It took twenty agonizing minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Russ, Mr. Liddle, and a friend of the Langevoorts who announced he was Red Cross certified took turns performing artificial respiration. Aside from a thready pulse, Saunderson remained unresponsive.
Langevoort, a man of action reduced to ineffectiveness, handed out flashlights and directed several guests to the turning points along the private road, to prevent the ambulance from getting lost in the mountain dark. Joni rose to the occasion magnificently, corralling the remainder of the company and leading them back to the tent, where they could vent their shock and their suppositions without crowding the spot where the three men were working to save Saunderson’s life.
Audrey Langevoort fell apart. “I don’t,” she sobbed. “I don’t…” She clutched Clare’s hand. They were sitting on the sofa in the den together, Clare’s arm tight around the older woman.
“I know,” Clare said. “I know. It’s terrible.”
“Why?” Audrey wailed.
“I don’t know. We may never know.” Clare took a breath. “Did he seem depressed?”
“He always seemed depressed!” Audrey bent over, her body shaking. She started to gasp for breath.
“Audrey? Are you all right?”
Audrey waved her hand in front of her face. “Panic…”
“You’re having a panic attack.” Clare glanced around, but the only other people in the house were a few of the catering staff, huddled together in the kitchen and speaking in low tones. “Do you take any medicine for anxiety? Audrey?”
The woman nodded, then pointed a shaking finger toward the other room. “Bedroom,” she gasped.
“In the master bedroom.” Clare stood, still holding Audrey’s other hand. “In your nightstand? Or the bathroom?”
“Bath,” Audrey wheezed.
“Okay, I’m going to leave you for just long enough to get your pills. I’ll be right back.”
The bedroom light was just inside the door. Flicking it on, Clare saw the large bed had been torn apart, pillows tossed on the floor, duvet half-fallen to the floor. The top sheet was missing. Clare turned her face away and crossed to the bathroom. Its marble-swathed luxury seemed almost obscene under the circumstances. She opened the top drawer nearest to the door and was rewarded by a clattering of pill bottles and makeup. She recognized prescriptions for high blood pressure, for acid reflux, for insomnia. There were three—three!—bottles of pain pills. Audrey’s doctor was generous with her scrip. There were two medications she had never heard of. She took those and stepped back.
She stared at herself in the mirror for a heartbeat. She wasn’t thinking, exactly, but some decision had been made, because her hand went out of its own volition and closed around one of the bottles of pain pills. She watched looking-glass-Clare as she slipped it into her pocket, and she remembered getting the dress, and her delight at discovering it had pockets, so useful, so easy, and then she was walking out of the bathroom with two bottles of pills in her hand and one hidden away in the mirror-skirt. Which was also her skirt.
She asked the caterers for water and three of them tried to serve her at once. She took the first proffered glass and crossed the wide room to Audrey’s side. “Audrey?” She held out the pills. “I wasn’t sure which one it was.”
The woman took one. “Seconal.” She tried to open it, but the childproof cap defeated her.
“Let me,” Clare said. The label read One as needed so Clare shook out one and handed it to Audrey, holding out the glass of water at the same time. Audrey downed the pill, closed her trembling hand around the glass, and took a deep swallow.
A distant siren wailed. “Listen,” Clare said. “The ambulance is here.” The siren grew closer and closer and then cut off, leaving a silence that was like sound in its wake. Then the slamming doors, and the shouts of “Down here!” and the crunch of footsteps running across the gravel drive.
Audrey lurched upright. “I should … I should go with them.” She teetered, half up and half down.
Clare wrapped her hands around the older woman’s arms and gently guided her back to the couch. “I’m sure someone is going with him. I don’t think you’re quite in a state to be at the hospital.”
Audrey looked up at her. “Will you go? I mean, find out. Make sure he won’t be,” her breath hiccupped, “alone.”
“I will.” Clare handed Audrey the glass of water. “Why don’t you see if you can drink the rest of this? I’ll be right back.”
Audrey nodded. Clare let herself out the side door to the deck, avoiding the yawning opening with the sheet still knotted around the railing. She ran down the wraparound stairs. It was impossible to believe she had come up them—she glanced at her watch—only half an hour ago. She found Russ and Mr. Liddle standing in the same spot, looking up the hill toward the flaring ambulance lights.
“Did they already take him?”
Russ reached for her and pulled her close. “Yeah. Kent Langevoort’s going with them.” He tucked her beneath his chin and shuddered slightly. “Jesus.” He drew back and studied her face. “Are you okay?”
“I guess?” Behind her, she could hear the ambulance fire up and roar out of the parking area in a spatter of gravel. “Did we get to him in time? Will he recover?”
