Final Chapter: A Megan Montaigne Mystery (Megan Montaigne Mysteries) Page 8

Megan shook her head vigorously. “No, no, I just …” I just what? An excuse didn’t come to mind quickly. But already she was forming a plan in her mind to just happen to bump into the man. To see what he had to say. “Anyone else it could have been?” Megan asked, moving the conversation away from Gus.

  “Well,” said Iris, conspiratorially, “she’s had a few stalkers over the years, of course. People who read a little too much into her books and think she’s talking directly to them. She never got any restraining orders, that I heard of. As far as I know, she didn’t have a stalker currently. Maybe they moved on to someone else after she ignored them too long.”

  “Do you know any names?” Megan asked. She was amazed at how much this group seemed to know about Romy’s life. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Max had arrived, in uniform. As he’d suspected, no one was talking to him just yet. But she trusted that his dark wavy hair and his dimples and his smile would get him into a good conversation soon enough.

  “Pat something,” said Iris, squinting her eyes as she worked to remember a last name. “Wagner, maybe. Pat Wagner. You could look him up.”

  “But would he have had access to Romy’s house?” Megan speculated.

  “There’s no security out there,” Iris said. “Well, there is now. Some yellow tape, and they put a guy out there. But not until about an hour ago.” She scooped the pile of candles in their cups into a box already half-full of the same, then continued making more.

  Megan was taken aback. Had the fans been going out to Romy’s house, then? Were they out there now, behind the yellow tape, keeping a distance but nonetheless gawking over the home that was still not quite finished? She knew Iris was correct; she remembered noticing there was no gate. There’d been no need for one, she’d thought; not out here. And obviously Romy had thought the same thing. But they’d all thought wrong.

  “Okay. Well, if you hear anything that seems important, that guy over there—” she pointed to Max “—is the one to tell. Deputy Coleman,” Megan said.

  Iris bobbed her head. “Guy in the uniform. Got it.” Her eyes lingered on Max. “He’s good-looking. He’s a real police? Not just a fake police?”

  “A fake police?” said Megan, puzzled.

  “You know, hired, for parties and such.” Iris looked back at Megan and grinned salaciously, waggling her eyebrows.

  “No, no,” said Megan, suddenly protective of Max and her town. The influx of mourners was starting to feel like an invasion, and she wanted space to cope on her own. “Not a fake police,” she said. “Anyway, nice meeting you. I’m sure Romy would have appreciated the love you all are showing.” It seemed like the right thing to say. She accepted a candle Iris handed her, nodded her thanks, and headed over to Max.

  As she reached him, a young woman in her twenties, with a short tight skirt and long black hair, was just walking away, a self-satisfied smile on her lips. When the woman was out of hearing range, Megan asked, “Did she give you her number?”

  Max shook off the comment with a laugh. “She tried. I told her I couldn’t accept phone numbers while I’m on duty.”

  “And she believed you?” Megan said, shaking her head at the woman’s gullibility. “You’re too much. Did you learn anything good?” Megan noticed Iris was watching them.

  “Not yet,” Max said, “but I just got here. You?”

  Megan nodded in Iris’s direction. “That woman over there at the table with the candles, she’s sure Gus did it.” Megan was about to tell Max that Gus swam every morning at eight, but then, for reasons unknown to her conscious mind, she held the information back. “Have you talked with Gus already?” she said instead.

  “Yes, talked to him on Monday,” Max said.

  Megan was surprised he hadn’t mentioned it before, but then she realized he had no obligation to tell her anything. Especially if, as he had told her, she was still a suspect herself. She felt slightly miffed that he didn’t automatically know she was innocent. Wasn’t that how it worked, after all? Innocent until proven guilty? And why would he suspect her at all? Sure, she’d been at the party, but then so had a lot of people. Was every one of them a suspect? Megan realized that probably they were. “Anything interesting come out of that conversation?” she asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as she could.

  Max looked Megan directly in the eyes. His look was kind and reassuring, but also firm. “Nothing conclusive,” he said. “He’s not off the list yet, but he’s not a prime suspect.”

