The Shadow Box Page 4

  He looked at his watch; it was five thirty.

  “Half an hour late,” he said.

  “That’s not like her, not at all,” Jackie said.

  Nate Browning, Claire’s first husband, began walking toward them. A Yale professor, he had been in the local paper lately for doing whale research in Alaska. Three women were right behind him, all dressed expensively in an art world way.

  “I am not up for this,” Jackie said under her breath. “The Catamount Bluff social circle.”

  “What?” Conor asked.

  “Claire’s neighbors. Leonora Lockwood, Sloane Hawke, and Abigail Coffin.”

  Conor recognized Leonora, a grande dame married to Wade Lockwood, a generous donor to charities that benefited the police. She was regal, in her late seventies, dressed in a bold green-and-yellow-print caftan with gold bangles on tan arms, long white hair pulled up in a French twist, and wrinkles she wore proudly. It was well known in law enforcement circles that she and Wade were political donors and honorary parents to Griffin.

  “Where’s Claire?” Leonora asked, glancing around.

  “I’m not sure,” Jackie said, exchanging a quick look with Conor.

  “She should be here, greeting her public!” Leonora said. “And Griffin’s, too, for that matter. They want to meet our state’s next first lady.”

  “I’m sure she’ll walk in any minute,” Nate said. He was about five foot nine, rumpled, with a comfortable and expanding belly. Needing a haircut and a beard trim, he was the opposite of fastidious Griffin.

  “What do you think of her new work?” Leonora asked Nate, and the group began to discuss it.

  Conor watched Griffin, across the room and deep in conversation with Eli Dean, the owner of West Wind Marina. Many people in town kept their boats there. When Conor saw Griffin put his head in his hands, he walked over.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, standing between Griffin and Eli.

  “Claire told me this morning she was going to row to Gull Island, to clear her head before the show,” Griffin said.

  “But I just told him she wasn’t at the boatyard at all,” Eli said. “I was working on dock two most of the day, and that pretty little rowing dory of hers never moved.”

  “When did you talk to her last?” Conor asked Griffin.

  “This morning,” Griffin said. “After breakfast.”

  “Hey, listen,” Eli said. “It’s hot in the sun, out of the wind, today; she probably just didn’t feel like taking the boat out in the heat.”

  “Seventy-five degrees,” Griffin said. “Seems pretty perfect to me.” He took a deep breath. “Look, I’m worried.”

  “What can I do?” Conor asked.

  “I’m going home to see if she’s there,” Griffin said.

  That ripple Conor had felt when he’d first walked into the gallery got stronger.

  “I’ll follow you,” Conor said. And he and Griffin Chase hurried to their cars.

  5

  JEANNE

  Late that afternoon, the easternmost part of Long Island Sound was unusually calm and gleamed amber in the declining sunlight. Jeanne and Bart Dunham were sailing northwest from Block Island on Arcturus, their Tartan 36, barely speaking because Bart had had too much to drink at the Oar and Jeanne had thought they should wait till morning before heading back home to Essex, Connecticut.

  Jeanne stood at the helm steering while Bart stretched out in the cockpit. The sails were up, but the boat was motoring. There wasn’t a bit of wind. She had brought them through Watch Hill Passage—shoal waters, hair raising at the best of times—past Fishers Island, then Race Rock, then the mouth of the Thames River.

  There wasn’t a lot of boat traffic—it was early in the season, but she and Bart were retired, and they wanted to get a start on summer. They were considering the idea of selling their house, sailing to Fort Lauderdale, and living aboard Arcturus. These short trips were test runs. She gave Bart a disgusted look. He had failed the test.

  She had seen the cross-Sound ferries pass each other, coming and going between New London and Orient Point. She took care in the shipping lanes, where tugs and barges plied Long Island Sound. The tide was with them after the long day on the water, and she couldn’t wait to get home, throw Bart into bed, and take a shower.

  “How you doin’, hon?” Bart asked.

  “Fine,” she said, the word clipped.

  “No problems in this weather!” he said. “Don’t know what you were so bent out of shape about. Put ’er on autopilot, and come over here, sweetheart.” He held out his arms. “Is this the life or what?”