Beside them, Mr. Liddle made a noise. “No coming back from a hanging, they say.” He looked up at Russ. “You ever seen one before?”
“No. Most of my career was military. People use guns.” He hugged Clare hard. “I hate suicides. I hate ’em.”
“If it was suicide,” Mr. Liddle said mildly.
Russ released Clare. “Let’s see if we can nail that question down.”
“What do you mean?” Clare glanced up at the deck. The handsbreadth of sheet and the broad knot looked like a wide-jawed skull. “There wasn’t anyone else up there. I would have seen anyone leaving the deck.”
“Would you have?” Russ followed her gaze. “It’s pretty wide, and mostly in the dark. And I’m betting you were very focused on what was going on right in front of you.”
“Are we waiting for your people to get here?” Mr. Liddle asked.
“No. I notified Dispatch, but I didn’t see the need to take anybody off duty. Not stretched as thin as we are.”
Mr. Liddle jerked his chin toward the stairs. “Good enough. You go talk to the folks that were inside. I’ll start getting statements from the ones in the tent. We’re going to want a guest list to compare.”
Even under the grim circumstances, Clare was a little amused to see Russ follow the old chief’s orders and head for the stairs. You can take the man out of the police force, she thought. She went up behind him. “There was a caterer cleaning the kitchen,” she said when they reached the side door. “The young woman with the ends of her hair dyed pink.”
“Well, that makes her easy to pick out from a crowd.” Russ held the door open for her. “Who else was inside when you got here?”
“She said the powder room and the master bathroom were occupied. I’m pretty sure Bors was in the master bedroom. The sheet—” She made a tugging gesture with both hands.
“I see. Was he alone?”
“I have no idea. And no, I don’t know who was in the powder room. I was focused on reaching the upstairs bathroom as quickly as possible at that point.”
“Okay, darlin’.” He glanced around the open space of the dining room and kitchen.
Before he could position her someplace innocuous, she pointed toward the living room. “I’m going to check on Audrey Langevoort and see how she’s settling down.” Russ raised an eyebrow. “She was upset and had a panic attack. I had to get her anxiety medication.” At once, she became aware of the pill bottle in her pocket. “I’ll see if she has the guest list.”
The corner of Russ’s mouth turned up. “Good girl.”
No, I’m not, really.
Audrey’s Seconal was evidently the real deal. She was relaxed on the sofa, looking as if she had just had a stiff drink and a back rub. “Oh, Clare. Thank you so much. I’m sorry I got so emotional.”
“Your husband went with the ambulance, so there’ll be someone at the hospital with Bors.” Clare sat down. “Russ wants to know if you have a guest list available.”
“Of course. Whatever I can do to help.”
“Audrey, can you think of any reason why he would want to kill himself? You said he always seemed depressed, but I spoke with him at dinner and he was definitely excited about the promotion. Well, excited about some aspects of it, at least.”
“‘Depressed’ was probably the wrong word. Serious, maybe. Somber. Bors was a perfectionist. He couldn’t be happy if something was ninety-nine percent good. It had to be a hundred. You know the type?”
“I’ve met a few. Do you think the responsibilities of taking over Barkley and Eaton were weighing on him?”
“I do, yes.” Audrey pushed back her hair. “He certainly didn’t act like a man who had just been given the opportunity of a lifetime when I arrived.”
“He was here before you?” She glanced toward the ceiling as if she could see through to the second floor. “Has he been staying here?”
“Yes. He and Kent spent last weekend here while Joni and I were in the city. Kent likes to bring groups of his executives up here—”
“I heard.”
“Right. So he brought Bors up to make the offer. Then they had a working weekend to map out the future of the company. Joni and I got here Monday evening.”
Clare blinked. “You pulled this whole evening together in four days?”
Audrey laughed a little. “Thanks, but I’m not that good. No, Kent asked me to set things up a few weeks ago. He had a press release ready to go and everything. He just hadn’t formally asked Bors.”
Clare wondered if, stuck up in the Adirondack woods, Bors had felt he couldn’t refuse his boss’s offer. She had a friend who had accepted a marriage proposal because it was in the middle of a restaurant with everyone else looking on with heart-shaped eyes. She had given the ring back less than a week later. But how do you break up when the engagement’s already been announced on Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal?
“Did Bors have any particular friends at the company? Anyone he might have confided in?”
“Not that I know. He was a workaholic. Not unlike Kent, which is one of the reasons he got the job.”
“How about the opposite? Was there anyone at the company who was jealous of him? Disliked him?”
Audrey looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “You mean, enough to somehow drive him to suicide? In a week’s time? I find that really hard to imagine.”