The Night Is Forever

Page 38

Olivia cringed and stared down at the table. “The monitor was reading a book, not paying much mind to the boys. They were talking about the camping trip.”
“And they said something,” Dustin said, gently urging Coot to go on.
“Yeah, they were trying to reconstruct things for themselves,” Coot told them.
“What did they talk about?”
“Who was where when. Seems Joey saw you go flying out of the tent when everyone heard the scream. He scrambled out himself. He saw Olivia—and she grabbed Drew and they ran off.”
“That’s pretty much what happened,” Olivia said.
“They went on to talk about it, and they said there was one person they didn’t notice until Dustin asked about Aaron. She must’ve been gone for a while, ’cause she came back to the group late,” Coot said.
“Sandra?” Olivia asked.
Coot looked at her. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“She was the only other ‘she’ there.”
“They didn’t see her crawl out of the tent?” Dustin asked.
“They might have—they’re not sure. But they’re certain they didn’t see her the whole time. They all mulled it over for a while, but then, of course, they started saying they couldn’t be positive, so they’d best not say anything.”
“Thanks, Coot.” They all fell silent as Delilah came over with their food.
“There you go,” she said, setting down the plates, which were garnished with melon and apple slices. “Now you two eat up. I’m glad you ordered big. This isn’t a morning to be snacking on nothing but tomato juice and a few wedges of fruit. The body needs nourishment.”
“It looks wonderful, and we’re going to enjoy every fattening bite of it,” Olivia assured her.
“You burn energy like a bird in flight, Liv,” Delilah said. “Speaking of juice—want some?”
“Sure, juice sounds great,” Olivia replied. “That will make it a bit healthier, right?”
“That’s exactly what I told Sandra Cheever last night. She said she’d been sitting at the hospital for hours and was going back—but that she had to have something besides hospital food.”
Coot frowned. “Sandra was here last night? I didn’t see her.”
“Oh, she came in before you and the boys.” Delilah made a dismissive gesture. “First she says she has to have some good food—then she turns her nose up at my menu, saying I didn’t have healthy choices. Why, I told her to have some juice and a salad and she said I needed fat-free dressings!”
As she spoke, the door to the café opened again.
Frank Vine came in. He nodded to the tourists at the counter and walked back to join them in the booth.
“Strong coffee, Delilah, please,” Frank said as he slid in next to Coot. “Morning, everyone.”
They all greeted him, and Delilah asked, “That’s it, Frank, just coffee?”
Frank nodded. When she’d left, Frank looked at all of them.
He inhaled loudly and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Aaron Bentley is dead,” he told them.
* * *
Accident. Like hell.
Dustin stood in Aaron Bentley’s bathroom, studying the scene.
Aaron had insisted he get out of the hospital that morning, and he’d been deemed well enough to go home. No problem; a cop had stayed outside his house.
Then, according to the police officer who’d been watching the house, there was a loud hissing sound and the house seemed to glow and then went dark.
He’d rushed in. Aaron had been alone in the bathtub, dead. Somehow, he hadn’t had the sense not to place his iPod charger on the back of the commode—next to the tub. It was ridiculous. He’d been saved from drowning only to die in his bathtub—electrocuted.
Dustin still couldn’t believe the man had died so stupidly. Or that such a death could have been an accident. According to the crime scene tech who’d first escorted him through, Aaron Bentley must have reached for the iPod to change it—but knocked the whole system into the tub. It had been plugged in. Electricity had raced through the water like wildfire.
There was nothing in the bathroom to suggest that anyone else had been with him. Dustin’s first question, of course, had to do with Sandra Cheever. She’d been so determined that she was going to stay with Aaron. Where the hell had she been?
According to Sandra—and there were witnesses to verify that it was true—she’d dropped Aaron at home and gone, at his suggestion, to check on things at the Horse Farm. She’d promised to be right back. But by the time she’d returned, the officer on duty had already flown into the house—breaking the lock to get in.
So, the house had been locked, an officer had been on duty, Sandra had been at the Horse Farm—and Aaron had managed to kill himself in his bathtub.
He remained in the tub.
Frank Vine had come to the diner to make the announcement regarding Aaron’s death, then bring Dustin back with him to Aaron’s house.
