The Silence of the Llamas (29 page)

“But maybe we’ll see something. Someone walking around where they shouldn’t be,” Lucy suggested.

“Don’t you think the police have looked at all these tapes very carefully by now?” Ellie asked after a few minutes.

Maggie turned to her. “You can look but not see . . . especially if you’re looking with certain expectations.”

“It’s called cognitive dissonance,” Dana murmured, her eyes fixed on the screen. “There was a famous experiment where students were asked to count players with white shirts on a basketball court. Most of them never saw a man in a gorilla suit who came on the screen and—”

“I was thinking Detective Walsh,” Maggie interrupted. “He has more blind spots than an armored tank.”

“Wait, what’s that?” Lucy cut into the debate. She pointed at the screen and Dana stopped the tape. They all leaned over and peered at the computer.

Maggie leaned closer. “I don’t see anything.”

Dana turned to Lucy. “What did you see, Lucy? Someone out in the field?”

“No . . . back here, behind the barn. . . . Go back a little,” Lucy told Dana. The video went backward a moment. The screen was split, showing the video from both cameras simultaneously. But Lucy was focused on the footage from the camera that had been pointed at the barn.

“Stop!” Lucy said suddenly. Dana froze the frame. Lucy leaned over and pointed to a blurry figure at the upper left-hand corner of the picture. “Look back there. . . . Someone is in the orchard.”

Dana quickly zoomed in on the spot.

“See? It looks like someone digging,” Lucy told the others. “There’s a shovel . . .” Lucy pointed out the outline with her fingertip. “It’s hard to see more through the apple trees.”

“It’s Dot.” Ellie had been leaning over Dana’s shoulder with the other women, but now she jerked back as if she’d been struck in the face.

“Are you sure?” Dana asked her.

“I’m positive. That’s her coat and the hat she always wears. I just recognize the way she moves. But she wasn’t even home that night. . . . She was working at Mrs. Foley’s,” Ellie insisted.

Everyone was quiet. They didn’t know what to say.

“Apparently she got off early,” Maggie said quietly.

Ellie shook her head and pressed her hands to her forehead. “This is too much. I’m so confused. What does all this mean?” She stared at Dana and then at Maggie and Lucy.

Dana stood up and turned to face her old college friend. “We don’t know yet, Ellie. But there’s one way to find out. Let’s go ask her.”

Good idea, Dana. Why didn’t I think of that? Lucy nearly said out loud.

“She’s not home. She’s working at Mrs. Foley’s. Or at least, that’s what she told me,” Ellie murmured. “She left right before the police arrived. She doesn’t know about Ben yet,” she added.

“I think we should go over to her cottage.” Dana looked at the
others to gauge their reactions. “If she’s there, we can confront her. If she’s not there . . . well, it’s your call, Ellie. But we could take a look around. You must have a key; it is your property.”

“I don’t really have a right. But I do have a key . . . and my husband has just been arrested,” she added. “I’d usually never do such a thing. But I don’t mind going through her things if it could help Ben. No matter what he’s done, I still don’t believe he killed Ridley,” she added quietly.

•   •   •

Their steps made a crunching sound on the gravel and frost-covered grass as they marched over to Dot’s cottage. Lucy’s breath made white puffs in the cold night air.

They passed the gate to the orchard, and Lucy noticed the small, fenced-in space where the new trees were planted, where Maggie had fallen in the ditch. “Maybe we should look in the orchard, at the place where she was digging.”

“Good idea. But let’s look in the cottage first,” Dana said. “She might even be there.”

“The lights are off, and her car is gone. I’ll knock anyway.” Ellie knocked twice, waited a minute. “Well, here goes,” she said, then took her key ring from her pocket and unlocked the door.

The cottage was dark and silent. “Dot . . . are you here? It’s me, Ellie,” Ellie called as she walked inside.

When no one answered, Lucy and her friends followed. Ellie turned on a small lamp next to a rocking chair.

The cottage was not large, but clean and neat. You could practically see into all three rooms from the doorway—there was a sitting room, a kitchen behind that, and off to the left of the kitchen a bedroom and bath.

