by Kathi Daley
“We took hikes when we could get out. The children weren’t allowed in town, but at times it was all right with the staff if we took walks in the woods surrounding the house. When we couldn’t do that, we made do with the resources we found indoors. We read books and acted out scenes. We played games and worked on the art projects all three of the children enjoyed. I felt I brought an element of normalcy to a very abnormal situation. When I wasn’t with them, I suspect the house was a dark and depressing place indeed.”
“Other than Mrs. Harrington and the servants you already mentioned, were there other adults on the premises?” Tony asked.
“A cook. She was a nice enough woman, but she kept to herself, rarely leaving the kitchen. There was also a man who helped out with some chores and acted as sort of a guard. I suspected Mr. Harrington hired him to try to control Hillary and left after she disappeared.”
“Let’s talk about that,” I said. “I understand Hillary’s clothing was found in the woods behind the house.”
She angled her head. “Yes. As I’ve already said, Hillary was a bit of a wild child. She was just so very angry. I guess I didn’t blame her. It had to be very hard for her when she was forced to leave her home and her friends only to be hidden away in a big old house in the middle of nowhere. I know she snuck out despite her father’s attempts to control her. I don’t know why she ran away or if that’s what happened. It did enter my mind that her guard might have grown weary of the struggle and ended Hillary’s rebellion once and for all. I know she ran that poor man ragged. Every time she got away and slipped into town, he would get an earful from Mr. Harrington.”
“Was he ever looked at as a suspect in Hillary’s disappearance?” Tony wondered.
“I don’t think so. He only worked at the house for a short time. He left days after Hillary went missing.”
That did sound suspicious. I wondered if Bennington had investigated him. His notes should tell us that.
“Was he replaced?” I asked.
“No. At least, no one was brought in to fill his exact job. Mrs. Harrington died shortly after Hillary went missing and Hudson was shot and killed. That was when a nanny was brought in to see to the three younger children.”
“And how did that go? Did the children like her?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. She was a cold and very structured woman, and she was put in charge of the whole household. The children hated her, and I’m afraid the two of us didn’t get along. I tried to be an advocate for the children when she made unreasonable demands of them but was always immediately overruled. It was a very dark time for everyone in the house.”
“Okay, now Hillary is missing, both Hudson and Mrs. Harrington are dead, the guard is gone, and a nanny has been brought in. Then what happened?” I asked.
“After a bit, the remaining children seemed to adjust to the situation. The nanny was a truly nasty woman, but the kids learned to adapt to her ways and I made a point to spend as much time with them as I could. It wasn’t ideal, but we managed to make it work—until Henrietta came down with the sickness.”
“The sickness? What sickness?” I asked.
“The sickness that caused Henrietta’s strange behavior.”
“Can you be more specific?” I asked.
She nodded. “I can try, but I’m not an expert on such things.”
“That’s fine,” Tony said. “Just start at the beginning and tell us what you remember.”
“Shortly after Henrietta’s fourteenth birthday, she began to change. She went from being a pleasant and agreeable child to acting oddly almost overnight.”
“Oddly how?” I asked.
“For one thing, she started talking to herself. Not in the absentminded way we all do from time to time when we’re trying to work something out. She tried to hide it when she was with the others, but I’d hear her in her room having entire conversations with someone. At first, I thought she might have made a friend she’d snuck in—friends weren’t allowed on the property—but after a while I realized the only friend with her was the one in her head.”
“An imaginary friend?” I said.
She shrugged. “Perhaps. She seemed a bit old for that, though. The talking to herself was the first symptom, but not the most disturbing.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “What else was going on?”
“She became paranoid. She started carrying a knife for protection. It was only a butter knife and I didn’t think she would actually hurt anyone, but it was still very odd. I tried to talk to her about it, to assure her that she wasn’t in any danger, but she insisted there were people in the house. Other people. People I couldn’t see. She warned me that those people were dangerous. That they wanted to hurt us, and that we needed to be careful.”
“Did you tell anyone about this?” Tony asked.
“I tried to talk to the nanny about it, but she just stared at me with a blank look on her face that seemed to indicate she thought I was crazy. I called Mr. Valdez, the man who first hired me. He assured me that Henrietta was a normal girl with an overactive imagination. He also suggested that the hormones associated with puberty might have something to do with her odd behavior. I was young and willing to admit I didn’t know a thing about what can only be described as mentally unstable behavior, so I let him convince me that everything would be fine. But things weren’t fine. As time went on, Henrietta’s paranoia started manifesting itself in violent behavior. Not necessarily toward anyone else in the household, but she started doing things like hitting walls and throwing things. When I found out that she had fallen down the stairs, I was saddened but not all that surprised. The poor girl had grown reckless. There was no doubt in my mind that she had been running from or chasing a foe only she could see when she slipped and fell.”
“So you don’t think she might have been pushed?” I asked.
