by Ellen Hart
“No, no,” said Eleanor. “Who told you that?”
“Oh, great,” said Lena, pointing. “We have an audience.”
Eleanor hadn’t heard the door open, but when she looked around, she saw that one of the new renters had come in.
“This is a private conversation, Jane,” said Lena. “Feel free to leave.”
“No, stay,” said Britt. “I need a witness.”
“Britt, please,” said Eleanor. “I don’t know who’s been talking to you, but you’ve been given some misinformation.”
“You’re saying it’s not Timmy?”
Eleanor was so shocked by the accusation, she felt her legs begin to shake. Thinking they might give out on her, she sat down on the piano bench.
“Timmy who?” demanded Lena.
“Your son,” Britt all but screamed.
“I don’t have a son,” Lena yelled back.
Eleanor felt dizzy. She held on to the edges of bench, afraid she might fall off.
“Tell me the truth,” said Britt, her eyes fixed furiously on Lena. “Timmy was your son. I remember him. Vividly. When I was here on Sunday night, I found a picture he drew. I remembered him stuffing it into the baseboard in your den and that’s where I found it. He signed his name. That’s proof.” She switched her gaze to Eleanor. “The only reason I can think of that you’re lying to me is because he died and you covered it up. You buried his body in the garage. What I don’t know is how he died.”
“You’re insane,” muttered Lena. “A drawing isn’t proof of anything.”
“But bones are,” said Britt.
Eleanor was drowning. She had to force herself to breathe.
“You think I won’t go to the police with this?” demanded Britt.
“Do whatever the hell you want,” said Lena, rolling her wheelchair backward out of the room. “But don’t come back here ever again.”
As Britt whirled around, Eleanor looked helplessly into her niece’s cold, angry eyes.
“How did he die?” asked Britt. “Can’t you give me that much?”
Summoning all her strength, Eleanor replied, “I know you won’t believe me, but this Timmy you’re talking about, he never existed. Those aren’t his bones. I’m sorry. There’s nothing more I can say.”
Her niece’s eyes had turned into two tiny slits of hate. “Fine,” she said. “I shouldn’t have expected anything from either of you. My mistake. Just know that, one way or the other, I’ll find the truth, even if it sends both of you to prison for the rest of your miserable lives.”
17
Communication had never been a problem for them. Iver understood Eleanor better than anyone ever had. He’d been her rock for so many years that she’d lost count. When his warm hands held hers, as they did now, she surrendered to a profound feeling of love and contentment. At least, his touch had always produced that effect before.
With the discovery of the bones, everything had changed. Eleanor fought the sense of dread that ebbed and flowed inside her. Her emotions were like a squall that hadn’t quite formed into a gale. But the storm was coming. Of that, she was certain. She sensed a disturbing electricity all around her.
“Do you sense it, too?” she asked Iver. “It’s like we’re standing on the shore, watching the waves move toward us. They’re still a ways out. But they’re huge. And, oh the wind. It’s picking up. A whirlwind is coming.”
“Let’s try to think positive thoughts,” said Iver, moving his chair closer to hers.
The kitchen table was covered with rye bread and cold cuts, butter and mayo, cookies and lemon cake, anything and everything that seemed cheerful and ordinary. What was more normal than the two of them having a late lunch together on a snowy early December afternoon? Except today, neither of them had any appetite.
“Just because the police discovered bones,” continued Iver, “doesn’t mean they’ll be able to prove anything. Making a case good enough to take to trial is, in my opinion, a pretty remote possibility.”
She wanted to believe him. “But what if—”
“What?” he asked, his eyes full of concern.
She could hardly bring herself to say it. “What if the real threat doesn’t come from Britt, but from Lena. With her brain macerated in booze, she might let something slip and not even know what she’s saying.”
Iver withdrew his hands and sat back in his chair. She assumed she’d upset him until she realized Lena had rolled into the kitchen. The smell of alcohol preceded her like a bad dime-store perfume.
