Ornaments of Death Read online

  “No, of course not,” I replied, mystified.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice heavy with emotion.

  I hesitated, uncertain of my ground. “Truly, I was calling about your dad. I was hoping you were with him.”

  “This is just cruel!” She hung up.

  My mouth agape, I stared at the phone. A moment later, I called back, but she didn’t pick up. “Becca,” I said after the beep, keeping my voice calm, “I’m so sorry I upset you. Please call me.” I left my work, home, and cell phone numbers. I sat awhile longer, trying to understand what had just happened, but couldn’t. I looked up the Rocky Point Oceanographic Institute’s main phone number and dialed.

  “RPOI,” a young man with a Downeast accent said. “This is Nate. How can I help you?”

  “Is Becca Bennington there?”

  “Let me check.”

  I heard tapping and papers rustling.

  “Yup. Want me to ring her room?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Hold on.”

  I held on for a good minute before Nate came back on the line.

  “Sorry, no answer in her room or at her desk.”

  “And you don’t know where she is?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “When did she arrive?”

  “What did you say your name was?” he asked, suddenly cautious.

  “Josie Prescott. I’m a friend of her dad’s. It’s important that I talk to her.”

  “All I can do is take a message.”

  “Sure,” I said, and left my contact information, knowing she wouldn’t call back.

  I headed back to Rocky Point. The snow started up again around Burlington, big flakes swirling in a wild wind.

  No matter what I listened to on the radio or what I tried to think about, my mind kept swinging back to Ian. Ellis’s instructions echoed in my brain. I tried on different scenarios until I found one that fit. By the time I passed the Amesbury exit, I knew what I needed to do to get Ellis to help find Ian.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I pulled onto the shoulder just before the New Hampshire border and punched the button to activate my blinkers. I wanted to look for holes in my idea about how to get Ellis to accept my missing person report. I didn’t find any, but I still only gave myself a fifty-fifty chance. I didn’t have the hard evidence Ellis wanted, but I was certain I could make one heckuva case nonetheless. Success rested squarely on my ability to communicate persuasively. I rehearsed what I would say for the next ten miles, and when I felt ready, I pulled off onto the shoulder again.

  Ellis didn’t answer his office line, his cell phone went directly to voice mail, and when I called the station’s main number, Cathy told me he wasn’t available. I didn’t leave a message. I decided it was just as well. Since all I had in my arsenal was my subjective interpretation of events and inductive reasoning, it would be preferable to pitch it in person, rather than on the phone.

  Just because I couldn’t rouse him by phone, I couldn’t conclude that he wasn’t at work, so I drove to the police station. Ellis’s SUV wasn’t there. I swung west to his apartment, a modern condo overlooking Mill Pond, but his vehicle wasn’t in that lot, either. I called Zoë, thinking she might know where he was, but as I listened to the droning rings, I glanced at the dashboard time display, and realized why she wasn’t picking up. It was 5:22. Zoë was on chauffeur duty. Her daughter, Emma, took ballet at a dance school in a strip mall on Route 1. Her son, Jake, studied karate at a studio three doors down, and she was probably hanging out in one or the other of the parents’ observation areas.

  Out of ideas, I drove home.

  Ellis’s SUV was parked in Zoë’s driveway, the double-wide one we shared. I pulled in beside him. My house, the one I rented from Zoë, was a miniature of hers, an in-law home built during a more stately time.

  I stepped out of my car and looked toward my second-floor bedroom, comforted to see the soft golden glow from the window. I always left a light on, a private welcome home. I climbed Zoë’s porch steps and rang the bell.

  Ellis opened the door wearing a lobster apron, the red claws circling his neck.

  “It’s lobster night.”

  “It’s the first apron I found. I’m baking brownies, a surprise for the kids.”

  “What a guy.”

  “Come on in. Want a drink?”

  “No. I need you to find a judge.”

  “You have evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  He stepped back so I could enter.

  “Tell me about it.”

  I followed him into Zoë’s cheery red and white kitchen. Her red mixer was in use. The oven was preheating. I pushed aside a momentary flash of guilt for interrupting him.

