It was a toss-up between a fog and a funk when I got home from Don and Theo’s house. And if it wasn’t for the phone call I made to Bradley as soon as I got in the door, I would have remained in that horrible state for hours. “You’re not law enforcement, Norrie. Missing kids means pulling in the big guns. Trust me on this. They’ll have the state police involved with all of their resources. And speaking of which, Marvin has his nose in everything. If I so much as hear even the teeniest of news, I’ll call you. Can we meet for dinner Wednesday? It feels like ages since we downed a pizza together.”
“For sure. Miss you, too.”
Unfortunately, my earlier phone chat with Delia, while I was with Don and Theo, clouded my mood as I recalled every detail. Unlike me, with a heavy slice of chocolate cheesecake in my stomach, Delia told me she wasn’t even able to keep down water and crackers. That’s how frantic she was about her son. I told her Theo and I had perused Dresden’s streets as well as the school and marina. I also told her I spoke with one of the deputies at Laura Landrow’s house but I didn’t share the details.
According to Delia, Henry arrived home unaware of his son’s disappearance and was now in their study with two Yates County sheriff’s deputies. I didn’t ask which ones. With a promise to talk tomorrow, we said good night.
“You’ve done all you can,” Don had said when I got off the phone with her. He and Theo had been inches away listening to my every syllable. “Except for that file information you and Theo photo’d. It may explain what Eli and Stuart overheard and whether Barbara and those men had a reason to abduct them.”
Theo had immediately jumped up and sent his photos to their desktop, directing me to email mine to him as well. Then he’d turned on the computer and ran off copies. One for Don and him and one for me. What we saw astonished and confounded us.
Barbara wasn’t simply Brewer’s secretary. She appeared to be a savvy businesswoman in her own right who may have used her secretarial position to shift any suspicions away from her. It still didn’t come close to explaining Boyd’s role as the trusty witness on the financial agreements.
“This is going to take a lot of digging,” I’d said, “but it looks like she recently financed a new seasonal worker business with someone named Kelsey Arnet. Good grief. This has to be the same business Henry touted in that email he sent to the wine trail. I should have looked closer. Think he was paid off or blackmailed about something?”
Don shook his head. “Six of one, half a dozen of the other, but I’m too wiped out right now to give anything serious thought. I say we look at this tomorrow. Either you call us or we’ll call you after work.”
And that was why my mind was foggy and dense. At least automatic pilot worked as far as feeding the dog, letting him out, and trudging upstairs to go to bed. I was at a standstill as far as everything else was concerned, but that changed the minute I opened my dresser to grab a clean nightshirt and glanced at the scarab bracelet I had tucked in there for lack of a better place.
I didn’t need to wait for Zenora. Thanks to Bradley’s police officer friend in Kingston, I had a pretty solid idea of whose wrist that thing fell off of—Sally Lynn Confree, elementary school teacher and owner of the white SUV. Maybe she was the missing link. I mean, why else would she and her cohort have exited those woods?
If nothing else, I had to reach closure on the one piece of information I knew to be correct. When I turned off the lights and shoved Charlie to the foot of the bed, I had already finalized a plan of action. It was simple, really. Find out what time Dundee’s elementary school dismissed its students, locate Sally’s car in their faculty parking lot, and wait for her. It wasn’t exactly stalking but it came narrowly close. At least my intentions were on the up-and-up.
• • •
The news of Eli and Stuart’s disappearance followed the farm report and everyone in the tasting room charged over to me when I arrived the next morning. It was a few minutes before we opened for business and I thought I’d be the first to let them know. So much for not having faith in our media. I was caught in a barrage of questions that seemed endless.
“Did you turn on the news?”
“Do you know about the Speltmore kid?”
“Do you think it was an abduction?”
“Did the sheriff’s office call you?”
With the exception of Sam, who had classes that day, everyone, including Fred and Emma, who rushed over from the bistro when they saw me come in, hammered me until I finally threw my hands in the air and said, “Slow down. I’ll tell you what I know.”
That, lamentably, led to more questions, but there wasn’t time. We opened in less than ten minutes and had to get moving. “I’ll fill you in when I can,” I said. As the crew ambled off to their tasting room tables, Glenda pulled me aside. She brushed her holographic hair away from her face, revealing a silver dragon earring with two red stones for eyes. Then she held out her cell phone. “Zenora just sent me this text. See for yourself.”