“Well, aren’t you two cozy,” she said, pulling open the refrigerator door and removing a can of Coke. “By the way, dear sister, when you get a minute, I’d like to talk to you about something important.”
“Just say it,” said Eleanor. “I don’t keep secrets from Iver.”
“Never doubted that for a second,” muttered Lena, rolling closer to them. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should sell the house.”
Eleanor’s mouth dropped open. “We’ve already talked about that.”
“Rich Novak thinks that we could get a good price. He even offered to help us get it ready to go on the market. I’m sure Butch would kick in some time, too, if we asked him.”
“Absolutely not,” said Eleanor. The muscles along her jawline tightened. “This is our family home. When we die, it will pass to Frank.”
“I don’t give a hoot in hell about passing on our childhood home. Besides, the house is half mine. If you and Little Lord Fauntleroy don’t want to sell, fine. Buy me out.”
“With what money?” asked Iver. “You know that’s not possible.”
Lena’s shrug was almost imperceptible inside the brown cardigan Eleanor had given her one Christmas, many years ago. It fit her well at the time, though she’d grown so thin that she now looked like a child inside her mommy’s sweater.
“With the money we could make,” continued Lena, “we’d be able to go our separate ways. Wouldn’t you like that? I been thinking. I could rent myself a little apartment, employ a college student to take care of my needs. The only reason we’ve stayed this long was because of what’s in the garage. Now that we don’t have to protect our secret anymore, I say we get the hell out of Dodge and never look back.”
Every single day, Lena came up with some new outrage. “I won’t sell, and I won’t buy you out.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe I’ll have to find myself a lawyer.”
“And pay him half of what you make if you do find some way to force me to sell?” demanded Eleanor.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You have a lot of experience with lawyers, do you?”
Lena shot her sister an angry look as she turned her wheelchair around. “Maybe I’ll have to figure out another way to convince you to sell.”
“Such as?” asked Iver.
“I don’t know. Blackmail?” She stopped pushing at her wheels and glanced over her shoulder. “I bet your congregation would love to know you’ve been banging one of your parishioners in secret all these years.”
“Lena!” snapped Eleanor.
“One day you’ll go too far,” said Iver.
“Yeah. That’s what I hear. But still, you gotta agree, it’s something to think about.”
After she’d rolled out of the room, Eleanor turned to Iver and said, “She’s drunk.”
“She’s lucid enough to know what she’s saying.”
“Even if she did try to make trouble for you, nobody would believe her.”
“On that point, I entirely agree.” He leaned in close and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I better go before I lose control and throttle her. It’s been a lifelong ambition of mine.”
“Maybe we should do it together.”
He smiled. “I’ll call you tonight. We’ll see this through, Eleanor. We’ll be fine.”
She’d never understood how, through all of life’s twists and turns, he could remain so positive. It was one of the things she counted on most. H
is love was her fixed point in a spinning universe. His love was, very simply, everything.
* * *
After a quick discussion on the porch, Jane asked Britt to meet her at the end of the next block. She didn’t want the Skarsvold sisters to realize they knew each other. Britt left first. Jane followed about ten minutes later. Because Britt was determined to talk to the police, Jane drove them to the Griffin Building in Saint Paul, the home of the Saint Paul Police Department. While Britt might have been full of fury at the house, in the car, she didn’t say more than a few words. She seemed to be in her own world, perhaps thinking about what she would say.
Accompanying her to the front desk, Jane stood by silently as Britt asked to speak to whoever was conducting the investigation into the bones found in the garage on Cumberland Avenue. She explained to the officer at the desk that she had information the police needed to hear.
Jane thought back to last night, after Sergeant Nesbitt had left. Lena’s first comment was, “We’re toast.” If the truth came out, they—and that meant Eleanor and perhaps even Pastor Iver Dare—might all go to jail. Lena seemed to want to come clean. But then, by today, she and Eleanor had closed ranks, refusing to admit that Lena ever had a son or that the bones in the garage were his. To Jane, it seemed like a pointless lie. DNA could easily reveal Lena’s connection to the remains. The only conclusion Jane could come to was that they were stalling for time.