  “From what you told me about the law, I understand that you can’t accept a missing persons report of a nondisabled adult, unless the person is in danger—right?”

  “Right.”

  “Ian is.”

  “Convince me and I’ll convince a judge.”

  “Ian’s daughter hasn’t heard from him. She freaked out at the question. Something is wrong.”

  “Maybe he lied to you about her. If there was a serious breach that he’s hoping to repair, it’s possible he didn’t tell her he was coming—he just planned to show up.”

  I shook my head. “You can come up with plausible alternatives forever, Ellis, but why would you? Look at the evidence.” I held up my index finger. “One: Ian stood Lia up for a dinner date that he told me he was looking forward to.” I raised another finger. “Two: Ian stood me up for a lunch date he told me he was looking forward to.” A third finger went up. “Three: No one at the hotel has seen him, yet he hasn’t checked out.” I lifted my pinkie. “Four: His daughter hasn’t heard from him, and she went bananas at my innocent question. She hung up on me, Ellis.” I lowered my hand. “I’m not an alarmist. You know I’m not. Taken together, these events lead to only one conclusion—Ian is missing. Add in that he’s a foreign national and I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t want to reassure yourself that he’s okay.”

  Ellis kept his eyes on mine while he ran my points through some kind of filter in his brain. “How do you know no one at the hotel has seen him and that he hasn’t checked out?”

  “My information isn’t to-the-minute current, but the last time I asked, Taylor, the owner, talked about their policy of honoring guests’ requests to be left alone when they hang out a Do Not Disturb sign. If he’d checked out I think she would have told me so. If she’d seen him, it would have come up in conversation.”

  “Okay,” he said, stripping off his apron and hanging it on a hook by the pantry door. “Let me find out which judge is on duty and I’ll get the paperwork started.”

  “How long will that take?” I asked, my impatience flaring.

  “Half an hour, more or less. I’ll call the hotel first and confirm he still hasn’t checked out.”

  “I’ll finish mixing the batter and put it in the fridge.”

  He patted my shoulder and left the room.

  I turned off the oven, finished with the batter, and loaded the dishwasher. I glanced at the wall clock. Only eight minutes had passed. I sat at Zoë’s kitchen table, the place where I’d played tiddlywinks with Emma and Jake, shared countless meals, enjoyed more than a few martinis, confided my fears and anxieties to Zoë, and listened to hers. It was fully dark and still snowing. I watched fluffy flakes whirl and flutter as they passed into the light cast by the yellow bulb mounted over the back door. I hoped traffic from the airport wasn’t snarled by the legion of drivers who seemed unable to handle a little snow. I wanted to see Ty. He hadn’t told me how his meeting went, which usually meant something was complicated.

  I leaned back and stretched. Where, I asked myself, was Ian?

  “Let’s go,” Ellis said, startling me. “Judge Alexander is at home, and I need you to come with me. She may want to talk to you.”

  “Of course.”

  Ellis un
locked the passenger door and held it for me while I hoisted myself up. As we drove, I said a private prayer that Judge Alexander would sign the order.

  * * *

  Judge Hazel Alexander came to the front door with a Wii remote in her hand. She wore gray sweatpants and a red hoodie over a gray T-shirt. She was curvy and fit, older than me—about Ellis’s age, I guessed—with brown shoulder-length hair and blue eyes. Ellis and I stood under an overhang, protected from the steady snow.

  “You’re going to screw up my timing, Ellis. I’ve just figured out how to get some English on my bowling ball.”

  Cackles and raspberries exploded from a room on the left. “English!” a man called, laughing. “More like Latin!”

  “My husband,” she said, “the academic. When he plays games, he makes a hammerhead look like a cozy companion.” She glanced at me. “And you are?”

  “Josie Prescott,” Ellis replied. “My witness. I brought her in case you want to question her directly.”

  “Your Honor,” I said by way of greeting.

  “Ms. Prescott.” She turned back to Ellis. “So, what can I do for you?”

