Sleeping Beauty (7 page)

A
shley had been serious about soccer since she was in elementary school, and she always put in the extra effort it took to be the best. In addition to the daily workouts at the soccer clinic, she ran every night around eight. Sally Castle ran with her on most evenings, but her roommate had an upset stomach tonight and had begged off.

Ashley liked running along the shaded paths that twisted through the forest on the school grounds, because the thick canopy kept the route cool even on warm days. Tonight there was an extra spring in Ashley's step. After the morning session, the Academy coach had pulled her aside and told her that there was an excellent chance that she would be the starting center forward in the fall. Ashley knew that she was better than the other Academy girls who played that position but it was nice to hear the coach say that it was hers if she worked for it.

Just when her spirits were highest, Ashley remembered that her father wouldn't see her play this year. Ashley had started to climb out of her depression after visiting the Oregon Academy. As soon as she moved to the dorm and began working as a counselor there were large parts of the day when she was actually happy. But there were dark periods, too; moments when she would remember Tanya's muffled screams or recall her father's death. On occasion, these moments would be more than memories. Ashley would re-experience the events as if they were happening
now. Her heart rate would accelerate; she would break into a sweat and grow dizzy. Only force of will kept her from being paralyzed by sorrow.

As soon as she thought about Norman Spencer, Ashley's energy slackened and tears pooled in her eyes. She didn't want this to happen. She told herself that her father would be happy if he learned that she was going to start on a nationally ranked team. She had vowed to dedicate her senior year to his memory.

Norman had tried to be at every one of her games, but he had missed a few. Ashley was in second grade the first time that happened. She had been very upset until Terri told her that her father's spirit was always with her, even when he wasn't rooting for her on the sidelines. Ashley had felt him inside her during the game, urging her to do her best, and she had scored three goals. Now she conjured up Norman's spirit. She took deep breaths as the good feeling filled her. When she smiled, the anxiety dissipated and she knew Norman was still with her.

Ashley ran through the quadrangle and down the road to the large parking lot where one of the trails started. Shadows dappled the forest floor, and a light breeze caressed her arms. The air smelled of pine and wildflowers. Within minutes, Ashley settled into a rhythm that moved her forward with a loose and practiced stride.

After a while the path turned parallel to the river, and she could see the water rolling by through breaks in the trees. The air was still, and there was a blanket of silence broken occasionally by the songs of birds. Something moved in her peripheral vision. Ashley turned her head and saw Joshua Maxfield walking in the direction of the boathouse. Then the trees thickened and she lost sight of him. She was not surprised to see Mr. Maxfield. All the girls knew that he lived in a cottage near the river. Many of them had a crush on the handsome novelist. There were stories about girls he was rumored to have seduced, though Ashley doubted they were true.

Ashley remembered the way her mother had acted around the writing teacher on the day they toured the campus. Terri's reaction had surprised and upset her. Ashley didn't like her mother showing an interest in a man so soon after her father's death, but sometimes people acted silly around celebrities, and Mr. Maxfield was a famous writer.

A high-pitched scream tore through the silence. Ashley froze in mid-stride. A second scream forced her backward off the trail. The screams were like the light in the second before sunset—riveting and scarlet for one second and gone without a trace the next. Silence blanketed the forest again. The screams had come from behind Ashley, in the direction of the boathouse. She strained to hear anything that would give her a clue to what had just happened. She battled with herself as she waited, terrified by the screams but compelled by her conscience to find the person who had made them.

Ashley forced herself to jog toward the boathouse. She moved cautiously, alert for the slightest sound or movement. When she caught sight of the rectangular wooden building between breaks in the trees she left the path and crept through the forest. There was a narrow gravel road that followed the river and stopped on the east side of the building. The south side abutted the river and the forest came up to the west wall. A pale light bled out of one of the windows on the north side.

