Enchantment Lake: A Northwoods Mystery Page 14

  No, she realized. What she was hearing was not inside her head but a boat motor. Though when she looked up, there was just a gray wall of rain.

  Then a voice shouting over the wind.

  Then a tiny red light and a tiny green one, bobbing like phantom Christmas tree lights. Finally, as if parting a curtain, a boat appeared out of the storm.

  27

  The Puzzle, Revealed

  “You’ve got a really crappy boat, you know that?” Francie said to Potter as the screen door slammed behind them.

  “It was fine this afternoon,” Potter shot back. “I can’t help that somebody shot holes through it.”

  “What?”

  “Remember that popping sound we heard?” Potter said. “I think someone was shooting my boat full of holes. Soon after that there was the sound of a boat going away.”

  “That’s true,” Francie said.

  “Whoever it was also took my life jackets,” Potter added sullenly. “Someone with a gun.”

  “But why?” Francie said. “Were they trying to kill you?”

  “Frenchy, you’re quaking like an aspen leaf,” Nels noticed, “and your lips are blue. How about you put some dry clothes on and then let’s talk?”

  “I think I’ll just go back to my cabin—” Potter began.

  “No, you will not,” Francie cut him off. “Wait here. I want some answers from you.”

  Francie dug around in closets and drawers and found enough dry clothes for the three of them; they each went into separate rooms with their arms full.

  The thought of Nels stripping off his wet clothes in the next room was distracting; Francie had to shove it out of her mind. She glanced at the clock: 9:30. She could still make it to the Fredericksons’. She paused to think wistfully of her cute new dress out on the lake somewhere, adrift in a kayak, then slipped into a pair of torn jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and one of Jeannette’s wool jackets. She supposed she looked bedraggled, as her aunts might say. She wished she could at least put on a little makeup or something. But all she had in her soggy sweatshirt pocket was a tube of lip gloss and a plastic bag of fireworks—not very helpful.

  She swiped some gloss on her lips, crammed the tube and the plastic bag in the jacket pocket, and stepped into the living room. Potter was sulking in a dark corner, and Nels was building a fire in the fireplace. He was managing to look fantastic in an old paint-spattered flannel shirt and some beat-up chinos, both vaguely familiar—were these her dad’s old clothes? That was a little too weird, and Francie looked away. Her averted gaze landed on the jigsaw puzzle on the table by the window. Her aunts had finished it, but she still couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be, exactly. A lot of blue, that was for sure.

  “Thanks for the rescue,” she said, still not looking at Nels.

  “Yeah,” Potter mumbled from his corner.

  “Don’t mention it,” Nels said.

  “Were you just happening by or what?” she asked.

  “I was looking for you. Sandy told me you’d taken a kayak to the island earlier in the day and hadn’t returned it. He assumed you’d just paddled it back here and would return it in the morning.”

  “Ah,” Francie said. That made sense. So much for thinking Sandy would have come to her rescue.

  “But when I got here you weren’t anywhere to be seen. I started to the island just as it went up in flames, and then the storm hit.”

  “What a bunch of bad luck,” Francie said. “And I don’t want to be rude, but I have an appointment with Frederica—I mean, Mrs. Frederickson—that I really ought to go to.”

  “Now?” Nels frowned.

  “I know it’s totally rude, and I can’t even tell you why I have to go over there, but I do. It’s really, really important. Potter, don’t go anywhere! I’ll be back in an hour.” She started for the door.

  “Are you serious?” Nels asked. “You’re going to go make a social call right now?”

  Francie turned back. Her glance fell once again on the puzzle, and she now realized that it was a picture of sky. Sky with clouds in it. Still, something about it seemed off.

  “It’s not a social call,” she said. “I know it doesn’t seem important—” Her eyes met Nels’s, and she glanced away, then continued, talking as fast as she could. “This won’t take long. Seriously. I mean, it could get me a job, a real job. An acting job. So, I’ll just zoom over there, meet the guy, try to be charming, and then I’ll come right back, and we’ll figure this out.”