As Jane and Britt sat down to wait, a man in jeans, a blue oxford cloth shirt and gray tie, came up to them, introducing himself as Sergeant Steve Corwin, part of the special investigations unit. He invited them to follow him back to a conference room.
Jane assumed that she’d be asked to wait for Britt in the lobby, that whoever was in charge wouldn’t want her to be a part of the discussion, and yet that didn’t seem to be the case.
Once they were seated at the conference table, Corwin said, “Now, how can I help you?”
Britt glanced at Jane for support before unloading all the horror she’d been holding inside. “The bones you found? They belong to my cousin. His name was Timmy.” She began her story with the first time she’d met him. Corwin took out a pad and pen and jotted down a few notes. She explained that her aunts had been lying to her, telling her that Timmy never existed, that she was mixing him up with someone else. She explained about the child’s drawings she’d found stuffed down into the baseboard in the den, that it was proof that Timmy was real.
“You have these drawings?” asked Corwin.
“Not with me, but yes I have them back at my hotel and I’d be happy to show them to you.” She waited while he made a few more notes, and then continued, “I’m in town for a weeklong conference at the U of M.”
“What sort of conference?”
“Evolutionary genomics. I’m a professor at Penn State.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not a crank. What I’ve told you is the truth.”
“Tell me how old Timmy was when he went missing.”
She slumped in her chair. “That’s hard to say. He was six when I met him. We were the same age. I’ve gone over it again and again in my mind and I’ve come to the conclusion that he couldn’t have lived at that house very long, otherwise people in the neighborhood would remember him. My mom and I came that summer for my grandfather’s funeral. Aunt Lena and Timmy were there for the same reason, so it must have happened right around that time. June 1978. We all stayed at the house before the funeral. I’m not saying what occurred was premeditated murder. More likely it was an accident. My aunts must have hidden the body and kept it a secret all these years. I’m told you found a child’s bones in that root cellar, right? They have to belong to Timmy.”
Corwin tapped his fingers against top of the table. “I’d like to be able to help you with the disappearance of your cousin, but you have to understand, this is an ongoing investigation so I can’t really comment. I can tell you that the bones we found have been transferred to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office and I’ve already received a preliminary report.”
“That’s all you can say? Nothing else?”
He tossed his pen on the table, sighed. He thought for a moment more, and finally said, “The bones, they’re not from a child.”
Jane felt her face heat up. “Not … a child?”
“That’s correct.”
She shifted her gaze from the Britt to the police officer. “You’re positive?”
“We are.”
“An adult then?”
“That’s right.”
Jane tried to keep her eyes level. “Can you tell us if it was a man or a woman?”
He hesitated. Closing his notebook, he said, “Okay, look. It was a man. Probably middle-aged. And…” He paused a second time before saying, “It was a homicide.”
Britt just stared straight ahead. “So … it’s not Timmy.”
The officer didn’t reply.
“Are you telling me my aunts murdered someone?”
“I’m not saying anything beyond what I just told you. At this point, we’re still investigating. We haven’t ruled anything in or out.”
“But is there any way to narrow down the time of death?” asked Jane. “When the murder happened? Did you dig up any personal information on the victim that could help identify him?”
“All I can say is, we’re working on it.” He pulled his shirt cuff back and checked his watch. “I’m sorry, but this is about all the time I have right now.” He stood, dropping a couple of business cards on the table. “If you come across anything that might help us, you’ve got my number.”
Jane picked one up, pushing the other across to Britt. “Thanks for your time.”
“No problem. You two ladies have a good day.”
