Part 9 (1/2)
CHAPTER.
8.
NICK DROVE OUT of the Wiley Campgrounds and back over the railroad tracks into Teignmouth proper. There, the reemergence of the sun combined with the now-milder temperatures had inspired legions of tourists, shopping bags in hand, to take to the town on foot.
”My G.o.d, look at them all,” Stella exclaimed as the Smart car inched along Main Street. ”It's like being at Loehmann's during tax- free week.”
”Mills and Alma warned us that today would be busy.”
”This traffic is almost enough to make me wonder if it's worth running around town questioning people.”
Nick looked over in surprise.
”I said almost. We learned too much this morning to make me think otherwise.”
”Yeah, we did. Namely, that Josh Middleton probably won't be inviting us to his next Super Bowl party. Oh, and I wouldn't expect a Christmas card from him either.”
”You can't blame him, Nick. The kid made one mistake in his young life and now he's expected to take the rap for everything from floating septic tanks to stolen trucks. Then, today, we walk in and suggest he might be involved in murder. It must be frustrating for him.”
”Yes, it would be, a.s.suming he's innocent. But what if he isn't? What if he killed Weston?”
”Then we've probably ticked him off enough to become his next victims,” she joked. ”Seriously, though, if his story is accurate, I don't see how he could have done it. By the time he would have finished chopping wood, Weston had bled to death, and we were already at the house.”
”You're a.s.suming a lot, don't you think?” asked Nick.
”I know, we have no proof that he was there all day. His friend might not be able to substantiate his story, but maybe someone else saw him. Someone should look into it.”
”Unless someone watched him all day or remembers the exact time they spotted Middleton, it doesn't much matter.”
”What do you mean it doesn't matter?” Stella said. ”Middleton said he was chopping wood until it started raining. As long as someone saw him just before it started raining, he's in the clear.”
”How do you figure that?”
”Because I clearly remember being in the living room of the farmhouse when the rain started coming down. It was about four thirty or so. By that time, Weston had long been dead.”
”Yeah, I know. But you should also remember that Middleton wasn't working here in town.”
”I know. He said he was working on the mountain. But I don't see how that changes anything,” Stella said.
”Mountains tend to receive more precipitation and greater cloud cover than lower-lying areas. If Middleton was working at a higher elevation, he could have seen rain hours before we did. And if the mountain in question lies to the west of town, then he could have seen that front move through even earlier.”
”Meaning he might have had ample time to shoot Weston and then return to the trailer park.”
”Or wherever else he wanted to go.”
”You know, you're kinda s.e.xy when you talk like a park ranger.”
”Just kinda?”
Stella laughed. ”The only problem is Middleton didn't tell us which mountain he was working on.”
”That shouldn't be too hard to find out. It sounded to me like 'on the mountain' is a phrase the locals use to mean a very specific area. We can ask Mills tonight or Alma tomorrah.”
”Wow, you sound like a true Vermonter ...”
”Yup. Pret' near.”
” ... who just came back from a trip to Jersey.”
”Gee, thanks.”
”Mmm. I'm a bit troubled by our visit with Alice, though.”
”What about Alice?” Nick asked.
”Something about her timeline doesn't quite add up. If she left our house at a quarter after eleven, she should have had more than enough time to make the closing at noon, but instead she was late.”
”She said she had phone calls to make.”
”Okay, so she goes back to her office to make the phone calls and then walks a block to the lawyer's office where we met. I can buy that. However, what I can't buy is the fact that when Alice arrived, she was fl.u.s.tered and out of breath.”
”Maybe the phone calls she made were with a difficult client.”
”Or maybe she had been at the farmhouse the whole time. Maybe she stuck around to talk to Weston, and maybe that conversation turned ugly, and maybe she shot him.”
”What motive did she have?” asked Nick.
”I don't know, but she was so adamant about never having done business with Weston. In the words of Shakespeare, 'the lady doth protest too much.'”
”You know, you're kinda s.e.xy when you're quoting Shakespeare.”
”I'm already s.e.xy. I believe the word you're looking for is s.e.xier.”
Having coiled their way through the throng of cars and jaywalking pedestrians, Stella and Nick emerged at the opposite end of the village where, with the exception of the incredibly slow-moving tour bus in front of them, the road opened up, and the noise and congestion of town gradually dissipated.
Stella watched as Teignmouth's storefronts gave way to rolling farmland, acres of national forest, and, standing guard in the distance, the rounded, tree-covered peaks of Vermont's Green Mountains. It was here, in front of an expansive farmstand offering pumpkins, cornstalks, and cider doughnuts, where the bus finally pulled onto the shoulder of the road and joined other buses as they discharged a flock of tourists dressed in jeans, jackets, and sheepskin-lined boots. Some made a beeline for the doughnut stand, others headed directly for the pumpkin patch, and still others stood immediately outside the bus, snapping photos, typing messages onto tiny keypads, or shouting into cell phones.
Stella drew a heavy sigh and wondered if any of the motor coaches in the farm's gravel-lined lot had room for two more pa.s.sengers. Although she and Nick had been in Vermont for just under twenty-four hours, she was already tired of the rural life. She missed the comfort of their Murray Hill apartment and the familiar sounds of car horns, traffic, and the occasional police or ambulance siren. However, she knew that she couldn't go back.
Whether it was the experience of finding a dead body in their well, sleeping in a hunting camp, or trying to realize her sleuthing skills, something had transpired to make Stella feel as though she were different from the urban sightseers who, despite having joined the leaf-peeping exodus, did their best to seem unimpressed by it. Not better than nor wiser than, mind you, just different.
No, Stella resolved, even if it didn't feel very welcoming at the moment, this place was her home now. And whatever Vermont living meant, she would do her best to embrace it.
While Stella grappled with the realities of her new environment, Nick longed to enjoy a driving experience seldom known to most city dwellers. Spying the freshly blacktopped, highly scenic, and completely open road that stretched before him, he pa.s.sed the bus and quickly accelerated.
But, alas, before he could reach the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, Nick spotted a sign indicating that the turnoff for Hank Reid's house lay just a few hundred feet ahead. Swearing under his breath, Nick veered onto the dirt and gravel of Deer Run Road and pulled into the driveway of the house designated as number 68.