Still Lake (6 page)

The three victims had been found over a two-day period. Alice Calderwood had been strangled and dumped by the side of North Road, Valette King had been stabbed to death—her killer had used his knife with savage fury. Her body had been left in a cornfield. And Lorelei Johnson had been found floating in Still Lake, near the cattails by the old Niles place, her throat cut.

Only Lorelei had a connection to Thomas Griffin. The paper didn't come right out and say it, but clearly they'd been lovers. And it didn't sound as if any of the three victims had been overly circumspect in their personal lives. The hinting was delicate, due to the sensibilities of the girls' grieving parents, but it was fairly clear that the three girls had been wild ones.

But then, wasn't everyone when they were in their late teens, early twenties? Sophie thought. Everyone except her, of course. She'd never had the chance to be particularly wild and wicked—she'd been too busy working, too busy trying to look out for her mother and her baby sister. Gracey's lifestyle had been a warning note, and she'd been too busy in college to think about boys, much to her mother's
dismay. And when she'd graduated, ready to start making a full life, there was Marty on her doorstep, orphaned and miserable, and Sophie had ignored any passing hormonal flutterings to concentrate on her family.

There were times when she wanted to just toss everything to the winds, fling off her responsibilities and run wild.

But she hadn't, and if the result of sowing wild oats was to have your throat cut, then she was very happy the way she was, thank you very much. The only thirty-year-old virgin on the face of the planet.

That wasn't particularly something she liked to waste her time thinking about, but the oblique tragedy of Colby's wild daughters made it unavoidable. She glanced down at the lake, to her sister's skinny, bikini-clad form soaking up the northern Vermont sunshine. Maybe she was being too hard on Marty. Maybe her surliness was only normal.

She looked past her, to the calm, clean crescent of the beach, and then to the cattails beyond. That's where they'd found Lorelei. Where Thomas Griffin had found her, in fact. He was holding her body in his arms when they'd arrested him, and her blood had stained his body.

Sophie shivered, putting the paper down again. Where in the world had this come from, anyway? She didn't particularly want to dwell in the past, or even think about the tragedies that had occurred
long ago. She wanted the bucolic peace that Colby offered, not the memories of murders disturbing her peaceful afternoon.

But then, Mr. Smith had arrived on her doorstep and suddenly the past was alive. If Grace had been her old self Sophie would have asked her about it. Grace devoured true-crime stories as if they were delicate canapés—she would have known the details of the Still Lake murders, and if anyone had written a book about them, Grace would have read it.

But Grace had lost interest in everything. She was almost a caricature of senility, sitting in her rocking chair, humming softly, that dreamy expression in her eyes. At least out here they could keep an eye on her, make sure she didn't wander into trouble. And if Sophie had errands, she could always count on Doc to stop in and make sure Grace was all right.

Richard Henley had been a gift from God. Colby was his town, and he knew each and every one of the year-round residents and most of the summer people, and he took care of all of them, as well as his quiet, unassuming wife, Rima.

Sophie glanced down at the crumbling yellow newspaper beside her. Maybe Doc had left it, in hopes that it might revive Grace's fascination with old crimes. Even a morbid interest was better than no interest at all.

He would have known all of them. He was even quoted extensively in the article, describing the
causes of death in unemotional terms, adding gentle words of comfort for the grieving parents and the whole town. His kind, wise presence was probably the main reason such an awful tragedy hadn't pulled the entire town apart. That, and the fact that the murderer had been caught so swiftly.

Sophie picked up the paper again, flipping it over, but there was nothing else. No follow-up. She needed to know what had happened. Why had the killer's conviction been overturned?

She set it down. Not what she wanted to be thinking about on a beautiful late summer day, when she had more important things on her mind, like the future of her sister, the safety of her mother, the financial viability of running a bed-and-breakfast, and expecting it to support the three of them. She was worried enough—she didn't want death and horror intruding on her perfect future, her every thought. But she couldn't dismiss it.

Because if the killer wasn't really the killer, then who had murdered three teenage girls some twenty years ago, one at her very doorstep? And who was to say he wouldn't kill again? Now that another teenage girl had taken up residence. Marty had the sense of a white rabbit—like most teenagers she considered herself invulnerable and immortal. She wouldn't listen to warnings, especially vague, unfounded ones.