  Francie snagged a flashlight as she ran out the door, leaving two stunned faces behind.

  “Back soon!” she called, as she disappeared down the dark path.

  28

  Freddie’s

  The Fredericksons’ door was slightly ajar, so after she had knocked and gotten no response, Francie poked her head inside.

  “Ms. Ricard?” she said. How should she refer to her? Mrs. Frederickson? Savery? Frederica? All these names! Francie felt like she was getting involved with a character from a Russian novel. She would have to pick a name and stick with it. Mrs. Frederickson? Or Ms. Ricard? The latter, she decided, and Frederica if that seemed too formal. But should she go in? Lake people were casual; the door was open; if it were anybody else’s place, she would go in.

  She stepped in.

  It was very quiet. Also very dark. Well, it was a big house. They could be in any number of remote rooms.

  “Hello?” she called. “Anybody home?” Her voice echoed over the terrazzo foyer.

  Kitchen, she thought. I know my way to the kitchen. Francie felt her way along the dimly lit hallway and through the series of rooms she vaguely remembered stumbling into and out of with Buck the night of the party. Tonight, the rooms were devoid of guests. Here and there a lamp glowed, so at least she could see well enough to maneuver.

  She was almost to the kitchen when an item resting on a side table caught her eye. Was it the shape? The size or the designs? The sharp glint of silver? She turned and stared. There, on a table under a lamp, sat a small, silver box, so like the one she imagined held her heart that her breath caught in her throat.

  It was the box, the exact box she had in her memory, which she believed to have been owned by her mother. How had it come to be here, on a side table in Frederica Ricard’s house?

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said.

  Francie spun around. “Oh! Mrs. Frederickson—I mean, Ms. Ricard—” Francie scrambled to remember the name she had decided to use. But all she could think about was that box. She wanted to turn and peek at it again, but the woman stood looking at her with her head tilted, waiting for Francie to finish.

  What should she say? Francie wondered. “My mother had a box like that,” she blurted.

  “Did she?” Mrs. Frederickson said vaguely.

  “I remember it from when I was little,” Francie continued breathlessly, talking senselessly while her mind raced. How would Mrs. Frederickon—or Ms. Ricard—have gotten hold of something that belonged to her mother? But what if this woman was . . . No, that couldn’t be. Her mother was dead. Well, that’s what everyone said, but what did she have to prove that? And she’d had that feeling earlier in the evening, that feeling that her mother was somewhere, still alive. “But it was lost—the box, I mean—somehow,” she went on. Wouldn’t it be crazy if Ms. Ricard were her mother? How cool would that be? Her mother a famous stage actor? Ms. Ricard didn’t have black hair with a white streak, but who could tell what color her hair really was? Wow, Francie thought, it would explain her own interest in acting—nobody else in the family was interested in theater. But wait a minute, wouldn’t her own mother recognize her? Then again, maybe she didn’t care. After all, she’d abandoned Francie as a baby, hadn’t she?

  Francie realized she’d been staring at Ms. Ricard without speaking for a long time. “Your door was open, and . . . I know I’m very late. I really apologize for that. It’s crazy what happened—a long story—but I just couldn’t get here any sooner. I know I w
as supposed to be here by nine o’clock. Sorry!”

  “Nine o’clock?” Ms. Ricard mumbled, vacantly.

  “I thought you said to stop by tonight. I hope I’m not mistaken,” Francie said.

  The other woman’s face seemed pale and drawn. “Did I?” she asked. “I’m sorry. So much on my mind lately. Would you care for a drink?”

  “No, thanks. I’m not really legal.”

  “You look like you could use one,” Ms. Ricard said, walking into the kitchen. “I know I could.”

  Ms. Ricard continued into the pantry and Francie heard ice being scooped from a bucket, dropped into a glass, then something being poured. The sound of ice rattling in a glass rattled something in Francie’s memory, something about the party, but it was hard to think about that when faced with the tantalizing idea that her mother might be a famous actor, while also faced with the utterly depressing thought that the same mother had abandoned her.

