“Then you have nothing to fear. Not that you did before.”
He shelved the weapon and slid the drawer home. In the same instant, the garage door groaned open, heralding the arrival of his wife.
“How did you find us?”
“I’m not exactly proud of having to track you down and invade your privacy like this. I’m pretty jealous of my own.”
The Heaths had moved out of town to Chile. The Childses moved out of state to Phoenix. The Wards, the Millers, and the Banners were hardly ever home, but Kendra was stubborn enough to connect with them after several missed opportunities. Tanya Becker, who lived in the house with her now-deceased mother, joined a Buddhist monastery outside San Diego. Kendra had booked a ticket for over Thanksgiving. The Knudsens, the Renners, and the Konstantines were easy enough to reach. At first, Terri Knudsen insisted she had little to contribute but rang up a few days later and arranged a mid-morning coffee break that extended into a three-hour lunch. The Singers were divorced. Kendra found the husband, and through him, his former in-laws. Abigail Singer told an involved tale that took two hours to get through. The more Zinfandels she drank, the more she remembered.
Every story followed the same pattern though with interesting variations, as if the house manifested itself according to the personalities of its occupants.
Upon entering the kitchen, trivial news of the day bubbling on her lips, Mrs. Langford caught sight of her unexpected houseguest. She grew pensive.
“Anne,” said George. “This is Kendra Swain. She lives in the house on Marshfield Avenue.”
Taller than her husband, Anne Langford was also quicker on the uptake. “You poor dear.” The vivacious personality and round face immediately reached out to Kendra. Memories imbued with imagination that only someone who never wanted to forget spilled out. About a putrid stench impossible to locate. About flickering lights no electrician was able to fix. About a mustiness in the basement that never dispersed. About random knockings having no apparent source. And sometimes, when Anne awoke from a dream or was alone in the house, about the whisperings of a small voice whose words were unintelligible.
“Do you remember the fireplace? In the living room?” By then Kendra was seated at the captain’s table and drinking her third cup of coffee. Mrs. Langford sat beside her like an old school chum catching up on news. The pancake powder layering her fine-pored skin glistened. Kendra still hadn’t removed her coat. Mr. Langford posted himself at the back door, a silent onlooker, reluctant to support or dispute his wife’s tales but assuming the role of protector.
“The decorative one? We can’t tell you how disappointed we were to find out it was a fake.”
“Not fake. Closed up. There was second fireplace upstairs. In the attic.”
“I would have remembered ....” Anne Langford chose wine as her drink and absently topped off the glass. The turquoise sweater she wore opened at the throat and accentuated a tracheal scar and silver earrings.
“She’s right,” Mr. Langford said.
The earrings jangled when she twisted around to look at her husband. “Is she?”
“Remember the chimney?”
“Of course. Where there’s chimney, there has to be a fireplace.”
Kendra said, “We’re remodeling the attic.”
“Don’t you remember, George? How we wanted to convert the attic into a master bedroom suite?” She paused to remember details. Anne Langford was a smart lady as well as intuitive. Turning back to Kendra, she said, “You tore down the walls and found ...?”
“A skeleton. A child no more than three. Boarded up in the chimney.”
“The night-cries.” As though drinking her fill for a lifetime, Anne drained her wine and pushed away the empty glass. “My dear Kendra. You are indeed a courageous woman. An angel of mercy is what you are. You have answered a prayer that I never before ... until this moment ... spoken out loud.” Reliving a compelling memory, she shot to her feet. After embracing her husband with a telling glance, she said, “Hear my confession.”
She sat again, and recomposing herself, began her tale. “Shortly after moving in, I became pregnant. Three months into the pregnancy, I ... we ... lost the baby. I made an appointment with my OB-GYN. Told him I couldn’t sleep, which was true enough. He wrote out a prescription. It was easy enough in those days. I refilled it twice more and set a plan in motion.” She counted on her fingers. “Stock the refrigerator. Pay the bills. Apologize to anyone I ever had an unkind word for or slighted in any way. And wrap up the things I treasured most with bows and sticky notes as if it were Christmas, except it was the middle of July.”