If they were unfounded.

Hell, she was borrowing trouble. She wasn't going to brood on old murders—peach pie was a much better concern on a hot summer day. Even if she did end up eating it all.

Better to concentrate on peach pie than murder. And better to think of peach pie than the man next door with his dark eyes and his enigmatic face. She didn't like him. She didn't trust him. When it came right down to it, she was even a tiny bit scared of him, though she wasn't sure why.

But there was one more nasty complication to John Smith's presence at the edge of her property. Not the fact that her sister might be attracted to him—that was presumably only a minor worry.

No, the nasty complication was that Sophie couldn't stop thinking about him. She was fascinated, drawn to him, when she was much too smart for that.

She wished to God that she hadn't chosen that year to give up smoking.

 

He could feel it rising again. The deep, powerful need that started small and spread throughout his body like a holy fire. He thought his work was done here, but the Lord had other plans. It had been three years since he'd worked God's vengeance. Three years since he'd crushed the life from that wicked child of Satan. He'd atoned, of course. He knew what he did was wrong—it was part of his punish
ment. To mete out God's justice, and to repent for his part in it.

It was calling to him. Calling to him in the shape of that girl, that sinful child who painted her face and exposed her body and was just looking for a way to glorify Satan.

He would save her. He would cleanse her of the wickedness that threatened her. The wickedness would be burned from her sinful body.

And she would die at his hands, a pure soul.

T
he crash woke him up. It was pitch black outside, and the quiet sounds of the lake had lulled Griffin into a deep sleep, but something had broken through his dreams, jarring him awake. He squinted at his watch—one-thirty in the morning. He knew he was alone in the house, but he'd definitely heard a thump downstairs.

He sat up, reaching for his jeans. Whoever it was didn't seem to be making much of an effort to cover their presence, but he still dressed as quietly as he could so as not to frighten off whoever was there.

Of course it might be something as simple as one of the mice he'd evicted. That, or a nosy raccoon, or even, God help him, a skunk.

He moved toward the door, trying to be as quiet as he could so he wouldn't scare away his intruder, but the old house wasn't made for stealth, and the floorboards creaked beneath his weight. He paused, half expecting his unexpected guest to go crashing out of the house, but the quiet thumps continued, undeterred by the sound of his approach.

Someone had turned on a couple of the lights. The
living room was filled with shadows when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but he could see something moving in the kitchen. He switched on the bright overhead light, but whoever it was didn't react.

It took him a moment to recognize her. The crazy old lady from next door had wandered into his house, into his kitchen, and she was rummaging around, singing beneath her breath, totally at home.

“Mrs….” Shit, he couldn't remember her name. “Grace?”

She looked up at him with those disarmingly vague eyes. She was dressed in a bathrobe, and her feet were muddy and bare. “Hello there,” she said gaily. “I'm so glad you've come back. I've missed you.”

He felt a frisson of horror run down his spine, and then he remembered who he was talking to. “This is the first time I've been here, Grace,” he corrected her patiently.

She frowned. “Is it? I didn't realize. Do you want some ice cream?”

“No, thanks,” he said. As a matter of fact, he didn't have any ice cream in the house, not even Vermont's own Ben & Jerry's. “Were you looking for something in particular?”

“Oh, no. I just thought I'd come visit.” She let out a cry of triumph and emerged from the refrig
erator with a can of Coke. “You don't mind, do you?”

“I don't mind,” he said. “But don't you think your daughters will be worried about you?”

“Daughter,” Grace corrected him amiably, handing him a can of soda as she waltzed past him. “Marty's mother is that wretched club woman Morris married after I left him. I don't blame the girl for rebelling against Eloise, though in the end they were fine parents. A tragedy they died, but Marty dealt with it quite well. I just wish Sophie wouldn't worry so much. She'll be fine.”

She'd lost him. “Who will be?”

“Both of them,” Grace said firmly. “I won't have it any other way. So tell me, young man,” she continued with one of her rapid shifts of conversation, “why did you come here? It's the murders, isn't it?”

She'd ensconced herself on the old sofa, her fluttery garments draped around her, giving him time to school his answer.

“What murders?”

