Carrie Alexander - Count on a Cop Read online

  She sat forward, yawning. The house was quiet except for the drip of rain off the eaves. No sign of Pippa.

  Pippa.

  Connie walked from room to room, checking out the windows. The fog had thickened. Beyond the clearing around the house, the pine trees had become black sentinels rising from a primordial mist.

  Unsettled, she grabbed her garden wellies from near the door. “If that girl has gone calling on Sean…”

  Outside, everything was gray and bleak and silent. Connie took one look and returned to the house for the flashlight. She switched it on, although it didn’t do much good at piercing the pea-soup fog. She shut it off again once she reached the main driveway. There, the fog drifted slowly in diaphanous clumps. She could see beyond it to open space and that helped her keep her bearings. The gate was to her right, the gardens and house to the left.

  “Who’s there?” A shape appeared out of the fog.

  “Pippa!” Connie rushed forward. “It’s me.”

  “Mom.” Pippa wrenched out of her mother’s crushing hug. “Y-you have to c-come. I think I saw a murder.”

  “Oh, no, Pippa. Not a murder, not now.”

  “Maybe it was a murder. I was up at th-the b-big house, and I heard a scream.”

  Connie’s skin crawled. She managed to keep her voice remarkably steady. “Pippa, no. You didn’t hear a scream. It must have been the gulls.”

  “Wasn’t the g-gulls.”

  “Your teeth are chattering and you’re wet through. I’m taking you inside to warm up.”

  Pippa tugged at her sweater. “But, Mom. We have to go investigate.”

  “No, we don’t. Look at the fog. We’d get lost.” Connie turned slowly. Even the high iron gates had disappeared from view. She tightened her arm around Pippa, circling once again. Which direction was the path?

  She kept talking to keep the fear at bay. “This fog is so bad I can’t even tell where we are, and we haven’t moved a step. How could you possibly know what you might have seen or heard in it?”

  “I do know. The fog wasn’t so bad then.”

  “Well, it is now. We’re going back to the guesthouse. You can tell me everything once we’re inside.” Connie took a tentative step on the wet pebbles. “I think it’s this way.”

  She heard a soft crunching from somewhere nearby, although it was difficult to be sure from which direction.

  “Mom?” Pippa quailed. “What was that?”

  “I’m not sure.” Connie raised her voice. “Anyone there?”

  There was no answer, only a scraping sound.

  Pippa moved closer. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  I am, too. Connie would have normally laughed at herself for being such a coward, but the creepy weather had taken the bravado out of her. “It’s nothing, honey. Even ordinary sounds get distorted in a thick fog.” She gripped Pippa’s hand. “Stay with me.”

  They took several careful steps and stopped. Connie stared into the drifting fog, trying to discern their path among the shadows of looming trees.

  Behind them, there was a loud screeeek, followed by a metallic clunk.

  Connie ducked down. “The gate,” she said into Pippa’s ear. “Someone’s at the gate. Don’t make a sound.”

  Pippa nodded. Pearls of mist had collected on her rat-tailed hair and bleached cheeks. She shivered with clenched teeth.

  The state of her frightened little girl raised Connie’s temper. The pebbles crunched. A footfall? She hefted the flashlight, ready to swing it to defend herself and Pippa.

  “Connie?” A man.

  Sean? But his voice seemed different. It’s just the fog playing tricks with you. She took a breath nipped short by the fright she’d had. “Sean?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Here.” She flicked on the flashlight. “Pippa’s with me.”

  “I thought I heard your voices.” His tall, broad-shouldered shape stepped in front of her. “What are you doing out here?”

  “What are you?” she croaked, although she was glad to see him.

  He wiped a hand across his damp face. “Josh ran out of DVDs and snacks. I made a run to the general store.” He raised a limp paper bag. “The fog wasn’t this bad when I set out, but I just kept following the road. I wasn’t sure how far I’d gotten until I saw the gates of Peregrine House.”

  “You gave us a scare, coming through the gate like that,” Connie said, feeling slightly ridiculous now that they were safe.

