Two days later, on a cold, dark day that saw the season’s first light dusting of snow, Donovan was laid to rest in the family crypt.
A small, private service was held at the cemetery chapel. A minister blessed the coffin, and then Ben, Boris, Axel, and the cemetery’s caretaker carried it over to the Witherspoon crypt. Daphne looked around at the names on the plaques lining the wall.
AMELIA WITHERSPOON,
mother to Pete, Abigail, and Louella, and the wife of the infamous serial killer, who had thankfully died many years before his reign of terror began.
JOHN WITHERSPOON,
Ben’s father, who had been killed at the hand of the crazed family patriarch. And finally MARGARET WITHERSPOON—Peggy—Christopher’s mother. Daphne saw the little boy place his hand on his mother’s plaque, and her heart broke for him.
There was, however, no plaque for Peter Witherspoon Senior. Daphne wondered where the madman had been buried.
Suzanne sobbed as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Louella stood, glassy-eyed. The minister said a last prayer. Pete looked so frail, so broken, that he might have toppled into the grave after his nephew’s coffin if Ashlee hadn’t been standing beside him, holding his arm.
Leaving the cemetery, which was located near the cliffs just beyond the town, they confronted a gathering of curious townspeople, as well as a mob of photographers and newspapermen, who were snapping photographs and calling out questions.
“Do you think it’s a copycat killer?” someone shouted.
“Are you taking any extra precautions at Witherswood?” another barked. Pete had given strict orders that none of them say a word to the press, so they all just got back into the limousines that had brought them to the cemetery. The police pushed the crowd back, telling them to respect the family’s privacy.
Back home, Ben gazed out the window at the falling snow and reflected on being a child growing up in such a mysterious old house.
“It wasn’t easy,” he told Daphne, who, with Gabriel, sat in the parlor behind him as fire roared in the fireplace. “Uncle Pete tried to keep the knowledge of Grandfather’s killing spree from us, but we learned about it, eventually, in bits and pieces. Whispers from the servants, overheard conversations from the adults, the comments of strangers on the few occasions we were brought into town. I remember after first understanding the nature of the crimes that had been committed, I worried that Grandfather’s ghost would come back and kill me, too. I told Donovan my fear. He laughed at me, called me a sissy for being afraid of ghosts.”
“You got off easy with him,” Gabriel said. “He only taunted you. He was always trying to beat me up, because I was the youngest. He was brutal, and cruel, and seemed to take delight in always making me feel worthless.”
“It’s true that Donovan wasn’t a very nice person, even as a child,” Ben said, turning around to look at them. “But I think it was due to the fact that his father left Aunt Louella after the murders were publicized. He didn’t want any association with the family. And Donovan felt abandoned.”
“Donovan’s father was a hopeless drunk,” Gabriel said.
“That, too,” Ben said. “So I guess we ought to be a bit more compassionate when we think of his unpleasantness.”
“Absolutely,” Gabriel said.
Ben seemed surprised. “You agree with me, Gabe? I thought if anyone would hold a grudge against Donovan, it would be you.”
“I think it’s pointless to hold a grudge past the grave, don’t you?” Gabriel shrugged. “He’s dead now. Whatever he did in the past is irrelevant. He’s paid the ultimate price. To go on hating him would be unjust, I think.” He lifted his head just a little, and Daphne caught the flicker of a smile. “Rest in peace, Donovan.”
Ben smiled. “I commend you, Gabe. That’s generous of you.”
The young man in the wheelchair fell quiet again, as if embarrassed by too much conversation.
“You know,” Daphne said, breaking the silence, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh-oh,” Ben joked.
She smiled. “I’m wondering again how the killer could have gotten out of the tower room after he killed Donovan.”
“I’m convinced that he killed him earlier, and got out before you and Ashlee went up there, and I believe that’s the theory the sheriff is leaning toward as well,” Ben said,
Daphne frowned. “But that’s presuming Ashlee and I didn’t see that clown.”
Ben nodded. “Daphne, you were both very frightened.. . .”
“We did not hallucinate!” she insisted, looking over at Gabriel, to see if their new friendship might generate some sympathy for her position. But Gabriel just shrugged, seeming to share his brother’s skepticism.
“Well,” Daphne said, “maybe, at least, you two could answer a question for me.”
“Happy to try,” Ben said.
She looked at him intently. “I know that Mr. Witherspoon said he sealed the hatch in the ceiling of the tower room a very long time ago. But ... is there any way through it regardless?”
“Not that I know of,” Ben said.
