My grandmother came in and sat next to me with a plate full of cottage cheese and tomatoes. She did not have a turkey sandwich, however.
“Did you lock the door this morning, Gert?” I asked.
“What door?”
“To our room. Upstairs.”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “Why?”
“Because I just caught Craig Lewis with his hands in my. . . suitcase.” I was thinking underwear, but realized how bizarre that would have sounded. “He was looking for something.”
“Did he take anything?” she asked, her eyes all big and instantly worried.
“Relax,” I said. “I think he’s harmless. But he did make off with one of my bras.” I said it as deadpan as I possibly could. Gert stared at me, a positively horrified look on her face.
“I know,” I said. “It’s not like his wife doesn’t have underwear when the urge hits him. I’m not happy about it.”
“He didn’t touch any of my underwear, did he?” she asked. I could see her mind running through all of the perverted things that could have happened to her underwear. She was too old to be having thoughts like that.
Her fork, piled high with cottage cheese, just sort of hung in midair. She’d forgotten she was holding it.
“No, no. I think your virtue is safe,” I said. I began to shake slightly as the realization set in that there had been somebody looking for something in my room. “Granny, what was he looking for?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You’re old. You’re supposed to know everything,” I said. I took a deep cleansing breath. “What is going on here?”
“What makes you think I would know?” she asked.
“We arrive Friday night. Clarissa is dead by sunrise, whether by accident or natural causes we don’t know. By that evening, the quiet and dark stranger, Norville Gross, is dead. Again, we’re not sure if it was an accident or not,” I said, and finished off my sandwich. I chewed for a few minutes and then took a drink of my soda and hoped my grandmother didn’t notice that my soda was a soda. “Prescott is freaked out over my presence and angry because I inherited this tumbledown piece of garbage. Albeit a very meaningful, historic tumbledown piece of garbage. Somebody burned Clarissa’s will, we can’t leave town until the sheriff knows if it was murder or not, and now Craig is looking for something in my room. As if I have something that belongs to him. What the heck is going on?”
She gave me a blank look and blinked. “Is that a Dr. Pepper you’re drinking?”
Seventeen
Here’s some more articles on the boardinghouse,” cousin Elliott said to me. He stood in the great room next to the fireplace, looking at the far wall, which was the stairwell wall to the second floor. The one with all the framed photographs hanging on it. He gave a big sigh and shoved his hands in the pockets to his brown khakis. “All this time. . . I never knew it ever belonged in our family.”
“You did know that Bridie worked here. And Gert and her sister. I don’t think your grandfather ever worked here, though. You did know that, didn’t you?” I couldn’t imagine how he couldn’t have known it. Stories about working for the company and the boardinghouse were the staple of my childhood.
“Grandpa mentioned it a few times that I can remember,” he said. “He died before I really got into the family tree. By that time my father had forgotten most of the stories. There were a few, though.”
“Come on, this way to the attic,” I said and led him across the great room and up the picture stairwell. We reached the end of the hall where Clarissa’s room was. I’d noticed earlier today that there was no crime-scene tape. “I’m assuming the authorities are leaning more toward natural causes than foul play, judging by the fact that there is no crime-scene tape,” I said as I opened the door to her room. “Either that or they managed to gather all the evidence already.”
The first door in the bedroom was her closet. I walked over to the second door on the far wall, by the windows that looked out upon the river. I opened the large, hand-carved oak door and was amazed that it didn’t squeak. I was expecting it to squeak. “Dexter set the boxes in the middle of the room with my name on them. Technically, everything in the attic is mine, but apparently these things in particular she wanted me to see and take home.”
The steps were steep and narrow. My foot barely fit on one of them and I wear a size six shoe. Something tapped me in the face and I swatted at it, thinking it a killer spiderweb or something. It was a chain for the light switch. Immediately I pulled it and tried to pretend in the new light that it hadn’t just scared the bejesus out of me.
When we reached the top of the steps, I was more than a little startled to see Sherise Tyler standing over the boxes with a photo album in hand. What the heck was going on? First Craig went through my suitcase, and now Sherise was helping herself to my boxes.
She didn’t act all nervous and startled like Craig had, though. She casually turned around and set the photo album, page open, on top of the open box. “You caught me,” she said. “I am a reporter, though. I will not apologize for doing my job.”
“Doing your job?” I asked. “I thought you already had your story. Isn’t that what you said?”
Cautious eyes suddenly flicked toward Elliott. “Who’s this?”
“My cousin Elliott Seaborne. Elliott, Ms. Sherise Tyler.”
“Hello,” he said quietly.
“You can’t blame a girl for trying to make sure that she has every tiny bit of information possible,” she said. I agreed with her on that, but her being here unnerved me, nonetheless. Why, I don’t know. I was doing exactly what she was doing.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’ve only been up here a few minutes,” she said.
“What do you think is going on here?” I asked. “Why was Craig Lewis ransacking my belongings earlier today?”
