by Vicki Lane
He ended up on the porch with a thick peanut butter sandwich and a beer. The dogs would clean up the crumbs and he’d enjoy the view and the frogs’ chirping in the fish pool. The quiet of the country was still a novelty to him—there had been so few occasions that he’d been here alone for any length of time. Somewhere down the hill he could hear the putt-putt of the tractor—Ben, working late to take advantage of the cool of the evening. He’d seen Amanda making her way up the road to the cabin; she too put in long hours at this time of year, readying the gardens of summer residents so they could brag about their green thumbs to their houseguests all summer long.
This was an interesting sort of family he was marrying into, he thought, taking another sip of beer and giving each dog a bit of crust. Close—Ben and Amanda’s cabin was in shouting distance—but careful to allow everyone space. God knows, they’d all made a point of seeming oblivious to his and Elizabeth’s budding romance. And when he had moved in, it had been accepted as a matter of course. The next step—the wedding—had generated a bit more interest but aside from Gloria’s unsolicited pronouncements about how things should be done, everyone had appeared happy to go along with whatever he and Elizabeth decided on. Very different from the dog-and-pony show that his ex-mother-in-law had turned his and Sandy’s wedding into—so long ago and far away.
He rocked quietly, thinking about that long-ago marriage. It had been a train wreck: he and Sandy too young and his job as a new cop taking up all but a fraction of his time and energy. They would have grown apart anyway; two more different people didn’t exist. But if he’d had a nine-to-five job, they might have hung on longer. Still, the kids had turned out all right. Seth was deep in his graduate studies and Janie, after some aimless years, finally seemed to have settled down, even going so far as to declare a major.
Fine kids, the both of them—and though they hadn’t yet gotten a chance to spend much time with Elizabeth, they seemed happy enough with the idea of his marrying her. After all, he and their mother had divorced years ago and Sandy had remarried at once. They wouldn’t begrudge him a shot at a happy life.
A happy life. That’s what it had been, ever since he’d moved out here. If occasionally he remembered that he was sliding into the vacancy left by Sam’s death—sleeping in Sam’s bed, hanging his clothes in Sam’s closet—he had tried to get past that. It wasn’t as though he had a home to offer Elizabeth, a symbolic new start to a new life together. Even if he could have afforded to buy a house, and he couldn’t, not on his pay, not with two kids still in college, he didn’t think she wanted a new life. The farm was her passion—if he had asked her to choose between him and the farm … but then, he knew better than to even think of such a thing, didn’t he? Better to be content that she had at last agreed to make him an official part of her life.
Brushing the crumbs from his lap, Phillip stood and stretched. A thought occurred to him: the farm. It was a considerable asset. Ben was a partner in the herb and flower business and he and Amanda seemed to have every intention of making their lives together right here on the farm. Furthermore, both of Elizabeth’s girls had expressed their firm intentions of eventually coming home and building their own houses somewhere on the hundred-plus acres.
Once he and Elizabeth married, though—if something happened to her, half of the farm would be his. How would—
Again, the ringing of the telephone broke in on his thoughts and he hurried back to the office. Maybe Lizabeth had had a little extra time between dinner and whatever weirdness this workshop was offering up …
“No, ma’am,” he replied to the obviously elderly woman on the other end. “Elizabeth’s away for the weekend. I’ll be speaking with her later and can give her a message … yes, ma’am … yes ma’am … thank you.”
On and on the caller went, in a sweet southern babble that threatened to stretch into tomorrow. Aunt Dodie—Lizabeth had spoken of her often, not an actual aunt but a school friend of Elizabeth’s mother, living in New Bern.
“No, ma’am, we haven’t settled on a date just yet—sometime next month, toward the end of the month, I think. But Elizabeth can …
“You are?” He began to grin in spite of himself. “No, ma’am, not at all. I’m sure Elizabeth will be … Oh, a surprise. Well, if you think …”
He dropped into the office chair and let the stream of the old woman’s monologue wash over him, just interjecting a polite sound now and then.
