The Seeker: A Mystery at Walden Pond Read online

  “Let me make you feel better,” Patrick said. “I know exactly what to do.”

  I picked up his hand and held it. “I can’t. You know why.”

  “You’re back with Joe, even though he’s never here when you need him.”

  “Joe isn’t part of this. I have to work, Patrick. And this thing between us has to end. It’s improper and will only mean trouble for both of us. Please take the tray back to Dorothea and thank her.”

  “I won’t give up, Aine. I love you.” He picked up the tray and hurried out the door, slamming it behind him.

  I almost called out to him. Hurting him was painful. But better now than letting it drag on.

  The day was drawing to a close when Patrick let me out of his car at the inn. Despite his anger at me, he’d kept his word and picked me up at the rental agency. His silence on the drive home told me of his hurt.

  I got out on the lane to the cabin and he wheeled around to park on the opposite side of the inn. Before he left for the day, he had to finish moving some furniture for Dorothea. She stood in the back doorway making certain he didn’t dodge her. If she knew there was something wrong between Patrick and me, she didn’t let on.

  “Did Patrick give you your message?” she asked.

  “No.” I hoped she’d think the flush in my cheeks was from the cold. “He must have forgotten.”

  “The boy has nothing on the brain.” She rolled her eyes. “I sent him with the tray and the message. Joe tried to call you all day yesterday. He said something was wrong with your cell phone. He’ll be by to visit tonight if that’s good with you. If not, you can use the phone in the inn to call him.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I wasn’t certain it was, but I didn’t want to discuss Joe with Dorothea.

  “I’m glad you’re giving him a chance, Aine. He did nothing wrong. He was a good teacher. Possibly a great one. His only sin was caring about his students. He loved watching them learn. It cost him everything to be accused of Mischa’s disappearance.”

  “I understand she was working on some project. Do you have more details?”

  “She was after a toad or slug or something she’d talked to Joe about. Biology and the natural world, Joe’s big interest. No one thought a thing about the extra time he spent with the students, until Mischa didn’t show up for supper. Then it was like a perversion.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  She had come out of the inn with a dishcloth in her hand. She wiped her hands on it, threw it over her shoulder, and stuffed her fists into her apron. Dusk was falling and the cold was settling in. “I think one of those sexual predators grabbed her up. He did things to her, and then he got scared she might talk so he killed her. That’s what I think. They shouldn’t let those people live near children.”

  “Were there sexual predators in the neighborhood?”

  “Yes, one. But they couldn’t find any evidence implicating him. Folks ran him out of town, though. They ran him straight out of town. The deviant was lucky he wasn’t strung up on general principle, but it was too late for Mischa. She was gone.”

  It wasn’t hard to see why suspicions fell on Joe, no matter how innocent he might be. He was a grown man, and he spent free time with a young girl. Our world had become a place where such a thing was viewed as questionable, rather than commendable. What I would have given for a grade school teacher—or anyone besides Granny Siobhan—who sensed value in me.

  “I saw Mischa’s picture in the newspaper, but it wasn’t a good photo.”

  “So, you checked into the story.” Dorothea’s tone held neither censure nor approval.

  “I owe myself the facts.”

  “You do, though facts are hard to determine. Just because a story is printed in a newspaper doesn’t make it a fact.”

  Dorothea’s reaction made me wonder if my search had been thorough enough. “I’ll speak with Joe about this.”

  “Give him a chance. And let me know if Patrick is bothering you. It seems you’re his latest obsession. Give him a week or two and his fancy will turn to someone more appropriate. If he annoys you, I’ll set him straight.”

  “Thanks for the message.” I stamped from one foot to the next to warm myself, impatient to be on my way.

  Dorothea gently caught my forearm. A line gathered between her eyebrows. “Karla is trouble, Aine. Watch your step with that one.”