18
“It’s hardly your fault,” came Julia’s voice over the cell phone. “This Britt, she sounds kind of emotionally unstable. She’d already jumped to the conclusion that her aunts had done something nefarious with her cousin. If there even was a cousin.”
Jane stood by the window in her bedroom at the Skarsvold house, watching the snow drift to the ground in the soft blue twilight, erasing the remains of the burned garage.
“Just stop beating yourself up about it.”
Julia was probably right, and yet ever since Britt had exploded at her aunts, Jane felt as if she were holding her breath. She had a strong premonition that something bad was about to happen, though she had no idea what it would be or who might be responsible. “Enough about the trials and tribulations of my day. How was yours?”
“Busy.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Not great.”
“Listen,” said Jane, hoping to inject something more pleasant into the conversation. “There’s a vintner in town. Her wines are some of the best wines coming out of the Sonoma Valley right now. She wants to preview a few of her newest at the Lyme House tomorrow night. I was wondering if you’d like to come?”
“Will Cordelia be there?”
“Yes.”
“Great. If nothing else, my showing up will ruin her evening. Consider it a date.”
Jane heard a noise come from the hallway landing outside her room. Stepping over to the door, she opened it a crack, finding Quentin Henneberry, the young man who’d rented the bedroom next to her, standing very still in the center of the upper landing, his eyes closed. He appeared to be listening to something. Then a familiar voice caught her attention. It drifted up from the downstairs living room. “Oh, lord, no,” she whispered, shutting the door.
“What is it?” asked Julia.
“I’m sorry, but I need to go. I’ll call you later, okay?” She slipped the phone into her back pocket and left the room.
The tall blond young man seemed to be in another world. Her sudden presence brought him back to earth. “Hi,” he said shyly, brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead.
“I’m Jane.”
“Right. I met you before.” H
e studied her briefly before turning his attention to the ceiling. Closing his eyes once again, he repeated the words of an old poem. “Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. Oh how I wish he’d go away.” And then he turned to Jane and smiled.
Under other circumstances, she might have stayed to pursue the strange recitation, but the voices wafting up from the downstairs living room couldn’t be ignored.
Trotting partway down the steps, Jane discovered Cordelia, looking for all the world like the Bette Davis character in the movie, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? sitting on the couch next to Eleanor. Lena was in her wheelchair, roaring with laughter.
As Jane descended into the living room, she cringed at the wig, one with droopy blond ringlets, that Cordelia had donned for the occasion. And as with Davis, she’d applied her red lipstick with a trowel, ignoring the natural lines of her lips, penciled in extra-dark eyebrows, and had lined her eyes, both top and bottom, with thick black eyeliner.
Eleanor glanced up. “Oh, hello, Jane. Looks like we have another renter.”
“I’m Olive Hudson,” said Cordelia, rising and extending her hand, fingerless glove and all. “My friends call me O.”
“O?”
“Or, sometimes Big O. Looks like we’re going to be cell mates.”
Lena let out another snort. “Give her a good deal,” she said to Eleanor. “We need a little levity around this place.”
Jane eyed Cordelia’s dark peach housedress and clunky black shoes. The white crew socks were, even for Cordelia, too much.
“I’m sorry we only have the small room left to rent,” said Eleanor. “It was my mother’s sewing room.”
“Fine with me,” said Cordelia. “As long as I fit.”
“If you squeeze in sideways, you’ll be fine,” said Lena with chuckle, more snide than amused.
Cordelia glowered.
“Why don’t I show you the room?” said Eleanor. “And you can decide for yourself.”
* * *
Jane waited in her bedroom with her door unlocked, knowing Cordelia would eventually appear. She hobbled in a few minutes later, the clunky black shoes clearly too big for her. Flopping backward onto the bed, she said. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun. This place is ground zero, the center of the action. You can’t solve this case without me, Janey. Admit it. Besides, I had to meet the sisters in person to get a feel for what’s going on. Hey, which is the one in the wheelchair? The one with the beaver pelt on her head.”