“Pushed? I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. Although the only people allowed in that house were family members and a handful of staff. I wasn’t there when it happened, so I can’t say for certain, but a slip and fall brought on by paranoia seems more likely in my mind. Still, I could imagine Henrietta and the nanny could have become involved in an altercation. Initially, Henrietta tried to hide her odd behavior from the woman. I don’t think she wanted word to get back to her father. But as time went on, and Henrietta’s psychosis began to take over, things like voices in her head were harder to hide.” She glanced toward the house. “I could use a drink. Would you like something? Iced tea? A cola?”
“Maybe some water,” I said.
I couldn’t help but notice that when she came back with water for Tony and me and a cola for herself, it smelled an awful lot like rum.
“So after Henrietta died,” Tony eventually said, “what happened after that?”
“Everyone was sad, but eventually life went on and Hannah, Houston, and I settled in to a somewhat normal routine. About a year later, the nanny and I had a falling out when I tried to convince her to allow the children to be allowed outings away from the house. She was quite adamant that Mr. Harrington wanted them to stay put, and I started to make some noise about emotional abuse. In the end, the nanny won the argument and I was let go. It was a difficult time for me. I worried so about the twins. Unfortunately, my worry seemed to have been justified. Hannah died less than a year after I was fired, and poor Houston went shortly after that.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “At least now they can all rest in peace.”
Chapter 7
Tony and I drove back to White Eagle in silence. The story Rena Wiggins had told us was heart-wrenching to say the least. It must have been awful to have grown up in that house of horrors. I wondered if Jordan Westlake had any idea what he’d walked into.
“What did you think of her?” I asked Tony.
Tony frowned. “I’m not sure. On one hand, she seemed to exhibit genuine affection for the Harrington children, especially the three younger ones, but her story seemed choppy. It was almost as if she intenti
onally left things out. Or maybe it was that she felt the need to change facts for some reason.”
“So you think she was lying?”
“Not lying exactly. It was more like she was being selective in what she told us. I guess that might just be a normal reaction to being questioned by two people she’d never met before today, bringing back a subject that was deeply emotional for her.”
“I suppose it might be that,” I agreed. “The entire thing with Henrietta is just too strange. Do you think there was something in the house that made her sick? Something that made her go crazy?”
“Probably not. I won’t go so far as to say there’s no way the house or something in it could have caused the odd behavior, but I’d be willing to bet there was something else going on. When we get back to my house, I’m going to look in to Hartford Harrington’s background. It seems to me he almost knew what was going to happen before it did.”
“You think he knew it was possible his family might exhibit symptoms of some sort of mental illness? Something hereditary? Something he knew was coming, so he locked his family away before it could affect him?”
Tony nodded. “That would be my guess. But I feel like there are some missing pieces. I’m hoping some good, old-fashioned research can fill in those blanks.”
I hoped so as well. I hated everything about this. I wasn’t sure having the whole picture would help, but I supposed it couldn’t hurt. “What time is Shaggy coming by?” I asked.
“I told him I’d text him when I knew when we’d be back.”
“I’ll text him now,” I offered. “We should be at your place by the time he drives out from town.”
Shaggy pulled into Tony’s drive just as we arrived. Tony went to greet hum, while I went inside to fetch the dogs. All three, including Buddy, trotted over to greet Shaggy with tails wagging. That was a good sign. If Buddy remembered Shaggy from his earlier visit and was happy to see him, I hoped that meant the two would bond, and Buddy would finally have a forever home.
We took the dogs for a walk around the lake. Shaggy tossed a stick as we went, which kept the dogs entertained. His video store was closed on Sundays, but before he committed 100 percent to taking Buddy on a permanent basis, he wanted to see how he did both at his home without the other dogs to act as a buffer, and at the store, where customers came in and out all day. I’d spoken to Brady, who was fine with Shaggy taking him for a trial run, so we worked out the details while we made our way back to Tony’s house.
When Shaggy and Buddy had gone, I settled down all the animals and then Tony and I went down to the computer room to look in to Hartford Harrington’s past. It was harder to dig up information on someone who had lived before the internet because their lives weren’t always available with the click of a keyboard. But Harrington had been a wealthy and influential man, so there was quite a bit of information available.
I sat quietly as Tony’s fingers flew over the keyboard. I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to help and could probably just as easily have gone upstairs to hang out with the animals, but sitting near Tony while he worked made me feel as if I was helping even if I wasn’t, so I sat and waited, fidgeted a bit, then waited some more.
“This is interesting,” Tony said.
“What is?” I sat up straighter and glanced at the screen over his shoulder.
“Hartford Harrington was the middle of three children. He was the only one of those three children to survive their teen years.”
“His siblings died?”
Tony nodded. “Hartford had an older sister, Estelle. She overdosed on sleeping pills when she was just fifteen. He also had a younger brother, Trenton. He was killed in a boating accident when he was thirteen.”
I furrowed my brow. “It really does sound like the family was cursed. How about Hartford’s parents? Did they bail on their children the way he did?”