  “You don’t have to convince me. She’s come after me twice.” I longed for the warmth of the cabin. Dorothea’s warning brought the darkness closer and again I felt the uncanny sense that someone was watching me. It didn’t feel like the child. Malice tickled icy fingers over my neck, and it occurred to me that Karla might be waiting to ambush me yet again. I glanced at the surrounding woods but could detect no sign of life.

  “She’s hopped up on meth and god knows what else.”

  “Is there a solution?” I wanted a course of action, not a rehashing of old facts.

  Dorothea brought her other hand from her apron pocket and held out a black canister. “Take it. Pepper spray. I keep one at the register and I brought my spare to you. It’ll stop her dead, but it can also blind you if you aren’t careful how you use it.”

  The small canister fit snugly in my coat pocket. “Thank you.”

  “Joe felt sorry for Karla. And he was lonely. Only a few weeks after Mischa disappeared, his fiancée Amanda left him. She couldn’t take the scorn of the community. That scarred Joe. He left town for several years, changed his life. When he came back to care for his mother, Karla took advantage of him, but she also gave him something no one else would. She didn’t care what anyone said about Joe, or about her. She showed him that public talk and innuendoes could only hurt if he let them. We humans are frail in so many ways.”

  “We are indeed.” I inched backward, the gravel of the drive crunching beneath my feet. “I’d better get some work done before Joe comes by.”

  21

  Showered and dressed in jeans and a warm sweater, I straightened the cabin. Dorothea had brought over clean sheets while I was returning the rental car. As I shook them out, something flew from the bed and struck the floor.

  Kneeling to look under the bed, I reached for the object. My fingers detected the strange texture and shape before my brain registered what I held. A whale tooth. A scrimshawed one, like those at the museum.

  I felt as if the breath had been knocked from my lungs and I slumped on the floor, the tooth clutched in my hand. I didn’t have to ask where it had come from. I knew. I’d seen the child at the whaling museum. Only a flash, but it was her. She’d followed and watched. And she’d left a souvenir so I’d know.

  How she traveled from Concord to Rhode Island begged an answer I didn’t have. I could only presume a ghost child went wherever she chose. Next time I saw her, I would ask. How she’d acquired such a valuable artifact, I didn’t want to know.

  I rose and turned on the desk lamp. Under the good light I was able to study the image cut into the ivory tooth. It was a ship’s figurehead, a young girl in a hooded cape with flowing curls. Above her was an unfurled banner with a Latin inscription I couldn’t read. The girl’s eyes, as black and glassy as obsidian, held my attention.

  Logic presumed she was the ship captain’s daughter or a child lost at sea or a beloved family member. But I knew better. My little friend had brought me a scrimshawed likeness of herself. I didn’t recall seeing the tooth at the whaling museum, so where had it come from?

  I studied the intricate cuts and scratches in the ivory. Like the antique scrimshaw at the museum, this too had been rubbed with gunpowder or soot or ink to bring the image to life. The artist displayed great skill and talent. The child’s hooded cloak hung low on her forehead, almost obscuring her eyes—black and oblique. Bored out. The effect was more than a little unsettling.

  If this was Mischa Lobrano, who had carved her image in an expensive whale’s tooth? Did a Concord artist have such talent? Was Mischa sending me on a quest to resolve what ha
ppened to her?

  I held the scrimshaw tight for a time, but I could instill no warmth in it. What had once been a part of a living creature and the image of what had once been a living child were incapable of warmth.

  Joe’s knock brought me to myself. I realized the bed was unmade and the cabin still a mess. There was nothing to do but let him in. Time for him to see the untidy, chaotic side of me.

  Joe’s face was drawn with worry and stress. He stepped into the room, closed the door, and pulled me against his chest in a tight embrace. He made no effort to kiss me. He merely held me, and I realized I liked the sensation.

  “We have to talk,” Joe said.

  My first concern was that he knew about Patrick. I stepped back, playing for time to think. As he fed more wood onto the fire, I pulled the desk chair closer so that it faced the rocking chair.

