Kennedy’s eyes rounded with fear, but still he argued with the group. No one argued back or said a word. They advanced, only a step at a time, moving as if made of one body.
“This thing could go at any minute. If you’ll just make way,” he pleaded now, head to one side, hands out, begging for help, for the forgiveness it would take to get him off the high edge.
Someone’s finger prodded his chest so that he leaned forward, arms cartwheeling, then reaching out to grab a handful of Anthony’s shirt and having his hand forcefully knocked away.
“Zoe!” he screamed when he saw her through the crowd for just a minute. “Zoe Zola! Do you see what’s going on here? These people are insane. Would you tell them—”
Nigel pushed Aaron again, but not too far. He stumbled, caught himself, and yelled. “Zoe—I think they want to kill me. Can you see what they’re doing? You’ve got to do something about this. It’s up to you. We need police. We need a sheriff. You’ve got to see the law is called.” His voice broke with fear as the crowd moved forward another step, blocking him from her sight.
The sound of the river was muted by the bodies packed around her. She wanted to help him, but she was too small to push through. And if she did, would she go off the edge with him? Protecting what?
There was a sea of legs around her. She thought she might get through—an opening here and there—but they quickly tightened the spaces between them. They pushed her back until she couldn’t see him anymore.
There was murmuring ahead. All the legs and bottoms surrounded her so she kicked as hard as she could, then bit until she heard Aaron calling out, his voice almost gone. “You’re nothing but a pack of murderers.” The voice cracked. “You think you’re better than I am? Your girl was a tramp. Blaming me for someone else’s bastard child! What did you expect a man to do?”
The people stopped moving, and then came a chant of “Angela. Angela. Angela.”
Zoe got caught in the middle of a surge, people moving left and right. Her feet were trampled. She was in tears. The crowd of people dragged her along with them until they stopped.
The pier wasn’t shaking.
Zoe could see Aaron again, tears running down his face. A hand out toward her.
The people closed in. There was a descending scream.
A splash and the screaming stopped.
There was only the sound of the water, growing as if it came alive.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding burst in her ears.
She watched as women and men formed a line down the center of the pier; one by one they walked forward until the pier began to shake again. Each person pulled a blue vial from a pocket and held it high. They waited their turn to stand above the river, to open their blue vial, and throw ashes into the wind.
“Angela Evelyn Lamb, my child,” Mary Lamb called out, swinging her arm around, the words flying off with the ashes.
Behind her: “Angela, my daughter.” Harley Lamb lifted his blue vial high and shook the ashes over the water.
Susan Jokela Winton. “My beloved granddaughter.”
Gewel Sharp. “My beloved sister.”
Anthony Gliese. “My treasured sister-in-law.”
Nigel Pileser. “My dearest grandchild.”
Bella Jokela. “My beloved grandniece.”
Anna Tow. “My cousin.”
Betty Bertram. “My friend.”
Louise Joiner. “My student.”
The ashes joined and flew into a spiral, then down to the water, where they floated and spread wider and wider until the river carried them around the bend, out to Lake Superior.
Soon there was nothing of the man, or the ashes, left behind.
Chapter 61
Tony, Jenny, Dora, and Lisa stood in the trees, with Fida at their feet. They saw some of what happened. They heard the words of a frantic man screaming at the group of people moving up the pier until there was nowhere left to go. They’d heard a chant, a scream, and then a splash into the water.
The retreating group parted around them. No one seemed surprise that they were there. No one did more than glance up as they passed.
Zoe almost walked on by until Fida went wild and jumped on her, knocking her over so that she got up with pain back in her ankle and Fida in her arms. She shook her head but had trouble getting words to come out.
Sensing the terrible thing that lay around all of them, Jenny took Zoe’s hand and, with Tony walking in back, led the way toward the lodge to get Zoe’s belongings and get away from there.
* * *
Jenny hastily stuffed things into the suitcase while Zoe stood outside the door, with Tony protecting her. They could hear voices of the others downstairs.
Jenny dragged the suitcase into the hall for Tony to carry. She went back for Zoe’s stinky briefcase, her useless phone, and anything else she found that belonged to Zoe.
When they heard familiar voices in the reception room, Zoe pulled back.
“It’s okay,” Tony said. “They won’t touch you.”
She looked up at him, round blue eyes huge. “But I know what they did—everybody from this lodge, the women—their husbands.
“Does it matter, Zoe?”
She said nothing more until Jenny asked, “What was it, Zoe? That thing on the pier. We couldn’t see.”
“And didn’t hear?”
“I heard a scream. And then a splash in the river.”
Zoe held on to the stair rail and closed her eyes, only to hear the woman who called herself Emily Brent say her name from below.