“I don’t know any way either,” Gabriel added.
“Are you sure? You said you played up there as a boy, Ben. You never figured out a way to—I don’t know—jimmy the boards that were nailed over it and get them to move, and then replace them, nails intact, so no one knew you had ever been there?”
Ben laughed. “Well, that certainly is imaginative! No, Daphne, I was never good at jimmying things! How about you, Gabe?”
He shook his head. “Interesting theory, though.”
Daphne held Ben’s gaze. Either he had never played that particular game with Gregory, or he was lying.
If he was lying, he might be the killer.
If he wasn’t lying, then—Daphne had to look away from him—then Gregory might be the killer.
She couldn’t believe she was thinking such thoughts.
“I’m not sure why you all keep trying to come up with a logical explanation for it,” came a high-pitched voice.
They turned. Boris had entered the room, carrying a tray with a pot of tea and three cups. As he poured tea for each of them, he shared his own thoughts about Donovan’s murder.
“I have seen the ghost of the original master of this house many times,” Boris said, handing Daphne her tea, which she took but did not drink. “I know the current master does not wish me to say such things, but at the risk of being disloyal, I must say what I think. For only if we understand what is happening can we protect ourselves.”
“Boris, I’ve heard you talk about ghosts all my life,” Ben said, accepting his own cup of tea. “But I’ve lived here a little more than thirty years myself, and I’ve never seen a thing.”
“Perhaps that is because your eyes are not fully open to it.” He turned to look at Daphne after giving Gabriel his cup. “You have seen him, haven’t you, my dear?”
“I’ve seen things,” Daphne admitted. “But I’m not sure what they were.”
“I believe only those of us who see him and recognize him are safe from his wrath.” Boris looked sternly at each of them, his sunken eyes and thin lips giving his head the appearance of a skull. “He did not give up mastership of this house willingly. He was a proud man, and for all his terrible crimes, I daresay, a noble one, too.”
“Noble?” Ben asked. “You call slaughtering children noble?”
“I say he was a noble man,” the butler said, removing the teapot and placing it on a table, and carrying the now-empty tray back with him toward the door. “And I say to everyone in this house, if you value your lives, see him—and recognize him.”
He laughed then, a horrible, grinding sort of sound.
But it wasn’t what she heard that terrified Daphne as much as what she saw.
As he laughed, Boris exposed his teeth—teeth she had seen before, only not on him. The butler’s teeth were surprisingly sharp, and very yellow.
They were the teeth of the clown.
FOURTEEN
Daphne didn’t know what to think, believe, hope, or fear.
She suspected nearly everyone. Both the living and the dead.
And, somehow, what was happening in this house involved her.
Late at night, sitting in her room, staring out the window at the crashing waves below, lit by a winter moon, she wondered if she’d ever understand why this place was her destiny.
She was crazy to think Gregory or Ben was the killer.
But Boris ...
He had repeated his tale of Pete Witherspoon Senior’s ghost to Ashlee and to Axel, though he seemed too cautious to say it in front of Pete Junior or Abigail. Louella, of course, remained confined to her room. But to those he felt were open to listening, Boris insisted they needed to recognize the power the “old master” still had over this house. In effect, he wanted people to recognize the “nobility” of a man who had been so demonized by his evil deeds. Daphne thought the butler was crazy.
Crazy enough, in fact, to have committed murder.
“Think about it,” she said to Ashlee one day, when another light snowfall was in the process of turning the fields around the house white. “If Boris killed Donovan, he’d want to throw us off by insisting it was a ghost. Or maybe he’s so obsessed with Pete Senior that he actually thinks he
is
him when he commits the murders.”
“So you think Boris killed Maggie, too?”
“He could have. Remember, he and Axel weren’t around that night. You had given Axel the assignment to pick me up, but both he and Boris claimed not to have seen it and took off that night.”
Ashlee had to admit that was true. “So do you think Axel is in on it?”
“Who knows? I think anything’s possible. And after all, he was in the house the night Donovan was killed. No need to turn off the alarm. He was already inside.”
“But wait. Boris was the first one to show up after we found Donovan’s body. Like in a matter of minutes.”
Daphne had already considered this. “If he knows how to get out of the ceiling hatch, then his room is directly beneath the tower. He’s the closest one to it, in fact. And you and I took a while getting down those stairs, screaming and falling. Meanwhile, he’s out the hatch, shimmying down the trellis, hopping into his room through the window, doffing the clown suit, wiping off all that makeup, and then coming out his door to find us in the foyer.”
“But he’s an old man, Daphne.”