  Satisfied at last that the fire would burn hot, he sat on the edge of the rocker and took my hands. “It’s Karla,” he said. “She’s claiming you attacked her unprovoked. She says she’s going to bring charges against you. She said she came here to speak with you and you went after her.”

  The revelation stunned me. I’d expected to defend myself for sleeping with Patrick. Never in a million years had I thought Karla would lie after she’d hidden in the woods near my cabin and viciously attacked me.

  “That’s crazy.”

  He nodded. “Be that as it may, she intends to make trouble for you. She doesn’t want to leave Concord, and she thinks this is a way around it. She said if I continue to press her to leave town, she’ll file charges against you.”

  “I’m not afraid of her.”

  “It doesn’t matter that you’re right. She’s going to make it bad for you.”

  “And for you,” I said.

  He nodded. “If this makes the newspaper, they’ll bring up everything about Mischa again. Karla is unstable. She’s a drug user. That will all tie back to me.”

  I wondered what he expected of me. I had bigger problems than Karla Steele’s craziness. “She’s vindictive and I want her gone or behind bars. That’s not going to change.”

  He turned my hands over so that he could examine the palms. “She promised she’d leave town and then reneged. The best thing for you is to avoid her. I’ve talked with the Chief, and he’s aware of her drug use. She’s careless. She’ll eventually get arrested for that. I’ll continue to urge her to leave Concord. I’ve spoken with her sister, and she’s willing to come to Concord and take her back to Nebraska.”

  I tried to think through his request. Had I been slower, Karla might have done me serious damage. Even killed me. It could take weeks to catch her buying drugs or committing another crime. Even if her sister begged, there was no guarantee Karla would leave with her.

  “Why does she hate me so much?”

  Joe rubbed his thumbs lightly over the pulse point in my wrist. “She’s jealous of you. She asked questions around town. You’re everything she’s not and will never be. She knows who you are, that you are working on your doctorate. She’s mentally ill, Aine, but I believe she’ll get the help she needs in Nebraska with her family. Jail won’t help her. Her sister has promised to commit her to a mental health facility.”

  “All well and good, but it won’t prevent her attacks on innocent people.” My anger surprised even me. Joe asking for compassion for a crazy woman after she’d tried to kill me was too much. “She should rot in jail.”

  “Think, Aine. I’ll help you do whatever you want, but be sure you think this through.”

  I calmed the surge of anger that made me seek revenge against a woman who’d targeted me for her misplaced jealousy and rage. I’d given her far more than she’d ever anticipated when it came to physical reprisal, maybe enough to scare her. “Okay,” I said. “But I want to know when she leaves for Nebraska. And it had better be soon.”

  “I’ll make certain.”

  “You said that last time.”

  “I was deceived. It won’t happen again. I promise. Karla’s sister will arrive tomorrow. I’m picking her up at the airport. She intends to persuade Karla to fly back to Nebraska and get help.”

  “Last chance, for both of you.”

  He brought my left hand up to his lips and kissed my wrist and then the center of my palm. “Thank you.”

  I had news for him, too, but decided it was best to keep the scrimshaw a secret until I checked out my hunch. If Mischa Lobrano was communicating with me, if she’d chosen me to receive clues to her disappearance, then perhaps it should remain between us. At least until I figured out what happened to her. If she’d wanted Joe to receive the leads in her disappearance, she’d have shown them to him. “Let me get some wine.” I stood and went to the kitchen area.

  “What have you been up to lately?” Joe settled back in the rocker, his profile warmed by the glow of the fire.

  I told him of my adventures in Warren and New Bedford. “I found the original American Cahills.” I’d told him I had a family connection to Thoreau, but I’d never shared the journal. I was tempted now, but I still held back.

  His strong hands captured my arms and lifted me into his lap. Rocking gently, he kissed me. My body responded, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers seeking purchase in his thick, dark hair.

  “Let’s put those sheets on the bed,” he suggested. “I think you need warming up.”

