Page 16

Rafe brought the Porsche to a halt in the drive, switched off the engine, and sat for a while, staring at the front door of Mitchell’s house.

Asking his grandfather to come to dinner was a crazy idea. If he had any sense he would fire up the engine and drive straight back to Dreamscape. But then he would have to explain to Hannah why he had chickened out.

The thought of going through another scene with her after the one that had taken place this morning when she had arrived to find the Willis brothers hard at work was not appealing. He had taken a chance, pushed his luck, and, predictably enough, things had exploded in his face. He would be more cautious next time. Who said a Madison couldn’t learn from his mistakes?

He climbed out from behind the wheel and walked toward the porch steps.

The front door opened just as he raised his hand to knock. A cadaverously thin figure with a buzz cut and a face that looked as if it had been hewn out of the side of a mountain stared at him.

Bryce had worked for Mitchell for nearly ten years. No one knew where he had come from. He had started out as a part-time handyman and had gradually carved out a position as full-time majordomo. If Bryce had a last name, it had been lost in the mists of time. As far as Rafe knew, he had no close relatives. Bryce had brought order to the chaos of Mitchell’s household. He was unswervingly loyal to his employer. Beyond that, he was a mystery.

“Hello, Bryce.”

“Good afternoon.”

“I’m looking for Mitchell.”

“Your grandfather is out in the garden.”

“Thanks.”

Rafe nodded in a friendly manner and walked off down the porch. No point exchanging further pleasantries. Bryce was not one for extended conversations.

Rafe opened the gate and entered the lush wonderland. When he didn’t see Mitchell, he took the narrow gravel path that led toward the greenhouse at the far end of the garden.

He found his grandfather inside the opaque structure, tending to a tray of plants. Mitchell had a long-spouted watering can in one hand and a small spade in the other.

Rafe took a breath and stepped into the humid atmosphere of the greenhouse. He recalled Hannah’s comment. Your interest in cooking parallels his in gardening. Creative outlets that you both approach with passion.

The idea of having something in common with Mitchell was a hard concept to digest.

“Lookin’ good in here,” he said. He told himself Hannah would have been proud of him for trying to start things off on a civil note. Then again, maybe not. She was pretty pissed at him right now. “You ever think about opening a commercial nursery?”

“Hell, no. Last thing I want to do is turn a good hobby into a business. Ruin all the fun.” Mitchell set down the watering can with a thunk and scowled ferociously. “Speaking of business, what’s this I hear about you opening an inn and a little restaurant out there at Dreamscape?”

“Word gets around fast.”

“If you wanted to keep it a secret, you shouldn’t have called the Willis brothers out to give you an opinion on the condition of the plumbing and wiring in that old place.”

“You’re right.” Rafe examined a row of tiny pots containing small green plants with glossy leaves. “On the other hand, not much point trying to keep the plan a big dark secret here in Eclipse Bay.”

Mitchell gave him a sharp glance from beneath bushy brows. “You’re serious about opening an inn?”

“Yeah.” Rafe moved on to a tray of feathery ferns. “Been thinking about it for a year now.”

Mitchell whistled softly. “Well, shoot and damn. Why the hell didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Got to work things out with Hannah first.”

“Huh. That’s a fact.”

Rafe looked up from the ferns. “Aren’t you going to tell me that turning Dreamscape into an inn and restaurant is just about the dumbest idea any Madison has ever had?”

“Dumb is beside the point. Madisons don’t concern themselves with dumb. They concentrate on what they want.” Mitchell’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he squinted at Rafe. “You really want this?”

“Yes.”

Mitchell studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded once and stripped off a garden glove. “Go for it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. If you want it that bad, there’s no point in me trying to talk you out of it. You’re a Madison. Nothing’s going to get in your way. Hell, you’ve got a better chance of pulling off an inn out there at Dreamscape than most folks.”

Rafe was thunderstruck. He stared at Mitchell until he finally got his jaw back in place.

“Are you telling me you think opening an inn and a restaurant is a good idea?” he finally managed.

“Didn’t say that.” Mitchell tossed the glove down on the workbench. “Don’t know if it’s a good idea or not, to tell you the truth. Just said I could see that nothing was going to stop you. You’ve got a good head for business when you choose to use it. You could make this inn-restaurant thing work.”

Rafe lounged back against a waist-high potting bench, slightly shaken. This was the first time that Mitchell had ever given even halfhearted approval for any idea that did not involve going to work for Madison Commercial.

“Where does Hannah Harte fit into this big plan of yours?” Mitchell asked.

Rafe did not move. He did not even blink. “What do you mean?”