“Are you all right, Zoe?” The woman’s plain, upturned face twisted with concern. “It was terribly windy out there. For a moment, I thought we’d be blown down into the water. Our closing ceremony.” She looked beyond Zoe, up at Tony and Jenny and Lisa.
“I have your check.” She forced an envelope into Zoe’s hand at the bottom of the stairs, but it dropped, falling where she stood, and stayed there as Zoe and the others walked toward the door.
Everybody but one from the event was there, gathered in the reception room. Aaron Kennedy was absent.
Gewel was dressed in her colorful clothes again, her curly blonde hair puffed up, with a blue ribbon tied through it. Beside her, her husband, Anthony—or whatever his real name was—smiled and said, “I’ll be looking for your Agatha Christie book, Zoe. Can’t wait to read it.”
The others avoided her.
“Why was I here?” Zoe asked when she turned back to Emily.
“A witness. That’s all, Zoe. Did any of us hurt Aaron?” she asked.
“You all did.”
“No, Zoe.” She smiled and shook her head. “Which one of us?”
“I saw. It was all of you.”
“But which one? Who do you blame for what happened at the river?”
“No one.”
“Yes. So, what can you tell the police?”
“Nothing.”
Zoe breathed normally, almost smiled as she asked Emily a last question. “We weren’t replaying And Then There Were None, were we? All along, not the Agatha Christie novel I thought. The disappearances were just a distraction.”
Emily shook her head. Her face was sad.
“Murder on the Orient Express,” Zoe said. “You’re all killers.”
“Or no one is.” Emily smiled and turned away, motioning for the others to follow her out the door.
“What would you have done if it hadn’t rained?” Zoe asked Emily Brent’s back.
She turned. “We had a plan, but the storms were better.”
“Why me?” Zoe called after her. “You don’t even know me.”
“Ask Mary,” she called over her shoulder. ‘She’s gone to the cabin. You were her idea. Something you owed your mother.”
Chapter 62
Mary Lamb stood on the porch of the cabin, waiting for Zoe.
“I’m glad you came,” she said, motioning her into the house.
Zoe shook her head. She wasn’t going in, nor stayi
ng long.
“You know we’re related.”
Zoe nodded, seeking anything in that face related to her. Maybe a bit of Evelyn. Maybe something of their grandmother. She couldn’t know.
“This ends everything.” Mary put her hand on Zoe’s shoulder, only to have it shrugged off. “Our mothers family was a very strict one, Zoe. Our grandmother was a harridan. A harridan. She ruled the family. No indiscretion was overlooked. Except hers.
“There were whispers about our grandmother … a child born alive but soon found dead, a pillow over her face. I’ve heard many different stories …”
“Deformed?” A drawf?”
Mary took a deep breath. She shook her head. “My mother once told me the child had no limbs at all.”
Zoe said nothing. She watched Mary’s mouth, waiting for a single word that would make them sisters, or at least loving relatives. In the deep blue, down-turned eyes, in the lines carved from forehead to chin, Zoe saw the agony of suffering people. Three generations of her family.
“You did this for all of us and I’m grateful. Mostly for my Angela. The next generation, Zoe. You have to know the police couldn’t prove it was Aaron, though everybody knew. He left Ann Arbor right after she went missing. They found things in Angela’s room:. letters from a man signed with a large A. And a positive pregnancy test. Everybody knew who killed her, but the police wouldn’t arrest him.
She clapped her hands. “Now we’re even, Zoe. You’ve paid your mother’s debt to the family. You’ll be our witness, should the police come asking. We all, together, have avenged Angela. I’ll make sure that the rest of the family gets the news. A healing has begun.” She looked so happy.
“What debt?”
“Why,” Mary said, rolling her eyes and rubbing her hands together, “I suppose you. The child.”
“She didn’t murder me.”
“But back in my grandmother’s day, what else could she do?”
“Love her baby.”
“Aw, Zoe. You don’t understand …”
‘You’re right,” Zoe nodded. “Your mother—Susan—she never wrote or called Evelyn.”
“Well, she couldn’t, could she? The family would have done the same thing to her. That’s why I left Cheboygan and came up here. I’ve made wonderful friends. Harley’s Finnish too, believe it or not. Lamb’s a Finnish name. When we began our plan, so many were excited to help. Like Marya, until she soured. I knew you were in Bear Falls. I knew that was where you lived. I knew a lot about you. It got me thinking. That we could be friends.”
Zoe turned away and started up the path to where her real friends waited.
“Zoe!” Mary called after her from the porch. “We’ll be in touch, won’t we?”
Zoe walked on.
“We can be loving relatives now.”
Zoe lifted her hand and waved without turning.
