Stoneview Estate. Leona Karr

spent on the job, or working out at a nearby gym, the apartment was hardly more than a place to sleep and eat. Occasionally he enjoyed feminine company, but never for very long.

      His telephone was blinking with a couple of messages. The only personal one was from his mother, asking him to call. His parents had moved to sunny New Mexico several years earlier after his father had retired from medical practice. The dark cloud that had forced Dr. Donovan to give up his practice in Chataqua had never dissipated. The unsolved kidnapping and murder seemed to lodge in the doctor’s mind like a curse, and even moving across the country had not seemed to help.

      Brian returned his mother’s call, and she told him that she was really worried about his dad. “Nothing seems to be physically wrong, but he’s slipping into a deep despondency and brooding about the past. He’s dredging up everything that happened in Chataqua.” Her voice wavered. “It breaks my heart.”

      “I know, Mom. He probably has too much time on his hands.”

      “He’s not interested in making new friends or taking up a new hobby. You know how stubborn he can be.”

      Brian tried to console her as much as he could, but there was very little comfort he could give her. It was a damn shame that what had happened eleven years ago could still destroy the last few years of his father’s life.

      Too keyed up to sleep, Brian slumped down in his chair, sipping a beer and staring out the window. His thoughts centered on the unexpected encounter with Joseph Keller, and the invitation the boxer had received. What kind of nonsense was that? A birthday party for a damn house!

      Even as Brian dismissed the idea, a startling possibility presented itself. The urge to investigate the crimes that had cast suspicion on his father had always been at the back of Brian’s mind during his career as a detective. As long as the matter remained in Cold Case files, Brian knew no one was going to spend any time or energy on it. As he thought about the invitation that had come into his possession, he began to realize he’d been handed a viable undercover identity.

      Joseph Keller wouldn’t be attending the celebration at the Stoneview estate, and no one would be going to represent him. Brian could accept the invitation as a distant relative of Joe Keller.

      For a welcomed guest at the Stoneview mansion, Brian knew, on-the-spot investigation would be possible. Attending the event would be invaluable, not only because of access to the crime scene, but because of contact with people who might have pertinent information that had gone unnoticed when the crimes occurred.

      He knew he’d never get official approval. The department was stretched just covering day-to-day investigations. This undercover job would have to be done in secret and on his own. He had vacation time coming, and the opportunity to spend it at Stoneview was worth the gamble. He checked the calendar. The celebration was less than three weeks away, and he ought to be able to get free from his duties about ten days before that.

      As Brian weighed the deception from all perspectives, the advantages made his decision an easy one. His mother had pleaded with him to do something to help, and what better thing could he do than try and clear his father’s name once and for all?

      He decided to wait until the next morning before making a decision, but the idea was only more firmly planted in his mind the next day.

      He read the invitation again carefully, filled in the requested information and boldly identified himself as a distant relative of Joseph Keller. In a place for comments, he expressed his pleasure in representing the Keller family at the “one-hundred-year-old birthday celebration.”

      With deliberate deception, he signed his name “Brian Keller.” In most undercover situations it was better to use a familiar first name than to suddenly try to relate to a brand-new one, he knew. Besides, most people in Chataqua had known him as Buddy Donovan during his school days.

      Brian sealed the envelope, affixed the proper postage, and early the next morning mailed the RSVP to a Ms. Robyn Valcourt at the designated return address.

      Finally, he’d get the answers he sought—no matter what.

      Chapter Two

      Brian arrived in Chataqua a little more than a week before the festivities at Stoneview were scheduled. The bustling small town hugged the northern side of a large lake, and impressive homes like Stoneview overlooked the water on the opposite side. Brian had been on Chataqua Lake numerous times when he was growing up, but he’d never set foot on the exclusive Stoneview property.

      He wandered briefly around the town, visiting familiar places of his childhood. Brian remembered his disappointment at having to move away just as his high school baseball team was competing for the state championship. He’d helped bring home a regional trophy the year before, and had never replaced the friendships or sense of belonging in the unfamiliar Boston school where he’d graduated.

      When he met people in the bustling resort town he’d known in his youth, he gave them every chance to challenge his assumed identity. None did. Brian wasn’t surprised. He’d been called Buddy Donovan instead of Brian. He’d been a tall, skinny, sun-bleached-blond teenager when he’d moved away. He was still tall—six feet—but training at the police academy had totally changed his physique. His face had filled out, and a recent dye job had turned his hair a dark brown. He was fairly confident that he could engage in his undercover investigation without worrying about recognition. His father was the one who had known the Sheldons and Heather Fox, the murdered nursemaid. In the years he’d been away, Brian had never had any social contact with the families of past or present residents of the Stoneview estate.

      After mailing the invitation response to Robyn Valcourt, Brian had learned she was Lynette Valcourt’s granddaughter, an unmarried professor of romance languages at an exclusive women’s college in Portland. A child of parents in the diplomatic service, she’d come to live at Stoneview two years after Brian’s family had left Chataqua, so they had never met. Brian pictured her as very staid, distant and bookish, a product of a class-conscious society.

      In preparing for his undercover deception, he’d pored over every scrap of information recorded in the police files at the time of the crimes. He went over and over every detail, trying to come to terms with one inconsistency that kept nagging at him. The timing of the nursemaid’s murder seemed wrong. Heather Fox had not been killed the night the baby was snatched, as would be expected if she was trying to protect her charge. Instead, the ransom had been paid and the baby returned when the nursemaid was found strangled on the estate grounds a day later. Why then and not earlier?

      More than ever, he was determined to use this unexpected opportunity to conduct his own “on site” investigation, and clear his father’s reputation once and for all. His agenda was to interact with the people who had been involved, and follow up any clues that came to light or might have been missed in the original investigation. Since he had no idea of the current situation at Stoneview, he’d have to play it by ear and hope for the best.

      Instead of renting a car in Chataqua, he decided to approach Stoneview by water in a small rented motorboat. It was midafternoon when he steered it across Chataqua Lake toward the large white mansion built on a slight rise on the opposite shore. Landscaped lawns and gardens were bordered by thick forested areas that provided a natural privacy for the estate, isolating it from other homes on that side of the lake. As he came closer, Brian saw two people standing near the boathouse and cement pier.

      Good, he thought. This might make things easier.

      He wasn’t looking forward to walking up to the house and presenting himself, cold turkey, at the door. As he cut the motor and eased the craft toward the dock, both the man and woman turned around, watching him.

      A muscular, middle-aged fellow in workman’s clothes peered at Brian pugnaciously from under the brim of his straw hat. The bullish air about him didn’t invite unexpected social calls, and the young woman beside him seemed equally guarded. She must have been in her early twenties, Brian guessed. Her hair was the color of reddish-brown fall leaves, and she was wearing pale green slacks that hugged her shapely figure.

      Could