Sharyn McCrumb - Sick Of Shadows

“No. Bad ones?”

“Yes. Just lately. I never got them before.” Alban reached out and patted an oak tree near the path. “Isn’t this a wonderful old tree?”

“Tell me more about your headaches, Alban.”

“It’s as if there were a noise inside my head. I keep thinking there’s something I ought to be concentrating on, but the noise gets in the way. Do you think it’s serious?”

Shepherd blinked. “Well, it’s hard to say. It might be a reaction to stress. Wouldn’t hurt to have it checked out, though.”

“Nonsense! I am perfectly well, and I am sure Lutz is aware of it.”

Shepherd blinked. “Lutz? Is he your doctor?”

Alban pointed straight ahead. Between the branches the sky shone lighter, a luminous gray indicating a break in the trees. “We have almost arrived. Just around that bend in the path, you will be able to see Starnberg Lake.”

“Starnberg? The lake has a name? How long has it been called that?”

Alban regarded him with a calm stare. “But it has always been called that, Dr. Gudden.”

Elizabeth did not know why she was afraid. She was nearly running, although the path to the lake was almost dark beneath the trees. There was no sound of voices on the path ahead of her. They must be far ahead-perhaps they had already reached the lake.

It didn’t make any sense. The Mailgram telling her to read about Ludwig… Alban going for a walk beside the lake with Eileen’s psychiatrist… and the curious coincidence. It had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Because if it weren’t… Not far to the lake now. Elizabeth slowed to a walk. She mustn’t make too much noise.

She should have waited for the sheriff, but they would have lost valuable time in explanations and argument. Or she might have left a note with the book. Saying what?

Like someone mouthing a foreign language, she turned the encyclopedia article over in her mind.

“Ludwig II… mad king of Bavaria… attempted to be an absolute monarch in the style of Louis XIV, but several centuries too late… Because of his financial excesses and eccentric behavior, Ludwig was deposed in June 1886, and confined as a private mental patient in Berg Castle. A few days later, Ludwig and his psychiatrist were found drowned in a lake on the grounds of the estate. It is generally believed that Ludwig killed the doctor in an attempt to escape, and subsequently died of a heart attack while attempting to swim to freedom…”

And now Alban and Dr. Shepherd were walking by the lake, but-so what? Alban wasn’t a prisoner. And what did it have to do with Eileen? Nothing. Eileen was dead. The reality of that had been eclipsed by other concerns: the sheriff’s lumbering attempts at finding a suspect; Bill’s attempts at detection; Amanda’s exchange of one social event for another; and Michael’s mixture of relief and fear for his own safety. Except as a puzzle to solve, no one seemed to mind that Eileen’s life had ended. But everyone seemed to care who killed her. Elizabeth didn’t see why it mattered so much. The person who had thrown Eileen into the boat had certainly killed her, but she had been fading out of existence for such a long time before that that the actual termination of her life seemed little more than a formality. Was that the reason that Eileen had broken the mirror? Because people had ceased to see her except as a reflection of their own needs? The family was missing an audience, a dressmaker’s doll, a possession-but the personality of Eileen had slipped away long before. Elizabeth decided that she didn’t want to play detective; she didn’t much care about getting the right answer in the murder game; but she hurried on toward the lake because she felt that the danger was still present. Preventing a murder mattered more than solving one.

As she came to the last bend in the path, Elizabeth could hear the murmur of voices. Instinctively, she left the path and eased her way through the underbrush until she could see them clearly through a thicket of honeysuckle a few yards from the lake. To her right lay the boat dock and the grassy verge where Eileen had set her easel; about five yards to her left she could see Alban and Dr. Shepherd standing on a small spit of land in the clearing where the path ended. Beyond them the trees and the underbrush made dark patterns in the deepening twilight.

Elizabeth could just make out Alban’s expression in the gray light. His eyes were narrowed, and his head was thrown back in a posture of arrogance or anger. His voice sounded different. She strained to catch fragments of the conversation.

“You are working for Lutz, aren’t you?” he said harshly. “You’ll tell them I’m not fit to be king!”

Carlsen Shepherd, who stood with his back to Elizabeth, spread out his arms in a cosmic shrug.

“You are part of the conspiracy! Admit it!”

Shepherd sighed wearily. “Look, Alban, are you putting me on? Because if so, I’m not laughing.”

“Did you laugh when they brought me to Berg, Dr. Gudden? When they took my kingdom? And what has become of my letters to Bismarck? Did you have them destroyed?”

Shepherd took a tentative step backward. “Uh-Bismarck. Wait a minute. Letters to Bismarck, huh? Something about your kingdom? Why don’t we go back to the house and talk about this, Alb-er, Ludwig?”

The false heartiness of Shepherd’s reply had made Alban even angrier. He stamped his foot and shouted something, while Shepherd continued to edge away. Should she run to the house and get the sheriff? Elizabeth wondered. It would take a little over ten minutes to get there and back, not counting the time it might take to explain it all to Wesley Rountree. She had left the encyclopedia for him, though. Perhaps it would make him curious enough to follow her. She had to gamble on the fact that he’d come, because if she left, there would be no one to help Carlsen Shepherd. But if she stayed, what could she do? Elizabeth looked about her for a rock or a stick.

“I’m not going back there,” Alban was saying. “So you can tell them I’m mad. I’m going to escape and get help from Bismarck or Maximilian! I will have my kingdom back!”

Shepherd looked at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he began to walk toward Alban with his hands outstretched. “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said gently. “I think you’re probably right about those guys plotting against you. I just need to ask you a few questions, though.”

Alban blinked. “Questions? What questions?”

“Did you ever get mad at any young girls?”

Alban looked puzzled. “Are you speaking of Sophie?”

“Who?”

“The youngest daughter of Maximilian. We were engaged once, but she never understood me. Still, I felt no bitterness.”

“You didn’t hit her over the head or anything?” prompted Shepherd.

Alban drew himself up proudly. “I am a king,” he hissed. “Not a drunken peasant! If I take a life it is my divine right to do so.” He bowed. “I regret that such a step has now become necessary, Herr Doctor. I am going to swim that lake to freedom, and you must be prevented from stopping me.”

Elizabeth saw him lunge forward, choking off Shepherd’s reply in mid-sentence. She had begun to twist at the stem of a honeysuckle branch, thinking that it might distract Alban even if it were too small to be considered a weapon. Between the two of them, they might be able to subdue him. As she tugged at the branch, she noticed a movement in the clump of bushes to the left of the lake.

“Ludwig!”

Elizabeth stared into the darkness to see who had spoken, but the woods beyond Alban were black. She could see that his hands were wrapped around Shepherd’s throat, and the two of them had sunk to their knees in their struggle.