  She ignored him, peering west, focusing on the glowing water ahead.

  “Okay, then,” he said. “You don’t love me anymore.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, distracted by a disturbance just ahead.

  “Where, baby?”

  “Right there,” she said, pointing. “Something swimming around.”

  Bart lifted himself onto one elbow and peered west, into the lowering sun. “Fish or whatever. A school of bluefish, feeding.”

  “Not a school, just one fin. Oh my God, a shark?”

  The boat slipped along the golden surface, a wake rippling out behind. The sails luffed and snapped.

  “What the hell’s it doing?” she asked.

  “Swimmin’, what sharks do best,” Bart said. “Hey, look at all this oil—did it kill a seal?”

  Changing water temperatures had attracted a seal population to southern New England. Seals were the favored meal of sharks. Jeanne slowed down as they approached. The water glistened with an oil slick; maybe Bart was right, and a shark had killed a seal. And then she realized it wasn’t a fin at all but a small furry creature.

  She steered toward the animal.

  It wasn’t a seal.

  It was a tiny dog, frantically paddling, trying to climb onto a slab of white fiberglass. In the seconds it took Jeanne to grab the boat hook, her heart began to pound. She could almost see a shark rising up, snatching the dog before she could get to it.

  But that didn’t happen; she reached overboard, snagged the pup’s bright-pink collar with one swipe of the hook, and pulled the Yorkshire terrier into the cockpit. The dog was barely larger than Jeanne’s hand. The small silver tag dangling from her collar was engraved Maggie. Jeanne held Maggie tight to her chest, felt her shivering uncontrollably.

  “She’s absolutely adorable,” Jeanne said.

  “Must’ve fallen overboard,” Bart said.

  “It’s okay, Maggie. You’re okay, girl,” Jeanne said. As she clutched the dog, sliding her under her fleece to warm her, she scanned in all directions to see if there was a boat searching for her.

  “What’s this oil from?” Bart asked, staring into the water.

  The slick Jeanne had previously thought was seal blubber ran in a winding current, a river through the sea, and now she saw that it contained shards of wood and a section of white fiberglass charred black at the edges. Fragments of blue Styrofoam insulation swept by, an empty bottle of Polar lime seltzer, two red personal flotation devices with a boat’s name stenciled on: Sallie B.

  “Oh my God!” Jeanne said. “We know that boat!”

  “Seen her a million times. She’s from West Wind,” Bart said.

  “Looks like she caught fire,” Jeanne said, watching a soot-stained green cushion float past. She scanned the horizon for smoke, for a vessel still smoldering.

  R 22—the red bell buoy marking Allen’s Reef—swung in the current a hundred yards south. The bell tolled with the movement of the waves, but beneath the mournful sound, she heard a voice—very weak, calling for help.

  Jeanne placed Maggie at her feet and steered toward the buoy. Bart stumbled below, lifted the mike, and called the coast guard. Jeanne heard him give the operator their GPS coordinates.

  “A boat sank out here,” he said. “The Sallie B. And someone’s alive. We can hear them, over by R 22. We’re going there now.”

  Jeanne sped up,
and as they approached, she saw a man clinging to the red metal structure that rose tall in the water, swinging wildly in the tide, the clapper banging with each wave. She didn’t know his name, but she recognized him—one of the many local skippers that greeted each other as they passed in the channel. She’d often seen a woman and two children in the cockpit with him. Knowing who he was, wondering what had happened to his family, made it even worse, and she choked on a sob.

  6

  CONOR

  The road to Catamount Bluff was unmarked and unpaved and meandered along the western edge of a protected seven-hundred-acre forest and nature preserve. A security guard was stationed at the head of the road. Conor Reid recognized him as Terry Brooks, an off-duty Black Hall police officer. It wasn’t uncommon for town cops to moonlight as private security for exclusive compounds along the shoreline. Conor waved as he passed.

  His Ford Interceptor took the ruts with no problem as he followed Griffin Chase. They passed three mailboxes; the houses to which they belonged were hidden behind hedges. This was the kind of old-money place where they didn’t bother with fancy gates or even a paved road.