  “. . . a pleasure to see a young lady who isn’t all skin and bones,” Ms. Ricard was saying as she reentered the kitchen. “That’s fine for television and film, but for the stage you have to be seen, don’t you think? It’s good to have some meat on those bones.” The older woman leaned back against a counter across from Francie and stirred her drink with her finger.

  The clattering of ice in her glass was so insistent that Francie couldn’t help but remember the detail that had been tugging at her memory. At the party, Buck’s drink had ice in it. Everyone else had been drinking bottled beer or wine out of stemware. Buck had known where all the glasses were: “There, in the pantry,” he’d said to Buck Jr. And when Francie had asked for a tumbler, he had found one right away, without having to comb through the acres of cupboards in the kitchen. Obviously, he was pretty familiar with the Frederickson household.

  There had been some other odd things that had happened at that party, now that Francie started to think about it, things she hadn’t duly noted because she was so intent on getting near the important people, and then there’d been the distraction of the fishing incident with Buck.

  “Now, darlin’, what can I do for you?” Ms. Ricard said. Possibly for the second time, Francie had a feeling.

  Like, for instance, Francie thought, how Ms. Ricard had known that she wasn’t “a landowner—yet,” as she’d mentioned to one of the party guests. How would she have known that if Buck hadn’t told her?

  “I don’t know, Ms. Ricard,” Francie said. She’d kind of lost track of the conversation.

  “Call me Freddie. All my friends do.” Ms. Ricard smiled her dazzling smile. “‘Freddie and Frenchy.’ We could be a vaudeville act.” How did this woman know Francie’s nickname was Frenchy? Well, it wasn’t like it was a secret or anything. But still, why did she know all these things about her?

  Ms. Ricard slipped a lighter out of her pocket and lit a cigarette, setting the lighter on the counter beside her. She took a drag on her cigarette, then exhaled slowly, staring at Francie through the smoke.

  Francie wasn’t sure what to say. “Is your friend here?” she asked.

  “My friend?”

  “Your friend the casting director?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ms. Ricard said, “the casting director.” She took a few more puffs on her cigarette, squinting at Francie through her one open eye. “I’m going to give you some advice, darling. About acting: don’t bother.”

  “Don’t bother?” Francie said, rather stupidly.

  “It doesn’t pay.”

  “You must have made good money, though,” Francie said. “Those Broadway shows?”

  “Oh, sure! When I had work I made good money. But there are all those other times, when you’re not working and wondering, Will I ever work again? Am I too old? Have I gotten too wrinkled? Saggy? Overweight? Will I never get another role? Or only the bit parts: the grandmothers—please, God!—the old housekeeper, the stern-faced schoolmistress, the old bat who cooks people into pies.”

  “Mrs. Lovett? That’s a fantastic part! Anybody would want that part!”

  “So depressing!” Ms. Ricard waved her hand dismissively. “The ticket is to have money. Money and opportunity to make more money. Ha ha!”

  Francie found she couldn’t look at the woman anymore. Her gaze dropped to the glass in her hand. It was engraved with some fancy, curlicue letters that Francie couldn’t make out but reminded her of something. She’d seen them in some other context. Where?

  Ms. Ricard pushed herself off the counter and strode back to the pantry. While she was gone, Francie slid her hand over the lighter. She turned it over. Yep. It was engraved, too. With the same fancy initials: F.I.R. Probably for Frederica something Ricard, Francie surmised. Where had she had seen those letters before? On the glass Buck had used at the party. That made sense. But somewhere else, too. Someplace unlikely.

  Ms. Ricard returned, her drink refreshed, and Francie casually slipped her hands into her jacket pocket and dropped the lighter there. Maybe it was stealing, but she kind of didn’t care.

  Francie’s insides felt watery and sloshy. As if in a dream, she realized why she’d had so much trouble understanding her aunts’ jigsaw puzzle. It wasn’t the sky, exactly. It was water. The sky reflected in a lake, or maybe the ocean. The clouds in the picture were just reflections of clouds. That’s why it hadn’t looked quite right. Simultaneously, she remembered where she’d seen that word, FIR: upside down on Buck’s desk at Paradise Realty. An architect’s drawing of buildings, condos or something, pools, tennis courts, parking lots, road, driveways.

