Twice: A Novel

by Lisa Unger

  She wasn’t sure why this feeling had come to her now. Maybe it was thinking of what people passed on to their children. How the baggage people carried was unloaded onto the most innocent among them; how the generations of two families since that awful night long ago might have been impacted by hatred and revenge, one way or another. And maybe it made her think of her own baggage and how she was going to try like hell not to pass it along to their child. She looked up then and saw both Ford and Jeff looking at her.

  “What?” she said. “I wasn’t listening.”

  “What’s going on in there?” said Jeff, looking at her with a little worry and putting a hand on the back of her head.

  “Nothing,” she said. She looked into his eyes and smiled.

  “Well, curse or no curse, I gotta head back to the city,” Ford said, wiping the grease from his mouth. He threw ten dollars on the table. “No offense, Lydia. I can’t handle this hocus-pocus bullshit. I have to deal with the facts, find out who crawled up through that hole, if anyone, who let him in, which of them killed Richard Stratton. We’re not going to figure that out digging into some town legend.”

  “And what about Eleanor’s mysterious missing brother? And the town recluse, Maura Hodge? What if the answer to your question is right here in Haunted?”

  “Call me on my cell. But watch out for the Headless Horseman, will ya?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Seriously, keep me posted. I’ll call you when I’ve finished with Eleanor and the twins.”

  “Ford, what about the autopsy results? When do those come back?” asked Jeff.

  “Should be today; they’ve been a little backed up. Busy homicide month. But they pushed mine up because it’s high-profile. There’s a meeting in the morning—ME, crime scene technicians, junior detectives, ten A.M. Midtown North. You guys can drop by afterward if you keep a low profile. I’ll fill you in.”

  “We’ll be there,” said Jeff as Ford slid out of the booth. He stopped a second before walking out the door. He regarded them with a frown and pointed a paternal finger at them.

  “You two be careful,” he said, thoughtful, as if his mind were already on something else. “Call me if you run into anything tangible.”

  Lydia watched him as he muddled out the door. With his worn old beige raincoat and bad navy blue suit, he looked like a sad cliché of himself. Run-down middle-aged cop, nothing in his life but the job. Anything tangible … she thought. As far as she was concerned, the information the librarian gave her was the most tangible thing they had.

  “I say,” said Dax with a wicked smile from the backseat, “we go in, guns blazing. Ask questions later.”

  The three of them sat in the Range Rover in front of a giant elaborate wrought-iron fence, its bars formed to look like a network of vines and thorns. A sign was posted to the right of the gate explaining that the owner was legally entitled to shoot anyone who set foot on her property. It also warned that trained Dobermans roamed the property and that the owner was not responsible for the actions of said animals in the event someone decided to trespass. However, the gate was ajar. It felt oddly to Lydia like a dare.

  “As much as I appreciate your input, Dax,” said Lydia flatly, “I think we’ll try a more civilized approach.”

  She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her black leather blazer.

  “I’ve seen Chiclets bigger than that thing,” Dax said, pointing to her tiny cell phone. “I’d have to have a six-pack of them. I’d crush one a day at least.”

  Lydia smiled in spite of herself. She was trying to treat both of them with a disdainful distance for their actions of yesterday. But they were hard to stay angry with, especially since she knew they were motivated only by concern for her.

  “There,” said Dax, catching her smile in the rearview mirror and issuing a triumphant laugh. “I knew you wouldn’t be a bitch all day.”

  “Just keep talking. You’d be surprised how long I can hold a grudge,” she answered, turning away so he wouldn’t see her smile widen.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Jeff, with his best henpecked sigh. Lydia smacked him on the arm with her free hand.

  A small Post-it that she’d tacked to the back of her phone had scrawled on it Maura Hodge’s number. Lydia dialed and waited while it rang three times before a machine picked up. “Leave a message,” said an angry voice. “Though there’s no guarantee I’ll get back to you.”