“Last I heard, she still owned half of that old house. Has she agreed to let you buy her out?”

“No.”

“Then what the hell are you going to do with her?”

Rafe examined the hibiscus next to him. “I’ve suggested to her that we form a partnership to operate the inn and restaurant.”

“A partnership ?” Mitchell’s face worked in astonishment. “With Hannah Harte? Have you lost every damned marble you’ve got?”

So much for getting Mitchell’s unqualified support.

“You don’t have to shout,” Rafe said. “I can hear you just fine.”

“Now you listen to me. You’re a Madison. You can’t have a business partnership with a Harte. It’ll never work. Never in a million years.”

“Okay, so it might be a little more complicated than the usual business partnership,” Rafe said.

“Well, shoot and damn.” Mitchell grabbed a pair of pruning shears. “The rumors are true, aren’t they? You are foolin’ around with her, aren’t you?”

“We have started what some people might call a relationship. Sort of.”

“A relationship?” Mitchell went to work on the hibiscus with the shears. “That mean you’re shacking up together?”

Rafe realized that he was standing closer to the hibiscus than was comfortable. He moved a couple of steps aside to give Mitchell and his shears plenty of space.

“I don’t think I’d use that term.”

Mitchell snipped off a straggling branch and glared. “Well, just what term would you use?”

“Like I said, the situation is a little complicated at the moment.”

Mitchell aimed the shears at Rafe. “Pay attention for once in your life. What I got to say is important. That woman put her reputation on the line for you eight years ago. Saved you a lot of grief.”

“I know that.”

“You can’t fool around with her. It’s not right.”

“I’m not fooling around with her.” Rafe searched for the right words, but they eluded him. “Whatever is going on, it’s serious.”

Mitchell frowned at him for a long, considering moment. “It sure as hell better be serious.” Abruptly, he turned back to his pruning. “Why’d you come here today?”

“Came over to see if you want to have dinner with Hannah and me tomorrow night.” Rafe hesitated. “Feel free to bring your friend Octavia with you, if you want.”

“Octavia’s gone back to Portland.”

“Invitation still stands.”

“Huh.” Mitchell clipped off another small branch. “Hannah Harte can cook?”

“I don’t know. She’s never done any cooking around me. I’ll be doing the cooking.”

“Should be interesting,” Mitchell said.

“Does that mean we can expect you for dinner?”

“I’ll be there. Be a change of pace from Bryce’s grub.”

Rafe exhaled slowly. “Okay. Fine.” He straightened and headed for the door. He felt as if he had just weathered a storm. “See you around six.”

“Should be damned interesting,” Mitchell muttered again.

Waste of time, Rafe thought. But what the hell. Maybe Hannah would cut him some slack. He should get some points out of this. After all, it had been her suggestion to invite Mitchell to dinner.

He wondered if it was a bad sign that he was trying to please her.

Rafe paused in the office doorway and studied the scene. There was a computer on the desk. The telephone had several lines. The hardware was nearly buried amid piles of notebooks, photos, and newspapers. The bookcase was crammed with volumes. Several framed front-page editions of the Eclipse Bay Journal hung on the walls. One of them featured a photograph of Trevor Thornley standing with the former owner and editor of the newspaper, Ed Bolton, and his smiling wife, Bev.

“I always wondered what a newspaper editor’s office looked like,” Rafe said.

Jed grinned and leaned back in his chair. “This is what this particular newspaper editor’s office looks like. Have a seat.”

“Thanks.” Rafe cleared a heap of out-of-town newspapers off a chair and sat down.

“Want some coffee?” Jed gripped the arms of his chair as if about to push himself up and out of it. “One thing we’ve got a lot of around here is caffeine. Part of the mystique.”

“No, thanks.” Rafe glanced at the computer. The screen showed a page of text. He glimpsed the words. “Thornley stated that he will run for the Senate on a platform that calls for social and personal responsibility.”

“You got a one-on-one interview with Trevor Thornley?” Rafe asked.

“Did it this morning before he left for Portland. I’m writing an editorial for tomorrow’s edition.”

Rafe settled back into the chair. “What’s it like talking to a future U.S. senator?”

“Not a whole lot different than it was talking to a future member of the state legislature eight years ago. Only he’s much more polished these days. But it’s still tough to get a straight answer out of him.”

“Probably why he’s come so far, so fast.”

“Probably. Well, like they say, he may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch. I think Eclipse Bay can count on him to remember his roots even when he winds up in Washington, D.C.” Jed propped his elbows on the chair arms and linked his fingers across his small paunch. “What brings you here today?”

“Idle curiosity.”

