CHAPTER 30

Pitched forward within her assailant’s grasp, Belle could see nothing but the cabin’s dark and mildewy siding. Flecked with slimy moss and red circles that she guessed were mold spores, it was an unappetizing sight, and made her suddenly remember the potential harm lurking in such airless and vacant spaces: rabid rodents and poisonous ticks and spiders being her primary concerns. The irony of the situation didn’t go unnoticed. Here she was, caught by two brutal hands, and her brain insisted on dredging up information on Lyme disease and the lethal Hanta virus and how its flulike symptoms had finally arrived full-blown in the northeastern United States.

The viselike grip shoved Belle further earthward. “Why were you breaking into my cabin?” This time Belle recognized the voice as female, although definitely not “old,” as Ricky had indicated. It also carried a down-home accent that Belle pegged as being Texan or maybe Arizonan.

Again, she thought of the Hanta virus—spawned by this woman’s native land. Belle tried to hold her breath, then pushed backward mightily. But the movement only gained her a few inches; her face was still perilously close to the cabin walls. “I wasn’t trying to break in.”

Fingers dug into her elbows, finding the nerves and making her hands go limp while the woman’s upper body pressed hard against Belle’s back. “Right. This was a social call, huh? You’re into it deep, sister. Do you want me to march you over to the manager’s office and have him call the cops?”

Some small sag in Belle’s spine must have indicated her unwillingness to participate in that scenario. It was a reaction her adversary noticed instantly. “He tries to run a nice place,” the woman continued in an even tougher tone. “He’ll have a fit when he learns stooges like you are trying to filch things from guests.”

“I’m not a thief,” Belle spluttered. Her fingers were now numb; her chin almost rested on her chest; and the acrid scent of mildew and rotting wood singed her nostrils.

“Well, you’re not the dame who cleans. And you’re definitely not my fairy godmother. Let’s see, lawyer for my loser of a soon-to-be ex-hubby? I don’t think so … Private dick trying to get the goods on my ‘gentlemen acquaintances’? Don’t make me laugh.” The woman suddenly spun Belle around. She was tall and sinewy, anywhere from forty to fifty plus; an obsession with serious exercise was revealed in a skintight outfit: a powder-blue Lycra top and white stretch jeans tucked into Western-cut aligator-skin boots. The fabric looked as if it had been painted on. But the cowgirl routine was marred by the color of the woman’s eyes. They were as gray, translucent, and watchful as a weimaraner’s. “All right, I want some answers. Start talking. What brings you here?”

Belle’s mind raced through possible replies; her ability to reinvent her story and think on her feet had been exemplary recently, but she intuited that this opponent was more canny than the lovelorn Ricky or his smarmy boss. Belle decided on truth. “I’m the crossword editor of the Evening Crier,” she said.

The statement brought no reaction from the woman; as if the information was common knowledge. She only stared; her eyes remaining icy cold. “And that gives you the right to break into this room?”

“I was told to meet someone here,” Belle answered.

The woman sneered, but didn’t immediately respond. Belle recognized that she was being judged on criteria beyond her control—her relative youth, effortlessly slim figure, and naturally pale blond hair. In comparison, Belle’s opponent obviously spent a good deal of time worrying about her figure, and her head boasted a mess of overprocessed curls the color and consistency of scorched hay.

“And who might that ‘someone’ have been, Snow White?”

“An ‘old lady.’” Belle regretted the words the second they left her mouth.

“Nice, cutie. Real nice. Want to dig yourself another grave?”

Belle stammered a reply. “Ricky … the boy who works here … cutting the grass and everything … He told me about the lady … She’s been sending me crossword puzzles and I … well, he must have gotten the cabin number confused … If this is your—” But even as she spoke, Belle realized how wrong the statement was. Ricky was dim, but he knew the value of a twenty-dollar bill. Acting as liaison for the mysterious puzzle constructor, he wouldn’t have mistaken her room number. Unless … Belle felt a chill run up her spine. Was it possible Ricky and his boss were in league with the kidnappers? Was it possible they’d led her into a trap? “You’re not Doris Quick, are you?” Belle asked suddenly.

“Who the hell is that?”

“Or Billy Vauriens’ girlfriend?”

“Look, Sleeping Beauty, I’m just a dame renting a cabin at this deluxe resort for an indefinite period of time. If this Ricky guy said I was ‘old,’ then he can go to blazes … You, too …” The steely grip lessened. Belle found her arms hanging free, but her wrists and hands still felt tingly and inert. “A word to the wise.”

Something in the woman’s tone or speech triggered a vague recollection in Belle. “What did you say?”

The woman began stalking toward the cabin’s front entry. “I said you can both go to blazes—”

“No … about a ‘word to the wise’?” Again, a surge of unpleasant but unnamed associations flooded Belle’s brain.

“I thought you said you did crosswords? Don’t tell me you’ve never heard the expression.”