A look of contempt crossed her pretty face. “What makes you think I can answer that?”
“No reason. Just thought you might have overheard something,” I answered.
“No. I’ve heard nothing.” She walked effortlessly past us to the stairway. She really held herself with great poise. If I had met her on the street, I would have sworn she was a ballet dancer.
She made a dramatic pause at the top of the stairs. “What do you think you’re going to find up here, Mrs. O’Shea? A killer?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I don’t know that anybody has been killed. I’m just going through the things that Clarissa told Dexter to make sure I got. I’m anxious to see if there is anything up here that was my great-grandmother’s. The woman died so young that there are very few mementos of her life.”
She gave a smug smile and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “Right,” she said and took one step down the stairs.
“I’m serious, Ms. Tyler. My interest in all of this is my great-grandmother. Not the Harts. Not Clarissa,” I said.
“What about the vanished miners you keep asking about?”
How did she know that I’d inquired about them on more than one occasion? That sort of bothered me but I let it go. “I’ll admit, I’m just curious.”
“What is it you do for a living?” she asked me from the top stair.
“I’m a genealogist. Historian. I also work for the historical society of my hometown and give tours and such of the old buildings,” I said. “Why?”
“Maybe you should consider being a reporter,” she said and walked down the stairs. “You’ve got the nose for it.”
When I heard the door downstairs open and shut, I turned to Elliott. “Sorry about that,” I said. “She’s been oddly confrontational.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well. . . I can’t explain it. It’s like she’s angry or suspicious of me, and I haven’t done anything to her,” I said.
“So, you gonna take her advice?” he asked. “Become a reporter?”
“No. My best friend Collette is a reporter. I hear
all the juicy stuff from her. I don’t do well in severe competitive situations like that,” I said. “I believe things should stand on merit alone, not on how much I shove it down your throat.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he said and smiled. “So . . . what’s in the boxes?”
Aside from the boxes in the middle of the room, there was a chiffonier, a chest, some sheet-covered furniture, and one of those dummies without a head that you hang old dresses on. I’m sure there’s a word for that, but I’ll be darned if I know what it is. The headless dummy wore a blue gown that, judging from the style of it, was most likely an 1890s evening gown. I know this because it was very similar in style to one of the gowns Sylvia’d had made for me to give tours in.
“Let’s find out,” I said. I handed him the photo album that Sherise had set on top. “You look through that and see if you recognize anybody.”
In the very first box was an old wicker sewing basket with multicolored glass beads strung along a thick thread and connected to the lid. Two tassels that were dingy from the decades were attached in the middle where the beads came together. I opened the lid and inside were a wooden darner, paper patterns, a cloth measuring tape that looked like it was ready to disintegrate, and oodles of old buttons, thimbles, and thread.
“Oh,” I said absently. “This is so cool. This must be Bridie’s sewing basket. All of this stuff was actually touched and used by her.” I felt goose bumps cascade down my arms as I thought about the fact that this was one of the few ways I could reach across time and touch an ancestor who had died nearly forty years before I was born.
“Look,” Elliott said. “That’s Bridie’s dad. And that, if I’m not mistaken, is his father.”
I looked over his shoulder to get a better look. And so it went for an hour or so, each of us oohing and aahing over our newfound treasures and photographs. Clarissa had attached little pieces of paper to most of the items with a brief explanation of what they were, who they were used by, or what they were used for.
Indeed, I found a cracked cake plate, many many doilies, a shoe hook, a book of days, and a few things that had belonged to Gert and her siblings, like baby booties and bonnets. There was even Bridie’s old box camera that she’d taken so many pictures with. And the main subjects of her photographs were the boardinghouse, the miners, and later her children. There were also plenty of pictures of Bridie and her friends, namely Clarissa Hart. But the boardinghouse and the miners seemed to be her main fascination. Some of the photographs were very artistic, nearly National Geographic–like in subject, lighting, and mood.
“Amazing,” I said for about the tenth time. I finally came to the last box and opened it, nearly forgetting in my excitement that I was on the lookout for spiders with fifty legs. In this box was a quilt. The note attached to this read: “Sampler Quilt. ‘Bridie’s Secret.’ Made 1920.”
“Bridie’s Secret?” I asked.
Elliott took the note off the quilt and read it. “I think that’s the name of the quilt. A lot of quitters give names to their quilts, like people name estates, or paintings,” he explained.
“Oh,” I said. I unfolded it and it was huge. I’d say it would fit a queen-sized bed, easily. The main colors were indigo-blue and sun-yellow, although there were three or four other colors used throughout the quilt to accent it. “Look, each square is something different. A different pattern. And yet, the color scheme is all the same.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a sampler quilt. You get a sample of a pattern but not a whole quilt. Sometimes they stay in the same color scheme, sometimes not.”
“How do you know so much about quilts?” I asked as I scratched my neck. Digging around in old stuff always makes me itch. It’s like the dust mites suddenly realize there’s food or something.