Ashley heard a high-pitched shout that was muffled by the boathouse walls. She kept low and darted to the closest window before rising just high enough to see inside. The windowpane was coated with dust and the interior was dark. A flashlight rolled back and forth on the floor next to one of the boat slips. Its beam cast a pale glow that illuminated the legs and torso of a woman who was slumped against one of the thick oak columns that supported the roof. She was not moving. Standing over her was Joshua Maxfield.

Ashley gasped involuntarily. Maxfield swiveled toward the window. He was holding a hunting knife with a serrated blade that was soaked with blood. Maxfield's eyes bored through the glass and into Ashley. She stood up. Maxfield took a step forward. A motorboat bobbed at anchor in its slip.

Next to the boat was a second body.

Ashley tore through the woods. She heard the boathouse door smack against the wall as it was flung open. Maxfield was fast, but so was Ashley. She had to be in better shape. She worked out hard all the time.

Twigs snapped and branches broke as Maxfield crashed through the trees. Ashley decided that her only hope was to reach the dorm.
There was a security guard and other people there. The light was starting to fail. In moments it would be dark. Ashley strained to see the path that led to the main campus. She spotted it and broke out of the woods. Adrenaline fueled her headlong plunge down the trail. It curved, and Ashley saw the parking lot. She gritted her teeth. The dorm was so close. Her running shoes pounded the asphalt. She slashed across the quadrangle searching for another human being, but the school was deserted except for the counselors and the students in the soccer clinic.

Ashley rounded the side of the science building. The dorm was at the other end of a narrow parking lot. Moments later, she was through the door and screaming for help. The guard jumped up from his post and ran to her.

“He's behind me. He's got a knife.”

The guard gripped Ashley's arms and stared over her shoulder.

“Who's behind you?” he asked.

Ashley turned. There was no one there.

 

As soon as she realized that she had escaped from Maxfield, Ashley broke down. The guard summoned Laura Rice, a graduate student who was the summer dorm proctor. Sally Castle and some of the other summer residents were drawn to the lobby by Ashley's cries. The proctor shooed them away but Sally insisted on staying with her roommate. Rice saw the wisdom in letting Ashley have a friend for company and she led the two girls to her office.

“Tell me what happened,” Rice said as soon as Ashley calmed down.

Ashley told her about the screams and what she'd seen through the boathouse window.

“You're certain that the man who chased you was Joshua Maxfield?” Rice asked, fighting to hide her incredulity from her terrified charge.

“He looked right at me through the window.”

“But it was dark,” Rice argued, still finding it hard to picture the charming teacher as a murderer.

“Miss Rice, Joshua Maxfield killed those women.”

“All right, I'm not saying you didn't see him but….”

“I saw him walking to the boathouse and seconds later I heard the screams. He was holding a knife. There was blood on it. He chased me.”

Ashley was starting to get hysterical again. Rice held up her hand.

“It's okay. I believe you. Could you see who the women were?”

“No. It was very dark in the boathouse. I only saw them for a second. The flashlight beam stopped halfway up one woman's body so I couldn't make out anything above the bottom of her blouse. The other woman was curled on her side and she was facing away from me. She was in the shadows. I could just make out her body.”

“Give me your home number, Ashley.”

Rice turned toward the security guard.

“Arthur, call the police. I'll call Dean Van Meter and Ashley's mother.”

Rice dialed the dean, but there was no answer. The proctor left a message on her machine before calling Terri Spencer. She didn't answer, either. Ashley heard Rice leave a message on her mother's machine. If her mother wasn't home, where was she? Probably working, Ashley told herself.

“I'm going to the lobby to wait for the police unless you want me to stay with you,” Rice said.

“No, that's okay. Sally's here.”

The door closed. There was an awkward silence for a moment. Sally felt it was her duty to stay with her friend, but she'd seen TV reports about the murders at the Spencer house, and they frightened her. She stared out into the night through the office window.

 

The first squad car arrived a few minutes later. A uniformed officer talked with Ashley long enough to understand what was going on. A short time later, Larry Birch checked on Ashley before heading to the boathouse.