  The road ended at the Chases’ house. Conor drove into the turnaround in front of a large silver-shingled house, on the bluff above the rocky beach, Long Island Sound sparkling into the distance. Conor was surprised to see Ben Markham, a uniformed Black Hall cop, standing by the front door.

  He paused a moment before getting out of the car, watching Griffin speak to Markham. There was obvious familiarity between them. Markham had been called to testify in some of Griffin’s trials; plus, as a local cop, he would do regular patrols here and possibly pick up shifts as a guard, just like Brooks.

  The Chases’ rambling old house sat on acres of direct waterfront—property worth more than the average prosecutor and an artist could afford—but everyone knew Griffin came from a family fortune. Conor figured this had to be one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the state.

  Conor walked from the vehicle toward the two men and exchanged a nod with Markham.

  “I just called Ben and asked him to meet us here,” Griffin explained.

  “Got it,” Conor said. He hadn’t heard the call over his police radio and realized Griffin had used his cell phone.

  “Claire has been really nervous,” Griffin said. “Jackie says it’s just jitters, but I don’t know. She’s had something on her mind this last week, but she wouldn’t miss her show for anything.”

  “You think something happened to her?” Markham said, frowning at the house.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Griffin said. “But let’s find her. We’ll start in her studio.”

  He led them around the side of the house, through an arch in a privet hedge, to a solid post-and-beam barn built at the edge of the bluff. It looked new in comparison with the hundred-or-so-year-old house. Griffin unlocked the door, and Markham and Conor followed him inside. Conor made a quick scan of the structure. It had an open floor plan, north-facing windows, an easel, a worktable, a daybed, and bookshelves. The space smelled of oil paint, turpentine, and the beach.

  “She designed it herself,” Griffin said. “And I had it built for her.”

  The space had no interior walls—there was nowhere to hide.

  “She’s not here,” Conor said.

  Griffin nodded, and he was already out the door, Markham at his side. Conor walked a few steps behind them, his eyes on the house. French doors and tall windows faced the sea. The doors were closed, glass panes unbroken. Griffin had his key out and opened a kitchen door. Conor looked around the vast room—nearly every wall and surface was white. He saw a Viking stove, an industrial-size refrigerator, and racks of copper pots hanging above a large island topped with white marble. There were dirty dishes and two half-empty coffee mugs in the farmhouse-style sink.

  “You said you had breakfast together?” Conor asked.

  “Yes,” Griffin said.

  “What time did you leave?”

  “About seven forty-five. I had a pretrial conference at nine.”

  “And Claire planned to go rowing?”

  “Yes, she was getting her things together when I left.”

  “Would she leave here without doing the dishes?”

  Griffin gave him a surprised look. Conor hadn’t intended to offend him, making a comment about Claire’s housekeeping, but he wanted to establish a timeline.

  “She might have,” Griffin said. “When she gets inspired, she can lose track of real-world stuff.”

  “Inspired? As in her art?” Conor asked.

  “Yes. Going down to the dock is part of it. She collects sea things to use in her work. For her, taking a walk or going for a row is as much making art as actually creating her pieces. It grounds her. And she’s needed that, especially lately. I have no idea what’s going on with her. She’s been, I don’t know . . . distracted lately.”

  Conor thought back to Monday night, when Claire had unexpectedly dropped in on Tom and Jackie’s family dinner. He had seen something of her state of mind, but he didn’t mention it now.

  Conor walked slowly around the kitchen. He noticed a dark wooden block made for holding knives on the marble countertop. It was marked Sabatier. One slot was empty.

  “What’s usually here?” he asked, pointing.

  Griffin stared. “A carving knife, I think.”

  “Could it be anywhere else?” Conor asked.

  “The dishwasher?” Griffin asked and opened it. It was empty. “Sometimes the cleaning lady puts things in the wrong place. The pantry or the utility drawer.” He rummaged through both, but there was no sign of a Sabatier carving knife.

  “Where next?” Markham asked.

  “Upstairs,” Griffin said. “The bedroom.”

