Sharyn McCrumb - Sick Of Shadows

“Ludwig! ” said the voice, more loudly this time.

Alban stiffened, and turned his head in the direction of the voice. Elizabeth thought he had loosened his hold on Shepherd for the moment. Now she could make out a dark shape standing against an outgrowth of shrubbery. The voice was masculine, but not familiar to her.

“Well, Ludwig, I see you are back at Schloss Berg. Will you not come to Villa Pellet?”

“Pellet?” murmured Alban. He stood up straight, releasing his hold on the doctor, who fell to the ground at the water’s edge and lay still.

“Yes-to Pellet! Have you forgotten?”

“Pellet,” said Alban again. He took a step toward the dark figure.

“Surely my Wotan has not forgotten his Siegfried?”

Alban put his hands to his temples as if to shut out the voice-or the unseen noises obstructing it. “Wagner?” he said hoarsely. “Is it you, then?”

The shadow chuckled. “Of course, Your Majesty. It is I. And you have promised to listen to my plans for the new play tonight, remember?”

Alban put his face in his hands. “No! Wait! There’s something…” He looked back at Shepherd’s body.

“Wait…”

“Your Majesty gave me his word,” the voice chided.

He continued to speak in a coaxing tone while Elizabeth edged forward, wondering what she should do and trying to make sense of the scene before her.

“Come along with me now,” the soothing voice urged. “Come now; come closer. It’s quite chilly here by the lake.”

Alban actually began to walk toward the woods. The figure, about twenty feet away from him, motioned him forward, gently encouraging him to come closer. Elizabeth was bracing herself to make a dash for Shepherd, while Alban was distracted, when she heard shouts up the path.

“Cobb! Elizabeth MacPherson! What is going on around here? Yo! Answer me somebody!”

The spell was broken. Alban’s head snapped in the direction of the voice. He looked back at Shepherd’s body a few feet away, and then straight at Elizabeth, who had come out of hiding in preparation for a dash to pull Shepherd to safety. Their eyes met, but in the darkness Elizabeth could not tell if he had known who she was. For an instant he stood perfectly still on the edge of the lake, and then he was gone.

“Sheriff!” she yelled. “I’m here! Hurry up!” She ran to Shepherd and knelt by his body, trying to turn him over. She glanced up at the churning water a few yards from shore and caught a glimpse of Alban’s arms flailing as he made for the tangle of weeds in the middle of the lake. “Sheriff!” she wailed.

A sound from the bushes made her turn. She suddenly remembered the strange voice who had been speaking to Alban. It was still only a shadow but it was coming closer.

“Now look, Whoever-You-Are… you are not Richard Wagner… The sheriff will be here any second and if you come any closer he’ll blow you away…”

Two more figures came snapping through the thicket. “I’m going after that son-of-a-bitch,” said one of them. “See what you can do for that guy, Milo.”

Elizabeth watched a tall, thin shadow dive into the lake. She sank down beside Shepherd. “Oh, shit,” she murmured. “It’s Bill.”

The man who had emerged from the thicket with Bill was wearing a sheriff’s department uniform, but it was not Rountree or his deputy; he was big enough to be both of them put together, she thought. He hurried to Shepherd and began to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The Wagner imposter took her arm and led her away.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Elizabeth stared at him. He looked about Bill’s age, with clever brown eyes and good cheekbones. “Are you Milo?” she said finally.

“Of course.” He glanced back at the lake. “If you’re okay, I think I’ll go back and help Bill.”

She heard him hit the water as the sheriff and Clay burst into the clearing. Rountree took in the scene, and walked toward her. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Yes.”

“Then you want to tell me what’s going on down here?”

Elizabeth stared out at the lake. She could just make out two swimmers circling in midlake. Two swimmers; not three.

“Alban did it,” she said softly.

“Well, I knew that,” drawled Rountree. “I just want to know what this stunt was all about. And what is Hill-Bear doing here? Will somebody tell me that?”

Elizabeth shook her head. She felt dizzy.

Rountree steadied her arm. “Easy, now. Clay, get her back up to the house and call for an ambulance. I’ll stay here and give these fellas a hand.”

Elizabeth saw Dr. Shepherd’s legs move a little, and the uniformed man bent down to say something to him; then she turned and followed Clay back to the house.

ELIZABETH DID NOT SEE them again until much later, after the ambulance had come and gone, and Taylor in diving gear had retrieved the body of Alban and a sackful of bones from the lake. Bill and Milo had stayed in the library for over an hour talking to Rountree, Dr. Chandler, and Captain Grandfather, while Elizabeth and Mildred had done what they could to comfort the rest of the family.

It was nearly midnight before the meeting ended. Dr. Chandler announced that he was going to the hospital to look in on Shepherd, and left by the front door as Elizabeth was coming back downstairs. She saw Bill in the hall saying good night to Wesley Rountree, and she slipped into the kitchen to get coffee and sandwiches to offer in exchange for an explanation of the night’s events.

A few minutes later, she brought the silver tray into the library, where Milo was sitting at the desk making sketches on a sheet of typing paper and Bill was looking out the window at Alban’s castle, just visible in the light of a quarter moon.

Elizabeth set down the tray on the coffee table and settled on the couch beside him. “I brought you some coffee and sandwiches,” she said, talking to Milo. “Come and eat.”

Milo made a few more notes before coming over to join them. Bill said nothing. His forehead, under a thatch of blond hair, was wrinkled, the way it was when he was tense or deep in concentration.

Elizabeth tried again. “I called the hospital,” she announced. “Carlsen is all right, but they’re keeping him overnight. I’m going to see him tomorrow. What-what did the sheriff say?”

“That we were damn fools,” said Milo, smiling.

“It’s over,” snapped Bill. “Case closed.”

“But what made you come here? How did you know?”

Bill poured himself a cup of coffee. “It was all there in your letters, Elizabeth.”

“How could it have been in my letters when I didn’t know?” Elizabeth demanded.

“I mean all the information was there; that, plus what you told me on the phone the morning after Eileen was killed. I had to put it together, though.”

Elizabeth stared at him in disbelief. She turned to Milo, expecting to see the knowing grin of a fellow practical joker, but he merely nodded in agreement.

“Look,” said Bill impatiently. “You told me that Eileen’s painting was missing, and that she had been painting by the lake, and I wondered if the lake had any significance. With Eileen dead, the only person likely to know if the lake meant anything special to her was the psychiatrist you mentioned: Nancy Kimble. So I asked her.”

“But she’s in Vienna!”

“Yeah. I got her address from the med school and sent her a telegram.” He fished a crumpled yellow envelope out of the pocket of his jeans and handed it to Elizabeth.

She unfolded it and read aloud. “Early in treatment, patient occasionally mentioned woman’s face in lake. Please explain query. Nancy Kimble.” Elizabeth looked up. “How did you get her to tell you this?”