The girls waited in the dorm proctor's office while the police collected evidence from the boathouse and searched the grounds for Joshua Maxfield. Half an hour after Birch's visit the door to the office opened. Ashley looked up expectantly, hoping it would be her mother. Instead, Detective Birch entered and pulled up a chair next to Ashley. He seemed to be under a terrible strain.

“I have a question I need to ask you,” the detective said.

“Okay.”

“Your mother came to see me yesterday. She was very agitated. Do you know why she came?”

“No. I didn't even know she talked to you.”

“Okay.” Birch took a deep breath. “I'm afraid I've got bad news for you.”

“Has Mr. Maxfield escaped?” Ashley asked, not wanting to think about another possibility that she'd considered and quickly rejected in order to preserve her sanity.

“We haven't found him on the grounds and his car is missing. We have an all-points bulletin out for him. He won't get far.”

“That's good.”

Birch took hold of Ashley's hands and looked into her eyes. Ashley tried to stop all of her thoughts.

“We know who was in the boathouse with Joshua Maxfield.” Ashley tensed. “One of the women was Casey Van Meter.”

“Is…is she…?”

“No, she's alive but she's not conscious. She's been taken to the hospital.”

“Who was the other woman?” Ashley asked. Her voice sounded far away to her, as if someone in another room had asked the question.

“She's dead, Ashley.”

Ashley could not understand a word Birch was saying. The room spun around and Ashley passed out.

 

Birch had foreseen the possibility that Ashley would collapse and had made sure that a doctor was available. Everyone waited outside the office while the doctor saw to Ashley. After she came to, she couldn't stop crying. The doctor gave her a sedative and helped her to her room. Birch followed Ashley upstairs. He waited until she was under the covers. The poor kid, he thought. No one should have to go through what she'd experienced.

Birch left Ashley with the doctor as soon as a guard was posted outside the door. Terri Spencer had been stabbed to death, and so had the
victims at the Spencer home. Birch was not a big believer in coincidence. If Maxfield was the man who invaded Ashley's home, he'd succeeded in killing everyone in the Spencer family except Ashley. Birch had no idea why he would do such a terrible thing—there might not be a rational explanation—but the guard was in the hall in case Maxfield made another attempt on her life.

A policeman was waiting in the lobby with a summons from Tony Marx, Birch's partner. He escorted the detective along a path that led down to the river. The klieg lights that had been set up around the boathouse turned the night into day. Birch had been in the boathouse earlier. It had been a grim scene. Ashley's mother had been the victim of a savage attack. Birch would have to wait for the autopsy report to find out how many times Terri Spencer had been stabbed. There had been too many wounds for him to count.

Casey Van Meter had not been stabbed at all. Birch believed that Ashley had saved her life. She had been struck forcefully on the jaw. The blow had driven the back of her head against the roof support, and she would have been unconscious when Ashley distracted Maxfield and forced him to flee. Attempts to revive Casey had been unsuccessful, and she'd been rushed to the hospital.

Birch's escort led the detective past the boathouse. A minute later they arrived at a stone cottage. The path was close to the river, and Birch could see a narrow deck in the back. The setting was idyllic. The detective imagined himself sitting peacefully on the deck at dusk with a glass of scotch, watching the sunset. Maxfield wouldn't be doing much of that anymore after they caught him.

The inside of the cottage looked lived-in but tidy. There was no television in the front room, but there were many books lying about. Birch glanced at some of the titles. He recognized a few from his college literature courses. There were also several books about creative writing. A shout distracted Birch.

Tony Marx was a chubby African-American with salt-and-pepper hair, ten years older than Birch. Marx had seen it all during his career, so Birch was surprised by how excited his partner seemed.

“Larry, you've got to see this,” Marx said as he grabbed his partner's arm and dragged him into a room that opened off a narrow hall. It was obvious that this was where Maxfield wrote. A comfortable armchair was stuck in a corner of the room. A lamp stood behind the chair, next to an end table. On the table was a pen, some Post-its, a steno pad, and a stack of paper that looked like a manuscript.