“My mother is a blue-ribbon quilter,” he said. “I spent more days in fabric shops and quilt shows than any red-blooded American boy should have to. Or ever have to admit to.”
“You’re so cute,” I said. “Help me fold this back.”
He helped me fold the monstrous quilt back into the neat rectangle that I had found it in. I put it back in the box and realized that my back was absolutely killing me. I can’t get over the one long ache that I get after about the sixth month of being pregnant. Just one long backache. And once the child was here it would be an eighteen-year-long pain in the butt. I say that only because I’m pregnant. I actually adore my children.
“I want you to know that I’m going to have copies made of all of those pictures for you,” I said. “She was your great-grandmother, too. And I want you to think about what you’d like to have out of these boxes. There’s plenty here to go around.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Torie,” Elliott said to me. He took his glasses off and rubbed at one of his eyes. His eyes were so weak that it actually looked painful for him to be without his glasses. He put them back on carefully. “Come on, let’s get you downstairs for dinner.”
“Are you going to stay for dinner?” I asked. “It would be nice to have an ally in the house.”
“Not tonight,” he said. “But I’m off tomorrow and I don’t have any plans tomorrow night.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “Be here whenever you feel like it.”
We had started toward the steps when he stopped and turned to me. “Why do you think Clarissa left you the boardinghouse?” he asked.
“Frankly, I believe it’s because I was the only one of Bridie’s descendants that she knew. I mean, I wrote to her a few times and she wrote back. I don’t think she was really aware of anybody else,” I said. “I also think it’s because of what I do. Being a genealogist. She knew 1 would care about the place and the stuff in it.”
“I’m a genealogist, too,” he said.
“Yes, but she didn’t know about you. I really think that’s all there is to it,” I said.
“Do you think she was murdered?” he asked. His expression was calm and inquisitive.
“I did find a pillow on her face,” I said. “But I guess if she was wrestling around in her sleep it could have accidentally fallen on her face. It doesn’t feel right that it was an accident, but at the same time, I really don’t know.”
“Are you afraid to stay here?” he asked.
“A little,” I said. And it was the truth. “Initially, I felt fairly safe because now that the local authorities are actually here and involved, I can’t believe that if there is a murderer, he or she would chance attacking anybody else. Especially a pregnant lady. But since finding Craig Lewis rummaging through my suitcase, I’ve been thinking about taking Gert and getting a hotel room tomorrow.”
“It might not be a bad idea,” he said. “You can sleep on my floor.”
I smiled at him. “Well, thanks. I think Aunt Milly would probably let us stay with her, if it came to that,” I said. “Besides, if I ever got down on your floor, I wouldn’t be able to get back up.”
Eighteen
Rudy?” I said. The phone had rung only once at my house, which is rare, and so I was a little startled when Rudy answered right away.
“Yeah. Torie?” he asked. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I stood in the great room of the boardinghouse, looking out across the river and the storm clouds that were slowly, but surely, moving our way. In fact, the front had nearly reached us and I could no longer see the sunset. “How are you?’
“Good,” he said. “I thought you were your father calling.”
“Why?”
“He and I are going fishing tonight. You know the fish bite better at night,” he said.
“So do the snakes,” I answered.
He ignored my remark. “Your mom said that you’ve run into some misfortune on your trip. That the old lady actually kicked the bucket while you were there,” he said.
“That is incredibly insensitive,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought it was weird that she would call everybody together for the reading of her will
and she wasn’t even dead. Maybe she planned this. Maybe she knew that she was going to die, so that there could be an actual reading of the will. With a corpse. Like there is supposed to be. You know, your grandma Keith knew.”
“I know,” I said. He was referring to the fact that my father’s mother all but predicted her own death. She called and told us all goodbye and everything. It is the most seriously creepy thing that has ever happened to me. “I don’t think that was it, though. Maybe.”
“Otherwise things are okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. What did Mom tell you exactly?”
“Just that Clarissa had died.”
“Hmm. Well. . . do you miss me?” I asked. I don’t know what it is about mileage, but put it between me and Rudy and I become this really insecure schoolgirl. Ridiculous, I know, but there nonetheless.
“Of course,” he said.
“Don’t forget to feed the chickens,” I said. “And Fritz has a vet appointment tomorrow. That’s why I was calling. To remind you.”
And to hear your voice.
“Tomorrow? I’m playing golf—”
“Again?” I asked, a little perturbed. Rudy had taken the week off so that my mother would not have to bear the brunt of watching the kids while trying to plan a wedding.
“Again,” he said. “I’m only gone a few hours. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. It’s just that you’re so busy having fun that I don’t think you really miss me. Admit it. We’ve all felt this way at some time or other.
“So,” he said. “Gert’s keeping you in line?”
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s keeping me . . .” Crazy was the first word that popped out into my head. “On the straight and narrow.” Path to insanity.
A MistY MourninG Page 10
