Jan Burke - Eighteen

I couldn’t answer.

“Please forgive me.”

“It seems like men have been asking me to do that a lot lately,” I said.

He let go of my hand and waited.

I managed to pull myself together, somehow. “I’m sorry, John. I’m having a perfectly horrible day and I can’t seem to keep my balance. Just when I feel as if I’m steady on my feet, something knocks them out from under me. You’re not to blame for it.”

“I don’t know about that, but like I said, I’m sorry. Feel up to going inside and looking for those documents?”

“Why not? What more could go wrong today?”

We got out of the car and started up the drive. John donned David’s coat, which was only a little too big for him. As we walked, I was fascinated by the fact that Chance, who walked next to me with a comforting arm around my shoulder, left no footprints. I was musing over the fact that his touch was as warm as any living person’s, when suddenly John stopped me from walking any farther. “Hold it. It snowed up here Thursday, right?”

“Right,” I said. “David and I were looking forward to-never mind, that doesn’t do any good.”

Chance gave my shoulder a little squeeze, as if to help me find my courage. Russo watched me for a moment, then asked, “Had you made any arrangements with anyone to come up here? Any other guests or a caretaker?”

“No, no one.”

I followed his gaze to where two pairs of footprints entered and left the cabin. Whoever had been to the cabin had cut across the woods, as if to avoid being seen.

“Would you mind staying here for a moment?”

I shook my head.

“Why don’t you give me the key to the front door? I’ll just make sure it’s safe.”

He walked to the cabin, careful not to disturb the prints. It gave me an opportunity to talk to Chance.

“You knew someone was here, didn’t you?”

Yes. He made the gesture for his wife.

“Louise and who else?”

He seemed stumped by this question, but then pantomimed filing his nails.

“Emery?”

He actually smiled, the first time I had seen him smile.

“I don’t think Russo believes you killed yourself.”

He patted me on the back.

“No, I think he doubted it before I said anything.”

He patted me again.

“Well, thanks. Did they find what they were looking for when they came here?”

He shook his head, smiling again, then suddenly laid a finger to his lips. I turned to see Russo coming out of the cabin. He was upset.

“Someone has been here and ransacked the place. I called the sheriff; they’ll be out as soon as they can, but it may be a little while. I don’t know if you’ll want to go in there. They did a very thorough job of it, and I doubt they missed anything.”

“I have a feeling they did,” I said. “I’ll be okay. Let’s take a look.”

“Try not to touch anything if you can help it.”

After everything else I had been through that day, seeing the cabin a complete wreck was only mildly unsettling. Russo was right; no piece of furniture was left in place, every drawer had been pulled out and dumped on the floor, pictures had been removed from their frames. I almost reached out and touched one of David and me, but Russo stopped me.

“You’ll be able to fix it after they dust for prints,” he said.

“I know who did this,” I said. “Louise Devereaux and Winslow Emery.”

“How do you know?”

“First, who else has any reason to search this cabin? Secondly, I’ll bet those footprints are those of a man and a woman. I can’t tell you the other reason.”

“Your husband’s ghost tipped you off?”

“Something like that.” I thought of David, having an affair with someone who was vicious enough to place a gun in her husband’s mouth and pull the trigger. It dawned on me then that she might have killed David as well. I shuddered. “Poor David.”

“Maybe you’d trust me more if I told you something.” He paused. “I don’t tell many people about this.” Even Chance seemed curious.

“It’s about my wife, Susan,” Russo said. “I told you she died. I didn’t tell you how.”

I waited. He walked over to the empty fireplace and stared down into its charred hearth. “She was killed. Shot to death, like your husband. Only she was in another man’s arms when it happened. His wife caught on to what was happening before I did. She was waiting for them, I guess. Killed them both, then turned the gun on herself.”

“John-”

“Let me finish. I hated Susan for it at first. But I missed her, too. And I hated missing her. Then I started blaming myself. Homicide detective gets called out in the middle of the night all the time, doesn’t make for much of a home life.

“Anyway, one night, she came back. Her ghost, I suppose. You think I’m crazy?”

“Not at all,” I said.

“Well, I don’t scare easy, but that scared the living hell out me. She asked me to forgive her.”

“She could talk?”

“Yes, can’t your husband talk?”

“It’s not my husband, John.” I turned to Chance. “Can I tell him?”

Chance nodded.

“He’s here, now?” Russo asked, startled.

“Yes, he’s here. It’s Chance Devereaux. He started visiting me the night before the funeral. He wants to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, but as a suicide, they wouldn’t allow it.”

“He told you it wasn’t suicide?”

“Yes. He can’t talk; I think it has something to do with the way he died. But he isn’t so hard to understand once you get used to it. He made it clear that Louise drugged his drink, then shot him while he slept.”

“We’ve suspected something like that,” John said. “He had enough barbiturates in his system to make it seem unlikely that he would have shot himself; but it was right on the borderline, nothing solid enough to convict. Still, I wondered why he would take sleeping pills if he planned on shooting himself that same night. What would the point be? Between that and the insurance, she wasn’t completely in the clear.”

I watched Chance walk over to the fireplace. John followed my gaze.

“He walked over here?” he asked, taking a step back.

“Yes. He wants us to look inside it, under the metal plate in the hearth. The one over the hole where you clean out the ashes.”

Russo got down on all fours and lifted the plate. I wasn’t too surprised when he pulled out a sheaf of papers. Chance touched me on the shoulder, then disappeared.

The papers proved that Chance had warned Emery about the tank eight months before the disaster. One of Emery’s fingerprints had been left at the cabin, on the door to a storage shed. Facing prosecution in the deaths of the workers as well, Emery later broke down and confessed to helping Louise kill David, and told police that Louise had killed Chance. He had been having an affair with Louise Devereaux for the past six months. They met on Wednesdays. They were both convicted of murder.

I saw Chance one other time; when I signed the forms saying I would pay to have his body moved to the Catholic cemetery. He met me near his old grave, and hugged me. He was still warm.

John Russo and I married a year later. When the going gets rough, we tell one another ghost stories.

Pacing my small cell, trying not to listen to the racket around me.

They’ve just brought a meal to me, and I’m going to settle down to enjoy it. In the two days since Cindy’s death, I haven’t been able to get enough to eat. The authorities don’t know what to make of my appetite.

They’ve been by to see me a couple of times now; can’t make up their minds. I’ve watched them eyeing me, trying to figure out what went wrong, why I didn’t save her. Wondering if I killed her, or if it was an accident. They aren’t convinced of my innocence, but they’re equally unsure of my guilt.