Laws of Nature -2 (14 page)

Though Jack was still communicating with various ghosts he encountered as they hiked around the area, they had begun to visit the actual murder sites marked on the map. Now Jack crouched down to look at the map with her. He pulled the red felt-tip pen from his pocket and marked a spot on the map, right in the middle of the most densely forested part of Pine Hill, not far from two other red marks. Molly frowned as she studied the map.

"Weird. That's the only cluster we've come across, those three."

"I noticed that, too," Jack replied. "Don't know if it means anything, but we should check it out. Two of the three who were killed there said they saw ruins, a chimney and stuff, like there'd been a house there once. That should make it easier to find."

Molly gazed up at him, putting on her most pitiful expression. "Today? I have to confess I was wondering if we could quit early, have a relaxing afternoon, maybe go to the movies tonight, if that place even shows anything that isn't in black and white."

"Hey," Jack protested. "There are a lot of good movies that were made in black and white."

"So, we're going to the movies?" Molly asked.

He laughed. "Sounds good. And I wasn't talking about today anyway. If there used to be a home there, it would have to be on surveyors' maps. That should make it a lot easier to find the exact spot. And it might be interesting to find out who owned that property."

Suddenly chilled, Molly stood and zipped her sweatshirt all the way to her throat.

"Let's get back."

A little past eleven o'clock they drove back into town, intent upon a trip to the town surveyor's office. Jack felt his stomach rumbling and regretted not having eaten something more substantial at breakfast.

"You up for an early lunch first?" he asked.

In the passenger seat, Molly had her eyes closed, a content expression on her face as the sun shone through the window, warming her.

Is she sleeping?
Jack thought. "Don't tell me I got you that tired out?" he ventured uncertainly.

"Hmm?" she moaned lazily. Her eyes fluttered open and she let her head loll against the seat as she looked at him. "Sorry, were you talking to me?"

"Who else would I be talking to?" Jack teased.

Molly raised an eyebrow. "Well, you never know, do you?"

Jack started to respond, then just laughed. "Touché."

Up ahead, he could see the theater marquee. Apparently the Empire made a habit of showing a new movie - or as new as they got this far into nowhere - and a classic as well, on different screens. The new film was not something that interested him, but the other was
Key Largo
with Humphrey Bogart. Buckton might be about as far removed from Boston as America had to offer, but there was something to be said for quaint.

"What's going on there?" Molly asked.

Jack slowed the Jeep and turned to see Molly pointing at a small congregation of people on the sidewalk. A police car was parked in front of the Paperback Diner, and he saw Deputy Vance on the sidewalk talking to a waitress.

"Good question," he said softly.

They parked the Jeep up the block, stashed the guns they had been carrying in the glove compartment, and walked back toward the diner. People were milling about, including a few whose faces he thought he recognized from around town. Quietly, without drawing attention to themselves, Jack and Molly merged with the crowd, and Jack tried to peer in through the glass door. Inside, he could see the sheriff and a number of people who looked like they worked there. The place was a mess, plates and books strewn all over.

A great many books. It suddenly occurred to Jack why they had called it the Paperback Diner.

There was a lot of whispered talk amongst the spectators. The waitress Deputy Vance was speaking to seemed very upset, and Jack wondered if maybe she was the owner.

A jostling in the crowd jarred him, and Jack turned to see that people had made way for a fiftyish man in dark pants and a button-down shirt with no tie. He was a kind-looking man with a ruddy complexion and an expression of concern on his face. When Deputy Vance saw him approaching, the lawman stood up a little straighter.

"What's all the ruckus, Alan?" the man asked.

"Morning, Mr. Lemoine," the deputy replied. He glanced back into the diner, and shook his head in confusion. "Just vandals, looks like. Probably kids. It's a crazy thing. Seems like sometime after midnight, somebody broke in and just tore the place apart. Ripped all the books down off the shelves but didn't steal anything, as far as we've been able to tell so far."

"Lemoine?" Jack whispered to Molly, frowning. "Why is that name familiar?"

Molly smiled. "Tina at the hotel? He must be her father."

