“Which is why those men were in my house, looking for Sturgis and thinking I was Loni?” Cilla was skeptical. “Doesn’t make sense. So there’s a resemblance; a lot of people look like each other. Why would anyone think he was my father? There’s no…” She stopped.
“There’s more to it than appears,” said Krestinski. “There’s reason to believe that this isn’t just a squabble over drugs. In fact I have some other agents on the way up here.”
Hudson raised his eyebrows. “The little I know about the FBI tells me you don’t have so many agents you can just call up a gang of them. Are they to find Sturgis, protect people here or for some other reason?”
“A little of all that, if you don’t mind. As far as you here, it’s more preventive than anything else. I don’t really think you’re in any danger.”
“But finding Sturgis would help,” said Hudson.
“Of course.”
“Read us that note we found, Wally.”
The old man read aloud, “`Might as well live in a cave as here with my angst. Try to turn things around. Going back to Mass. Thanks for your help. Preston.’”
“Analyze it,” said Hudson. “The key word is angst; it’s not one in common usage.”
“Probably not in any usage by Sturgis,” Wally said wryly.
“He says `turn things around.’ If we turn angst around we could get Stang.”
“Damn! He mentioned a Phil Stang,” said Wally. “Why didn’t I see that?”
“Who has a vacation home at Stillings Grant!” Cilla finished. “It’s only a few minutes from here.”
The Stang house was a small ranch set well back from the road. They left the car a few hundred feet away and walked up to where they could see the house, but so a stand of hemlock hid them from view.
“It’s probably empty,” said Cilla. “Phil doesn’t ski any more, so he almost never uses it in winter.”
“Somebody’s used it,” said Hudson.
Krestinski squinted. “What do you see that I don’t? Don’t a lot of people keep their driveways plowed even if they aren’t there?”
“Icicles.”
The FBI man raised his eyebrows. “That an unheated house might not have? Okay. Stay here.” Without waiting for acknowledgement, he strode along the road and into the driveway. The others could see him peeking through a garage window, then turning to nod at them before going up to the house’s back door.
“The car must be there,” said Hudson.
Knocking brought no response. Krestinski tried the doorknob; it was open. He went in, shutting the door behind him. The group waited. A minute went by. Then two. The door opened, and the agent came out and walked over to them.
“He’s here.”
“He’s dead?”
Krestinski’s focus was on Ingalls. “Frances, I want you to wait outside the door and make sure no one goes in that house until the lab people arrive. There’ll be a crew here in an hour.” He turned to the others. “Yes, he’s dead. Now, let’s us go back to your house, Hudson.”
As Ingalls walked to the Stang house, the rest climbed into Hudson’s car. Starting the engine he said over his shoulder to Krestinski who was in the rear seat, “There’s something else in that house besides a dead Sturgis, isn’t there?”
“Maybe.”
It had started to snow.
Chapter 15
It was getting dark as they drove down Swallow Hill Road; the trees, faintly sketched through increasing snow and already with a heavy layer of frosting, looked like an old fashioned daguerreotype in the deepening dusk. Dr. Evans had been called as acting coroner; he and helicoptered-in FBI people were now at the Stang house.
Cilla brought out vegetable stew in the kitchen, as Frances arrived, relieved from her post. After hanging her coat, she took John Krestinski into another room to talk. Ten minutes later she came out and went through the living room to the kitchen on the back of the house.
“Anything I can help with?”
“Thanks, no,” said Cilla. “It’s already done, I’m just finishing.”
“I’m real sorry I broke your cup. I don’t know when I’ve been so startled.”
“Have you been with the FBI long?”
“All my life.” She grinned. “Dad planned it from the day I was born. Even to my name.”
“Frances Ingalls?”
“Given Brown as a middle name.”
“He must have been a feminist. I don’t think I’ve met a lady agent before.”
“And black ones have been even rarer.”
“Give you problems on the job?”
“Sure, at first. Things are different now.”
They smiled at each other. Frances leaned against the counter. “I talked with John for a few minutes just now. We don’t feel the danger to you has disappeared with Sturgis’s death.”
“Why not? If the ones who invaded our house realize he’s dead…”
“They won’t. John’s not going to announce it.”
Cilla stared at her.
“Even if we did, it might not make a difference, Cilla. But I told John keeping the news quiet has got to be with your approval. Yet that said, you might be in serious danger in any case.” She took a breath. “You see, it isn’t just about drugs anymore, it’s knowledge of some sort. Something Sturgis could have passed along to his daughter.” She raised her chin, looking at the other’s face. “Your picture was in the Boston newspapers a while ago.”
“When we had the Governors’ Cup, I was in one of the photos taken at Great Haystack. But they didn’t print my name.”
“Exactly, they didn’t identify you. Those looking for Sturgis surely know what his daughter looks like.”
“And thought I was her and came up after me? No way. Once they got here they’d discover I wasn’t a Sturgis.”
“Maybe not the way they’d look at it. How long have you been living here? In Bartlett.”
“Now, four months. But I was brought up here.”
“The last few years you’ve been, what would you say, out of circulation?”
“I’ve been at an ashram in New York State, if that’s what you mean.”
“Not a place with heavy coming and going traffic. Or where a lot of news comes from?”
“No.” She turned back to the stove.
“So from an outsider’s point of view, you just appeared here with no history before four months ago. Which is when we put Loni in the program.”
“Could Loni run a ski area?”
“Had you before this?”
Cilla stirred in silence. Then, “So I’m Miss Sturgis. Your cheese in the rat trap.”
“Not very delicately put, but yes. We think Sturgis knew something of such importance that they blew up his car as a warning, then his house to silence him. Professional criminals don’t look for publicity, and bombs are high profile. Sturgis, or what he knew, must be of such enormous importance that they were willing to risk a police spotlight. The only chance we have of bringing them out in the open is his daughter.”
“Then why not use his real daughter?”
“Can’t. She’s now in Witness Protection and out of our reach. Aside from that, she hasn’t got the guts to be…”
“Your sitting duck,” finished Cilla.
“Look, you’ll be under heavy protection. Six agents are being assigned, I’m one of them, and, if you’ll let me, I’ll stick to you like glue until this is over.”
“I work, Frances. I can’t just sit around waiting for your thugs to jump me.”
“I don’t want you to vary your schedule at all. You can find something for me to do at Great Haystack. I do ski.”
“Skiing isn’t where I’m at. Most of what I do is office work.”