“What are we looking for?” Lucy asked, strolling around.

“I’m not sure. . . . Anything that looks interesting or suspicious,” Dana answered.

“Something that might explain why someone would be digging a hole in the middle of the night,” Maggie added.

Dot’s sitting room furniture was spare: a hook rug, a wooden rocker, a small futon with a brown cover, an end table that held a milk glass lamp, and a standing lamp near the futon. Lucy saw a bag of knitting near the chair, too, and some roving and a hand spindle in a basket on the table.

“Look, a spindle,” she said to the others. “It’s the kind Ellie gave out at the fair.”

Ellie stood nearby, examining the shelves of a bookcase. “Dot likes to knit, and I taught her how to spin. I don’t think that means anything.”

“Maybe not,” Lucy agreed. Everyone in town seemed to have one of these spindles. They had to find something more significant.

In the kitchen, Lucy saw a small round table, with seating for two, pushed against the wall, below a window. The kitchen looked tidy and smelled of sugar and cinnamon, as if Dot had just made a pie. Lucy pulled out a few drawers and opened the cupboards but didn’t see anything interesting at all.

Maggie was already in the bedroom, looking through the drawers of the single dresser, which had a wide mirror on top.

There was a white chenille spread on the full-size mattress and a black camp-style trunk at the foot of the bed, trimmed with brass on the edges and on the lock in front.

Dana went into the bathroom and opened the medicine
chest—a typical thing for a doctor to do, Lucy thought. She came out and shrugged. “Nothing unusual in there. She seems to practice good dental hygiene. Lots of floss and plaque rinse.”

Maggie glanced at her. “That’s a comfort.”

Ellie came into the bedroom, too. She suddenly seemed anxious. “What are we doing in here? There’s nothing suspicious, nothing out of order. . . . Dot is a friend. I know it seemed odd to see her digging like that in the middle of the night. But maybe there’s some explanation?”

Maggie stood in the middle of the bedroom, staring at the camp trunk. “That very well may be. But I think we should open that trunk up before we go. It’s big enough to hold a body,” she said casually. Lucy sucked in a breath. “Only joking, Lucy. Don’t look so weak in the knees.”

“In that case, you open it,” Lucy challenged her.

“You called it, Maggie,” Dana prodded her. “Need some help?”

“I’m fine. I’ve seen a few of these in my day. It’s the kind you pack for kids, when you send them away for the summer.” She had crouched down and was working on the latch. “I hope it’s not locked. That would be annoying,” she murmured.

Lucy suddenly hoped it was.

But the latch quickly gave way and Maggie lifted the trunk’s lid. Lucy squeezed her eyes partly closed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was inside.

Maggie leaned over and looked in. “It’s just clothes,” she said, holding up a sweater. She felt around a bit more. “Winter clothes, looks like. I can smell mothballs . . .”

Maggie stood up. “Well, that was disappointing.”

She was about to shut the lid when Dana stepped forward. She knelt down and reached around to the bottom. “Wait a second. I just remembered when we sent Tyler to camp and he wasn’t allowed to bring any candy or junk food. He cleverly rigged up a false bottom. It worked, too . . .” She paused and tugged at something in the trunk. “Just like this one,” she added, pulling up a piece of cardboard.

She quickly leaned over to see what, if anything, was hidden beneath it. Lucy and her friends drew closer.

“Look . . . I think I found something . . .”

a
ll eyes were on Dana. She held up an old black photo album, then set it on the bed and opened it. “Look at these photos. Looks like they were taken around here,” she said. “This one could be your farm, Ellie. See the barn . . . and that tree in the middle of the meadow?”

Ellie quickly stepped over to take a look. “It does look like this place.”

“Let’s see. . . . There are some people on this page, a man and a woman,” Dana continued. “Looks like these were taken at least twenty years ago . . . maybe longer.” She slipped a photo out of the plastic holder and checked the back. “The good old days, when people had to take film someplace to be processed and the date was stamped on the back.”

Maggie looked over Dana’s shoulder. “What’s the date, does it say?”

“ ‘June 1977. Trudy.’ ” Dana turned the picture over and Lucy looked at it, too.