Jack sensed a looming presence behind him and turned slightly to see a big, barrel-chested man leaning toward him.

"You got it in one, kids," the man said. "Are you nosy, or just observant?"

Though he smiled, a kind of dark energy seemed to flow off the man. He made Jack very nervous. But when he thrust out a meaty hand to be shaken, Jack took it quick enough.

"Bernard Mackeson," the man said. "I own the department store just down the street."

Jack and Molly introduced themselves. Mackeson eyed them both closely, even suspiciously, and Jack had to wonder if it was just the way Buckton residents treated anyone who wasn't a local, or if there was more to it than that.

Mackeson smiled, then moved on as though the encounter had never happened. He stood at the inner edge of the circle of spectators, eavesdropping - as they all were - on the conversation between Deputy Vance and Mr. Lemoine. Jack understood now why Vance treated the man with such respect. The deputy was in love with the guy's daughter; he had to be on his best behavior.

Lemoine scratched the back of his head and sighed. "A shame, isn't it? All that nastiness we see on television has finally started to make Buckton just as sick as the rest of the world. I never thought I'd see the day, Alan. Never thought I'd see the day."

Alan muttered something to the man, gave him a pat on the back, and then Lemoine strolled off down the sidewalk in the general direction of Mackeson's store.

For his part, the burly Mackeson remained in the crowd, paying no more attention to the man who had departed.

Someone in the crowd echoed what the deputy had been saying, repeating it for another who had just arrived. "Teenagers or something," the bystander said.

"Though why they'd want to break in and throw all those books around and not even rob the place . . . I suppose it's probably drugs, isn't it?"

Jack blinked.

Books.

Suddenly he felt rather stupid. With a glance to make sure no one was paying particular attention to them, he leaned in toward Molly.

"I'm thinking this wasn't vandals," he whispered. "This whole thing is supposed to be about a missing book, right? I mean, that's why these three people were killed."

Molly nodded. "So this mess probably means someone thinks it's been hidden. And where else would you hide a book than with a bunch of other books?"

The crowd of spectators had thinned somewhat as people began to realize that no one had been killed or injured and nothing was stolen. They drifted back to their homes and jobs. As Molly spoke to him, Jack glanced up at Deputy Vance just as the deputy noticed the two of them.

Vance frowned.

After a moment he strode over to them. "Morning, you two. Tina tells me you were out hiking most of yesterday. Did you conquer the mountain or did it conquer you?"

Jack chuckled politely. "The battle still rages," he replied.

"What a mess in there, huh?" Molly said, referring to the diner.

Vance glanced over his shoulder, then back at them. He hesitated as if taking the time to talk to outsiders was not high on his list of priorities at the moment.

Then he sighed.

"It's very sad. They were arranged just so and it's going to take a while to put all the books back in order. I told Trish, the woman who owns the place, that Tina and I would come over later and help out."

Molly warmed to him then. She patted his arm lightly. "That's sweet of you. We are pretty wiped out from yesterday and this morning, but if you think she could use some extra hands . . ."

Alan seemed surprised. His gaze went from Molly to Jack, and back to Molly again. "It's kind of you to offer. I'll mention it to Trish, see what she says." He paused, took a deep breath, and then gestured toward the store. "Nice talking to you, but I guess I'd better check in with the sheriff again. The way things have been going lately, people want to see us doing our jobs."

"It's got to be pretty unsettling, having all this stuff happen at once," Jack reasoned.

"No kidding," Molly agreed. "I can't imagine living here, having no crime, practically ever, and then having three murders in a month and now this break-in, too.

They must be freaking out."

Vance was retreating toward the diner, but he stopped and looked at Molly oddly. "Two murders. Don't make it any worse than it is," he told her.

Jack stiffened.
They don't know about the third murder yet.
He studied the deputy's face, but Vance seemed content to believe Molly had just misspoken.

"Sorry," Molly replied quickly. "I know it's a big deal here, of course, but in the city, two, three . . . that's sort of every night."

Vance rolled his eyes heavenward. "Thank God I never have to live in the city." Then he went into the diner.

