Dean Orman let Mary out, and she returned to her car. She hadn’t gotten the information she needed, but she knew she couldn’t push Orman about Deanna Ward without him becoming suspicious.
Outside, the night was complete. She fell with a thud into the driver’s seat and sat with the heat blowing onto her cheeks. She was, finally, at a dead end. She put the Camry in reverse and started carefully backing down the hill. But as she was pulling down the drive, she saw something in her periphery. When she looked more closely, she saw that the Ormans’ garage door was still open and the security light was on. Mary put the Camry into park and got out of the car. She crept around the side of the house and looked into the garage at Elizabeth Orman’s car. The car cracked and hissed, its chassis still settling from Elizabeth’s trip to the grocery store.
It was a red Honda Civic.
The car’s back door was open, and Mary could see grocery bags stacked in the backseat. There was a bumper sticker that read SCIENTISTS MAKE THE BEST LOVERS. She turned to go back to her car when-
“I just don’t understand why she came here,” said a woman’s voice from inside the door that led from the garage into the house. Mary hunched low, so low that she was almost underneath the back end of the car. The woman wouldn’t be able to see her, Mary knew, unless she came outside the garage.
As Elizabeth Orman descended the steps, Mary scrambled completely beneath the car. She watched Elizabeth’s feet, felt the click of her heels vibrating against her ear. She must have been talking on her cell phone.
“But why?” Elizabeth continued. “I don’t understand it. I think we might be losing her.” Again, she stopped to listen. Mary heard the voice on the other end, but she could not make out the words. It was just a scratchy, distant, masculine buzz. Elizabeth exhaled loudly, and then said, “I hope you’re right. It’s just-it’s just that we’re so close now. I would hate to lose her and have to start all over again.”
At that moment, a can of tomato soup dropped onto the ground. It was just two feet from Mary’s nose, rolling under the car in a little arc toward her. Mary recoiled, tried to wriggle back toward the opposite side of the car without making a sound. Elizabeth’s hand came into Mary’s line of vision. Elizabeth knelt without looking beneath the car and felt around for the soup. When she found the can she rolled it toward her with her fingers, and Mary heard her place it in the sack.
“You’re right,” she was saying now. “I shouldn’t worry. It’s always like this. I always worry about things that are out of my control. If she goes home, then we’ll find a way to get her back. If she does what she’s supposed to do and shows up at the other place, then it ends tonight. Thanks. You’ve been a big help. I’ve got to get back in to Ed now. We’re fixing dinner tonight before the thing, if it goes through. I know, I know. When. When it goes through. Anyway, I’ll talk to you later tonight.”
With that, Elizabeth snapped the phone shut. She climbed the steps and went inside, shutting the door behind her. Thankfully, she had left the garage door open. Mary slid from under the car and, in a hunched-over run, went around to the front of the house and climbed back inside her Camry. After a moment of composing herself, she started back down Grace Hill.
It wasn’t until she was at the bottom that she reminded herself to breathe.
46
Deadline
Mary drove along Highway 72 thinking about what she had seen-and heard. Who had Elizabeth Orman been speaking to? Williams? Were they in this together? It certainly appeared that way. But that was inconceivable. Perhaps-and now her mind was racing, careening in a thousand different directions at once-perhaps Professor Williams had gotten to Elizabeth Orman and convinced her that her husband was an accomplice in Deanna Ward’s disappearance. That had to be it. That had to be the reason Williams had given her the photograph of Elizabeth Orman’s car-to try and show Mary that Elizabeth Orman was in with them, that she was part of their effort.
She came here before she went to the other place, Elizabeth Orman had said.
The other place.
If she does what she’s supposed to do and shows up at the other place, then it ends tonight.
Where? Where was this other place? Was it in Bell City? In Cale? Was it Professor Williams’s house?
Mary couldn’t stop thinking as she drove down Pride. It was getting dark, and she turned on her headlights as she pulled up to the corner of Montgomery.
Other place.
And then she knew. The link had to be Pig Stephens. He was the only character in the play that she hadn’t spoken to. She knew nothing about him other than what Williams had told them in the car. He was dangerous, she knew that, and he was in league with Orman. Perhaps the dean had found out about Elizabeth and Leonard Williams, and he had sent Pig to punish his wife.
Find Pig Stephens, she thought.
But where? She needed a place now, a location to go to. She needed to follow Williams’s script so that it could, as Elizabeth Orman had said, “end tonight.”
Where could she find Pig Stephens? Where had Brian House found Elizabeth Orman that night?
The light turned green, and she turned right onto Montgomery. Brian had found her just down the road from here. Afterward, he had driven straight to Mary’s dorm. He had been to the public library, and had taken the bypass back to campus. So he must have passed on his way-
That’s it, she thought. Has to be.
The Thatch River. They were trying to point her toward the boat. Ed Orman’s yacht.
According to Dennis, Pig Stephens, the former cop, took care of Ed Orman’s weekender. Brian had found Elizabeth Orman out where Montgomery Street overlooks the Thatch, about three miles from campus. Mary was sure, suddenly, that Professor Williams was leading her there.
She took a right on the bypass and made her way toward the Rowe County Marina. The marina appeared out of the foliage at the bottom of a hill just below Montgomery Street. The lights of the slips were on and dotting the cove. A few men walked here and there across the dock, mooring their boats. Mary found a parking space and walked down the slick, mossy steps to the slips. She had never seen Orman’s boat, but she guessed that it was probably the biggest one in the marina. There were four docks that intersected out on the water, and there were close to a hundred slips along each dock. It would take her an hour to traverse the whole thing.
She walked out onto one of the docks and found the office. She knocked on the door, and a man’s voice told her to come in. The man was brown from the sun, and he was smoking a chewed cigar that was frayed on the end like a gag gift. He was sitting at a cramped desk in the office, stuffing paychecks into envelopes.
“Help you?” he asked.
“I’m looking for Pig Stephens,” Mary said.
“Pig comes by around about 10:00 p.m.,” replied the man. “Keeps an eye on Ed Orman’s yacht.”
“Ah,” Mary said. “The Ancient Mariner?” She knew that Orman would name the boat after a line or a title from the classics.
“Naw,” said the man. “His is The Dante.”
“Thanks,” Mary said, and she went back out on the docks and began her search for the boat.
It didn’t take her long. The mast of The Dante rose high above the marina. The boat was close to the bank, Mary assumed because it would be easier for Pig Stephens to pull down and spotlight the docks to see if anyone was vandalizing it.
She stood in front of the rocking boat. The wind was pitching higher, sending spray off the top of the water and onto her cheeks. It was bitterly cold by now, and almost completely dark. Mary had no idea why she was here or what she was looking for, but something of interest had to be here somewhere. Elizabeth Orman was the link to Pig Stephens, and this is where Pig came every night to take care of his client’s investment. Was she supposed to wait until 10:00 and talk to Pig personally?