A young woman, in her early twenties, leaned against an apple tree. She had a lovely round face, full cheeks, and bright eyes. Long golden hair with a natural wave dipped over her eyes. She had a nice figure, too, displayed to advantage in a cotton sundress.

“Trudy’s a looker,” Dana decided.

“She is,” Lucy agreed. “Or was. . . . Wait a minute. There was a woman who lived on this farm named Trudy Hooper. Walter Kranowski talked about her when Suzanne and I visited him.” Lucy paused, remembering the rest of the stories he had told them. “He said that everyone who has ever lived on this farm has had bad luck.” Lucy avoided Ellie’s gaze for a moment. “He told us what happened to all the families that have lived here, going back almost to the time he was growing up. He said there was a family named Hooper. Trudy and Joe. Joe was a lot older, and Trudy was in her twenties. . . . ‘A real looker’—that’s what Kranowski called her.”

“Great. . . . This must be her then.” Dana stood up, holding the album. “Let’s look for Joe,” she said, turning the page.

“You might find him in there, but in real life, he disappeared,” Lucy told them. “Kranowski said he abused Trudy, drank a lot, and one night, after a big argument, he got in his car and disappeared. I think they found the car someplace in Maine. He’d driven off a deserted dock, into a lake. Trudy lost the farm to the bank and moved away.”

“Sad story,” Ellie said, coming closer. She stared down at the picture, too. “Oh, dear . . . that looks a lot like Dot, don’t you think? Look at the eyes . . .”

It did look like Dot. Lucy had only seen her once or twice. But there was definitely a resemblance.

“But if Dot was twenty-something in 1977, she’d be in her late fifties now. She looks older,” Lucy said.

“She does,” Dana agreed. “But maybe she’s aged badly . . . or is making herself look older on purpose. So that no one around here recognizes her? Let’s see what else is in here . . .” She flipped through the pages quickly. Lucy saw the usual family photos: a Christmas tree . . . a new car . . . a child running through a sprinkler . . . a birthday cake.

“Wait . . . what’s this?” Dana pulled out a folded piece of paper. The paper was yellow on the edges. She opened it up and put it down on the bedspread. “It’s a map of the orchard. Look, all the rows of trees are labeled: Macoun, Braeburn, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Fuji.”

Lucy loved the names of apples. She loved hearing the list read out loud, though this was no time for that pleasant distraction.

“Look at the map. Someone’s marked it with Xs. There’s one right on the spot where she was digging, too.” Maggie pointed with her finger. She glanced over at Lucy. “What did you say happened to Joe Hooper? He drowned in a lake up in Maine?”

Lucy nodded. “That’s what Kranowski told us. Hooper drove off a dock. The car was found in a lake, he said. But Trudy never got any insurance benefit and lost the farm to the bank.” She paused a moment, thinking. “He never said why she didn’t get an insurance claim. But probably because they couldn’t find his body in the lake and she couldn’t prove he was dead?”

“Because he wasn’t in the car when it went off the dock,” Dana said.

Maggie picked up the map and looked over at the other women. “I don’t think poor Joe ever made it off the farm. That’s why the police never found his body up in Maine.”

“Do you really think so? . . . You mean . . . she’s been digging up his bones?” Ellie almost sounded hysterical. “I can’t think about it. It’s just too . . . gruesome.”

Maggie took a deep breath. “Tell me about it. I’m the one who fell in that hole the other night.”

Lucy felt a horrible chill. She looked at Dana, who had closed the photo album and set it on the bed alongside the map of the orchard.

“What should we do now? Is this enough proof to show the police . . . and what are we going to tell them anyway?” Lucy continued. “That Dot killed her husband about thirty years ago and buried him in the orchard?”

“What does that have to do with Ridley?” Ellie asked. She sat on the bed and stared up at them.

“Well . . . maybe Ridley saw her and figured it out, too,” Maggie speculated. “You said that he was out a lot at night, hunting. Dot probably couldn’t . . . excavate anything important in the daylight, even if she could disguise her search as work in the orchard. Didn’t you say that his dogs were digging in that spot and that’s why she put up the fence?”