“Well,” he said at last when the flow seemed to be ebbing, “when I talk to Elizabeth later, I’ll tell her you called … No? … Well, if you’re sure, Miz … er … yes, ma’am … ah, Aunt Dodie.”
Still grinning, he hung up the phone. So that was Aunt Dodie—the Admiral’s widow. Listening to her had been like being spun around in one of those machines for making cotton candy. He could almost feel the sweet, sticky fluff wrapped around his head, stuffed into his ears.
He paused to examine some of the family pictures that hung on one wall of the office. Hadn’t Lizabeth once pointed out an Aunt Dodie in this black-and-white and sepia collection of parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and still more distant forebears? Was it the young woman in correct riding apparel standing beside a haughty-looking tall horse? No, it must have been one of these bathing beauties: four young women lined up on a seawall in those monumental one-piece bathing suits of the type he could remember his mother wearing. More like old-fashioned corsets than something a person might actually want to swim in.
The small pretty blonde on the far right—that must be Lizabeth and Gloria’s mother; there was a definite likeness to Gloria in the determined set of the jaw. Now which one was the young Dodie? The lanky girl with short dark hair? No, now he remembered. It was the plump little person linking arms with Lizabeth’s mother—“best friends forever,” Lizabeth had called them. “My mother kind of wore out most of her friends but Aunt Dodie never gave up on her,” Elizabeth had said, with a strange downward turn to her mouth.
Aunt Dodie was still on his mind when, just at ten, the phone rang for the third time. Don’t mention her call to Lizabeth, he reminded himself. Aunt Dodie wants it to be a surprise when she shows up for the wedding.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ve missed you. How’s the exploration of the other side going? … Really? And soaking in hot tubs and massages too? You girls know how to live it up, don’t you? But what’s this Giles fellow like? … Has your sister gotten to talk to her late husband yet?”
As soon as those last words were out, he had the unsettling sensation of treading on very thin ice and hurried on. “But you can tell me all about it when you get back home. Listen, sweetheart, there was a call from Gloria’s current husband Jerry …”
He launched into as complete a recap of the call as he could manage but even as he spoke, the thought kept running through his mind: Please tell me you’re not being taken in by this psychic crap. Please tell me you’re not trying to contact Sam.
“… so Jerry says to me that it’s come to his attention that a former associate of his may have been responsible for his first wife’s death and what’s more, this former associate is thought to be in our area and if Gloria’s up here, which he’s pretty sure she is, she’d better look out for this guy because it looks like there’s some kind of vendetta going on …
“That’s right … Jerry said, ‘Tell Gloria it’s the fella she calls the Eyebrow—she’ll know who I mean.’ ”
There was an excited squabble of sound on the other end and Phillip was forced to wait till it had slowed to explain that he’d already alerted the chief of police in Hot Springs and his boss Sheriff Mackenzie Blaine as well.
“But don’t take any chances, okay? If you stay there at the inn, you ought to be fine … you’re going back to the spa again? How far away is that? … well, I don’t guess that would be too … yeah, I know what you mean … but keep your cellphone with you and keep it turned on, okay, Lizabeth?”
Phillip ran his hand over his head. “I d
on’t know … Sweetheart, is there any chance you could get your sister to cancel out on this weekend and you two come back … No, I see your point … But there’s another thing—that doctor friend of hers you said she was talking … yeah, Sterrings, that was the name. Do you know if Gloria’s heard from him recently? … Well, according to Jerry … No, I know Jerry may be playing his own game here. But my gut instinct was that he was telling the truth.”
“Tell my wife this, Detective Hawkins,” the gruff voice had said. “Tell her that her buddy, Dr. Brice we’re-just-good-friends Sterrings, is under investigation for malpractice. Word at the club is he’s facing the mother of all lawsuits and will be filing for bankruptcy soon. In fact, he may have skipped town, what I hear. So if little Gloria was thinking about him for husband number five, she should probably think again.”