  “Sign this petition.” He handed her a blue-jacketed sheaf of papers.

  The judge flipped through, reading with expert eyes. “You feeling all right, Ellis? A grown man isn’t where you thought he’d be and you want me to authorize a look-see of his hotel room? You have a fever? A touch of sun? You been on the toodle?”

  Ellis didn’t flinch. “No, ma’am. Based on solid evidence, I’ve concluded that it’s appropriate for us to locate this missing foreign national.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “England.”

  “When did he arrive in this country?”

  While the judge peppered Ellis with questions, I peeked through the crack left by the semiclosed door into her house. French doors dressed with pale white sheer curtains separated the room on the left from the rest of the house. I couldn’t see in, but I could sure hear the fun squeals. One child at least, a boy.

  Judge Alexander raised her eyes to meet mine. Her expression wasn’t humorless. It was grave.

  “Before I take away one of Mr. Bennington’s most sacred rights, his right to privacy, I want to hear why you’re so convinced that he intended to keep the date with Ms. Lia Jones. Don’t give me the summary. Tell me exactly what he said and what you said. Word for word, or as close as you can get. Don’t lie. Don’t embellish. Don’t leave anything out.”

  I bristled at the implication I would do any of those things, but I didn’t let my resentment show. Instead, I did as I was told.

  “I had a party last Saturday night. Midway through, I asked, ‘How about dinner tomorrow?’ He said he’d love to, but he couldn’t. Lia just agreed to have dinner with him. I also invited him to a Christmas concert, Sunday evening, after dinner. I thought he might want to bring Lia. That got a lukewarm ‘maybe.’ I think he had other ideas about what they might do after dinner.”

  The judge was not amused. “Your thoughts aren’t evidence.”

  I regrouped on the fly. “Ian was excited about the plans he was making.” I recounted how he playfully deputized me to convince Lia to agree to dinner by bragging on our connection to Churchill. “We had brunch the next day, on Sunday. Just the two of us. He was happy. He talked about seeing Lia and about his plans to drive to Boston to see his daughter the next day. We set a time to have lunch the next day before he left for Boston. Just about the last thing he told me was that he was going back to his hotel to take a nap because he wanted to rest up before his big date with Lia.” I paused, wanting the judge to feel the gravitas I hoped I was conveying. “He came all the way from England to see his daughter—and me. We’re related, and we’d just found one another. No way would he vanish without a word.”

  “Have you spoken to Ms. Jones to confirm this story?” the judge asked Ellis.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  After a few seconds, she nodded and said, “Give me the form.”

  She signed it, Ellis thanked her, and we left. As the door closed, sounds of fun still rippled from that room on the left. We slogged through calf-high drifts of snow to his SUV.

  “When did you speak to Lia?” I asked once we were en route.

  “While you were finishing mixing up my brownies. I called both the hotel and Lia.”

  “What do you know about Judge Alexander?”

  “She’s tough, but fair. And she recently learned to put some English on her bowling balls.”

  “It sounded like they were having fun, didn’t it?” I asked. “Do you bowl?”

  “No. But if you want to try a line or two, I’d be up for placing a small wager. As you know, I’m pretty athletic, so I’m sure I’ll get up to speed quickly.”

  “You are a prevaricator, my friend.”

  “Does that mean you don’t believe me?”

  “You forget I’ve played miniature golf with you. You’re a snake in the grass, coiled and ready to strike.”

  “Where do you think Ian is?” Ellis asked, changing the mood, bringing home the trouble I was certain we’d find.

  I stared out the window, seeing nothing. I couldn’t express my worst fears aloud. I wouldn’t. I didn’t have to. I knew Ellis shared them.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  We rode the rest of the way to the hotel in silence.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jonah Carmona, the co-owner of the Rocky Point Sea View Hotel, stood at the front desk chatting with a middle-aged couple. An older man sat on one of the love seats near the fireplace, reading the sports section from today’s Boston Globe. A teenage girl sat across from him, her chin resting on her hand, watching the flames lick the edges of the already blackened wood. She looked dreamy, a million miles away. From the sweet aroma, I could tell they were burning applewood.

