Secrets of Harmony Grove Page 6

  Obviously, I had to call Liz, tell her what had happened, and ask her what to do. Slipping into the bathroom, I pulled out my cell phone and made the call with my heart in my throat, praying she would be more sympathetic (about what I had been through) than angry (that I had come out to see Troy). She didn’t answer her home phone, office, or cell, and in a way I was relieved. I knew if she understood the situation here fully, she would insist on being present during my interrogation—something I thought would make me look far more guilty, not less. Leaving a simple message on her cell to call me when she had a chance, I decided to wing the detective’s questions on my own. I would answer honestly, try not to fill the silences or volunteer excess information, and above all keep my mouth shut otherwise as much as humanly possible. Nothing was wrong with presenting a modified version of the truth, I told myself as I put my phone away and returned to the main room.

  Hearing a commotion outside, I went to the door and looked out, wondering if Floyd’s “creature” had been caught. Instead, I realized, the excitement was about Nina. They had found her, alive but unconscious, lying on the driveway that ran through the covered bridge next door. I wanted to know if she had been mauled, as Troy had. I heard someone say that though she had no visible wounds anywhere, her vitals were dangerously bad.

  Because she was soaking wet, the police thought she had been the one to pull Troy from the pool. That reminded me of the footprints I had photographed earlier. I quickly reviewed them and, with Georgia’s help, texted them to the detective who would be handling this case.

  I then wandered to the pool area and peeked over the fencing, taking in the sight of Troy’s body all over again. With several technicians hovering over him, he looked like a butterfly being pinned down in a collection.

  Everyone was waiting for the medical examiner to arrive, but the general consensus was that the wound in his leg didn’t look like a gunshot at all but instead a long, deep cut. Poor Troy! We may have had our issues, but he hadn’t deserved to suffer like this. I thought of his family—his parents, his sisters, his extended relatives—all who would soon learn of his fate. Blinking back fresh tears at the thought of their pain, I said a prayer for them and turned away.

  From the pool I went to the driveway, which was lined with emergency vehicles of all sorts, even two fire trucks. Out at the road, stationary red and blue rotating lights revealed even more vehicles, clusters of onlookers, and a cop directing the slow-moving traffic. It was too dark to see Nina’s parents’ house from here, but I wondered if they had received the news yet. Probably so, if not directly from the police then from nosy neighbors who were no doubt watching the scene closely, taking it all in, and spreading gossip like wildfire. Nina was about my age, but she lived in an apartment over her parents’ garage, a move she made a few years ago after her only child was killed in a car accident.

  I was about to head back inside when I noticed someone new coming onto the scene, a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, with curly hair and strong features. Obviously muscular in an hours-at-the-gym-everyday kind of way, he wasn’t my type, but I found something very compelling about him all the same. Georgia greeted him in the driveway, and as they spoke, it struck me that there was an intensity to his bearing, like a tiger about to pounce, that gave him an aura of danger and excitement. As Georgia brought him over and introduced us, I saw intensity sparkling in his eyes as well.

  His name was Mike, and he was polite and very businesslike, saying he would need to interview me in a little while, but there were other things he had to do first. He didn’t seem happy to find me outside, close to the fringes of the activity, and he asked me to please go into the house and stay there so that I wouldn’t inadvertently contaminate the scene.

  Cops and technicians were inside as well, though, so finally I just got myself out of the way completely by sitting down in a rocking chair near the fireplace.

  Waiting for the detective to come in and start questioning me, I tried to calm my nerves by allowing my eyes to wander around the room, which we had decorated in a manner intended to delight the senses and soothe the soul. Truly, the renovation had been a labor of love, from the classic moldings around the ceiling to the understated window treatments throughout the house to the tastefully displayed gift shop area near the front window of this main room. Looking toward those gifts now, I thought how nice it would be to wrap myself up in one of the folded quilts that were part of the display. The quilts we sold were made by my Amish cousins, and just looking at their handiwork now made me smile.

  My cousin Jonah and his wife, Liesl, in particular, were two of my favorite people in the world. They lived nearby, and though we always enjoyed being together when I visited Lancaster County, we hadn’t been able to find a way to stay in touch otherwise. They didn’t text or use e-mail, and I didn’t write letters. They didn’t travel outside of the area very often, and I didn’t come out this way much anymore. About our only common ground would have been telephone conversations, but because they didn’t have a phone in their house but instead took calls from a phone booth outside, that wasn’t exactly easy, either.

  At least they were the kind of people I could go without seeing for months at a time and then pick right up with again almost exactly where we had left off the time before. My grandfather may have left the Amish faith of his youth and chosen a different path, but I had nothing but respect for the Amish people I knew. They always brought with them such a calming influence.

  When I heard two of the cops clumping down from upstairs and talking about guests, I realized it hadn’t even occurred to me that other people might be here, that the three rental rooms upstairs could contain dead or unconscious or babbling bodies as well.

