Bloodroot

by Cynthia Riggs

  “Sure, why not,” said Heather.

  Wesley held up an empty glass. “Susan?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  Scott stood and stretched. “You know, people, we need to talk seriously.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Susan asked.

  “The disposition of Mildred’s estate, of course.”

  “Can’t that wait?” said Susan. “She’s not in her grave yet.”

  “We have decisions to make. Funeral arrangements, for one. We need to decide how to deal with her property, for another.”

  “You’ll notify the funeral parlor, won’t you, Scott?” asked Heather. “I mean, once her body is released.”

  “Right,” said Scott.

  “Does anyone know how long it’s going to be before we can leave? I mean, autopsy, funeral, that kind of stuff,” said Heather. “I have to get back to work.”

  Susan dropped the address book into a kitchen drawer and returned. “I don’t see what the hurry is.”

  “The hurry is, we need to dispose of the property and divvy up the proceeds,” said Heather. “I, for one, am dead broke.”

  “Grandmother didn’t want the property sold,” said Susan. “She was planning to put a conservation restriction on it so it could never be developed.”

  “Well, she didn’t, did she,” said Heather.

  “Our father buried three hundred miles from our mother,” muttered Wesley.

  “Live with it, Wes,” said Scott.

  Heather moved the napkin away from her jaw, refolded it, and pressed it back on her jaw. “What is the house worth, does anyone know?”

  Wesley laughed. “Scott knows to a penny what it’s worth.”

  “We’re talking both house and property.” Scott took his phone from his shirt pocket and thumbed the small screen. “The house is valued at three million, the property, fifty acres at two hundred thousand an acre is worth another ten million. Divide that up among the four of us, less taxes, of course, and it’ll go a long way toward paying our bills.” Scott shook his empty beer bottle and Wesley handed him another full one. Scott twisted off the cap. “She was worth a lot, and I mean a lot.”

  “I knew she had money set aside,” said Wesley. “I assumed it wasn’t much, the way she was always economizing.”

  “Economizing!” said Heather. “Miserly is the word.”

  “I don’t know her net worth, but I’m guessing it’s two million or more, plus the property at, what did I say, thirteen million?” Scott tipped his bottle and drank.

  “Did she ever discuss it with you, Susan?” asked Heather.

  Susan shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “You lived with her longest,” said Heather. “Since we left.”

  “You know full well she never talked money with us. Never.” Susan indicated the sweep of meadow and sea. “We can’t sell this. We’ve got deep roots here.”

  “Taxes, Sue.” Scott rubbed his thumb and third finger together. “Someone’s got to pay the taxes, and we can’t afford to. When a developer gets his hands on the property, he’ll simply tear this imposing edifice down.” He gestured at the walls around him.

  Heather took a gulp of beer. “Ouch!” She held her hand to her face, dropping the bottle. It rolled, spraying a fountain of beer on the floor. Wesley picked the bottle up.

  Her siblings glanced at her.

  “Tooth.” Heather’s eyes were watering. “Sensitive.”

  Susan went into the kitchen, returned with paper towels, and mopped up the puddle.

  “Getting back to reality, Sue,” said Wesley. “We three are broke. I don’t know about you.”

  “I’ve got three jobs, landscaping, house painting, and house cleaning. I get along okay.”

  “Don’t forget, you’ve been living free off Mildred for the past ten years,” said Scott.

  “Free? Are you kidding? I wouldn’t call it free. You can’t begin to know what she was like,” snapped Susan.

  “We know exactly what Mildred was like. That’s why we left,” said Scott.

  “And I wish you’d stop calling her Mildred. She deserves some respect.”

  “Not from me,” said Scott.

  “Or me,” said Wesley.

  “When will we know about the will?” asked Heather.

  Wesley leaned his chair back on two legs and laughed. “You don’t think we sound greedy, folks, do you?”

  A helicopter droned by in the distance.

  CHAPTER 12

  Victoria had an afternoon appointment at the dental clinic. She was the only patient.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Trumbull,” said Tiffany, the new receptionist, a high school student Victoria had known since she was a child. “The doctor will be right with you.”

  Victoria took a seat. “I was sorry to hear about Vivian’s death. Was it her heart?”