  “But who else would it be?” said Megan, picking at the wax candle. “Did you find out about that Kirk Foster, the author? He seemed awfully dodgy, if you ask me.” Heebie-jeebies, she thought.

  Max drew a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I followed up on that. Thanks for the lead. It wasn’t him. He was out of town at a writer’s conference, and didn’t fly into SeaTac until after the party was over, late Sunday night. He stayed at a hotel and didn’t leave until morning. Hotel cameras confirm it. He’s innocent.”

  “Oh,” said Megan, disappointed. She thought momentarily that it would be nice if there had been cameras at the library that had proven her own innocence, but then decided against it. The idea of being constantly under surveillance was horrifying. Putting cameras in the public areas of the library might be something to consider, though. The library wasn’t as isolated as Romy’s house, but it was still far enough out that no one might hear a person scream. She shuddered at her own thought.

  “You okay?” said Max, who had been watching her. “Look, I know it’s upsetting that I can’t tell you I’ve ruled you out. I just don’t want to mislead you. I don’t believe you’re guilty. But I have to do my job.”

  “Oh, I know,” said Megan, though really she didn’t. “I understand. Don’t worry about it.” She looked around. “Have you seen Kevin? He was going to be here, too.” She squinted into the growing crowd to try to find him.

  Max scanned the crowd and found the young man first. “Over there,” he said, “by the snacks table.”

  Megan laughed. “Free food,” she said. “I should have known. I’m going to go talk to him. I’ll keep you updated.”

  Max put a hand on Megan's shoulder and let it linger as he held her gaze, his words unspoken.

  “I know,” said Megan, putting her own hand briefly on his shoulder in a mirror of his gesture, but as she walked away she realized she had no idea what his gaze had meant, or what her own words had meant in reply.

  She shook off the exchange mentally and called out to Kevin as he munched on potato chips. “Hey,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Kevin wiped chip dust and salt from his lips and swallowed. “Hey,” he said, nodding toward the table. “Free food.” She remembered then how the river rafters had always been hungry because of how much physical exercise they got, and how they’d always gravitated toward free food. Zeus had been one of the worst for it. She’d always believed he had a seventh sense, an internal compass that drove him to find anything edible within a certain radius. And even if it wasn’t free, Zeus usually had managed to charm people into sharing with him. He’d been the type that never had to ask for anything. People wanted him to like them, so they gave without being asked. Anything to gain favor. Acquiring free food had been the easiest thing in the world for him.

  “No thanks,” Megan said as Kevin held out a platter of cheese and crackers. “Have you been here long? Have you talked to anyone?”

  Kevin shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m so good at this. I’m not really a talker or a listener. People don’t open up to me like they do to you and Max.” He topped a cracker with some havarti and shook his head. “Can you believe all these people?”

  “Romy did sell millions of books,” said Megan. “I guess that means more than a few people were buying.” But he was right; it was surprising that so many had shown up. “Did you ever meet her? Through your girlfriend? I mean obviously you met at the party. But did you spend time with her?”

  He paused. “Yeah,” he said. “A coup
le times. She was nice. She’s the person you’d need here. People would tell her anything.”

  Maybe that was what made Romy into a writer, Megan thought. People told her everything, and she had to do something with all the words. “What did Courtney think of her?” Megan asked. “Did she think Romy seemed depressed or anything?”

  He looked up. “You mean did she drown herself? I mean, it’s possible, right? Even if Max doesn’t think so? Everyone’s got their demons.” He swept his arm wide to indicate all the people at the park. “Every one of these people, multiple demons. People think they’re the only one with problems but for sure someone here has it worse than you.” He ate a cracker with cheese, his thoughts far away. Watching the furrow of his brow and the way his eyes darkened, Megan thought some of his own demons might be going through his head right then.

  “So what did Courtney think?” Megan repeated her question. “Did she like Romy?”

  Kevin shrugged again, topping another cracker with some cheddar. “It was a job,” he said. “Courtney’s good at pretty much everything. Romy needed someone who could do pretty much everything, so it worked.”