Tony continued to read, then clicked on a link that led to another. “It looks like Hartford’s mother committed suicide when he was ten. So far, I haven’t found any evidence that his father didn’t raise the children on his own after his wife’s death. I’ll keep looking.”
I leaned forward, placing my hand on Tony’s shoulder to get a better look at the screen. “Harrington’s mother committed suicide. His older sister took sleeping pills. With the possible exception of Hillary, it appears every one of his children died before reaching adulthood. Hartford seemed to have been of sound mind and body, but it does sound as if the Harrington family might have been dealing with a family curse.”
“I doubt there’s a family curse, but I think there might be a mental health issue, as we discussed in the truck. Something hereditary,” Tony said. He continued to key in search commands. “I haven’t been able to find anything about Hartford’s grandparents or their parents or siblings, but if I had to guess, a gene was passed from Hartford’s mother to his sister. It seems not to have been passed to either male child, which isn’t unusual. Most hereditary issues are only passed to a percentage of the children. Based on what Rena Wiggins told us, I’m taking a stab at some sort of schizophrenia, with an onset associated with puberty. I’m not an expert in this subject by any means, so this is just a guess, but it sounded as if Henrietta Harrington suffered from hallucinations accompanied by paranoia.”
I frowned. “I still don’t understand why Harrington built the house and basically hid his family away from the world. From what we know, it doesn’t sound as if either Hudson or Hillary exhibited symptoms, and Henrietta didn’t begin to for quite a few years after they moved here, so what would prompt Harrington to do what he did?”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. There must be a piece to the puzzle we don’t have.”
“Maybe more than one piece. We still have no idea who the skeleton Jordan Westlake found belongs to.”
“True. Call Mike and ask him if he has any news on the identity. It would be interesting to find out how long it was in that closet. At this point we can’t determine whether the skeleton was put there while the Harringtons lived there or after all of them were gone.”
“I doubt he’ll hear anything until at least tomorrow; it’s the weekend, and a long-dead skeleton isn’t going to be a high priority for the medical examiner’s office. I’ll make a point to stop by Mike’s office while I’m doing my route.” I sat back in my chair and stretched my legs out in front of me. “I wonder how much Jordan Westlake knows about the history of the Harrington family and their life in that house.”
“I would think he’d have been curious and researched things before moving here. Given the family connection, even if it isn’t biological, he might have access to information not available on the internet.”
“That’s true. I wonder if he’d talk to us.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask him,” Tony said. “He was pretty forthcoming when we spoke to him last night.”
“I don’t have his number, but I can probably get it from Mike.” I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t that late, but we were at a point where we were stalled with this, and we’d decided to pause on the investigation into my dad. “Maybe I should go home. I left a pile of laundry in my bedroom.”
“We haven’t had dinner yet.”
I shrugged. “I can pick something up or make a sandwich. If we start a game, I’ll end up being here late, and I really should get to bed early tonight.”
“Okay. If that’s what you want to do.”
Tony looked disappointed, and I felt bad. We’d never had the chance to just hang out this weekend. “If you want to follow me into town, we can drop off the animals at my place, I can pop a load in the washer, and we can go out for pizza or a burger.”
Tony smiled. “That sounds like a plan. Just let me change my clothes.”
“I’ll pack mine while you do that.”
******
By the time we dropped off the animals at my cabin and I’d started a load of laundry, it was after seven o’clock. We decided to head to a local burger joint that fea
tured a good selection of beers and an outdoor deck overlooking the lake. It was crowded, which was to be expected on a Sunday night, but we found a table near the water and settled in with our menus. We were discussing the options when I noticed Jordan Westlake walk onto the deck from the parking area. He appeared to be alone, so I waved to him.
“Are you here alone?” I asked.
“Yes. I don’t really know anyone in town yet, but I’m tired of eating alone in that depressing house.”
“Join us,” I offered. “We haven’t ordered yet, so your timing is perfect.”
Tony scooted his chair around to make room for the one Jordan pulled over.
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate the invite. It’ll be nice to have someone to talk to other than the ghosts in the house.”
“Have you seen any?” I wondered.
“Not yet, but the skeleton in the closet seems to indicate at least one person might very well have unresolved issues in it. To be honest, I thought I knew what I was getting in to, and was even prepared to deal with family ghosts, but the skeleton threw me.”
“And you have no idea who it might be?”
“Not a clue.”
“I know of six people who died or went missing while living in the house, and it’s my understanding all but Hillary were buried in the family plot.”
“That’s my understanding as well. And there are five headstones. I checked,” Jordan assured me. “I guess the only way to know for certain that the bodies that are supposed to be buried in the family plot really are is to dig them up, but I thought I’d wait to see what your brother comes up with before going to that extreme.”
“The family history is tragic enough without the added creep factor of a skeleton or dug-up graves,” I agreed.
“Do you know much about the family and the house?” Jordan asked.
“Some,” I said. “Tony and I have been doing some looking around since you moved in. I never really thought much about the house until recently, but now I’m anxious to know what happened there. Everything we know so far is so sad.”