  “Oh, no, Mrs. Trumbull. She, like, drowned!” Tiffany had a high little-girl voice.

  “Drowned?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They think it was suicide.” Tiffany flicked her hair over her shoulder with the back of her hand. Her hair had orange and green streaks in it.

  “Really!”

  Tiffany nodded. “Mr. Mark was driving her home after, you know, Mrs. Wilmington passed away. He stopped at the liquor store and when he came out she was, like, in the harbor.”

  Victoria hardly knew what to say. “Her poor family.”

  “Well, she didn’t really have a family,” said Tiffany, clearly pleased to communicate news to Victoria Trumbull. “Her parents have, like, passed away. She wasn’t married.”

  The phone rang. Tiffany answered, “Dental clinic, Tiffany speaking, how may I help you?”

  Victoria picked up a magazine to distract herself.

  Dr. Demetrios entered the reception area and Victoria set down the unread magazine. “Mrs. Trumbull. Nice to see you. We’ll take care of that tooth right away and then you won’t be bothered by it ever, ever again.”

  Victoria had never been courageous when it came to dental work. Ophelia Demetrios’s words had a ghastly final ring to them. She followed her dentist into the operatory and lowered herself uneasily onto the reclining chair. Dr. Demetrios fastened the bib around her neck, donned gloves, pulled a mask over her nose and mouth, and brought forth a wicked-looking syringe. “Just a little prick, Mrs. Trumbull.” Dr. Demetrios’s voice was muffled.

  Victoria closed her eyes. This seemed like déjà vu.

  “Now we’ll wait a few minutes. We want it to be nice and numb.” Dr. Demetrios’s voice was no longer muffled, and Victoria opened her eyes to see that her dentist had hidden the syringe out of sight and had dropped the mask below her chin. She pulled up a stool beside Victoria’s place of anxiety.

  Victoria said, “I was sorry to hear about Vivian’s death.”

  “All of us, of course, were upset about Mrs. Wilmington, but we didn’t realize how much Vivian was affected,” said Dr. Demetrios. “Another minute or two, Mrs. Trumbull. We want it to be nice and numb.”

  “Ummm.” Victoria clenched her toes and was immediately sorry as pain shot through her sore toe.

  “After Mrs. Wilmington’s episode, all our patients canceled their appointments.” Dr. Demetrios rolled her large dark eyes in horror. “How are we feeling, Mrs. Trumbull?”

  Victoria shook her head. She wanted to be home doing something normal like writing her weekly newspaper column.

  “It was especially difficult for Dr. McBride, who was working on Mrs. Wilmington at the time,” Dr. Demetrios continued. “I worry about her. Dr. McBride has excellent training, but she can be careless at times.” Dr. Demetrios got up from her stool and opened drawers, took out instruments and laid them on a metal tray with an ominous clank.

  Victoria cringed.

  “Another minute, Mrs. Trumbull.” She seated herself on the stool again. “I don’t think she understands that her behavior toward Dr. Mann is highly unprofessional.”

  “I thought he was mawwried,” said Victor
ia, her jaw quite numb now.

  Dr. Demetrios laughed, a silvery tinkle. “Do you think that would make a difference to her? Or him? You remember the tiger I told you about?”

  “Uhn,” said Victoria.

  “I told you the zookeepers said if he opened an eye, I should leave immediately.” She put her mask back in place. “Well, Mr. Tiger opened both eyes. I had my hands in that big jaw of his, all full of teeth, my little pincer looking so tiny in that big jaw, and I pulled”—she demonstrated—“like this—and there you are, Mrs. Trumbull. See?” Dr. Demetrios held up Victoria’s wisdom tooth.

  “And what happened?” asked Victoria, concerned about the awakened tiger and almost forgetting her own jaw.

  Dr. Demetrios packed gauze and cotton around the place where the tooth had been. “Well”—she drew out the word—“I pulled the tooth—a long, long eyetooth.” She rolled her eyes. “And Mr. Tiger watched me with both eyes. His tail lashed. I moved back as quickly as I could until I was against the wall. He rolled off the table, looking at me—he had plenty of teeth left.”

  “And?” asked Victoria.