  Megan felt him closing off to her. It was ridiculous, she thought, the way friendships, or relationships of any sort, could end. One person misreading the other, and then closing off in self-protection, which led to the other person doing the same. Neither person able to risk reaching out to see if there had been a misunderstanding. Because if there hadn’t been a misunderstanding then the pain of rejection, the certainty of knowing you were no longer needed or wanted, was too much. All it would take would be for one person to reach out, but that simple act was sometimes far too much of a gamble.

  She checked the time on her phone as a way to escape the conversation. “Oh gosh,” she said, “I need to be getting back to the library. If you hear anything, let me know?”

  “For sure,” he said, and put out his hand for a fist bump. Megan steeled herself and went in for a hug instead, and was rewarded when he returned the embrace. Only briefly, but it was enough.

  EIGHT

  By the time Megan got back to the library, only about an hour and a half remained before closing. The recent events had left her behind in her work, so she put her head down, dug in, and got as caught up as she could. When five o’clock came around, she was more than ready to lock the doors and head upstairs.

  Much to her relief, the living quarters were quiet when she arrived. Of course if one of her guests had needed something she would have obliged, but right at the moment, she wanted nothing more than to spend some time alone.

  “You still need to get to the grocery store, Megan,” she said to herself as she surveyed the mostly empty refrigerator. She pulled out the leftover spaghetti to re-heat, then opened a bottle of red and poured herself a generous glass. When everything was ready she carried it out to the balcony. Noting a chill in the wind, she went back inside to get a blanket, then bundled up as she ate.

  Watching the river pour by, she thought as she had many times before about how much of life took place inside one’s head. Hadn’t Mark Twain said something about that? She was sure he had. An observer of the scene would have seen a bucolic, peaceful sight: a young woman wrapped in a cozy plaid blanket; a hearty meal; a lovely wine. And of course, the river, always the river. If you sat and watched the river long enough, Megan thought, surely it would reach out and grab your troubles and carry them away. At least, she hoped so.

  Megan's thoughts turned to Courtney. They’d met very briefly at Romy’s party, but the encounter hadn’t been long enough to leave Megan with much of an impression. Which is not to say she hadn’t formed one already. A bit standoffish, Megan thought; Courtney carried herself with a slight air of indifference, or maybe superiority. “Or maybe she was busy thinking about party details,” Megan said to the river, chastising herself for her uncharitable thoughts. Courtney had been sharp, polished; her eyes had darted around at the party, making sure all was well. “But that would have been her job,” Megan told herself. Making sure all the guests who needed to be seen were seen; making sure introductions were made, making sure everything ran smoothly. “Calculating.” The word slipped out of Megan's mouth. Where did that come from? she wondered. Maybe jealousy. Courtney seemed so put-together, while Megan often felt she was chasing her own tail to get everything done. She had no doubt Max had already talked to Courtney. Of course he had. He was good at his job, and he was fair, and he was thorough. Had Courtney been attracted to Max? “Where did that come from?” Megan asked the river. What business of hers was it who might be attracted to Max? “Interesting,” Megan said, drinking the last of her wine.

  Later, she decided there was nothing wrong with an early night, and she headed to bed shortly after nine. As was her custom now, she threw open the curtains so she could watch the sky if she woke while it was still dark. The moon would be almost full tonight, and should pass by her window as she slept.

  Unusually for her, she fell asleep almost immediately, fast and hard. Dreams came quickly, the kind of dreams where she half-knew she was asleep, but still couldn’t escape. In her dream, she was running in the dark through the forest path by Emerson Falls. Someone was chasing her, but the roar of the water dampened all other sounds. Faintly, she could hear someone calling for help. Was it Romy? Someone was calling for help but she couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, and the shadows of the trees tricked her into seeing ghosts that were not there. Not looking where she was going, she tripped on a tree root and fell hard on the dirt trail. Sharp rocks cut into her skin. She was bleeding and confused. Suddenly, someone was shining a flashlight in her face. The light was bright, and filled her field of vision.