  “I didn’t mean to. Like I said, I heard voices and I wondered what was up.” He turned as if to go. “If you’re all right…”

  “We’re fine. I came out to find Pippa, but we’re going directly back to the guesthouse.” Connie thrust out the flashlight. “You should take this. You have a longer way to go.”

  “Mr. Rafferty can’t go!” her daughter piped up. “What about the murder?”

  “Pippa…hush.”

  “What murder?” Sean said, waving off the flashlight.

  “Nothing but my daughter’s overactive imagination at play.”

  “I heard a scream,” Pippa insisted. “It came from Peregrine House.”

  “Must have been a seagull,” Connie said, emphasizing the words even though she wasn’t sure what to believe.

  “Huh.” Sean pondered. “That would make sense, except that the gulls seem to be hunkered down until the fog lifts, like everything else. I didn’t even hear them down by the harbor.”

  Pippa pulled on Connie’s hand. “See, Mom?”

  “Even if there was a scream,” she said, “and I’m not conceding that, you’re making a giant jump to conclusions with talk of a murder. I will grant you that the fog is enough to get anyone’s imagination going, especially yours.” Connie took Pippa by the shoulders and turned her toward what she hoped was the path. “You’re marching back to the house. No more argument.”

  “But it could have been a murder.”

  “Go.”

  Pippa shuffled forward. “Is this the path?”

  “Let me see.” Connie felt Sean press up against her. He reached over her frozen form and took the flashlight from her hand. The light searched through the fog. “Right there. Is that it?”

  “Yes,” Pippa said.

  Sean gave her the light. “You lead the way.”

  They walked three in a line toward the cottage, splattered by drooping, wet branches as they went.

  When they reached the door, Connie shook out her hair and picked a V of pine needles off her cheek. She scooted Pippa into the house and told her to go upstairs to change into dry clothes.

  “But, Mo-om…”

  “Even Trixie obeys her parents. Go.”

  Pippa kicked off her boots and stomped up the steps. “Tell Mr. R. not to leave until I get back.”

  Sean was hovering on the doorstep. “Come inside,” she offered.

  He stepped in. “Tell me about this ‘murder.’”

  Connie shook her head. “There’s no more to the story than what we’ve already said. I don’t know what she heard, but I seriously doubt it was a murder.”

  “Could have been a real scream, though.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “There might be trouble at Peregrine House.” He reached for the flashlight Pippa had parked on a side table by the door. “Mind if I take this? I’m going up to see if everything’s all right.”

  “You believe Pippa.”

  “I don’t discount her.”

  Connie looked down. “It’s not that I do, either. Not entirely. But I’ve seen how her mind can work, and I know how eager she is to impress you. Chances are that you’re going on a wild-goose chase.”

  “If that’s so, no harm done.” He gave her the package from Lattimer’s. “Hold on to this. I’ll be back shortly with a full report.”

  Connie reached for him, then withdrew her hand. The dread was back; she was shaking with it. She didn’t want him to go, but there seemed no way to make him stay. “What if there really is something going on
up there and you don’t come back? What’ll I do then?”

  “That won’t happen. I will return.” He stared evenly at her until her stomach dropped down around her knees. “We’ll talk,” he said, and she knew he meant they’d talk about more than this mystery.

  “What about Josh? He’ll be wondering what happened to you.”

  “Josh is fine. For all he knows, I’m kicking back in the village, waiting for the fog to lift.” Sean switched on the flashlight. It only pierced a few yards of the cottony mist, picking out the path they’d just followed.

  “What if…” Connie’s voice dried up in her throat. She wanted to ask him what if there really was a dangerous situation at Peregrine House and he landed in the middle of it because he was playing the hero for them. But he was a lawman. Who better to handle the situation?

  “You might get lost,” she rasped. “You could wander off the edge of the cliff.”

  Sean smiled. “That definitely won’t happen. I’m sure the lights are on at the house.” With a jaunty wave, he moved away, vanishing before her eyes. His voice drifted back to her. “Keep Pippa occupied until I return.”