  “Ms. Hodge, my name is Lydia Strong. Marilyn at the library said you might be willing to speak with me. I’m in Haunted, at the bottom of your driveway, to be exact, and I’d like to take a little bit of your time. Please call me when you get this message. And by the way, the gate is ajar. Thought you might like to know.” She left the number and hung up.

  “Now what?” said Dax.

  “We wait a few minutes.”

  “What makes you think she’ll call back?” asked Jeff, skeptical.

  “Because she’s lonely. Lonely people always like to talk. Especially when they think they have a cause.”

  “Maybe we’ll get points for not busting in even though the gate was open.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  They waited a few minutes in silence before the phone rang and Lydia picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “What do you want?” came the same voice from the machine in even less pleasant tones. She knew she’d have exactly one chance to enter the property with Maura Hodge’s permission. Otherwise it was going to be B&E, with the possibility of either getting shot or mauled by Dobermans.

  “I’m writing an exposé on the Ross family. Marilyn told me that you know a lot about their history. I was hoping you would share the truth about them with me, Ms. Hodge.”

  There was a moment of silence during which Lydia held her breath. Then, “Come up and make sure the gate is closed behind you.”

  “Okay,” Lydia said, and hung up the phone. She looked at Jeff. “Let’s go up.”

  Dax jumped out to open the gate, waited until the Rover was through, then closed it behind them. Closed it mostly, anyway. There was no way he was going to lock the only exit he knew of from the property. When he was back in the car, they headed up the narrow drive, shaded by a canopy of trees so thick that after a few feet it seemed like all the light had faded from the sky. Jeff turned on his headlights, wondering why they always seemed to be headed into the dark unknown.

  Maura Hodge was a goddess with a sawed-off shotgun. She stood on her porch waiting, the gun cradled in her arms like an infant. Her hair was as black and wild as a storm cloud, reaching out every which way and down her back nearly to her waist. In a diaphanous patchwork skirt and long black wool tunic, she was a large woman, with big soft breasts and wide shoulders, legs like tree trunks, arms like hams. She looked at them as they approached, with a withering stare that probably turned most people right around. Luckily, they weren’t most people. Though Lydia was starting to wish they were.

  “Those your bodyguards?” asked Maura, nodding toward Jeff and Dax as Lydia exited the vehicle.

  “They’re my associates,” said Lydia vaguely, but looking Maura straight in the eye. You couldn’t give an inch to a woman like Maura Hodge, otherwise she’d bulldoze right over you. Anyone could see that. Lydia could also see that she was mostly bark. Though she couldn’t speak for the Dobermans lying on the porch behind Maura, their black and rust coats gleaming in the rays of sun that sliced through the tree cover like fingers reaching down from heaven. They looked a little lazy, though. They hadn’t even raised a head at her arrival.

  “Now, I’ve had two calls. One from Marilyn telling me you are a writer interested in the Ross case. And one from Henry Clay telling me that your ‘associates’ here are investigators. Which is it?”

  “A little of both,” said Lydia.

  If Lydia had to imagine what the descendant of an angry voodoo priestess might look like, Maura came pretty close. Generations of mixed races had lightened her skin to a coffee-and-cream color
, but her eyes were as black as rage itself and they fairly glowed with intensity. The burden of a lifetime of bitterness seemed to have bent her back into a permanent slump. Her mouth was a hard cold line that looked as though it might never have smiled or spoken words of love.

  Lydia approached the woman and reached out her hand. In a heartbeat, the dogs were on their feet, teeth bared, emitting low growls of warning.

  “Easy, boys,” said Maura lightly, and the three resumed their reclined positions, reluctantly. Lydia began to breathe again. “Now call your dog off,” said Maura. Lydia turned to see that Dax had managed to draw his gun. How he’d done it so quickly, she couldn’t imagine. Jeff hadn’t even managed to get out of the car yet. Jeff and Dax looked more scared than she was.

  “Easy, tiger,” said Lydia to Dax.

  “I hate fucking dogs,” said Dax, lowering his weapon, staring at the beasts with suspicion.