“But strong. And fast. You see how quickly—and how stealthily—he moves around here.”
“That’s true, too.” Ashlee seemed to be considering the idea. “And you sure are right about the teeth.”
“Think we should go to the sheriff with this?”
Ashlee shook her head. “Not yet. I think the sheriff feels we’re a couple of excitable little girls. We need more proof to bring to him than this.”
Daphne agreed. For now, both of them would keep watch on the butler for a sign of anything suspicious.
Thanksgiving came and went, without any kind of family celebration. Cook made a turkey and carved it in the kitchen, and one by one, the members of the clan came by and made plates for themselves. Most took their plates back to their rooms. Daphne fixed two plates and brought one to Louella. They ate together in Louella’s room, but the older woman said very little, despite Daphne’s attempts to engage her in conversation.
The house had grown even quieter than usual. Suzanne had left to spend time with her family in Bangor, but had informed Pete she would be back in a few days to gather her things. Because she and Donovan had never had a chance to marry, she had no legal claim to any part of the estate. Ashlee said Pete wasn’t sorry to see her go.
Ben, too, was gone much of the time. He’d met a great guy in Portland, he told Daphne, a fellow named Charlie. A regular sort of guy, Ben said. An electrician who played touch football and cheered on the Patriots. Spending time with Charlie in his small loft apartment in downtown Portland was far preferable at the moment, Ben explained, to living in the morgue that Witherswood had become.
But in the midst of the bleakness there was a bit of good news. Pete had agreed to let Christopher see Dr. Duane. On the appointed morning, Daphne explained to the boy he was going to see “someone he could talk to.” Christopher exploded.
“You’re sending me to a shrink?”
“He’s a psychologist, Christopher. He has a wonderful reputation for working with young people going through grief.”
The boy folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not going to talk about my mother.”
“You can talk about anything you like,” Daphne said.
“I’m going to talk about how you killed Donovan.”
“Go ahead. Talk about that if you want.”
Daphne could see it irked the boy that he wasn’t getting a rise out of her. “I’m going to tell him that I think you killed that barmaid too,” he spit at her. “All of this started the night you arrived in town.”
“Yes, you’re right, it did. I think that would be an excellent thing for you to talk to Dr. Duane about. Now get dressed. Axel is bringing the car around to meet us out front.”
Daphne slung her purse over her shoulder and they headed downstairs. Axel waited for them in the Lincoln Town Car the family used for “official” family business. Daphne and Christopher climbed into the back. The boy slunk far down in the seat, his arms crossed across his chest, his bottom lip protruding, the cords of his iPod firmly planted in his ears.
Daphne reached over the seat to hand Axel the address of Dr. Duane’s office. “Do you know where it is?” she asked.
“I know every street in Point Woebegone, Miss May,” Axel boasted. “I know practically every house, where everyone lives.”
He steered the car down the winding road toward the village.
Daphne noticed the round-the-clock police protection had ended. Sheriff Patterson was convinced she and Ashlee had imagined that clown and that the killer had come and gone some time before they discovered Donovan’s body. The coroner’s estimation of time of death suggested that Donovan had been lying there for at least a couple of hours, so the sheriff felt he was justified in thinking as he did. They were looking into employees of the Witherspoons’ various businesses who had had run-ins with Donovan, and a guy he apparently offended a few nights before his murder at the inn, for—what else?—making a play for his girlfriend.
So the comfort of a twenty-four-hour police presence was no more. After all, Witherswood had a first-rate security system, the sheriff told Pete.
Daphne laughed to herself. First-rate. Right. What a joke. It hadn’t kept Donovan’s murderer from getting in to perform his grisly task.
Of course, if the killer was Boris, he’d already been in the house.
Daphne noticed that Axel wasn’t taking the usual road into town. “Why are you turning this way?” she asked.
“Driving along the ocean is quicker, Miss May, especially if we are heading to the part of town where this Dr. Duane has his office,” Axel replied.
“Oh, all right.” Daphne settled back in her seat, looking at the back of Axel’s round head. The squat little man barely rose to steering-wheel height. He had to sit on a cushion just to get this high. What an odd choice he was for a chauffeur. Then again, what wasn’t odd about the Witherspoons?
“So you’d consider yourself an expert on the town, huh, Axel?” Daphne asked.
“Well,” he said, “I know my way around.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Thirty-three years,” he said proudly.
“And how many of those at Witherswood?”
“All of them, miss. Boris got me the job by recommending me to ...” His voice faded off. “The family at the time.”