Unintentionally, Belle’s mind filled with the memory of Jamaica at the Patriot Yacht Club … Jamaica flirting with Rosco and later telling Belle he was only a “transitional” mate. “On the rebound with a private dick.” Those were the phrases she’d used, and when Genie had protested, Jamaica had responded with: “A word to the wise …”

“I thought you puzzle types were brains,” the woman continued. “Goes to show ya …”

“Someone sent me crosswords,” Belle said. “If it wasn’t you, then who?” Her thoughts were tumbling over themselves. If this woman hadn’t supplied Ricky with the puzzles, what was the connection with cabin fifteen? “Two women disappeared … a yachting accident … perhaps you heard about it?”

“I’m not from around here, but I’ll tell ya something, sweet pea: types who go ‘yachting’ don’t hold much sympathy for me. And girlies who try to sneak into other folks’ rooms don’t do no better. I suggest you get outta here, while the gettin’s good.” The woman continued toward the cabin’s front entry. This time it was Belle who grabbed her arm.

“One of them was a well-known actress … a TV star … I don’t care where you’re from, you couldn’t have missed it.”

The woman stopped; a thin smile creased her hardened face. “Oh, yeah … now I remember … Newcastle, Mass.… I didn’t put two and two together … I seen it on the news … Jamaica Nevisson, the star of Crescent Heights—”

Belle pressed ahead eagerly. “That’s right … Jamaica’s a big celebrity … and we think …” She paused; the pronoun “we” sounded weak; it had neither power nor specificity. She altered her tone and opted for a more official approach. “The police believe that Miss Nevisson’s high profile may have inspired the crime. A photographer known to be stalking her in L.A. was apprehended here in Newcastle.”

The woman’s smile grew. Belle recognized the expression: fascination mingled with pride at a peripheral connection to fame. “Far-out …” she murmured, then quickly turned suspicious again. “But how does this cabin fit in? Unless they’re hiding under the floorboards, I haven’t seen anyone other than me using the place.”

“That’s what I’m trying to discover. I was informed that an ‘old lady’ had paid to have crossword puzzles sent to me—each of which contained clues concerning the women’s disappearance.”

“Uh-huh,” the woman said. “Let me get this straight … You thought you’d find this old broad sitting here, and she’d up and spill the beans? Is that it?” The icy eyes narrowed and the smile froze. “I gotta tell ya, sister. That is one sorry tale.”

“It’s the truth,” Belle said.

“Yeah, and I’m Dolly Parton … You got a husband?”

Belle was so surprised by the question that she blurted out a hurried: “I did. Yes. A former husband.”

“What happened? He catch you sleeping around—or vice versa?”

“Neither, in actual fact.”

The woman snorted. “Right.”

While Belle responded with an increasingly prim, “We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”

“The sex kind, you mean, honey?” She laughed heartily. “You know, Snow White, men will deceive you every chance they get.”

Again, Belle had an eerie sense of déjà vu. “Men were deceivers ever”—the quotation that had appeared in the first crossword puzzle. Was it possible this woman was indeed Ricky’s “old lady”?

“There’s a line from a play that has a similar message,” Belle said.

“Oh yeah?” The woman seemed disinterested, although Belle sensed the attitude was a sham.

“The verse begins: ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / Men were deceivers ever / One foot in sea, and one on shore …’”

The woman’s head jerked up, and her eyes darkened with an expression Belle couldn’t read. “How do you know this stuff?”

“I told you. I construct crossword puzzles.”

“That doesn’t mean you can quote all of Shakespeare.”

“How did you know it was Shakespeare?” was Belle’s response.

“Lucky guess … I mean, who else spouts stuff like that?” The woman stared at Belle. After a moment her voice continued with a level: “We had to read that junk in high school.”

“You must have a photographic memory.”

“I was good with poems … You memorize something when you’re young …”

Belle returned the woman’s inscrutable gaze. “You wouldn’t happen to remember the line that begins ‘Bait the hook well: this fish will bite …’?”

The woman opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to reconsider the response. “Can’t say I do.”

“Both quotations are found in Much Ado About Nothing, and they appeared in a crossword I received in connection with this case—also sent from this mysterious ‘old lady.’”

The woman turned her back. “Well, doll, you’d better find her, then.”

“I’m guessing I already have,” Belle answered easily. “I’m thinking that a sixteen-year-old might consider a woman past forty to be ‘old.’”

The woman spun around, her face contorted in rage. “Do I look like an old hag to you? Do I look as if I’m over the hill?”

“What can you tell me about Jamaica and Genie’s disappearance?”

“Not a damned thing!”

“Then why did you send those crosswords?”

A rustling in the tangled woods behind the cabins made them both turn toward the sound.

“Damn you!” the woman spat out. “You’re not going to ruin this again!” In a single, fluid motion, she grabbed Belle, pulled a snub-nosed .38 from inside one of her tall boots, and buried the muzzle between Belle’s shoulder blades. “Walk!” the woman ordered.