* * *
Dustin hadn’t left Olivia behind. But he hadn’t brought her in here, either. She and Callahan were outside, waiting. There was no reason for her to see a man she worked with and cared about as he was now, naked and scorched, his eyes still open as if they were about to pop out of his skull, an expression of horror on his face. The smell of singed flesh hung all around them like a musky haze.
“What do you say to this?” Frank asked him.
“I say he didn’t reach for anything—that someone was here and tossed that charger into the water and electrocuted him.”
“There’s absolutely no indication that anyone was in here with him,” Frank said.
“So I hear.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“Bring Sandra in for questioning. And, of course, the medical examiner may find something we’re not seeing. Then again, he may not. Why the hell did the idiot have to take a bath?” Dustin muttered. “He made it so damned easy for whoever was here.”
“He just got out of the hospital. After a camping trip. He was probably trying to relax—hell, why not?” Frank said disgustedly. “There was a sheriff’s car right in front of his house. He must have felt safe and secure.”
Dustin turned around and stalked out of the bathroom. The sheriff’s department, crime scene people and medical personnel were all still at work. He paused in various rooms of the house, looking around, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. He noticed that the medical examiner was Dr. Wilson.
Wilson walked straight over to him. He seemed to be glancing around to see if Frank Vine was anywhere near them and satisfied himself that he wasn’t.
“Horrible business, this,” he said. He lowered his voice. “I have results for you. That dart you brought me. There was a concoction of drugs—some had seeped into the bark. It was a cocktail of stuff, the kind that wouldn’t be found in an autopsy unless specific tests were ordered. The kind that would do a swift number—a real doozy on someone—and then fade quickly away.” He stopped speaking. Dustin turned to see that Frank had come out of the bathroom.
“It’s all right, Robbie,” he told Dr. Wilson. “You’re not conspiring against me. Agent Blake is working this case with my permission and he’s called in a few coworkers, I believe?”
Wilson—apparently “Robbie” to Frank Vine—let out a sigh of relief. “Frank, I haven’t seen anything like this in all my years out here. Best to accept any and all help, I’d say.”
“You might want to remove your corpse,” Frank suggested.
“I’m going to get the body now,” Wilson said. “At least we know the time of death,” Frank pointed out. “The deputy made a note of it. Not to mention that all the clocks stopped at 10:23 a.m.”
“I’ll get Aaron down to the morgue and get right on this.” Wilson shook his head wearily. “Hell, twice. Men I liked, men I admired. This is a sad day for all of us.”
As he returned to the bathroom. Dustin looked at Frank Vine. “I still say you bring Sandra in.”
“There were witnesses who saw her when this happened,” Frank argued. “She was nowhere near the house.”
“She still might know something. See if Aaron was talking about having anyone over, or if he said anything to her about what he planned to do,” Dustin said. “We’ve got to shake this up, Frank. There could be other victims.”
“You coming down to the station?” Frank asked him.
Dustin nodded.
“What about Olivia?”
“I’m not letting her out of my sight,” Dustin replied.
Vine didn’t protest; he just nodded. “All right. I’ll have her brought in.”
“Have your men checked whether there’s any sign of forced entry?” Dustin asked. “Windows?”
“None.”
“Is there a back door?”
“Yes.”
Dustin walked toward it. He used a paper towel he grabbed from the kitchen to check it. There was no bolt, only a push lock, the kind you could depress as you were leaving and the door would lock behind you.
“Someone could have left this way,” Dustin told Frank, who’d come with him.
“Yeah, they could have left this way, but how would they have gotten in?”
“With a key.”
“Not Sandra. An officer followed them from the hospital. She let him off, waved to the deputy watching the house and drove away before Aaron even went inside.”
“That doesn’t mean someone else wasn’t already in the house,” Dustin said.
Disposing of the paper towel, Dustin walked outside. Olivia was leaning against the car; Deputy Jimmy Callahan stood next to her, arms crossed over his chest, looking vigilant. When he saw Dustin, he nodded and walked into the house to talk to Frank.
Olivia gazed mutely at Dustin, her eyes beseeching him to tell her it wasn’t true.