Chapter 20
The Woman in White
Friday, May 25, and Saturday, May 26
I had already made up my mind to wait to tell Phillip about Gloria’s stillborn child. There were so many unknowns in the equation—maybe this weekend would make things clearer. But the news Phillip had couldn’t wait. As soon as we’d said our good nights, I hurried to Gloria’s room. It seemed important that she know right away about Jerry’s call but she just waved off what I had to tell her.
“Oh, Lizzy! Don’t you see? Jerry’s just trying to sound like he’s actually worried about me. That, and at the same time to put all the blame on the Eyebrow. Did Phillip actually believe him?”
She gazed at me over the top of her reading glasses—a blue-gray gaze, as the turquoise contacts had been removed for the night. She was propped up in the elegant bed, leafing through a copy of Architectural Digest. Several other glossy magazines lay on the sheet beside her, as did her cellphone, and I wondered if she was expecting a call.
“Well,” I hedged, “he did say—”
At that moment, the cellphone emitted a throaty sort of gurgle and Gloria snatched it up. After a quick glance at its screen, she mashed a button, dropped it back down, and yawned, just a little too casually.
“That was Eleanor. She’ll talk and talk and I really need my sleep. Thank you, Lizzy, for letting me know what Jerry told Phil, but really …”
She yawned again. “Could we discuss this in the morning before breakfast? I took an Ambien and I think it’s starting to kick in.”
I hesitated but she made a shooing gesture at me as she climbed off the big bed. “Go on, Lizzy. We both need our beauty sleep. I want to be very well rested for the sitting tomorrow morning. I’ll bolt the door behind you, don’t worry.”
As she shut the door behind me, I heard the click and rattle of the little chain bolt. I stood there a moment, somewhat miffed by the reception my concern had gotten. Then, from behind the door, I heard the low murmur of Gloria’s voice. Horrified at the thought that I was eavesdropping, I hurried across the hall to my room. She probably decided to return her friend Eleanor’s call, I told myself as I opened my own door.
Except that what I’d heard had sounded awfully like Hey, Turo, it’s me.
Back in my room I thought about the afternoon and evening sessions we’d just experienced. My skeptical nature had been shaken by what I’d witnessed and, even more, by what I’d felt. I was deeply weary—surprisingly so—and expected to fall asleep at once. But my night was unsettled—too much to think about, a cold draft in the room, and when at last sleep came, instead of dreams of Gramma, there was a woman weeping at my window.
In the dream I tried to console her but she was so wrapped in her grief that she couldn’t seem to hear me. I tossed about, sliding in and out of sleep and in and out of this tedious dream till at last the morning light crept in the window and the weeper vanished.
I tried to think about the workshop ahead and Gloria’s hope to contact that long-ago child. Assuming one believed all this astral planes stuff, where would a stillborn child go? Would it go anywhere? Would it, as ghosts are said to do, have “unfinished business” and be lingering on that first plane?
Get a grip, Elizabeth! I threw back the covers and got up. Habit being what it is, I made the bed, though I knew that I would find on my return that it had been remade by a far more professional hand than mine. I tried to arrange the pillows as they had been but giving it up as beyond my skills, I dressed quickly and went to Gloria’s room. I hoped that we’d have a few minutes to continue our conversation of the night before.
With a discreet rap on her door, I called, “Glory? Are you ready to go to breakfast?”
No answer.
“Glory!” I rapped more loudly, wondering if the sleeping pill could have caused her to oversleep. “It’s breakfast time. Glo—”
“She went out early,” said a voice at my ear. “I think she was going power walking. She had those little hand weights, you know?”
It was Dawn, holding a laden tray with covered dishes, glasses of orange juice, butter and jam, a napkin-covered basket that suggested hot biscuits, and a steaming coffeepot. She grinned and nodded at the tempting display. “I’m treating Steve to breakfast in bed. Your sister was just heading out the front door when I went downstairs to get the tray, maybe ten minutes ago.”
Cursing under my breath, I hurried back to my room, grabbed my shoulder bag, and headed for the stairs.