She bowed her head as if saying a silent prayer. When she looked up, tears were spilling from her eyes.
“I told family members and my dearest friends how much I loved them. Often. So they wouldn’t forget. I returned library books long before they were due. I didn’t want anyone to overlook them, you see, in the confusion. Didn’t want anyone to have to pay an overdue fine because of me. Silly, really. What would it matter? A nickel or dime compared to a life.”
She swabbed adoring eyes over her husband. “I made love to you one last time.”
Wanting her to stop, he said a harsh, “Anne ...”
“Hear me out, George.” She wiped her eyes, took a reinforcing breath, and went on. “I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. First the miscarriage ... and when the child began to cry ... I meant to end it, you see. Providence saved me. A phone call. From my sister Lucy. You remember, George, when I stayed with her for a few days? For more than a few days?” Anne Langford wasn’t a woman in her fifties anymore but a bride of thirty, and miserable for being childless.
“You made me put the bungalow up for sale,” he said. “Didn’t say why. We took a beating on the price.”
“I wouldn’t live inside it another day.”
“When you didn’t come home, I thought you were going to file for divorce. I thought ...”
“I was cruel for not telling you. Because I was afraid you’d think me crazy.” Mrs. Langford’s eyes clouded with remorse. “In all these years, I never rid myself of the ghost. She lives with me still, the child of my heart and the companion to my grief.”
An hour later, Kendra drove past the bungalow. Joel was sitting on the stoop. The porch light carved him out of the dark. His overcoat was slung open to the biting cold. She found a parking space a half-block down and hurried back. Wind stamped her face with frost. Rushing up the sidewalk, she readied a kiss ... and pulled up.
Joel lumbered to his feet. He looked tired. Exhausted. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He said, “I have something to tell you.”
Emily came to her lips, but she didn’t speak her mother’s name.
He rubbed her arms to prepare her for the worst. “Birdie called earlier. Your father’s dead.”
Chapter 11
THE APPOINTMENT WAS at three in the afternoon. Kendra set it up before Mac passed away. Since it seemed fitting that the grief-stricken daughter of an exemplary man should meet with the father of a child who died much too young, she didn’t want to cancel. Besides, she might not get another chance. John Cutler was a hard man to convince.
She arrived at a quarter past. Escaping a wind tunnel chasing its own tail, she ducked into the hotel and met a stifling wall heat. Behind her, the revolving door went round and round as visitors came and went.
Her eyes swept up toward the pageantry of early twentieth-century opulence. Crimson-carpeted stairs climbed dramatically to the mezzanine lobby. Brass décor directed the eye along elevated lines. Ornate chandeliers dripped starlight. And red-suited bellhops hustled.
An elderly gentleman wearing an overcoat and feathered fedora made his way down the grand staircase. They met halfway. Though she spoke to John Cutler over the phone, she never met him personally and didn’t know what the years had done to his face. The grainy photo of him in the newspaper archives only showed a man who didn’t want his picture taken. He said, “I just about ga
ve up on you, Mrs. Swain.”
“But I didn’t give up on you.” Over the phone, she gave him a description of herself and added that she would be dressed in black for mourning. She didn’t tell him why.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” he said. “Shall we?”
Gripping the center railing, he led the way to the posh lobby. He paused to catch his breath but also to study her under harsh lights. Approving of what he saw, he tipped his hat but without the hint of a friendly smile. Kendra stepped alongside him, and they ascended a tier of steps to the left.
Lit for atmosphere, the tearoom provided cozy seating areas, a foaming fountain, and a harpist. John Cutler wended his way into a far corner and indicated a loveseat, which Kendra occupied with grace. She removed her picture hat and cashmere coat, and tossed them aside. The black suit beneath shrouded her in sorrow. She knew how she looked, with her face drained of color against blood-red lipstick and her dark hair pulled into a tight French twist. She looked exactly like a mourner buried in grief.