  Leaning forward, I listened intently to their conversation and was relieved to hear that all three rooms were empty. Still, I had to wonder why that was. The inn was almost always booked solid, so if there were no guests here tonight, there must be some reason for that. Had guests been here earlier? If so, had they witnessed what happened?

  Might they have been victims somehow themselves?

  Concerned, I moved to the check-in desk near the gift shop area and took a look at Floyd’s guestbook, which showed that all three rooms had indeed been reserved for the night, though whether the guests had actually showed or not, I wasn’t sure. A phone number was jotted beside each name, so I decided to give them a call to see if I could get more information.

  That was my plan, except that none of the numbers worked. All three calls resulted in recordings that announced the numbers were out of service. How odd. There was nothing else I could do for now, but I decided that later I would go to the office to see if I could find more complete and/or accurate records to try again.

  Tomorrow I would also have to deal with canceling any upcoming reservations, at least for the rest of the week and weekend. I hated to do that, especially now when I needed every penny I could get, but with Floyd in the hospital and a death in the pool, I really had no choice.

  When the detective was finally ready to speak with me, we sat near the fireplace in a pair of matching rockers. As I took a deep breath and tried to calm my nerves, he pulled out a small notebook from his pocket and opened it up, pen poised at the ready. He told me he wanted me to walk him through the events of the evening again, which I did, step-by-step. When I was finished telling him all I had seen and heard, he had me clarify my connection with the inn and my relationship with Nina, Floyd, and Troy. Troy was the hardest to explain, especially given that I still felt it prudent to omit certain facts. I avoided the government investigation issue by focusing primarily on our personal history, explaining to the detective where Troy and I had met (at the Frida Kahlo exhibit during a benefit at the art museum), how long we had dated (about ten months), and when we had broken up (almost exactly two years ago, during the period of time when we were involved with the renovation of this inn).

  Reading through his notes, the detective returned to more current events
.

  “You said he called you this afternoon?”

  “Yes. I can even tell you what time,” I said as I pushed the buttons on my phone to reveal the list of my most recent calls. According to that list, Troy’s call had come in at exactly 5:17 p.m., and we had spoken for about fifteen minutes. I showed the detective where I had tried calling back a number of times over the next hour and a half, but that he hadn’t answered.

  “You say he sounded strange on the phone?”

  “First he said he was feeling sick and dizzy. Sometimes his words were slurred, and he seemed confused.” I went on to tell him about the sound Troy said that he heard, which was similar to what Floyd had described, a deep rumble. “The other night when Troy and I talked he sounded fine, but today he definitely wasn’t himself.”

  “Do the two of you speak often?”

  I shook my head, saying we hadn’t spoken at all for months, but we had talked twice this week, the first time being on Monday night, when I was in Boston on business.

  “I was surprised to hear from him, but I didn’t mind. It was kind of nice to catch up, actually. Mostly, he was calling to tell me he had found some papers of my grandfather’s, and he was wondering what he should do with them.”

  A uniformed officer came into the room, interrupting us to talk with Mike about some technical issues outside. As they spoke, I thought more about my talk with Troy on Monday, realizing that he hadn’t been calling that night just to ask what he should do with the papers. He had been reading through those papers and had some specific questions that had arisen from them.

  Closing my eyes, I tried to remember our conversation, or at least the parts of it that were relevant here.

  We had spent a few minutes catching up on each other’s lives, and then he explained the reason he was calling, saying he was out at the B and B and had run into some old documents of my grandfather’s.

  “I was just going to put them back where I found them,” he had said, “but in several different places I noticed that they refer to diamonds. Remember looking for diamonds during the renovation?”

  “Do I? We practically tore the whole house apart!”

  The story of the diamonds was a complicated one, but essentially it involved Grandpa Abe’s first wife, Daphne, whom he had met and married over in Germany right as World War II was coming to a close. Daphne had become pregnant while still a newlywed and had ended up dying in childbirth. The baby survived, a son my grandfather had named Emory. A few years later, Abe and little Emory had returned to the states, where Abe remarried and had one more child, another son, my father Harold.

  Two years ago, when my grandfather passed away, we learned that his will included “certain assets” that he was leaving to Emory, assets that had once belonged to Daphne. The will didn’t specify what those assets were, and no one knew what he had meant, not even the lawyer.

  We were about to dismiss the matter outright when my grandmother piped up with a theory, that the assets in question were actually diamonds. She knew for a fact that Abe’s first wife had inherited a cache of diamonds from her parents. What happened to those diamonds after Daphne died my grandmother didn’t know, but she had a feeling Abe had held onto them for his son, brought them back to the states, and had hidden them away for safekeeping until his death.

  It was an exciting thought, and even though technically the diamonds belonged solely to Emory, we all wanted to find them for him. During the renovation, Troy and my father and I had looked high and low, even dismantling parts of the house in our search, but we had come up empty, and eventually we decided that either the diamonds were hidden so well they would never be found, or Abe hadn’t brought them with him to the States in the first place.