  “And I think you’re just the man to do it.” I slipped from his lap and led him to the bed. In only a few moments, we had the sheets tucked in and the quilts smoothed. Joe threw another log on the fire as I undressed and slid across the cold sheets. In a moment, his body was beside me and his touch ignited a fire that seared through both of us.

  22

  Joe brewed coffee and brought in wood for the fire long before dawn. Tucked beneath the quilts, I traced the hand-stitched patterns with a lazy finger and sipped the steaming coffee he served me in bed.

  As he slipped into his coat, he said “I’ll let you know how it goes with Karla and her sister. Hopefully, she’ll be gone very soon.”

  My emotions were still conflicted, so I nodded.

  “Stay home today,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed. “The forecast is for bad weather. Most folks manage the snow, but if there’s ice beneath it there will be accidents.”

  “I have to write today.” It was true—I needed to spend hours pounding on my dissertation—but my plan for the morning was already laid out in my mind.

  “I’ll give you a call later,” he said. “Don’t take up with any strangers.” He kissed my forehead and then my lips, his scruff zinging the tender skin of my face.

  He left as the sky lightened from black to gray. Thick clouds obscured the light and warmth. It would be bad weather, as he’d predicted. I showered and dressed to go out. After a breakfast at the inn, I had research to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on my dissertation but on the scrimshaw I put in my jacket pocket along with the pepper spray Dorothea had given me.

  Joe intended for Karla to leave, but that didn’t mean she’d cooperate. If she stalked and cornered me again, I’d make certain she never forgot the encounter. My cousins had taught me a few important things about dealing with crazy people and drug addicts. They didn’t give up. The only solution was to hurt them so badly they couldn’t come after me again.

  The aroma of bacon hit me as I entered the dining room. Dorothea indicated I should pick my own seat while she checked out two customers. Her smug expression told me she knew Joe had spent the night and approved. I could only hope I’d put my fling with Patrick in the past, where it would never surface.

  She served me hot coffee, cranberry juice, flapjacks with maple syrup, and crispy bacon—a breakfast fit for a lumberjack. And I ate every mouthful.

  “Worked up an appetite, did you, girl?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “That Joe, he’s a fine catch. You with your fancy degree and teaching in college. Maybe he’ll return to what he loves best.”<
br />
  “He loves being a ranger.” I couldn’t say why the thought of Joe returning to teaching troubled me.

  “Teaching was his first love. You know how it is.” She swept my plate up in her capable hands and was gone.

  I put on my coat, hat, scarf, and gloves and set out for the gift shops in town. Whaling wasn’t the focal point of Concord. This area had another bloody tourist trade, the Revolutionary War. Still, there were several art galleries, and local artists tended to know each other.

  While my dissertation languished, I pursued the riddle of the girl in the red hooded cloak. Mischa Lobrano. And I had to be careful what I asked.

  My first three stops yielded nothing. The fourth business was an artsy shop that featured prints of local artists, some sculpture, and depictions of historic events in ceramic and bronze. Some of the work was quite good, and other pieces were clearly targeted for the tourist market.

  The man behind the counter was thin, balding, and in his seventies. Perfect. He might know a few things about events from a decade past.

  “May I help you?” he asked.

  My finger traced the image of the girl carved into the tooth lying snug in my pocket. “Do you have any scrimshaw?”

  His expression shifted from helpful to disinterested. “You’ll find a better selection in New Bedford and communities with historic ties to the whaling industry. The older pieces are valuable; ivory is illegal to purchase now. Endangered species.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” he asked.

  “An expert to tell me about a piece. And about the process of scrimshaw.”

  He came out from behind the counter and went to a back shelf. After rummaging for a moment, he handed me a pamphlet. “I have this, a history of the art. Through the years, I’ve had a piece or two of scrimshaw, but not many. A few years back a local young man wanted me to carry some pieces. He’d worked up Revolutionary War scenes on whale teeth.”

  My frown made him laugh.