Cutler positioned a chair for himself and relieved himself of his overcoat and fedora. The tea table was set for two. “You’ve been exceptionally persistent, Mrs. Swain.”
“I had no choice, I’m afraid.” She picked up the silver teapot, warm in her frostbitten grasp, and poured for both.
On the surface, he appeared a kindly man, the product of a different generation and gentler times. But his airs and graces covered a lifetime of setbacks and heartache.
“Please forgive me,” Kendra said. “I’m blunt because, well frankly, I’ve lost the knack for good manners. You see, after speaking with you, I’m going to my father’s wake.”
“My dear, why didn’t you say?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I just did.”
Trim for his age, he dressed like a forgetful college professor. Tweed slacks. Golf shirt buttoned to the top. Woolen scarf folded in a V over his throat. Natty sports coat. A well-used watch strapped around his wrist. “Let’s get over the preliminaries, Mrs. Swain. I know what this is about.”
“Have I said?”
“You didn’t have to.” He sat back with the presumptive prerogative of age, comfortable in his skin and accepting of the vicissitudes of life. In his mid-seventies, he held saucer and teacup like a man used to civility. He didn’t drink but stared over the rim.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you feel coerced into coming?”
“I don’t usually accept invitations from strangers.”
“Did I threaten you in any way?”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I ought to apologize.”
He turned his wrist without upsetting the saucer. “As it is, I’m late.”
Kendra stirred her tea. “You wish to be direct. So do I. I told you I live in the bungalow on Marshfield Avenue. I didn’t tell you the rest.”
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wasn’t senile. Just stubborn. And wary.
“I looked into the history of the house and came across several newspaper articles. Before going on, let me say that microfilm and dusty libraries have a way of minimizing tragedy. I’m sure when it happened, the events played out in Technicolor for you and your family. I only read the black-and-white version.”
He stirred his tea absently, not once looking down into the waterspout formed by the swirling teaspoon. Like a distant participant, he said, “A sad story digested into a readable account. Sensational in many respects. But a synopsis of the true events as they occurred. No, you could never understand what it was like to live it.”
“It’s been thirty-four years,” Kendra said. “Her name was Bonnie.”
Mr. Cutler started at the utterance of the child’s name. His teacup rattled in the saucer.
“She went missing on a cold winter’s night. Vanished into thin air. Shall I go on?”
“I misjudged you.”
“How so?”
“I thought ... never mind what I thought.”
“That I wouldn’t be so direct?”
“Yes,” he said carefully. “That’s what I thought.” He had tried to leave the sordid mess behind him. Enough years had passed to separate him from the incident. Except there would never be enough years to forgot a child.
Kendra asked, “Have other owners approached you?”
He was slow to answer, but then he nodded. “In the early days.”
“With complaints. About the house. Its structural integrity. Its history.”
The teaspoon stilled. His faced turned ashen. He glanced at her askance, unsure of where she was going.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two suggested the house was haunted.”
His eyes shifted. He couldn’t quite look at her. But he wanted to hear her out.
“Bonnie was your second child, arriving eleven years after your son.” Kendra didn’t want to push him away. She wanted to accomplish one thing only. In a way, the truth didn’t matter. “She disappeared when she was three years, five months, and twenty-two days of age. It was thought an intruder entered through an open window in the dead of night and absconded with her. Or that somehow she climbed out of her crib and walked off in the snow. Her disappearance wasn’t discovered until morning. No trace was left behind, not even footprints in the snow. Tips and sightings poured in, but she was never seen again.”
His teacup rattled against the saucer.
“She was small for her age. Also bright and inquisitive. The light of your lives, so the articles went. Your wife was confused and uncooperative when the police questioned her, making her the prime suspect, at least from the media’s standpoint. A sanitarium entered the picture. Public sentiment shifted, and your wife became a casualty rather than a killer. She didn’t return home until weeks later, after the publicity had died down and the police ran into one dead-end after another. There wasn’t enough evidence to file charges against either of you. Or your teen-aged son. But the stigma stuck. You sold the house and moved away. Your lives were never the same.”