  Connie stood holding on to the door for a few seconds before she could get her tongue to work. “Be safe,” she said. “Come back soon…or I’ll kill you myself.” That didn’t come out as humorously as she’d thought it would.

  THE FOG NOT ONLY distorted sound, it distorted shape. Pine trees became haggard witches. Rocks were hulking beasts. Sean soon gave up swinging the beam of the flashlight back and forth and focused on the road ahead. There was no reason he couldn’t follow it right up to the house’s front porch.

  He plodded onward, thinking about Connie. Her attempts to stop him hadn’t been about making up after a fight. She’d been seriously spooked, regardless of her insistence that Pippa had misheard.

  He jumped at the long, low bleat of a fog horn, then had to laugh at himself. The spooky ambience had worked its spell on him, too.

  The road curved up the slope. The diffused lights from the house hung disembodied in the fog. He could hear the water now, lapping at the rocks, but the rest of the seaside world was strangely silent, with only the sound of his footsteps to break the quiet.

  Suddenly the maze loomed out of the fog. A slow examination with the flashlight revealed one of the entrances. Strange—the lanterns were out. Perhaps they weren’t always switched on, but something about that altered detail made him veer off the road. He paused near the entrance to listen, taken by the eerie Gothic ghost-story feel of the place. A haunted moan or the scrape of a shovel would have seemed quite fitting.

  But there was only silence.

  Sean moved on, up the lawn to the porch. The house was really lit up. With the shutters open and no draperies drawn, he could see inside many of the rooms as he crossed to the front door. There was no sound, no movement.

  He rang the doorbell. Then, when no one answered, he knocked loudly.

  “Coming!” a voice sang out.

  He tucked the flashlight under an arm, slicked back his dampened hair.

  The door was opened by the housekeeper he’d met at the garden party. She was startled, then amused, to see him. “Good Lord,” she said heartily. “Sean Rafferty, isn’t it? What are you doing out in this weather?”

  “I was at the guesthouse with the Bradfords,” he said to cut short the explanation. “We heard, uh, some loud sounds that seemed to come from this direction. I walked up to see if everything’s okay.”

  The housekeeper dropped her gaze. “I thank you for the concern, but we’re quite all right…now.”

  Reflex had him reaching for his sidearm. Of course, there was no weapon at hand. He’d brought his official weapon with him on his vacation, a Sig Sauer 9mm, but it was stowed in its carrying case in the closet at Pine Cone Cottage, safely unloaded.

  He widened the door and stepped inside to look around. “What happened here?”

  One of the maids glanced out from the end of the long hallway that led to the kitchen.

  “I believe it’s called a domestic disturbance.” Rachel Wells kept her hands folded in front of her body. “My folks would call it a plain old knockdown, drag-out fight.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sheffield?”

  She nodded. “Ayuh. Just a loud fight, no more.”

  “No physical violence?”

  “She may have thrown something at him. Upstairs.” Mrs. Wells glanced upward. “Here’s Mr. Sheffield now.”

  The silver-haired businessman trotted down the wide staircase, his joints apparently well oiled by years of physical fitness. For once, he wasn’t in a suit, only a pair of soft woolen pants and a quilted robe that Sean believed was called a smoking jacket. He’d thought no one but Hugh Hefner wore those.

  “Mr. Sheffield, this is Sean Rafferty, a visitor to the island. He came to check up on us.” After making the introduction, Rachel Wells murmured a discreet “Pardon” and slipped away.

  “How neighborly.” Anders Sheffield’s smile was as well oiled as his joints. He even crinkled his eyes so that the smile came across as warm and genuine. “Rafferty, was it she said? I remember you from the other day, but I don’t recall where you’re staying.”

  “Pine Cone Cottage. It’s on the other side of the island.”

  Sheffield chuckled. “And you came all this way in the fog to call on us?”

  Sean felt certain the man knew full well where he’d come from, as well as every other word he’d spoken to Mrs. Wells. “You were having a problem?”

  “My wife.” Sheffield made a dismissive gesture. “She’s high-strung.”