On the way back to the Jeep, Jack glanced at Molly. "That was not good."

"It'll be all right," she consoled him. "I just got the number wrong. What, are they going to think
we
did it?"

When Alan walked back into the Paperback Diner, Sheriff Tackett was staring at him with a hard expression that unnerved the deputy. Tackett was a gruff, unforgiving man, but usually he was not openly hostile.

"Who were those kids?" the sheriff demanded, a cell phone clutched in his hand.

Alan blinked, confused. He cocked a thumb and gestured over his shoulder. "Those two? Just a couple of hikers from Boston. They're staying over at the inn. I talked to them when they checked in, and they were wondering what all this fuss was about."

"Hunh," the sheriff grunted.

Tackett stared out the window at Jack and Molly as they walked up the street. Alan knew that people in Buckton did not, as a general rule, like tourists very much. But the sheriff was usually more open-minded than that.

"People oughta mind their own business," Tackett muttered.

With a scowl, he turned to go. "This one's yours, Alan. I dusted for prints around some of the shelves and on the front door handle, but I'm sure we're going to get a bunch of nothing from that. Ask around, see if anyone noticed kids around last night or early this morning. You know the drill."

Alan stared at him.

"Are you having some kind of problem hearing me?" Sheriff Tackett asked, frowning angrily.

"Not at all. Just surprised you're leaving. Everything all right?"

Tackett paused, then strode over to stand only inches away from Alan. When he spoke, his voice was an angry whisper, but Alan did not think the anger was aimed at him.

"I'm pretty damn far from all right. The people of this town expect me to uphold the law. To keep them from getting murdered, for Christ's sake. I can't even keep some kids from trashing a diner, why should they trust me to find a killer?"

Alan shuffled uncomfortably. He did not have an answer.

Then Tackett leaned in even closer. "I'm going up to see Aaron Travis. Seems Kenny Oberst didn't show up at the drugstore today, so Aaron went to check on him.

"Kenny's dead. Aaron says it's the worst thing he's ever seen."

"My God," Alan gasped, eyes wide.

Sheriff Tackett started to walk away. Alan's mind reeled from the news of Ken Oberst's murder.
Another one,
he thought.
When is it going to stop?

Another voice was in his head, though. A girl's voice. Alan frowned and called out to Tackett. The sheriff paused and walked back to him.

"The girl," Alan said. "The one you were just watching, with that other fellow? The hikers? We were talking about what's been happening and she mentioned three murders. Not two, three. It . . . it could have just been a slip of the tongue. That's what it seemed like - But ..."

The deputy let his words trail off, uncomfortable as he was under the dark, suspicious glare of the sheriff 's eyes.

"Could have been," Tackett agreed. "And it could be they know something we don't. People come from outside, they always seem to bring their own trouble with them. I still can't believe human beings can do this to other human beings, but you never know. We'll keep a close eye on these strangers, Alan. I get a very bad vibe off them.

"They just smell wrong."

The lobby of the Buckton Inn was deserted when Jack and Molly hurried through the door, the air all around them was heavy with the possible implications of what they had learned. It was still early in the day, barely past noon, and Jack was troubled by how quickly things seemed to be moving.

Nobody was behind the check-in counter. As they strode to the stairs, however, the sweet sound of someone strumming an acoustic guitar drifted through the lobby to them. Molly turned to Jack, a curious frown creasing her forehead. Jack glanced into the small bar, where he had seen a piano before.

At a small circular table suited only for a couple of drinks, Tina Lemoine sat with a fat-bellied acoustic six-string and hummed amiably along with her own strumming and picking. Her fingers danced lightly across the guitar's neck as she searched for just the right chord. On the table were a tall glass of lemonade and a book, open and facedown, cracking the spine. Behind her, three tall windows let in the sun and the breeze that only swirled the heat around rather than lessening it in any way.

When Tina glanced at them, it was slow and deliberate. She did not interrupt her playing at all, as if she had known they were standing there all along.

"Help you guys with anything?" she asked, and her question had enough of a rhythm to it that the words were in time with the music.