  “FIR Forest Development Enterprises,” Francie murmured. She looked up to see the woman staring at her. Her eyes, Francie noticed, were as black as a raven’s.

  “Aren’t you clever?” Ms. Ricard said.

  “That’s your company?” Francie asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Ms. Ricard answered.

  The heart Francie thought had been safely tucked away seemed to be now lodged in her throat. “You’re the one,” she said, knowing she shouldn’t say this, but saying it anyway. “You. You want to develop this side of the lake, so you had to get rid of the old folks who didn’t want to sell. Get them out. It wasn’t Buck who was running the show—”

  Ms. Ricard guffawed. “Buck!”

  Buck was just a reflection in the ocean that was Frederica Ricard, head of the FIR corporation, who was taking over the properties on this side of the lake in order, Francie finished her thought out loud, “to turn the place into a paradise of condominiums.”

  “Smoke and mirrors, my lovely. Smoke,” Ms. Ricard said, exhaling through her nose, “and mirrors.” She stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray and said, “Let’s go find that friend of mine.”

  She grabbed Francie’s arm and pulled her along through the house. Francie knew she should struggle, but she had more questions. “You encouraged Buck to taint the well water, set the snakes free, do what it took to encourage the old folks to move along,” Francie went on.

  “Well, really, did you ever think Buck could have even thought of it, much less pulled it off? Such an odd man. He was really convinced that what we wanted to do was discourage them, make them want to sell their properties. So tedious! He was a stone around my neck. So time-consuming! Just get it over with, that’s my philosophy. Move on! When I stopped getting offers for roles, when my agent stopped sending me scripts, did I just sit around and mope? No! I moved on, didn’t I? I moved on to greener pastures, let’s say.”

  “Was it you who set the island on fire? Shot holes in Potter’s boat? Set my kayak adrift?”

  Ms. Ricard chuckled, and pushed Francie down a long hallway. “I have been busy, haven’t I?”

  “Why, though? What do you have against me? Or Potter?” Francie struggled, but the woman’s grip was like iron. Ms. Ricard was tall, Francie realized, and surprisingly strong.

  “Mucking things up, darlin’,” Ms. Ricard said, “In your own ways, you have been just mucking about, terrible little pigs, the both of you!” She grunted li
ke a pig and a shiver ran down Francie’s spine. Just moments ago, she had fervently been hoping she had found her mother. Now she fervently hoped she hadn’t.

  “Listen, sugar,” Ms. Ricard went on, “let me give you the most important advice you’ll ever get: you have to know your talent! That’s the most important thing: identify and use your gifts, whatever they are. Really, darling,” she sighed. “It’s a pity you aren’t going to live long enough to find out what yours are.” She opened a door to a very dark room and, without ceremony, shoved Francie inside and slammed the door.

  29

  Out the Back Door

  Francie spun and reached for the handle but heard the click of a lock, then the sound of heels clattering away down the long hall in the other direction.

  Stupid! She jiggled the door handle. No good. She was about to pound on the door when a voice behind her hissed, “Stop it!”

  Francie spun around. Nobody.

  “Be quiet and don’t bang on the door,” the voice whispered.

  “What the—? Who are you?” Francie groped around until her fingers met a mop of dusty-feeling hair. “T.J.! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m taking the pins out of the hinges,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  “Okay, good plan, but why are you in here?”

  “We can’t sit here jibber-jabbering! Help me with this top pin. I can’t reach it. And hurry up! That lady’s going to do something terrible!”

  That was probably true. In all likelihood she’d come back with a shotgun. “What has Freddie got against you?”

  “Who’s Freddie?”

  “Mrs. Frederickson.”

  “Hereafter referred to as the worst witch of all times!” T.J. said.

  “But why did she put you in here?”

  “That lady found out something—something I know about. She’s going to wreck everything! I know it.”

  “What are you talking about?”