“She planned to give everything to the Conservation Foundation.”
“Everything?”
Susan nodded. “The house, the land, her money. I’d lived with her for twenty years. Cooked for her. Did her laundry. Drove her wherever she wanted to go.” Susan looked up. “I’m working three part-time jobs. Taking care of her was a full-time job. All that time she’d assured me she was leaving the house and land to me.” Susan crushed the graham cracker she was holding and crumbs dropped on the floor. She didn’t seem to notice. “Then to change her will like that, cutting me out completely.”
Victoria felt a twinge of discomfort and said nothing.
After a long pause, Susan sighed. “I don’t think you can imagine how bad life with her was, Mrs. Trumbull.”
* * *
While Susan was in West Tisbury talking to Victoria, the other three Wilmington grandchildren, Scott, Wesley, and Heather, sat on their grandmother’s porch, eight miles away, sharing a large bottle of Scotch. The bottle, purchased shortly after the meeting with the lawyer, stood on the wicker table next to a cooler shaped like a Grecian funerary urn. It was now half empty.
“What’s the matter with Sue?” asked Wesley, holding his glass up so the fading daylight gleamed through the amber liquid.
“She’d better stay away,” muttered Heather, sitting on the porch swing. She gave a vicious push with her foot. “She’s always been too good to be true. The way she manipulated Grandmother. Whatever dear Sue wanted, dear Sue got.”
Scott had turned his chair to face the view of the sheep pasture and the sea beyond. He rested his feet on the porch railing, ankles crossed, and was cradling his half-full glass of Scotch on his stomach. “We guessed wrong, folks.”
Wesley said, “Bet on the wrong horse.”
“Not funny, Wes,” said Heather.
“What are the chances they can track down the source of arsenic?” asked Wesley.
“Nil.” Scott took another mouthful of Scotch and held it a few seconds before swallowing it. “Nil,” he repeated. “Anybody can get hold of it without leaving tracks.” He looked over his shoulder at his brother. “How come you’re asking?”
“Just curious.”
“‘Just curious’?” Scott repeated. “I hope I put your mind at ease, then.”
“I’ve got enough stuff on my mind without worrying about the arsenic that killed Grandmother,” Wesley said, “You know about legal stuff, Scott.”
Scott snorted. “Right. So the goddamned ex took me for everything I had.”
“What were you going to say, Wes?” asked Heather, slowing the swing and sitting forward.
“What are the chances of breaking the will?”
Scott shook his head. “Not a chance.” His voice was slightly slurred. “In the first place, where do we get the money to pay some lawyer to challenge the will? You heard that broad.”
“Don’t call her a broad,” said Heather.
“The old lady anticipated everything. Leaves something to us so we can’t say she forgot us. Invested in us. Ha!” He took another sip of his Scotch. “That lawyer recorded every word we said. Iron-clad. Forget it.” He finished up the last of his drink and tossed the ice cubes over the porch railing.
“What about Sue?” asked Heather.
“What about her?” Scott passed his glass to his brother, who poured another half glass full, dropped in a couple of ice cubes from the funerary urn, and handed the drink back to Scott.
“Suppose she predeceases us?” said Heather.
“Then we lose everything, even the goddamned use of the house,” said Scott. “With Grandmother taken care of, why not Sweet Sue, eh?” He glanced over his shoulder at her.
Heather ignored the innuendo. “Suppose it’s a natural death and she predeceases us?”
“How do you plan to arrange that?” asked Wesley. “Reading too many screenplay submissions.”
Heather smiled.
Scott stirred his drink with a finger. “I don’t recall hearing natural death mentioned. How do we arrange that?”
“What are we left with?” muttered Wesley. “Lifetime tenancy in this mausoleum? Who wants to live on this Island anyway.”
“Darling Wesley,” said Heather, “we’re welcome to come here whenever dear Sue permits us to visit. Think of what that’ll be like.” She handed her glass to Wesley. “Fill ’er up, bro! If Sue dies a natural death, the house and land comes to us, right?”
“Let go of it,” said Wesley.