There was no sign of Gloria in the dining room or outside. I had briefly allowed myself to hope that she might have joined Xan in his postures. But he was alone on the lawn, twisted into an improbable pose. When I asked if he had seen my sister, he untangled himself long enough to tell me that she had passed by earlier, saying that she thought she could make it to the spa and back and still have time for breakfast.
I hesitated. I could get to the spa faster if I took the car. But Gloria would have gone down the one-way drive and then by footpath—where I couldn’t take the car. I needed to make sure she wasn’t there …
Shitshitshit! I cut across the lawn and negotiated the stone steps leading to the driveway.
“Gloria!” I shouted, my voice feeling like an intrusion in the still of the pristine morning. There was no answer and no sign of anyone on the tree-hung drive.
I called again, to no avail, then hurried back to the parking area for my car. Gloria’s ten-minute head start probably meant that she was already at the spa and I had no illusions of being able to run all the way there.
The way out of the inn led me through the early morning back streets of the small town where only a few people were stirring. I kept a sharp lookout for the black Hummer—though who’s to say that the Eyebrow might not have rented another car.
This was a sobering thought and I paid close attention to the drivers of the few vehicles that were on the town’s main street. A vintage hippie type in a pickup, a family in a van with a Michigan plate, a young woman jabbering into a cellphone as she sped through a stoplight in her VW bug—none had any resemblance to the man Glory had described.
At last I was turning in at the gates to the spa—but still no sign of Gloria. The car’s clock read 7:35; surely she would be heading back by now. I turned through the gates and started down the winding road toward the spa building.
The spacious grounds seemed deserted, just an open swath of green with a few wisps of fog still lingering. No sign of Gloria, but the level drive that ran through the grounds and back behind the spa building suggested itself as the route she might have taken. I was reasonably sure that she wouldn’t have been tempted by the clump of rocks we’d visited the day before so, with no more than a cursory glance down the narrow path to the center, I continued down the road.
Then, in the rearview mirror, I caught a flicker of movement among those strange rocks.
Slamming on the brakes, I reversed and came to a stop just where the narrow path ran into the center of the ancient stones.
“Glory?” I called, telling myself that what I’d seen was probably a bird or a squirrel, even as I reached into my shoulder bag for my pistol.
It had surprised me to find how easy it was to become a gun-totin’ citizen. We’d always had some guns at the farm—a legacy from Sam and just a part of rural life. But a few years back, when there was a very real threat to me and mine, Phillip had insisted that I get certified for a concealed-carry permit and when I’d passed the written test, as well as the test at the firing range, he’d presented me with a handgun suitable for carrying in my shoulder bag—or in an ankle holster, should I prefer.
I’d practiced with this weapon and had taken great pride in my improving aim. Though what’s needed with a handgun, according to Phillip, is not so much aim as resolve and a familiarity with the weapon. Two years ago I’d found myself in a position where I had used that weapon to protect myself. Ever since then, the ugly little snub-nosed .357 Magnum had been just another useful tool to keep around in case of need.
I sincerely hoped that this wasn’t such a time but after Phillip’s warning about the Eyebrow … My hand tightened around the pistol grip as an indistinct form seemed to coalesce back in the dim depths of the tree-shaded stones.
“Gloria? …” But even as I spoke the word, I could see that the woman in the shadows was not my sister.
No, this was a local countrywoman, by her looks—wiry, ageless. But she seemed to be in costume—white, all of it: the long skirt and loose blouse. There was a basket full of green stuff on her left arm and I wondered if there was a reenactment of some sort going on this weekend. She was picking leaves from some small plants growing at the base of one of the rocks and putting them in her basket. Suddenly aware of my gaze, she straightened and looked toward me.
“Good morning,” I called to her. “I wonder if you’ve seen a small blond woman go by? She was—”
The woman in white’s arm came up, pointing a long finger toward the clump of buildings in the distance. She didn’t speak, however, and something about her blank gaze and motionless stance seemed odd—almost as if she were nothing more than a human signpost. Goose bumps lifted the hair on my forearms as a chill breeze, seemingly from the clump of trees and the rock itself, wafted through the car window.