  “I’m sure they feel the same way about you,” said Maura. She turned and walked into the old house, her dogs at her heels. The three visitors stood for a second. Jeffrey looked to Lydia and she shrugged. The air was growing colder and Lydia could feel her cheeks and the tip of her nose going pink from the chill.

  “I’ll stay with the car,” said Dax, getting into the driver’s seat and starting the engine as though he thought they might need to make a quick getaway. Lydia thought he was just afraid of the dogs.

  “He just doesn’t like things he can’t intimidate,” Lydia whispered to Jeff.

  “Who does?” answered Jeff with a shrug.

  There was something rotten about the inside of Maura Hodge’s home. There was an air of neglect, visible in the dingy walls and dusty surfaces. Bits of grit crackled beneath Lydia’s feet as they stepped onto the creaking floorboards of the foyer. A chandelier looked a bit less stable than it should. The gilt frame on a mirror across the entranceway was chipped, the glass foggy. And there was an odor. Or maybe a mingling of odors … mold, dirt, moisture trapped in wood. Lydia couldn’t place the smell exactly, but her sinuses began to swell and a headache debuted behind her eyes. By the time they’d followed Maura in through the front door, she was nowhere in sight. They followed the sounds of the dogs’ collars and their nails scratching on the floor through a dim hallway. Lydia looked around for a light switch but saw that the fixtures were bare of bulbs. Above their heads they briefly heard what could have been footsteps, but the sound was gone as quickly as it came. Lydia wasn’t positive it wasn’t just the house settling.

  “Does someone else live here with you, Ms. Hodge?” asked Lydia as they entered a large sitting room where a fire burned in the hearth and Maura sat on a high-backed dark wood chair, her gun across her lap.

  “I thought you wanted to talk about the Rosses,” she said, looking at Lydia with a kind of sneer that may have been her natural expression.

  Lydia sat on the couch across from the woman, though she hadn’t been invited to, and Jeffrey stood beside her. “Police Chief Clay claims that there’s bad blood between you and Eleanor Ross. Is that right, Ms. Hodge?”

  The woman laughed a little. It was kind of a verbalization of her permanent sneer, accompanied by a shake of her head. “I sincerely hope you have not come here to talk about that stupid curse,” she said.

  “In fact—”

  “Because I’ll tell you right now that it’s pure bullshit.”

  Lydia felt like they were sitting in Dracula’s parlor, as Gothic manor was the general decorating theme of the room. A dark red wall-to-wall carpet was badly in need of a vacuuming and steam clean. The gigantic fireplace was topped by an elaborately carved maple mantel where a wrought-iron candelabra sat, its many white candles nothing but melted wax that had been allowed to drip carelessly on the wood and on the hearth below like stalactites. The feet on the overstuffed red and gold brocade sofa and chairs, antiques that Lydia couldn’t name, were lions’ paws. A beautiful rolltop desk made of a highly varnished wood nestled in a dark corner and was covered in ledger books, letters, all manner of papers. Lydia’s fingers practically itched to rifle through the piles of documents.

  “Marilyn didn’t seem to think so,” said Lydia.

  “It’s a ghost story, Ms. Strong. An urban—or maybe in this case a small town—legend.”

  “Most legends have some element of truth to them,” said Jeffrey.

  “I’m not saying the history is false,” said Maura, reaching to a standing ashtray to her right and retrieving a pipe that rested there. She tapped out some stale tobacco from the bowl. “I’m saying that the matter of the curse is merely town gossip.”

  She removed a velvet pouch from the pocket of her skirt and pinched out some tobacco. She put the pipe to her lips and lit it with a small gold lighter. Lydia could see that her fingers were yellowed and the nails short and cracked.

  “And yet the men that marry the Ross women do seem to fall on some bad luck, don’t they?” said Lydia flatly.

  For the first time, Maura Hodge smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t explain that.”

  “But it amuses you?”