I looked at the message and tried to keep a straight face. It said, Tell Norrie there’s an interruption in the energy waves. Something dark on the horizon. Warn her. Truth be known, I’d seen sci-fi and horror movies with worse lines but this was definitely a contender.
“Um, I take it Zenora’s not too confident that the bracelet’s owner will show up.”
“Forget the bracelet. That’s the least of your troubles. Zenora’s never wrong about these things. I hope it doesn’t have to do with those missing boys.”
“Me, too.”
The morning crawled by and I had to fight off the desire to chew my fingernails. Something I hadn’t done since eighth grade. Yep, I was edgy and nervous. And that was before Deputy Hickman made his entrance. True, I was expecting him to show up, considering I was the one who had that telling conversation with the deputy at Laura Landrow’s house, but I didn’t expect him to be so accommodating. I would have rather seen his grouchier side.
Our conversation couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes and I told him everything the boys had told me. I even mentioned the conversation on the dock with reference to the Coors guy/fisherman who may have overheard us. However, I kept mum about the freezer discovery and the bracelet. At least for the time being.
When two fifteen rolled around, I took off for Dundee, a small village pretty much equidistant from Keuka and Seneca lakes. Only Cammy knew what I was up to and cautioned me as well. At least she didn’t mention energy waves. “Whatever you do, don’t get in that teacher’s car. I’ve seen episodes of FBI Most Wanted where normal people turn into psychopaths in a split second.”
Terrific. One more thing to think about.
The school was roughly a forty-minute drive from Two Witches, give or take lake traffic on Route 14A. The scarab bracelet was tucked in my jeans pocket and it wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.
Earlier in the day I had pulled up the Dundee Central School website and checked the dismissal time—two thirty-five. I knew teachers never bolted out of the building. That was reserved for the students, who had at least six hours of pent-up energy. Therefore, my arrival at two fifty-three gave me plenty of time.
The elementary school was part of a larger two-story central school structure in drab beige that encompassed the primary, middle, and high school. It looked like every other central New York school I’d seen. Its parking lot was longer than most professional football fields and I groaned when I realized it would take me at least six or seven minutes to eyeball each and every car until I found the white SUV. Good thing Godfrey had jotted down the license plate on his mileage pad a week ago.
After circling around for what seemed like ages, I spotted the car. It was parked in a middle row adjacent to a silver Kia Optima. Fortunately, the space next to the SUV was empty and I pulled in. Talk about catching a lucky break. I unsnapped my seat belt, leaned back, and waited for Sally Lynn to approach.
Thirty-five minutes had passed and still nothing. Please don’t tell me she’s directing a play or something and will be at a rehearsal until dinnertime. Or worse yet, coaching a middle school or high school sport. Darn it! I should have paid more attention to the extracurricular activities on the website.
It didn’t matter. Good parking spaces were a rarity and I had no place else to go. I watched as other faculty members got into their cars and took off. Wonderful. The one person I need to see will be the last one out of the building, preceded only by the principal or some unlucky guidance counselor.
Finally Sally Lynn approached her car and tapped on the fob to open the driver’s-side door. Shoulder-length dark hair in a flip and the same physique as the woman Godfrey and I spotted leaving the woods. I didn’t waste any time. I was out of my car in a nanosecond and skirted to the front of hers. She tossed a large tote bag on the driver’s-side seat and held on to the doorframe.
“Sorry to startle you,” I said. “Are you Sally Lynn Confree?”
She nodded. “Do you have a brother or sister in my class?”
I have a sister but she’s chasing mosquitos and cockroaches in godforsaken places . . .
“No, I’m Norrie Ellington and I co-own Two Witches Winery on Seneca Lake. It’s really important that I speak with you.”
“I’ve passed your winery but I never had a chance to stop in. What’s this about?” She closed the car door and leaned against it.
I couldn’t very well blurt out “two murders and a possible kidnapping,” so I took a breath and looked directly at her. “Two sixth-grade boys from Penn Yan are missing and they may know something about a recent murder, putting them in danger. I’m a friend. They discovered a body in the wooded area across from Lake View Winery on Seneca Lake and my friend and I saw you leaving that crime scene days later. It begged the question as to what you were doing there.”
Sally Lynn gasped. “My God! Do you intend to call the sheriff’s office?”