“The best kind, I always say. That’s what makes good reporters.” Jed chuckled. “What are you curious about?”

Rafe steepled his fingers. The decision to pay a visit to the offices of the Eclipse Bay Journal had seemed a spur-of-the-moment thing. He’d been on his way back to Dreamscape when it struck. But now that he thought about it, he realized that it had been nibbling at the back of his mind all morning, ever since Walter and Torrance Willis had voiced their theories about Kaitlin Sadler having been murdered by a sex maniac from Seattle.

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” he said. “I want to take a look at some old editions of your paper.”

Jed’s eyes darkened with sudden interest. “How old?”

“Eight years.”

Jed whistled tunelessly. “Well, I’ll be damned. You want to see the coverage of Kaitlin Sadler’s death, don’t you?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Hell, no.” Jed’s chair squeaked as he sat forward abruptly. He fixed Rafe with an intent look. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I told you, I’m just curious, that’s all. I didn’t pay any attention to the stories that appeared in the paper at the time. I was too busy trying to keep from getting arrested. As soon as I was cleared, all I wanted to do was get out of town.”

“An understandable reaction.” Jed picked up a pen and absently tapped the edge of the computer keyboard. “Sure you’re not looking for something in particular?”

“I’m sure.”

“Hey, this is your old buddy, Jed Steadman, boy reporter and pool pal, remember? If you’ve got a line on what really happened that night, the least you can do is fill me in.”

“Think it would still be news after all this time?”

Jed raised his eyebrows. “If you’ve got anything to indicate that what happened to Kaitlin was something other than an accident, yes, it sure as hell would be news. No one here has forgotten that incident.” He paused. “We’ve only had one real murder in Eclipse Bay in the past decade, and that was when a couple of tourists got into a quarrel out at the RV park and one of them shot the other.”

“I don’t have a line on Kaitlin’s death,” Rafe said swiftly. “Just a couple of questions.”

“Such as?” Jed paused ever so briefly. “I hate to remind you, but this is my newspaper now.”

“I could try the public library.”

Jed’s grin came and went. “Yes, you could. All right. I’ve stuck with the agreement.” He got to his feet. “Come on, I’ll dig them out for you. Can’t blame me for trying to find out if you’ve got an angle on that old story, can you?”

“Guess not.” Rafe shoved himself up out of the chair and turned to follow Jed through the doorway. “I’ll tell you what I’m looking for, if you’ll promise to keep it quiet.”

Jed raised one hand as he went down the hall. “Word of honor.”

“I want to see if whoever covered the story mentioned the fact that Kaitlin Sadler was seeing someone other than me that summer.”

Jed came to a halt in another doorway and gave Rafe a quizzical frown. “Everyone knew she was seeing other men. Hell, you knew it. It was no big secret that she was running around.”

“I just want to see if the names of any of the other men she dated came up in the course of the investigation.”

“Aha.” Jed’s hand tightened on the edge of the doorjamb. He gave Rafe a knowing look. “You want to see if there were any other serious suspects besides yourself, don’t you? What is this? You think maybe one of her other boyfriends really did push her off the cliff that night?”

“I haven’t got a single thing to go on here, Jed. I’m curious, that’s all. Are you going to let me see those old papers or not?”

“Sorry. Force of habit. Come on, I’ll get you set up on the machine.”

A short time later Rafe found himself seated in front of a microfilm reader, scanning eight-year-old editions of the Eclipse Bay Journal . He paused when he came to the front-page headline that had been printed the morning after Kaitlin’s death: LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD AT HIDDEN COVE .

“That’s it.” Jed hung over his shoulder, one hand gripping the back of Rafe’s chair. “I didn’t cover the story. I was busy writing up the piece on Thornley’s reception at the institute.”

Rafe glanced at the byline. “Did you know Ben Orchardson well?”

“No one knew him well, but I learned a few things from him. He was a halfway decent reporter in his day. Worked for a couple of the big-city dailies for several years. But he had a problem with the bottle. Wound up here at the Journal for a while, but Ed had to let him go after a few months.”

“Is Orchardson still around?”

“Are you kidding? He was sixty-three when he covered the Sadler story. He retired and moved away just before I married Connie. Haven’t heard from him since he left Eclipse Bay. I remember him saying something about heading for Mexico or maybe Costa Rica where he could live like a king on his Social Security check while he wrote the great American novel. Doubt if he ever sobered up long enough to buy a computer and go to work, though.”

Rafe read through the first story that had appeared, searching for names other than his own. The first one that leaped out was Hannah’s. He paused to study the short paragraph that had covered his alibi.