“I’ve got to have money.” Heather stamped her foot. “Not a measly five thousand dollars.”
The sun set, flaming the long clouds that hovered over the ocean with vivid shades of orange and pink. Mosquitoes hummed.
“Time to go inside,” said Scott. “Any mushroom stuff left?”
“We finished it yesterday at lunchtime, but there’s a container of sautéed mushrooms Sue left in the fridge.”
“Where is she?” asked Wesley.
“She went off on her bike,” said Heather. “Come on, I’m starved. And to hell with Sue.”
CHAPTER 23
At supper that evening, Victoria and Elizabeth were dining on clam chowder made with quahogs, potatoes, onions, salt pork, and milk. Elizabeth had worked a long day at the harbor and was still dressed in her harbor uniform.
“Susan Wilmington visited me this afternoon,” said Victoria.
“What was her problem?” asked Elizabeth, scooping up a spoonful of chowder.
“Her grandmother’s will was read today.”
Elizabeth looked up from her bowl. “Yeah?”
“Dr. Mann was bequeathed three million dollars.”
“Wow!” Elizabeth said. “Three million! To Dr. Mann? How come?”
“No one seems to know. The grandchildren were bequeathed five thousand dollars each.”
“Five thousand to her grandkids and three million to her dentist? She must have hated her grandkids. Who gets the house?”
“Susan does.”
“At least that makes a kind of sense. What do her siblings have to say? I wouldn’t want to be around those four right now.”
Victoria changed the subject. “What’s happened to Lockwood?”
“Please, Gram. I’m eating.” Elizabeth swallowed a last spoonful of her chowder.
“Junior Norton checked with the Steamship Authority,” said Victoria. “Lockwood brought his Jeep over about the time he called you, but there’s no record of his leaving.”
“He’s playing his game. I was sure he’d show up any minute and didn’t dare leave the house and of course he didn’t show.” Elizabeth pushed her bowl away. “The minute I relax, he’ll do something unexpected. He knows a person can’t continue with that level of fear.” She stood and gathered up her grandmother’s and her dishes. “I have to tell you, Gram, I’m scared. I know he’s going to do something.”
“Such as?” asked Victoria.
“Who knows? That’s what’s frightening.”
“I’m not worried about myself,” said Victoria. “I’m worried about you.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You’re on his scope as much as I am. Lockwood is convinced you’re keeping me from him.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Gram, you’re not taking this seriously. Lockwood is crazy. I’m going upstairs to change.”
Elizabeth took the bowls to the kitchen and Victoria gazed absently at the baskets hanging from the beams, wondering what to do about her once-loved former grandson-in-law.
* * *
After she left Victoria’s house, Susan pedaled the eight miles from West Tisbury to the house she’d called home for more than half her life. Even her grandmother’s demands didn’t prevent the house from providing her sanctuary. She had her hideaways where her grandmother couldn’t reach her.
Her bike ride was a time to think.
She’d been in the car that night. In the backseat. It seemed like a few days ago, not twenty years.
Her mother and father were argui
ng, one of their endless fights about money. They were coming back from celebrating her eleventh birthday at a grown-up restaurant. Supposedly a special treat for each of their birthdays. She hated it. Her father always drank too much and got all huggy and kissy and she hated the smell of his breath and his too-tight embrace.
Susan was so involved in her thoughts, she’d scarcely noticed how far she’d ridden. She braked at the Brandy Brow junction and looked both ways, left up the hill toward Alley’s Store and right toward the cemetery.
Cemetery.
Her mind went back to that night, her eleventh birthday. She had covered her ears to block out her parents’ argument. She hated everything about her birthday. The waitress treated her like a child. Her parents did their make-believe lovey-dovey stuff, patting each other, her mother leaning against her father. Her father ordering more drinks to celebrate her eleventh birthday when all she wanted to do was go home.
The lovey-dovey stuff ended in the car. They started one of their usual fights. How much her mother spent and how little her father earned. Her father even blamed her, eleven-year-old Susan, for going to the fancy restaurant that cost so much and that she hadn’t wanted to go to in the first place.