“We lost our little girl.” Stressing every word, he tried to keep his voice level. But his pronouncement came out as a last desperate attempt to find redemption.
Kendra lifted the china cup and sipped. The tea was lukewarm but delicious. She licked her lips and continued. “We ... my husband and I ... decided to renovate the attic. Maybe you saw the news reports. Or the police ....”
He was in the dark. She had acted impulsively. Perhaps recklessly. She had trod on ground where any sane person dared not go.
“I’m sorry. I thought by now ....” She licked her lips again. Confronting the father of little Bonnie was more difficult than she anticipated. “I guess there’s no choice but to cut to the chase. We found the body of a small child. In the fireplace. On the ledge above the flue. A three-year-old girl.”
His face shuffled through many emotions. Surprise. Consternation. Fear. Grief. “You ... that’s impossible ... it can’t ... no, I don’t believe it.” The strength of his voice escalated until his last defense—“You’re wrong!”—could be heard by others.
The room hushed briefly before the din of conversation resumed.
Kendra had worked out in her mind countless ways the tragedy could have happened, some tragic and some innocent. Struggled to make a reasonable scenario fit an unthinkable ending. Tried to make the guilty merely impotent bystanders to the cruel hand of fate. But came to just one conclusion: of murder and cover-up. Still, she could not be the judge and jury. That was God’s prerogative.
“I have no personal vendetta, Mr. Cutler. I don’t intend to report our conversation to the police. Or involve the press. I only came here to tell you that your daughter’s ghost lives on. She has a strong spirit. She haunted every family who ever lived in your house. I thought ... forgive me ... but I thought you may have heart enough, you and your wife, to put her poor soul to rest.”
Cutler set down his teacup and saucer. He had taken his seat as a vigorous ma
n but stood up as a codger. He shrugged on his overcoat and buttoned it to the top, his fingers unsteady. Then he tugged the fedora onto his head, aligning it at a precise angle before skimming a shaky finger along the brim, a habit of old. His eyes were direct when he nodded politely to indicate his departure. On a count of five, he turned his back on Kendra. His hat descended the staircase, turned right, and disappeared from view.
Chapter 12
SUNDOGS BRACKETED A wintry sun. Sparse snowflakes drifted to the ground, only to melt into the lingering warmth of the earth. It was a cold, brisk morning, wholly unsuitable for saying goodbye to a beloved parent.
Last night, the wake and memorial service had been packed. Grief and flowers came wrapped in ribbons and platitudes. The outpouring of well-wishers was a testament to the respect held for Alan ‘Mac’ McSweeney. Today, though, was a private leave-taking reserved for the immediate family and his closest friends.
The coroner ruled the cause of death as coronary occlusion followed by kidney failure. On the day he died, Mac stayed home with a bad cold. By afternoon, the cold turned into stomach flu. He went to bed and remained there until evening, when Birdie came home after spending the afternoon with her daughter. Emily was sitting in bed beside him and stroking his hand, seemingly unaware that her life partner was gone.
Kendra clutched a single rosebud—pink—the petals delicate and tear-stained. Her coat flapped in the stiff wind. The wide-brimmed hat hid bruised eyes. Her bloodless heart had stopped beating. She accomplished everything mechanically. The canned responses. The transit of footsteps. The stiff posture. The expressions of gratitude.
White lilies ruffling on the casket mocked Kendra’s grief. The touch of Joel’s hand on her back was an irritant she was willing to suffer for only so long. The press of Mrs. Jellinek’s fingers on her arm imparted nothing but sparks of static. Her mother’s doe-eyed glances were too much to bear. She felt like a pincushion stabbed by a thousand needles. Every kindly gesture was just another needle piercing her heart.
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