He didn’t want to say Pete Senior.
“I see,” Daphne said. “So you’ve known Boris a long time.”
Axel lifted his squinty blue eyes to her in the mirror. “Oh, yes, miss. We grew up in the same town in Minnesota.”
“Boris has been with the family even longer than you have, I understand.”
“Indeed he has. Forty years, I think, this winter. He saw all those boys born... .” His voice became sad. “Including Mr. Donovan.”
“The family’s had so much tragedy,” Daphne said.
“Indeed it has, miss.”
“But you and Boris have always stayed loyal.”
“Of course. I’d do anything for Mr. Witherspoon.”
“I’m sure Boris feels the same way.”
“Oh, yes, he does, miss.”
They were passing by a place where the cliffs dropped dramatically into the sea. A flurry of seagulls circled in the sky.
“Even when the first master of the house committed his crimes,” Daphne observed, “you both remained loyal. That must have been terribly difficult for you.”
“Well, yes, miss, for me it was terribly difficult. But I wanted to stay on and help the family recover from such a terrible shock.”
“It must have been difficult for Boris, too.”
Axel was quiet.
“Wasn’t it?” Daphne asked. “I mean, he was so close to the first Mr. Witherspoon. It must have been extremely difficult for him.”
Still Axel was silent.
“I only mention it because, as you know, Boris is always talking about the first Mr. Witherspoon’s ghost. It’s rather peculiar, don’t you think? I worry about him sometimes, because ... well, who believes in ghosts?”
Finally Axel spoke again. “I am glad to hear you say that, miss, because I worry about him, too. He does indeed go on and on about the ghosts haunting Witherswood. You see, Miss May, Boris was tremendously fond of the first Mr. Witherspoon. I think even when it became clear that he committed all those heinous crimes, Boris didn’t believe it. On some level, I think he still won’t believe anything bad about his old master.”
“That’s very odd,” Daphne said, “since even his own family acknowledges the man’s guilt.”
“Indeed, it is very odd. There are times when all Boris does is talk about Peter Witherspoon Senior. I’ll come in, and he’ll actually be talking in the old master’s voice! He’ll be acting like the old master is still here, giving orders.”
A sudden, terrible, freezing chill shot down Daphne’s spine.
“Of course, Boris is getting up there in age. He’ll be seventy this year. They say seventy isn’t so old anymore, but nonetheless, sometimes I do worry that Boris is getting a bit strange in the head.”
He suddenly spun around in his seat to look at Daphne.
“Oh, but you won’t say what I’ve told you? You won’t tell anyone? I’d hate to get Boris in trouble. He still does his job to perfection.”
“I won’t say anything,” Daphne assured him.
Axel turned back around to keep his eyes on the road. “It’s just that I worry about him. He’s my oldest friend. I’d do anything for Boris. Anything.”
They were quiet for a while as the car glided into the village, past the inn, past the shops, past the place where Daphne had seen the clown, past Rico’s. Daphne noticed Gregory’s motorcycle out front, and her heart beat a little bit faster.
“I think the address you gave me should be right up this road,” Axel was saying, peering out his side window, checking for numbers. “Ah, there it is.”
He pulled up in front of a small white clapboard house with blue shutters. A shingle out front bore the name TIMOTHY H. DUANE, PHD.
She noticed that the cemetery where so recently they had entombed Donovan was directly across the street. She wondered if Christopher noticed, and if he thought about his mother. But the boy never glanced in that direction. In fact, he wasn’t stirring at all.
“Come on, Christopher,” Daphne said, grabbing her purse. “We’re here.”
She nudged the boy to get out of the car. He remained resolutely listening to his iPod. It took three nudges for him to finally open the door and step out.
Daphne followed, but leaned back into the car for a moment. “Axel, just a quick thought. Since you know so much about Point Woebegone, do you remember a couple, say twenty-two, twenty-three years ago, who had a baby girl but gave her up for adoption? Or maybe, more likely, a single mother who had a baby she couldn’t keep?”
“Well, I’ll have to give that one some thought, Miss May,” Axel replied.
“Please do,” she said.
“Be back out front here in a couple of hours, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thanks.”
She closed the door and Axel drove away.
She stood beside Christopher looking up at the house in front of them.
“You sure asked him a lot of questions about Boris,” Christopher observed.
“I thought you were listening to music,” Daphne said.
Christopher gave her a sly look. “You thinking of pinning Donovan’s murder on Boris so you can get away scot-free?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking of doing, Christopher,” Daphne said. “Now come on. Dr. Duane is expecting us.”