By then her phone was vibrating again. Oly calling to report that there were lights on at Connie Cliffe’s house but that J. Z.’s guesthouse out back was dark. His van was there. His old MG ragtop wasn’t. Oly asked her if she wanted him to sit on the place. She suggested he resume patrolling but keep an eye on it.
Kenny and Kimberly came out onto Beth’s screened-in porch now, Kimberly stretching herself out invitingly on the love seat. Kenny flicked off the lights so that the porch was in darkness. Des could no longer see the two of them. But she could hear their soft, intimate laughter. Crouched there in the arborvitae, she was starting to feel like a sleazoid peeper.
A few minutes after that, Beth came tiptoeing out of the same back door of the building that Bertha had just entered, closing it softly behind her. Beth wore a linen blazer and clutched her purse in one hand. She did not head for the garage. Instead, she started up the driveway toward the street, staying on the grass so that her footsteps wouldn’t crunch on the gravel. When she reached the sidewalk she turned left and started down Dorset Street toward Big Branch Road, where the town’s shopping district was. Where in the hell was she going? Des wondered-although not for long.
Because now there was activity at Augie’s place.
First, he shut off the Neil Diamond concert. Then the lights inside his apartment. Then his garage went dark, too. She just caught sight of him in the darkness as he left the garage on foot, clad in dark pants and a dark long-sleeved shirt. He started his way across the expansive backyard, moving swiftly and quietly. Des took off after him, staying a careful distance back, one hand on her holster to keep the leather quiet. When Augie reached the low split-rail fence that marked the property line he paused, not moving, not making a sound. Des held her ground maybe fifty feet behind him, not moving, not making a sound. He seemed to be waiting for something. Or someone. Had he spotted one of the troopers cruising by? Was he on the lookout for Beth, his favorite stalkee? Because, hello, Beth had just gone the other way down Dorset Street toward Big Branch, effectively leaving him in her dust. It was so dark that Des couldn’t tell what Augie was doing. She only knew that he didn’t budge from his perch at that low fence for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen…
Until suddenly he was on the move again. Climbing over the fence and moving with silent stealth across the parking lot that was behind the old grain and feed store next door. The building had been converted into law offices. Deserted on a Saturday night. It sat on the corner of Dorset Street and little Maple Lane. Directly across Maple Lane from it sat Rut Peck’s farmhouse, which was currently vacant. Old Rut had moved into Essex Meadows and put the house up for sale.
Augie crossed the lane and plunged his way into Rut’s wild, over grown yard. Des stayed right behind him, moving as quietly as she could. It was becoming clearer to her now-how the Dorset Flasher had been able to elude her sweeps. The man was never out in the open. He worked his way across the village by way of people’s backyards, driveways, little side roads. But she was on to him now.
And tonight she’d be right there to cuff him.
As Des pursued him across Rut’s yard a dog began to bark from a nearby house. A big dog with a husky bark. There were only two other houses on Maple Lane. One belonged to Nan Sidell, a single mother with two young sons. Nan taught at the middle school. Did she have a dog? Des couldn’t recall. But there were lights on at her place. The other house, which belonged to an old village handyman named Ray Smith, was dark. And Ray’s truck was gone.
Des came to a halt in the blackness of Rut’s yard, her ears straining. She couldn’t hear Augie’s footsteps now because of that barking dog. Couldn’t make out his silhouette either. Damn, had she lost him? She yanked her Maglite from her belt and flicked it on, its beam pointed downward. Saw a shiver of movement in the thicket of bushes up ahead of her-there-and flicked it off, moving in that direction. Down toward the Lieutenant River. Of course. The river snaked its way through the entire Historic District. Its banks were the Flasher’s own private highway. Mercifully, the barking dog fell silent now. Des could hear Augie moving his way through the brush again. Hear something else, too. A rustle in the brush behind her. Was someone else out there with them in the darkness? The dog? She turned around but saw no one, heard no one.
A car was making its way slowly along Dorset Street. It stopped when it reached Maple Lane, its high beams sweeping across Rut’s yard as it turned in. It was a state police cruiser. It was Oly. He eased his way down to Nan Sidell’s house and came to a stop. Des heard him get out. Right away, the dog started barking again.
Des took off, moving toward the riverbank out beyond Rut’s house. Hoping, praying, she hadn’t lost Augie’s trail. Footsteps. She heard footsteps in the darkness again-someone crashing through the brush right behind her. No, next to her. Wait, no, all around her. She whirled, her flashlight’s beam revealing nothing. Hell, what was… ? So fast now, too fast. Des heard a scuffle, a groan of pain, then a sickening thud. And now somebody was running again. She still couldn’t see a living soul in the dense, overgrown thicket. But she definitely heard somebody and started running hard in that direction-until she tripped over something and fell hard to the ground, her flashlight rolling off into the weeds. Cursing, Des got back up and retrieved it, pointing it down at the object she’d tripped over.
Augie Donatelli lay there in the tall weeds at her feet with the back of his head bashed in.
He had a very surprised look on his face. He wasn’t wearing a ski mask. Des saw no ski mask. He lay in a fetal position, as if he’d crumpled to his knees and then tipped over sideways. There was blood. A lot of it. And brain matter. A lot of it. A wooden baseball bat lay in the grass next to him.
Des sprinted through the brush after his attacker-only to find herself standing out in the middle of Maple Lane. She saw no one. Heard no one. Nothing. Just Oly’s cruiser parked out in front of Nan Sidell’s place. Oly was nowhere in sight. He must have gone inside the house. Nan’s dog was still barking.
Cursing, Des yanked her phone off her belt and called it in.
Dorset Street was no longer quiet. Dozens of Historic District residents were out on the sidewalk, talking and gawking. Maple Lane had been closed off. The Major Crime Squad’s techies were there from Meriden in their cube vans, along with a death investigator from the Medical Examiner’s Office. So were news crews from Connecticut’s four local TV stations, who were always up for a murder-especially when it took place in a ritzy village like Dorset. Rut Peck’s overgrown yard was cordoned off, the crime scene lit up by the high beams of several cruisers. More cruisers were sweeping the neighborhood for anyone who was out on foot. Anyone who’d seen anything. Anything.
It was a 911 call from Nan Sidell that had brought Oly to the scene literally seconds before Augie’s murder went down. Des knew Nan pretty well, having given a talk to the lady’s seventh-grade class about drugs last semester. Nan was a fragile-looking little blue-eyed blonde whose husband had left her a while back for his rather dumpy secretary. Nan’s two little boys were blue-eyed and tow-headed, same as her. Phillip, who was twelve, was lanky and tall for his age. Almost a head taller than his mother. Ten-year-old Peter was considerably shorter and pudgier.