Grace's cackle verged on the macabre. “You know as well as I do what murders. You saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“Saw whom,” she corrected him, sounding like his seventh-grade English teacher. “The killer. You saw him.”

“What makes you think it was a him?”

“He,” she corrected him again in her daft, cordial voice. “Semen.”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Semen. The girls had just had sex. Women don't produce semen.” She smiled sweetly.

“No, they don't,” he agreed, rattled. “Grace, it's the middle of the night. I really think I ought to take you back home.”

“Oh, would you? That would be so kind. I'm sure Sophie is terribly worried about me. She does worry, poor girl. She needs a man.” She eyed him speculatively. “I'm not sure you'd do, though.”

“I wasn't offering.”

“You don't need to,” Grace said. “You're an intelligent man—I can tell as much from a glance, and any intelligent man would find my Sophie worth the effort.”

“Effort?”

“But I don't think you'll do. I think perhaps you should go away.”

He struggled to follow her line of reasoning. “Why?”

“Because you saw him,” she said with a touch of asperity. “And he'll have to kill you. Go away.”

“Who will? Who would have to kill me?” He should have known better than to ask her. She looked and sounded perfectly reasonable, sitting there in the middle of the night in her bathrobe and
flyaway gray hair, but she jumped from one subject to another the way a hummingbird sampled flowers.

Grace rose, suddenly majestic. “Take me home, young man. It's getting late. Sophie will be quite cross with you for keeping me out so long.”

Griffin sighed. “With any luck your daughter will never know you've been out wandering. Let's just hope she's asleep when we get back there.”

“I wasn't out wandering. I was paying a social call.” Grace rose, smoothing her skirt as if it were layers of crinoline. “You shouldn't underestimate me. I know exactly what I'm doing.”

He looked into her soft, hazy blue eyes, and for a moment he thought he saw the sharp glint of intelligence there. It must have been a trick of the shadows. Or was it? Was Spacey Gracey really as spacey as she wanted people to believe?

“Maybe you do,” he said.

She was a little woman, much smaller than her luscious daughter, and the look she cast up at him was almost coquettish. “I'd tell you to button your shirt but I'm rather hoping you'll distract Sophie with that nice chest of yours.”

Shit. He began buttoning the soft flannel shirt he'd grabbed. He hadn't even been thinking about the tattoo, but Grace would have been hard put to see it with the shirt over him. The snake coiled over his left hip, usually hidden by clothing, but he wasn't wearing a belt and the jeans hung low on his
hips. If he'd moved the wrong way the shirt could have exposed the tattoo. Not at all what he wanted. He looked completely different from the man who'd been dragged away for murder twenty years ago. But the tattoo was still the same.

He should have had it removed. Would have, too, except that Annelise had always hated it, and it had become a matter of principle. Besides, he had a sort of affection for it. The tattoo was part of who he was, who he had been, and you couldn't escape from the past. It made you who you were today.

He wasn't sure how pleased he was with the kind of man he'd grown into. But he wasn't ready to wipe out the rebellious young drifter completely with a bit of laser surgery. Not until he found out the answers to the questions that haunted him.

His life had always been dogged by luck, both good and bad. Bad luck to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the body of a murdered woman found nearby and blood staining his body. Good luck that some fool in the prosecutor's office had been so sure he was guilty that he'd been ridiculously sloppy in his paperwork. So sloppy, in fact, that by the time Griffin had spent three years of his jail time studying the law he'd known it would be a relatively simple matter to get his conviction overturned. Everything they had on him was circumstantial, and most of it had been gained illegally. All he'd had to do was find the right lawyer.

It had taken another couple of years, but Bill Cragen had taken to the case with enthusiasm, and taken Griffin under his wing when he got out, supporting him through law school and his fledgling career. Anyone as smart as he was shouldn't waste his life as a ski bum, Bill had said. Besides, why not put those years of study to good use? And by the time Bill died of cancer, Griffin had earned his degree, joined Bill's practice and become engaged to Bill's daughter, Annelise. Stalwart, upstanding, with a snake tattooed across his hip and a dark night hidden deep in his soul.

Grace cackled. “She's probably called the police by now. Or at least that nice doctor. Maybe I should go back by myself. We wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea.”