  “He landed on his feet, his tail lashed back and forth, knocking bottles off the shelves in the zoo’s clinic, and he paced around the table, still glaring at me, and he opened that big mouth and lifted a huge paw, and just as I thought he was about to tear me to pieces, his keepers led him away.”

  “Oh, my!” Victoria managed to mumble.

  “I think it was a little joke on his keepers’ part.” Dr. Demetrios again blotted the place where Victoria’s tooth had been. “Let Mr. Tiger come soooo close, until I think I am dead, clawed to death by an angry tiger, and then the keepers lead him away as though he’s a nice little kitty cat.” She deposited the gauze and cotton in the red bag, stripped off her gloves, and dropped them in along with the bloody gauze. She pulled off her mask, gently wiped around Victoria’s mouth with a clean tissue, and said, “There we are, Mrs. Trumbull. Don’t rinse your mouth for the rest of the day. Soft foods for the next day or two.” She detached the paper bib and dropped that in the wastepaper basket. “I’d like to see you on Monday.”

  They walked together to the reception area. “Tiffany, do you need help in setting up an appointment for Mrs. Trumbull?”

  “No, ma’am, thank you.” Tiffany glanced up at Victoria. “Will nine thirty be convenient?”

  “Fine.” Victoria felt woozy and disoriented.

  “Do you have someone to drive you home?” asked Dr. Demetrios.

  “My granddaughter.”

  “There’s a new issue of Vogue to read while you wait,” said Tiffany.

  But Victoria didn’t have to wait. Elizabeth, dressed in her harbor uniform, was standing by the door looking concerned.

  “Are you okay, Gram?”

  “I’m fine,” said Victoria, not feeling fine at all.

  Dr. Demetrios greeted Elizabeth. “What a good little patient your grandmother is.”

  Ordinarily, Victoria would have snapped out a sharp reply. Before she could, Elizabeth led her gently out of the clinic into the bright June day.

  * * *

  After the clinic door closed behind Victoria, Aileen McBride bustled into Ophelia Demetrios’s cubicle. Her dainty freckles had turned an unattractive greenish hue. Her long auburn braid swung across her back. Her green eyes blazed.

  “How could you possibly say such things to a patient!”

  “My tiger story?” said Ophelia sweetly. “It’s all true.”

  * * *

  The phone was ringing when Elizabeth and Victoria came in the door and Elizabeth went into the cookroom to answer. She was scheduled to work later that afternoon at the Oak Bluffs harbor, where official boats were arriving in anticipation of the president’s visit. She was wearing khaki shorts and a white short-sleeved shirt with a U.S. flag patch on the sleeve.

  “I think I’ll go upstairs for a few minutes and rest my eyes,” said Victoria.

  Elizabeth waved a hand in acknowledgment before she answered the phone with a cheerful “Good afternoon!”

  “How nice for you,” responded the familiar deep voice.

  Elizabeth felt suddenly chilled. “Lockwood.”

  “So, you haven’t forgotten me, Elizabeth.”

  She pulled a chair next to the table and plopped down. She knew she should hang up, but she couldn’t. “What do you want?”

  “Is that a polite way to address your husband?”

  “You’re no longer my husband.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I signed on for life,” said Lockwood. “Legal papers don’t change that fact.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “I decided to pay my wife and grandmother-in-law a visit.”

  “You’re not welcome here, Lockwood.” Elizabeth leaned forward in her chair to ease the tension that had suddenly built up in her stomach.

  “I know you, Elizabeth. I suggest you not hang up. I have something important to tell you.”

  Lockwood’s voice brought back unpleasant memories. Elizabeth didn’t want to ask, but did. “What’s so important?”

  “I’ll tell you in person.” Lockwood laughed.

  “I’m not available.” Elizabeth felt her throat constrict.

  “Right-o. I’ll be there in, let’s say, an hour.”

  “What!”

  “I’m on the ferry. About to leave Woods Hole.”

  “You can’t…”

  Lockwood had already disconnected.

  She set the phone down, dazed. After her divorce, she’d come here to be with her grandmother for a brief stay. She was still here, months later.

  Lockwood, a name once cherished, now frightened her.