  Megan woke up with a gasp, her heart beating hard.

  “Oh, the moon,” she said with a sigh. Because the moon had risen up over the trees on the opposite bank of the river, and its light was streaming into her room, bright as a flashlight, right into her eyes. It was astonishing, the amount of light reflecting off the giant disc in the sky. Megan stared at it in wonder as her dream dissipated into the night.

  Wanting to shake off the dream completely, Megan went toward the kitchen for a glass of water. Just as she passed the front door, she heard a sound down the hallway: another door closing.

  She froze. Of course it would not be unheard of for one of the visitors to be entering or exiting their rooms. A glance at the clock on the wall told her it was only just past midnight. A reasonable hour for someone to be arriving home, if they’d been out. Still, all things considered, Megan felt the desire to be sure about who was in the house. Looking around, she quickly scanned the room and her mind for a weapon. “Stupid gas fireplace,” she whispered, wishing for a traditional wood-burning fireplace, for which she would have had a set of iron tools, including a strong, threatening poker. A bat would be good, she thought, but she didn’t play baseball. The guitar she spotted in the corner of the room—Zeus’s old guitar—would make a nice sound if she crashed it over someone’s head, but it wouldn’t do much more.

  She gave up. She grabbed her keys from the hook by the front door and slipped out without making a sound.

  Even with the constant white noise of the river, everything was always so quiet out in this secluded edge of the town. Sometimes after dark, living upstairs in the library reminded Megan of the time she’d spent the night in one of the most haunted castles in England. She’d only done it to make Zeus happy; in fact, it was there that he’d proposed. She’d never admitted to him how much the idea of staying in the castle had scared her. During the day the old stone fortress was a museum, open to the public, filled with people and voices and the sounds of feet and the false digital clicks of cameras. At night, however, after everyone had gone home and the doors were locked, the atmosphere of the building had shifted. One staff person had remained, and thick red velvet ropes let the well-entrusted overnight guests know where not to roam. Megan had stepped out of the bedroom suite and into the dim interior of the cast
le to gaze down the capacious circular staircase, when suddenly, completely unprompted, the hairs on the back of her neck had stood on end. As if the hairs on the back of her neck knew something her eyes and brain did not. All of her cells had seemed to vibrate inside their individual microscopic boundaries, and she’d known she was not alone. She’d stepped back into the guest room where Zeus was sitting on a cushioned bench at the end of the king-sized bed, taking off his shoes. She’d gone to him and kissed him long and hard and fervently, initiating activity that ensured he would keep her mind off of ghosts for a good while. But afterwards, he’d fallen fast asleep and she’d lain awake. The thick castle walls insulated the building from all noise, leaving her in unsettling silence apart from Zeus’s occasional, gentle, puffing snores. In the morning, she’d splashed cold water on her weary face, filled her gut with copious amounts of coffee to keep her awake, and said nothing.

  Megan blinked hard at the memory and brought herself back to the present. She focused on the sounds of the library, but heard nothing more, whether ghostly or human.

  Down the hallway, she could see a dim light leaking in through the door that should have been closed, between the apartments and the public area of the library. “Did I leave that open?” she thought, but she was sure she hadn’t. She tiptoed noiselessly to the door, and willed it not to make a sound as she opened it wide enough to ease herself through.

  On the other side of the door was the balcony from which the grand staircase descended into the library. Megan crept to the railing and peered down, her eyes adjusting to the low light. The river side of the main level featured many floor-to-ceiling windows to showcase the spectacular river view, and moonlight was flooding in below as it was in her own room. Megan forced her breath to be shallow and slow, so she could be as still as possible. From her elevated viewpoint she scanned the stacks and quickly noticed a light moving between the shelves, casting long eerie shadows of a person walking among them. Megan's heart leapt to her throat and she stifled a gasp. “That’s the mysteries section,” she thought. She looked more closely at the figure that had stopped in front of a shelf. Whoever it was, was shining the light on the books, trying to find a specific title. The light shifted, and revealed the person’s identity.