  Markham and Griffin disappeared down a hallway, but Conor didn’t follow. He smelled something that didn’t belong here. It didn’t necessarily signal something dead, but it raised the hair on the back of his neck.

  He checked the small bathroom off the kitchen, but it was pristine. No, the odor was coming through a door he hadn’t noticed before—at the end of a short breezeway, cracked slightly open. He used his foot to inch the door open wider and stepped into an old building that seemed to serve as the garage.

  Conor had walked in on death before, and he instantly knew this wasn’t it. The smell was strong, that of an animal marking its territory. He found the source, a spill of rancid-smelling granules, at the foot of a tall row of shelves filled with garden supplies. It smelled as if an animal had sprayed urine. Did the Chases have cats? Had a skunk or raccoon gotten inside?

  The garage—more of a barn or old carriage house—sagged slightly. It was old and bore the brunt of a century of coastal storms. Conor looked up at splintery rafters; a sheet of plywood had been laid between two and served as a makeshift platform to hold oars, sail bags, and an unrigged mast. The garage had room for three cars; a black Range Rover was parked in one space, and the other two were empty. The barn-style doors were closed, but late-day light streamed in through two sets of windows.

  He glanced into the vehicle—it looked clean and empty, no sign of Claire. He circled around back, to the side closest to the wall and saw the blood: rust-colored smears on the concrete floor, the right doors of the Range Rover, and its right rear bumper—a coagulating pool just beside the tire.

  He continued around front and found two broken pieces of two-by-four pine on the floor. A long white line—the kind used on boats—lay twisted beside them. One end was red with blood that looked fresher than the brownish splotches. The middle of the rope was cut clean through—no frayed edges. He tilted his head back, saw where the rafter had broken. He crouched down to examine the broken wood. Caught in the splinters were white fibers, as if the rope had snagged there. A blue-and-white-striped towel, soaked in blood, was crumpled under the vehicle.

  There had been a violent assault; that much was clear. Griffin had said Claire was distracted. Had she walked into the g
arage, where a perpetrator was lying in wait, and not seen the attack coming? She had lost a lot of blood. He made a quick search for a knife, but he didn’t find one.

  Conor heard voices coming through the kitchen. He walked toward them, again opened the door with his foot. He hadn’t touched one surface since arriving at the house. Griffin and Markham were about to enter the garage, but Conor stopped them. Griffin looked pale.

  “You’re right,” Conor said. “Something happened.”

  “Did you find her? I want to see her,” Griffin said. He tried to rush past, but Conor grabbed his shoulders.

  “She’s not here, Griffin,” Conor said. “But there’s a lot of blood.”

  Griffin touched the marble counter, then crouched down, as if his legs had gone out from under him. Markham leaned down to support Griffin.

  “Ben, call this in,” Conor said to Markham.

  Markham took his radio from its holster and called the state police dispatcher.

  “Are you okay?” Conor asked Griffin, watching his reaction very carefully.

  “No,” Griffin said, his voice barely a whisper.

  Conor waited for a few seconds, then helped Griffin get to his feet. Griffin was beloved by the people of Connecticut, had the devotion of almost every cop Conor knew. His wife was missing, and he gave every appearance of being in shock. Conor saw him take his cell phone out of his pocket and turn his back and step away to make a call. That wasn’t unusual—not at all. But Conor had a strange feeling and couldn’t help wondering who was on the other end.

  7

  TOM

  The Sallie B was named after Sallie Benson: a forty-two-year-old interior designer and the wife of Dan Benson, mother of Gwen and Charlie, and owner of Maggie the Yorkie. So far, only Dan and the dog had been found alive. US Coast Guard Commander Tom Reid was in the midst of a search and rescue (SAR) operation for Sallie, Gwen, and Charlie.

  From the moment the Benson family members were reported missing, USCG vessels and aircraft had been deployed and SAR controllers had begun amassing data to create models to aid in the search. They analyzed factors such as debris from the vessel, tide, currents, air temperature, sea surface temperature, and wind speed and direction. They coordinated information offered to investigators by Jeanne and Bart Dunham and the very brief discussion with Dan Benson. He was in shock from his injuries and had been taken to Easterly Hospital.