Even with her ears covered, she heard her mother’s shrill complaints about how much things cost, and her father’s gruff retorts, “I know how much things cost. You obviously don’t.” And her mother saying, “You arrogant prick!” and shouting, “Slow down, you fool!” And her father shouting, “I’m trying to get away from the sound of your goddamned voice.” And then her mother’s scream, the sound of tires skidding, horns honking, time passing slowly, then—nothing.
This memory had come back over and over again during the years since the accident, like a tune you can’t block out of your mind. Would she never be free of the night of her eleventh birthday?
Without noticing the landmarks around her, she reached her grandmother’s house. She leaned her bicycle against the shed where the mower was kept and looked up at the house.
She’d been afraid her grandmother had changed her will, as she’d threatened, but she hadn’t, thank God. Grandmother was dead. Susan wasn’t sorry. The house was hers. Finally. She’d earned it. Twenty lost years, catering to her grandmother.
She started toward the house, scuffing through the long dry grass that grew around it. This part of Chilmark didn’t have good soil for gardening, and even though her grandmother was a member of the Garden Club, she had never done any gardening. With compost and manure, Susan would have a garden now. A beautiful garden surrounding a quaint and expensive country inn.
She pulled up a long stem of the straw-like grass and chewed on it as she walked. Why had Grandmother bequeathed three million to the dentist? She kicked the dry earth, releasing a cloud of dust. Probably to turn her siblings against her. It would be just like her to reach out from the grave to manipulate their feelings.
She glanced down the pasture at the sea, steel blue at this time of late day. Long orange and pink clouds stretched across the horizon. Maybe she could convince her sibs that they could be partners, not equal partners, but still …
With this in mind, she climbed up the porch steps. When she saw the empty glasses on the porch railing, on the swing, and on the wicker table next to the empty Scotch bottle—a large bottle—she stopped.
The accident came back to her as it always did when her siblings drank. Drinking. Arguing. The screech of brakes. Death.
She turned away. No way could she take them on as partners. And now, she couldn’t stay here when they’d had too much to drink. She’d return to Mrs. Trumbull’s.
First, though, she’d go up to her secret place on the hillside, rest a bit, and think. She wheeled her bike partway up the hill and leaned it against a huckleberry bush, then continued to her hideaway. From there, she could see the ocean, stretching so far away it was hard to imagine so much water. From the time she had first visited her grandmother as a little girl, she had dreamed about sailing to the horizon and beyond. How long would it take to reach land on the far side of the sea? She sat down on a cushion of soft moss. Would it take a month? More? What would it be like to see nothing but blue water stretching to the horizon surrounding you in all directions? She sighed and pulled up another grass stem to chew. She would rest a bit, then wait until darkness set in before heading off to Mrs. Trumbull’s. No way could she face those drunk siblings.
As she stood up and brushed off the dried moss from the dark slacks she had worn to the lawyer’s office, she had a sudden thought—the mushrooms, the ink caps she’d sautéed earlier, Tippler’s Bane, they were called. If her sibs saw them in the fridge and ate them …
Well, it would serve them right if they did.
But if they’d drunk as much as that empty half-gallon bottle indicated, might they die? Should she warn them?
No. She shook her head. They probably hadn’t eaten the mushrooms. Even if they did, they’d only have horrible hangovers. As she moved away from her hideaway, the night was pitch-black with only starlight to illuminate her path.
She retrieved her bike from the huckleberry bush. She knew every curve and dip on South Road, and once she was on it, car lights would show up a long time before a car came near.
CHAPTER 24
Wesley stumbled onto the porch and shook the sand out of his boat shoes. The bright sunset clouds had turned a deep purple and the sky was pale pink where it met the straight line of the sea. Wind picked up and the long grass next to the house rustled, scraping against the shingles. Stars began to prick holes in the sky.
He felt dizzy. The sky, the stars, the world reeled around him. He reached clumsily for the table and knocked it over. A glass fell, bounced, and rolled off the porch.
