. These were the pictures someone was so anxious to get. These were the pictures someone had killed Tiffany for. The pictures someone had trashed Maggie’s office and tried to break into her home to find.

She slid the photos out. There were only half a dozen, but they were enough. Enough to know that Oliver Whitcomb was going to be in a lot of trouble. And that he had a motive for murder.