Chapter 63
They heard the voices before they reached the creek. The National Guard lined the banks, standing where trees were fallen to turn into logs and then into a bridge spanning just above the water. Men in uniform leaned on axes and roaring gas saws.
People behind the Guards waited for a rope railing to be attached to wooden blocks affixed to standing trees. Others waited on the shore, calling encouragement to the men.
Behind everyone else waiting to cross, Marya stood alone, holding Johnny close.
Finally, they were helped, one by one, across the makeshift bridge to where the cars waited. A boat trailer was pulled down into the river. No sign of the boat anywhere.
Zoe and Fida had their own Guardsman to take Zoe’s arm and hold on during the walk across to stand with Tony and Jenny, Lisa, and Dora, all stopped by an officer talking seriously and pointing down the river.
The Guardsman turned to Zoe, with Fida growling. “You know anything about a boat and trailer found over here?” He watched Zoe’s face. “Stolen not far away. Trailer left on this side of the creek, so someone must’ve headed to the other side. Boat’s gone.”
Zoe shook her head, frowning as if she were thinking hard about it.
“I saw the trailer when we got here.” Lisa shook her head at the man. “Didn’t see a boat though.”
“I see you got a hitch on your truck,” the man said. “State police are looking for a boat thief.”
“I live up here. We’re always needing to tow something or somebody, aren’t we?” Lisa smiled.
The man nodded. “Right about that, ma’am. Must be somebody still over there. We’ll get him. Any of you know anything about a drowned man found at the end of Dead Man’s River, right where the river feeds into the lake? All hell seems to be breaking loose around this place.”
No one answered him. He shrugged and walked away.
The five of them went together, Tony at one end, carrying Zoe’s suitcase, Jenny beside him; Lisa at the other end, carrying the smelly briefcase, Dora beside her; with Zoe in the middle, carrying Fida.
Dora leaned down to Zoe’s ear. “You’ll always be our family, Zoe.”
At the two cars, there was a time of decision.
“You know,” Dora said. “I just might stay up here with Lisa for a while.” She turned to Jenny. “You take care of the Little Libraries, okay? I just got designated Bear Falls’ official librarian. Nobody can shut me down now.”
Lisa hugged her. “Congratulations, Mom. I’d love to have you stay. For a minute I thought I was going to give up on the documentary. Too much high drama.” She shrugged and toed the ground. “Now I see what I’ve been after all along. These are the truths about women’s lives, beyond good and evil. It’s not only about the outside. There’s a different kind of justice hidden here. Stay. Help me find out what that is.”
Dora took Zoe’s hand in hers. “You stay too. You might find people you like among these women.”
“Marya, for sure,” Zoe agreed.
“Anyway, unlike Jenny, you’re small.” Lisa laughed. “You’ll fit in the linen closet.”
It was agreed: Zoe would stay in case she still had to speak to the police.
She was the witness.
She would tell them she saw nothing.
Later, she and Dora could drive Jenny’s car home.
Before Jenny and Tony left, Dora hugged her child, then slipped a handkerchief into her hand.
Jenny didn’t need to be told what Dora gave her. She opened the lacy handkerchief and slipped the ring back on her finger.
She stared down at it, wondering what she could say to Tony. He put his hand on hers, folding his fingers, one by one, over hers. “Don’t worry,” he said, leaning toward her, his scarred face warm. “When you’re ready, Jenny. Only when you’re ready. There’ll be mums other autumns.”
“Or roses,” she said. “I think I’d like roses.”
* * *
In the backseat of Lisa’s Jeep, safe with Dora and Fida, Zoe fixed in her mind what she would do when she got back home. There was a trip to a cemetery in Detroit to make, to Evelyn’s grave. She would kneel beside Evelyn’s stone and whisper that Anas Jokela’s sin, the murder of her baby, was open to the light. Then she would whisper to Evelyn that the last sin against the women of their family had been washed away in a raging river.
The slate was clean.
She would whisper to Evelyn: Justice for us, Mom.
Also available by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
LITTLE LIBRARY MYSTERIES
In Want of a Knife
She Stopped for Death
A Most Curious Murder
Author Biography
Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli lives in Mancelona, Michigan. She has published ten novels, one work of nonfiction, and several short stories, which have been produced onstage, read on NPR, and published in several newspapers. For many years she taught writing at the International Women’s Writing Guild summer program at Skidmore College and currently teaches at Northwestern Michigan College.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organiza
tions, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-000-9
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-64385-001-6
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-64385-002-3
Cover illustration by Irina Garmashova-Cawton
Cover design by Lori Palmer
Book design by Jennifer Canzone
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
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New York, NY 10001
First Edition: August 2019
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