  The woman standing at the counter was thumbing through a binder of menus, pausing at the plastic sleeve containing the one from the Blue Dolphin. I recognized it from the restaurant’s distinctive diving-dolphin logo. She said something to Jonah that I couldn’t hear.

  “The roads should be clear,” Jonah said to the couple. “It takes more than a few inches of snow to slow us down around here.”

  The man looked at his companion. She nodded.

  “All right then,” he said. “The Blue Dolphin it is. Would you make us a reservation? For eight?”

  “You bet,” Jonah said. “I’ll leave a message on your room voice mail once it’s confirmed.”

  They thanked him, and Jonah left them still scanning the binder and approached us, giving me a wide smile, but looking askance at Ellis.

  Jonah was about five-nine and built like a wrestler, wiry and tough. His wavy black hair was cut short. His red and black flannel shirt and black jeans were his winter uniform; in the summer he wore collared T-shirts and khaki shorts. Jonah had a go-with-the-flow attitude toward most things, unlike his wife, Taylor, who was more of a by-the-book sort of gal.

  “Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Ellis asked.

  “Of course,” Jonah said, no longer smiling. “Give me a minute.”

  He disappeared through a door marked PRIVATE. Two minutes later a thin young woman with curly blond hair appeared behind the front desk. Jonah stuck his head out from the private area and waggled his fingers, inviting us in.

  “We don’t need to sit,” Ellis said in the hallway to Jonah’s back, stopping him from leading us into an office. “I didn’t want to disturb your guests.” He handed over the signed order. “When I spoke to you earlier, you said Ian Bennington had not checked out, is that correct?”

  “Right.”

  “When was he supposed to leave?”

  “Monday morning.”

  “What’s your policy about people who stay beyond their scheduled departure?” Ellis asked.

  “It depends how full we are. In the summer, when we’re booked solid, we’ll follow up within a few minutes of checkout, which is eleven, and we k
eep at it until they leave. This time of year, there’s no urgency, but of course, we tried to contact him. We’ve left two voice mails a day apart, and we left them on both his cell phone and his room messaging system saying that we assume he wants to extend his stay. I called the first time myself. That was on Monday, around noon. Taylor called up to his room on Tuesday about the same time. We e-mailed him, too, so we’d have the communication in writing. We told him that we’ll run his credit card on a day-by-day basis for the room charge, and that’s what we’ve done.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Sunday, early afternoon. He said hello on his way in. When Josie asked about him the last time, telling me he’d missed some appointments, I checked his keycard usage and our security photos. He left the hotel through the lobby around three. A couple of minutes later, he drove out of the lot. He hasn’t entered his room since I saw him on Sunday. No one has.”

  “That’s very helpful,” Ellis said. “We may need to take that testimony as a formal statement, but for now, let’s go look at his room.”

  A red and blue laminated DO NOT DISTURB sign hung from room 218’s brass doorknob. Jonah knocked on the door with a shave-and-a-haircut beat three times, waiting a few seconds between sequences.

  “Mr. Bennington?” he called, his mouth close to the door. “Mr. Bennington? We’re coming in.” He slid his master keycard through the slot and opened the door.

  Ellis stepped in first, then Jonah, then me. We sidestepped to avoid two small pieces of paper lying just over the threshold. They were preprinted notes from housekeeping inviting him to call if he wanted anything, explaining that because he’d hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door, they weren’t coming in to make up the room. My eyes flew around the room. I’d hoped to find Ian wearing headphones, deep in writing or painting or something, and I’d dreaded that I’d discover his corpse, that I’d learn he’d suffered a heart attack or had a stroke and was dead. From my vantage point, I could see the entire room, even into the bathroom and out over the small balcony into the blackness beyond. Ian wasn’t in sight.

  Jonah and I stood against the back wall watching Ellis work. He opened the double closet doors and got onto his knees to peer under the bed, which from all appearances hadn’t been slept in.