  “I see.” Sean angled his head to look up to the second-floor landing. “I wonder if I could speak to her?”

  Sheffield stiffened. His expression became haughty. “Excuse me. Do you have some jurisdiction here I’m not aware of?”

  Sean gazed steadily at the man. “Why would I need jurisdiction?”

  Sheffield’s gaze narrowed. Seconds passed. Without averting his eyes from Sean’s, he cocked his head and called, “Darling? Kay? Our kind neighbor would like to say hello.”

  Moments later, Kay Sheffield appeared at the balcony railing, her blond hair ruffled around her face and her hand at the throat of a silk dressing gown. She leaned over the railing. “Hello.”

  “Ma’am.” He stared, trying to discern whether she was obscuring a black eye or bruised throat. “Everything okay?”

  “Just fine and dandy,” she said faintly. “You’ve caught me in a state of undress, I’m afraid. The weather is so dreary, I’d planned to retire early. We weren’t expecting callers.”

  Sean held up a hand. “No problem, Mrs. Sheffield. I’m not staying.” He stared at Sheffield again. “So your houseguests have left?”

  “All but the Crosbys.” Sheffield smiled, not bothering to disguise the chill of it this time. “Did you also wish to speak to them?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” Sean stepped out onto the porch. “Did you know the lights by the maze are out?”

  “Really. I’ll have to get my little red-haired gardener right on that.”

  Without a word of reply, Sean slammed the flashlight into the palm of his right hand and switched it on. He walked away, clenching his jaw tightly, his spine like steel.

  Only when he was well down the drive did he turn to look back at Peregrine House. Sheffield had known exactly what he was saying, and had, in fact, said it to get Sean’s goat. For no good reason that he could determine, except that the man did not like being called to question.

  Sean’s father had taught him that a man should never do anything he wasn’t willing to own up to. A lesson, it seemed, that Anders Sheffield had never learned.

  Pippa Bradford’s Book of Curious Observations

  MOM DOESN’T BELIEVE ME about the scream or the maybe-murder.

  She NEVER believes me.

  So I’m not even going to tell her about the man with the shovel. I only saw him from far away, but I’m pretty sure it was Gra
ves. (Note: he was in the maze with a shovel, too, remember?) If it was him, I’ll bet a zillion bucks that he was coming back from burying something, or else he was going to bury something. I thought it would be money or jewels, but what if it’s a BODY!!!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “IT WAS A FAMILY FIGHT,” Sean said to the Bradfords, five minutes later. “No more, no less.” He lifted a hand, signaling caution to Connie before focusing on Pippa.

  Her face had crumpled with disappointment. “But what about the scream?”

  “Mrs. Sheffield was probably pretty angry with her husband.”

  Pippa slumped back on the couch. She crossed her arms over her middle. “How come?”

  Connie passed a coffee cup to Sean before patting her daughter’s knee. “That, my little investigator, is grownup stuff. None of your business.”

  “Humph.” Pippa roused herself to take a mug of hot chocolate from her mother. “You never screamed at Dad like that.”

  “And certainly not in a mansion in the middle of a fog storm on a remote Maine island,” Connie replied lightly. “We were thinking of starting a game of Monopoly, Sean. Clue might be more appropriate. Would you like to stay and play?”

  “I guess I shouldn’t. Josh, you know.”

  “You could get Josh and bring him here.” Pippa brightened. “Or we could go to your house. I wouldn’t even be afraid in the fog, not this time.”

  “Pippa, I don’t think so.” Connie looked away from Sean. “You know what we talked about.”

  “Ugh, yeah. Space.”

  “Space?” Sean gulped the steaming coffee. He had taken off his jacket at the door and swiped at the fog droplets clinging to his hair and face, but he still felt rather damp.

  “Mom says you need space,” Pippa explained. “Away from us.”

  “That’s not what I…” Connie’s protest died. She shrugged.

  “Your mom’s right.” Sean was watching Connie; he caught the wounded look she quickly shuttered. His backing out had hurt her, even though he’d told himself it was better to do it sooner than later. A serious relationship required forethought, not just proximity.