  “They reap what they sow,” she said, leaning back in her chair. Lydia could see that Maura Hodge was not a kind woman, that the heavy burden of hatred she carried had made her cold. The tobacco was a pungent cherrywood and the smell was making Lydia nauseous. Or maybe it was the company.

  “So there’s no curse. But you do hate the Ross family? Why?”

  Again there was a noise from upstairs. She saw Jeffrey look up at the ceiling from the corner of her eye. Even one of the Dobermans, who had settled themselves at Maura’s feet, pricked up his ears and then emitted a small whine.

  “It might be hard for someone like you to understand,” Maura said to Lydia in a mildly condescending tone, smoke filling the air around her, dancing like thin ghosts in the light shining from a lamp beside her. “But when you come from a family of slaves, generally you don’t find yourself overly fond of people who descend from a family of slave owners.”

  “But, according to Marilyn, you descend from both.”

  A look of annoyance flashed across Maura’s face, as if she resented someone trying to talk her out of her hatred. “My father and mother loved each other, Ms. Strong. But any white blood in my mother’s veins got there through rape, slave owners raping their female slaves. That kind of crime, that kind of injustice … let’s say you don’t just forget it.”

  “So that’s why you disliked Eleanor Ross?”

  “That and the fact that she’s a bitch and a liar and a damn jezebel,” she said, but without the heat of anger. There was no passion in her voice, just an old hatred, long hardened. Lydia thought of what Ford had said about the overkill, about how the murder was a rage killing. Maura Hodge was a big, strong woman, but there was a lethargy to her, like she might be as hard to move as a piece of the heavy old oak furniture. Time to see what her temper looked like.

  “You grew up together in this town,” said Lydia, more a statement than a question. Jeffrey heard a little flame of mischief light up in her voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “So what was it then, really? She stole your date to the prom? She took your clothes while you were skinny-dipping in the creek with your boyfriend? She wrote your telephone number on a bathroom wall? Or is it just that she was beautiful and rich and you were not—just jealousy, plain and simple? Why do you hate Eleanor Ross?”

  There was a flash in the woman’s eyes, her jaw tightened. But Lydia didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for.

  “It’s an inherited hatred,” Maura said easily, taking a long puff on her pipe. “Woven and handed down by Annabelle Taylor.”

  “Is it a powerful enough hatred that it would drive you to murder?” Obviously, she wasn’t expecting a confession, just a reaction she could read, something to move the investigation forward.

  Maura Hodge chuckled and the chuckle evolved into a full belly laugh. “You think I’m murdering the husbands of the Ross women?” she said when she’
d finished.

  Lydia said nothing, just sat with her eyes on Maura, waiting. It took a little more than laughter to rattle Lydia’s cage.

  “Look,” Maura said, turning a hard gaze on Lydia, “the Ross family doesn’t even need a curse. They are so fucked up in so many ways that they curse themselves.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Karma, Ms. Strong. Bad karma.”

  “But how are they fucked up?” pressed Lydia.

  “That’s a question best answered by Eleanor. Only she really knows the answer. The rest of us can only imagine what went on in that house after Eleanor’s husband was killed. Most of us weren’t old enough to remember Eleanor’s father’s murder. But when Jack was killed, in the same house, no less—you can imagine the frenzy, the scandal in this town. For most people, it was as if the Headless Horseman himself had ridden into Haunted. Of course, people never looked at me the same after that, either. As I am the daughter of the daughters of Annabelle Taylor, naturally they believed that I had something to do with it—mystically or otherwise. As if I were sitting in my living room casting spells.”

  “And did you have something to do with it?”

  “Please,” she said, shifting her girth in the seat and rolling her eyes.

  “Do you have daughters, Ms. Hodge?”

  “Stillborn,” said Hodge brusquely. “I’ve never been able to carry a child to term.”

  Here Lydia saw the anger she’d been looking for—anger and sadness laced with a mammoth disappointment. Always a volatile mix.

  “I’m sorry,” Lydia said.

  “Maybe it’s for the best. Then this business of the curse will die with me.”

  “What do you know about Eleanor’s brother?”