  We had the lawyer pursue the matter as well, hoping he might find diamonds listed on an official customs declaration form or something. But nothing ever came of it—no proof, no first-person sightings, and no idea where those diamonds ever ended up. Poor Emory received everything he had coming from his father’s will except for those “certain assets.” It was anyone’s guess as to what my grandfather’s true intentions had been.

  I had forgotten about the matter until Troy called me on Monday night to talk about it. As we reminisced about our search for the diamonds during the renovation, I suddenly got my hopes up, wondering if these newly discovered documents held clues as to their location. But when I asked Troy, he said they provided no new no hiding places or anything like that, just more vague references that would lead to nowhere.

  “But I thought you’d like to know about them just the same,” he had added. “So those diamonds never turned up, huh?”

  “Nope. We never found a thing,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “Whatever my grandfather was talking about, I guess we’ll never know.”

  Sitting here now, with Troy dead outside, I opened my eyes, a new and disturbing thought beginning to permeate my brain. What if he had been lying on Monday night when he called me? What if those documents he found had provided new clues about the diamonds, clues he then tried to follow? That would mean he hadn’t stuck around here for a few days so Floyd could go out of town. More likely, he had gotten rid of Floyd so he could go on a treasure hunt by himself.

  If that were true, it would explain what he had been doing out in the grove today. Troy was no outdoorsman, but he would endure almost anything that might lead to a hidden fortune in diamonds. In fact, on Monday night he had even said as much himself.

  If this were true, then the bigger question that remained was whether or not his search had anything to do with the fact that he was now dead.

  SEVEN

  When Mike finished his conversation and returned his attention back to me, I decided to share with him what I was thinking. Had Liz been there, she might have told me to be quiet. On the other hand, if there was a treasure-hunting element to this case, that would actually be a good thing for me personally, as it would help take away any focus that might point toward my government investigation/work suspension problem.

  I launched into a full explanation about the will and the diamonds and the papers Troy had found. Just as I finished, we were interrupted again, this time by the news that the medical examiner had arrived. Mike excused himself, saying he would be back and for me to stay inside and out of the way.

  I agreed, though after he was gone, I moved through the house all the way to the screened porch, which was close to the pool area. From there I would be able to hear and see what was going on outside while technically remaining inside, as directed.

  Stepping onto the wooden slat flooring of the porch, I realized that the night air was getting chilly. Pulling my dress jacket more tightly around me, I moved to a wicker chair near the back, turned it toward the pool area, and sat there in the darkness.

  Though I could barely see over the pool fencing, I could easily hear the conversation between Mike and the ME. She confirmed right away that the wound on Troy’s thigh had definitely not been caused by a gunshot. Instead, she said he had been stabbed by something jagged.

  “I’m thinking of a woodworking tool, like a circular saw, maybe? Or a gardening trowel, a hoe. Something with a sharp edge, but jagged. Not like a knife.”

  “The other victim said there was some kind of creature here,” Mike said. “Does it look like it could have been done by an animal?”

  I leaned forward, listening intently for her reply.

  “Yes and no. Some sort of big sharp claw could have done this. The nature of the cut mark would be consistent with that. The problem is, claw marks usually show up as several parallel lines, not just one, especially with the big cats. So I don’t think it was a mountain lion or a cougar or bobcat. I suppose it could have been a bear, if that bear happened to have one prominent claw.” She went on to say that whatever animal had done this, if indeed an animal had done this, at the lab she would be able to look more closely at the wound and check it for evidence. “A gash this deep can hold plenty of debris.”

  �
�So was that cut the cause of death? Did he bleed out?”

  “I don’t know yet. The froth in his lungs and the nasal hemorrhaging both point to drowning. The skin on his feet tells us the body wasn’t in the water too long. I’d say half an hour at most. The skin on his hands…I’m not sure what’s going on there. It’s blistered and red, see?”

  They were both quiet for a moment, and then he murmured something I couldn’t quite make out. Judging from her reply, there was something under Troy’s fingernails—a residue of something white that had managed to remain despite his having floated in the pool.

  “If you look here,” the woman said, “you can see he also bit his tongue, which tells me he may have had a seizure.”

  Mike asked about other signs of a struggle, other cuts and bruises. She replied that she could see no visible signs of forced drowning, such as bruises around the neck, shoulders, or head. Nothing like that at all.

  “There is massive bruising around this gash in his thigh,” she added. “We’ll check the rest of his body at the lab for other cuts and contusions, but I don’t see anything else that jumps out at me right now.”

  I couldn’t understand Mike’s next remarks, but it sounded as though he was saying that regardless of how Troy died, whether from bleeding to death or drowning or a seizure, there was no question that he had been bleeding heavily from his leg, and that by following the trail of blood they might be able to trace his steps backward to see where he was when he first got hurt. Mike barked out orders then, and several cops sprang into action, moving toward the driveway, probably to retrieve some sort of equipment that would help them find Troy’s trail of blood in the dark.