He called back into the house, “Nothing broke!” He slipped his shoes on and went back into the house. “Funny thing,” he said. “I thought I saw Sue’s bicycle go down the drive.”
Heather swayed unsteadily. “So what?”
Scott came out of the kitchen holding a spatula in one hand. “Set a place for Sue, Wes.”
“We got to eat somethin’,” said Heather, bracing herself against the wall.
Wesley, equally unsteady on his feet, laid out four linen placemats from the drawer where their grandmother always kept them. Set out in crooked lines the silverware and the linen napkins they’d used as children.
Scott, back in the kitchen, stood at the stove, stirring something in a cast-iron spider, their grandmother’s frying pan. He’d tucked a dish towel into his belt.
“What’s cookin’?” asked Wesley.
“Mushroom gravy.” Scott continued to stir. “You capable of watching the steak, Heathe?”
Heather grunted. “’Course.”
Scott held up a bottle of Merlot. “Someone uncork this. Anyone for a glass or two?”
“Not me,” said Heather, leaning against the table. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I’m drunk,” said Wesley, dropping into a chair, his legs splayed out.
Scott gave the gravy a final stir and turned off the stove. “How’s the steak coming along, Heather?”
She jumped up with a small cry and darted into the kitchen, bent down, and opened the broiler door. Smoke poured out. “Jusht right.”
“Hate overdone steak,” said Wesley.
“It’s okay,” said Scott, pulling the steak out of the broiler.
“She’s inheriting a white elephant,” said Wesley. “Who wants a white elephant?”
Scott passed him the carving knife.
“Not me,” said Heather with a giggle. “I’ve got a pink elephant!”
“Sue wants a cute country inn,” said Wesley. “Family run.”
“Might work,” said Scott, scraping the gravy out of the cast-iron pan into a china gravy boat.
“Get willed a lemon, make lemonade?” Heather giggled again.
“Does upkeep include renovation of this pile?” Wesley waved the carving knife at the walls. “I need money
now.” He flourished the knife at the steak. “I don’t have a penny to invest in some damned renovation.”
“Give me the knife,” said Scott.
“I’m going to carve,” said Wesley.
“I need money more than you do,” said Heather. She sank back into her chair. “Can we borrow on Sue’s credit?” She held her hand up as he passed the gravy boat to her. “No thanks.”
“You’re asking me for advice?” Scott pointed at his chest and laughed. “Ask my ex. She knows all the angles. Give me that knife, before you hurt someone, and let me have the Merlot, Wes.”
Wesley passed the bottle to Scott, who opened it with a professional twirl. “Change your mind, anyone?”
“Brrr,” said Heather, shaking her head vigorously. “If our sister predeceases us—”
“Cut that out, Heather,” said Wesley.
“You’ve got the knife, silly. You cut it out.” Heather got up unsteadily and staggered away from the table. “I’m goin’ to bed.”
Scott took the carving knife from Wesley and carved himself a strip of steak. “Scorched on the outside, bloodred on the inside. Cooked just right.” He lifted the knife and examined the blade. “Mildred always kept her knives sharp.” He set it down on the table. “Wonder if the good doctor knew in advance about the three million.” He sloshed gravy over his steak, the mushrooms forming dark islands on the red meat, and held out the gravy boat to Wesley.
“I pass.” Wesley touched his stomach gently and rose. “Too much to drink. Got to step outside.” He made for the door.
* * *
Susan mounted her bicycle and followed the dark rutted drive the half mile to where it met South Road. She was about to turn right toward West Tisbury, when headlights flashed suddenly and a Jeep turned into the drive. The driver apparently didn’t see her, because as he turned sharply into the sandy road, the rear slewed toward her and smacked into her handlebars. Her bike toppled into the underbrush by the side of the road and she landed heavily, her legs, feet, and arm tangled in the frame and spokes.
“Hey!” She cried out, but the driver was too far away to hear.
She unwound herself and got to her feet. Her arm hurt and she touched it gently. Blood oozed from a tear in her sweatshirt.
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