He was half tempted to let her. The thought of walking up to that house to a crowd of police brought back too many ugly memories, and not the ones he was searching for. But he couldn't let the old lady wander alone at night down that overgrown path so near the lake—he was a ruthless shit, but he still had that much decency left in him. He wasn't convinced she was as loony as she appeared to be, but he couldn't really take any chances.

“A gentleman always sees a lady to her door,” he said. Not that anyone ever taught him that. Griffin had pretty much raised himself, and he'd picked up manners from reading, not from example. “And we
don't want to worry your daughter, now do we?” he said.

Grace tucked her arm in his and gave him a companionable smile as they started out onto the porch. “You didn't kill her, did you?” she asked in her sweet voice.

She must have felt the involuntary jerk in his body, a dead giveaway. “Who?”

“I don't remember. I just know someone was killed. I don't think it was Sophie, but I can't be sure. You didn't kill Sophie, did you, young man?”

He didn't answer. There was nothing he could say, even if he knew the truth.

But Grace wasn't waiting for an answer that would never come. “Of course you didn't, love,” she said, patting his arm in a vague, soothing manner. “Do you think I'd be wandering around in the night with you if you were a murderer?”

He looked down at her. He still wasn't sure what to make of her—whether she was pulling an elaborate prank with her dotty-old-lady act, or whether she was really senile. She couldn't be that old if she was Sophie's mother, but she was so frail. He wasn't in the habit of taking things at face value. Maybe she was playing a game, or maybe not. Maybe her mind was so addled she just picked up on things other people didn't. Or maybe she asked everyone if they were murderers.

She'd run into trouble if she did, he thought
coolly. Because someone
had
killed the three girls. And unless that someone was him, the killer might strike again.

His vain hope that Sophie might be unaware of her mother's wanderings was dashed when they came through the end of the pathway. The main building of the old Niles homestead was ablaze with lights, and he thought he could see her standing on the porch, peering out into the darkness. At least there were no police cars parked there. No cars at all except for the late-model Subaru that belonged to Sophie.

“Yoo-hoo, dearie, I'm back!” Grace called out in a cheerful voice. “And wait till you see who I've brought with me.”

“I'll head back now,” Griffin said, trying to disentangle his arm from her surprisingly strong grip. “Your daughter will take it from here.”

“I'm not sure I can make it to the house,” Grace said in a quavering voice, suddenly sounding frail. “I'm very, very tired.” As if to convince him she started to sag, and he had no choice but to put his arm around her fragile body and help her up the small slope to the porch, cursing inwardly.

“What the hell have you done with my mother?” Sophie looked like an avenging angel there on the porch. She was wearing some kind of white lace nightgown that looked more like an Edwardian wedding dress than something to sleep in, and her hair
was down. He hadn't realized how long her hair was. It looked rich and warm in the overhead light, and he wanted to touch it. Her feet were bare, and she had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

“Brought your wandering lamb home,” he said. “I found her in my kitchen half an hour ago.”

“Don't you think it might have been a good idea to call me and tell me where she was before I got completely frantic?”

“Considering that I don't know your phone number, my telephone isn't hooked up, and my goddamned cell phone doesn't work at the back end of beyond, I couldn't very well call you, though I think it would have been an excellent idea. That way you could have come and gotten her instead of me having to traipse out in the middle of the night.”

Grace seemed to have mysteriously regained her strength, and she abandoned him, scampering up onto the porch with all the energy of her teenage stepdaughter. “I'm going to bed now, Sophie,” she said. “Don't let me sleep too late—I've got things to do.”

“What things?”

“Oh, many, many interesting things,” she said. “And he didn't kill anyone. He told me so.”

“Who did?” Sophie said sharply, but Grace had already wandered back into the house, humming happily.

“Me. She asked me if I was a murderer and I told
her no.” He should leave, go back to bed, but for some reason he wanted to stand in the moonlight and look at Sophie in her ridiculous nightgown. Just for a moment.

And for some reason Sophie didn't disappear into the house, chasing after her errant mother. She was looking at him warily, as if she'd accidentally come across a wild bear, but she didn't back down. “I'm afraid that's a remnant of when she was still…” She glossed over the word. “She loves to read true-crime books. I thought she'd stopped, but when I checked on her this evening she was reading one of her old ones. She probably can't tell the difference between reality and what's in the books.”