The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [0]
ST. ALBANS FIRE
THE SURROGATE THIEF
GATEKEEPER
THE SNIPER’S WIFE
TUCKER PEAK
THE MARBLE MASK
OCCAM’S RAZOR
THE DISPOSABLE MAN
BELLOWS FALLS
THE RAGMAN’S MEMORY
THE DARK ROOT
FRUITS OF THE POISONOUS TREE
THE SKELETON’S KNEE
SCENT OF EVIL
BORDERLINES
OPEN SEASON
Copyright © 2006 by Archer Mayor
All rights reserved.
Mysterious Press
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
The Mysterious Press name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: October 2006
ISBN: 978-0-7595-6929-4
Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
To my mother, Ana Mayor,
with love and thanks for giving a
tough job the appearance of effortless joy.
Acknowledgments
As always in the writing of these books, I begin in utter ignorance, dependent upon the kindness and knowledge of others to guide me with their expertise. However, while the following book was written thanks to them, whatever faults there may be remain mine alone. My deepest gratitude, therefore (and perhaps apologies), to all the following individuals and organizations:
Butch Watters Paco Aumand
John Martin Mike Mayor
Steve Shapiro Steve Adams
Peter Barton Francis Morrissey
Miles Powers Joe Parks
Camillo Grande John Leigh
Gary Forrest Dave Stanton
Neal Boucher Karen Mellinger
Suzanne Webb Jon Peters
Richard Gauthier Stu Hurd
Sally Mattson Kathryn Tolbert
Castle Freeman Julie Lavorgna
Pam Tedesco
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner-Vermont
Bennington Co., Vermont, Sheriff’s Dept.
The Town of Bennington, Vermont
The Bennington, Vermont, Police Dept.
The early bird may get the worm,
but the second mouse gets the cheese.
—Anonymous
(As passed along to me by Elizabeth Scout Mayor)
Chapter 1
“Watch out for the cat.”
Joe Gunther froze by the door, his hand on the knob, as if expecting the creature to materialize from thin air.
The young Vermont state trooper stationed on the porch looked apologetic. “I don’t know if we’re supposed to let it out.”
Gunther pushed the door open a couple of inches, watching in vain for any movement by his feet.
Encouraged, he crossed the threshold quickly and shut himself in, immediately encircled by the room’s strong odor of cat feces, wafting in the summer warmth.
“I vote for letting it out,” he murmured softly.
He was standing in one corner of a cavernous multiwindowed room—almost the entire ground floor of a converted nineteenth-century schoolhouse located some five miles south of Wilmington. Contesting the smell, sunlight poured in through a bank of open windows, nurturing a solid ranking of potted and hanging plants. Old but well-loved furniture, none of it expensive and most of it bulky, did a convincing job of filling the expanse with a selection of oasislike islands—a grouping around the woodstove, another in a far corner flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a third before a blank TV set. The most distant wall was dominated by an awkwardly linear kitchen—a parade of icebox, range, dishwasher, sink, and counter space. Gunther imagined any truly inspired cook here needing running shoes and patience, or a gift for organization. Giving the place a hint of old Africa—or what he knew of it from the movies—were several still ceiling fans with brass housings and long, dark wooden blades.
The pine floor was covered with a hodgepodge of worn, nondescript rugs, which in turn bore several small gifts from the missing feline. That detail aside, the entire space looked homey, rambling, a little threadbare, and quietly welcoming.
The house was also imbued with the silence that only death can visit on a place—a sense of suspended animation, striking and odd, as when