  One terrifying rainy day, Lockwood appeared, intent on taking her back to what was once their home in Washington. She’d run from him. He stalked her down the maze of sand roads that led to the Great Pond, crying out her name in a high falsetto voice. She’d hidden beneath wet oak leaves, shivering. She could still recall the eerie sound of that voice echoing through the rain-soaked woods, closer, then fading away. “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”

  She shuddered.

  She glanced at her watch. An hour. She didn’t want to disturb her grandmother, who’d had a rough morning at the hands of Dr. Demetrios.

  She called Domingo, her boss the harbormaster, and told him she couldn’t make it to work this afternoon. Then she punched in the number for the West Tisbury police station.

  “Sergeant Norton speaking,”

  “Elizabeth Trumbull, Junior. Is the chief available?”

  “She’s on the other phone right now, ’Lizbeth. Hold on. I don’t think she’ll be much longer.”

  Elizabeth could picture Junior in his pressed uniform with his crisp haircut from Bert’s Barber Shop. His desk would be tidy, the pencils all sharpened and lined up just so.

  The hold seemed interminable. Elizabeth watched the second hand of her watch snip off chunks of the hour before Lockwood appeared. She sketched drops of blood on the phone message pad.

  “Elizabeth. What’s up?” Casey answered in a brisk voice.

  “Lockwood called.”

  “Lord!” said Casey. “When?”

  “Just now. He says he’s on the ferry.”

  “You took out a restraining order against him, didn’t you?”

  “You know that won’t stop him,” said Elizabeth, adding another drop of blood to her sketch.

  “The order might not stop him, but I certainly can,” muttered Casey. “Is he arriving in Oak Bluffs?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Where’s Victoria?”

  “She’s lying down.”

  “Victoria? Lying down?”

  “She had some dental work done.”

  “Oh,” said Casey. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. We’re involved with security for the presidential visit so the station house is stretched thin right now.”

  “Same thing in the harbor,” said Elizabeth.

>   “If Victoria’s up before I get there, tell her the autopsy results on Mrs. Wilmington have come in.”

  “And?” asked Elizabeth.

  “I’ll tell her when I get there,” said Casey. “Is Lockwood bringing his car over?”

  “He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.”

  “Be careful, Elizabeth.”

  “I know, Casey. Believe me, I know.”

  CHAPTER 13

  That same afternoon, Jane, waiting nervously for Mrs. Mann, heard a gentle rap on the door and hastened to answer it. Her first impression of the woman standing there was that she would make a good undercover agent. She was medium height, medium build, with light brown hair worn medium length and slightly waved. Everything about her was unremarkable. She was wearing gray slacks and a pink cardigan over a white blouse and she carried a large leather shoulder bag.

  “Mrs. Mann?” She’d had a mental image of a more classy, elegant woman. The reality was quite different.

  “Please, I’m Charlotte. You must be Jane Douglas.” She put out a hand and Jane shook it.

  “And I’m Jane. Thank you so much for coming. I’ve been wanting to meet you … Charlotte.” It felt awkward calling Mrs. Mann by her first name. Jane stepped away from the door and her guest followed her into the house. She glanced around at the large living room and the view of the harbor. “What a lovely house.”

  “It was my grandparents’. I came here every summer as a child.”

  “Lovely. Just lovely. And it’s yours now?”

  “Yes. My grandmother willed it to me.” Jane led the way down the wide step into the living room.

  Charlotte Mann walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and gazed at the harbor and the stretch of sandy yard leading to it. Davina was seated in her sandbox, shoveling sand into a plastic bucket with a toy shovel. Mellow afternoon sunlight picked out highlights in her golden curls as she moved her head. Jane’s heart swelled every time she caught sight of her baby daughter. How was Mrs. Mann, Charlotte, she corrected herself, going to react when she learned that Davina was the result of her husband’s infidelity?

  Mrs. Mann turned back with a smile. “That must be Davina. What a beautiful child.” She went to the couch and sat where she could watch the little girl at play. “When I asked your nanny what I could bring she told me to bring animal crackers. So I did.” She fished in her handbag and brought out a small pasteboard box shaped like a miniature circus wagon with BARNUM’S ANIMALS printed in circus-like letters on the side along with pictures of circus animals. She held the box up by its string handle and passed it over to Jane.