Hannah Harte, daughter of longtime Eclipse Bay summer visitors Hamilton and Elaine Harte, stated that she had been with Raphael Madison at the time of Sadler’s death. “We met on the beach near Eclipse Arch a few minutes after midnight,” she said. “We talked for a while. Then he walked me home. It was a long walk. We arrived shortly before two.”

The words were simple enough, but they had cost Hannah a lot at the time, Rafe reflected. He could imagine what her parents had had to say about the events of that night. But that was Hannah for you. Not a woman to stay silent when she had something to say.

Jed leaned closer. “Something I’ve always wondered about…?”

The story jumped to an inside page. Rafe advanced the film. “Yeah?”

“Is talking really the only thing you and Hannah Harte did that night on the beach?”

Rafe leaned back and met Jed’s eyes. “Yes.”

Jed straightened quickly and took a step back. He cleared his throat. “Hey, just a reporter’s natural curiosity, you understand.”

Rafe turned back to the article and continued reading.

Yates said that he is still investigating Sadler’s movements on the night of her death. “No one seems to know where she went or what she did after Madison got out of her car near the Arch. No one has any idea why she was on Hidden Cove Trail at that hour of the night. The trail is closed at sunset. There are no lights…”

“Whatever happened to Chief Yates?” Rafe asked as he went on to the next story. “Is he still around?”

“Didn’t you know? He died of a heart attack a couple of years ago.”

“Wonder if there’s any way of getting a look at his old file on the case?”

“The new chief of police is named Sean Valentine. He’s a solid guy. He’ll probably let you look at the old files, but I doubt that you’ll find anything. Orchardson went through them thoroughly at the time. I remember him saying that with you in the clear, there was no other viable suspect. He said he was fairly sure Kaitlin’s death had been an accident or suicide.”

“I don’t buy suicide,” Rafe said.

Jed shrugged. “Neither do I. But I can see her having a few drinks and losing her balance on that trail.”

“But what was she doing there on the trail in the first place?”

Jed considered for a moment. “Think maybe she went there to treat herself to a couple of beers after she ditched you?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t have any booze in the car when she dropped me off at the Arch, I can tell you that.”

“She could have picked someone up after she left you.”

“Yeah.” Rafe studied the article on the screen. “Maybe. But Kaitlin was not a big drinker.”

Jed crouched down behind the chair and rested an elbow on the back. He eyed the screen over Rafe’s shoulder. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Curious, not serious.”

“There’s a difference?”

“I’m not sure,” Rafe admitted. He went back to the front page of the story he had been reading. He paused when he saw a night shot of the brightly lit facade of the Eclipse Bay Policy Studies Institute. “I see Thornley’s big event at the think tank that night got squeezed below the fold.”

Jed made a face. “Don’t remind me. My first big story, and I lost the lead because of the Sadler piece.”

Rafe followed the reception story to an inside page and found a photo of the crowd that had attended the Thornley reception. “Looks like most of Eclipse Bay was there.”

“Everyone in town was invited, but it was understood that if you went you were expected to donate to Thornley’s campaign. That limited the guests to the upwardly mobile among us, the local movers and shakers, and the hustlers who felt they had a stake in getting Thornley elected.”

Rafe smiled slightly. “Not a lot of guys like me there, I take it?”

“Not that I recall.” Jed grinned. “I was the youngest person there, and the only reason I attended was because I was covering it for the paper.”

Rafe leaned back in the chair, thinking. “What time did the reception end?”

“I don’t remember precisely. It ran late because Thornley was a little long-winded in those days. And because there was plenty of free booze.”

The lights had still been on at the institute when he walked Hannah home along Bayview Drive, Rafe thought. “So, it would probably be safe to say that everyone who attended the Thornley reception that night has a reasonably solid alibi.”

Jed slanted him a speculative glance. “Yes. I could probably dig up the old guest list if you want to look at it. As the only representative of the local media at the event, I’m sure I got a copy. It might be in my files. But Kaitlin didn’t move in those circles, Rafe. Why would anyone from that crowd want to kill her?”

“Good question.” Rafe thought about the oversized lingerie, the high heels, and the videos that the Willis brothers claimed to have discovered behind Kaitlin’s dryer. No point in mentioning them, he thought. He had nothing hard to go on yet. “You’re right. There’s nothing here, Jed. Sorry I wasted your time.”

“No problem,” Jed replied. “Keep me in mind if you get any other wild hairs, okay? This is a slow news town. I wouldn’t mind a big exposé on the Sadler death, especially if it involves an eight-year cover-up. Pulitzers have been won on less.”

“Don’t worry,” Rafe said. “If I get any more brainstorms, you’ll be the first to know.”