Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "Oh, yeah; the cook," the old man said, nodding. "Jean-Louis. Short fat guy with brown beady eyes. Couldn't speak a word of English. Personally I have no use for a man who can't be bothered to learn our mother tongue.

  "But that was your grandmother all over," he mused, rubbing the stubble of his beard. "Everyone loved her. She had this glow about her ... this wonderful warmth ... you couldn't help but be drawed to her. Everyone was. Everyone —"

  His expression suddenly turned dark and angry, surprising Meg once more; he seemed too fragile for such wrenching shifts of mood.

  "You have Margaret's smile," he said suddenly, veering away from his anger. "Not exactly the same: You're less open. More guarded. Well, that's no surprise," he said with a thin shrug of cynicism. "Times are different."

  But Meg was surprised, because she truly didn't believe that times were that different — at least, not in Bar Harbor. She didn't lock her door and she'd never been robbed and she always felt safe on the town's streets. She knew and liked everyone, and everyone knew and liked her. That was the whole point of living in a small town, even one as visited as Bar Harbor. That was why, like her grandmother, she'd never leave Bar Harbor.

  "Times aren't so very different, Mr. Tremblay," she argued, convinced that her smile was as open and unguarded as her grandmother's.

  He gave her a long, searching, and utterly dispirited look. "Maybe not," he said wearily. "Maybe not."

  There was a pause, and then he said, "She never did want to be more than my friend."

  "My grandmother, you mean," Meg said, shifting gears with him.

  Orel Tremblay nodded. "Oh, I'd of stole her away from her old man in a shot, if she'd of let me. Your granddaddy was a drunken lout," he said contemptuously. "He didn't deserve Margaret. But she was just ... so ... loyal, don't you know. To him, and to their two boys. And damn it to hell, it cost her her life. It was criminal."

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  Meg was well aware that her grandmother had become trapped in Eagle's Nest during the Great Fire and had burned to death. Naturally her family had never dwelled on it, even though the fire itself was a major event in Bar Harbor's history.

  Meg began edging away from the dollhouse. It seemed no longer charmed but sinister, a painful reminder of a family tragedy. As for her grandfather: yes, it was true; he drank. That was nobody's business, least of all Orel Tremblay's. Suddenly she was sorry she'd come.

  "Mister Tremblay. I don't understand what you're driving at. As far as I know, my grandfather and grandmother were a happily married couple — average happy, anyway. But even if they weren't, I don't see what the point is in your dragging up the fact. They're both dead now. I think the decent thing would be to let them rest in peace."

  "Aaagh, you're right," Orel Tremblay said, more annoyed than embarrassed. "Why ever did I bother? Never mind. What's done is done. Mrs. Billings!" he shouted, with astonishing vigor.

  The nurse came in, and Meg went out. That was the end of her visit with Orel Tremblay, unrequited lover of Margaret Mary Atwells.

  ****

  At the family supper that night, Meg's strange and wildly unsatisfying visit with Orel Tremblay was the hot topic. Nothing else could touch it — not young Terry's second black eye of the month; not his mother's honorable mention at the pie bazaar; not even the ten-year-old pickup Meg's older brother Lloyd had just got for a song. Everyone wanted a word-by-word blow, and they did everything but bang on the table with their spoons to get Meg to tell her story.

  Meg wasn't inclined to go into detail. For one thing, they had an outsider at the table tonight — Tom Wyler, sitting smack-dab in the middle of the Wednesday chaos they called Chicken Pie Night. She stole glances at him, perfectly aware that he was watching her watch him. He made her uncomfortable, although nobody else in the family seemed to feel funny about having him there. Allie was still enchanted by the man, and their nephew Timmy seemed to be thrilled to know someone so tall and smart with almost the same first name. His twin brother Terry was ignoring Tom Wyler, but that was nothing new; Terry wasn't on speaking terms with anyone except Coughdrop, the family part-Golden Retriever.

  Meg looked to her father, Everett Atwells, head of their extended household, for his reaction to the newcomer. No problem; to him Tom Wyler was apparently just another mouth to feed. Of her relatives, only her brother Lloyd looked unhappy to have him here. That was probably because Tom Wyler clearly had money and a job, and at the moment Lloyd had neither.

  The real test, of course, was Uncle Bill, her father's older brother. Uncle Bill was outspoken, outrageous, and unmanageable. He was a kind of litmus strip for the family. If Uncle Bill liked someone, everyone else was allowed to like him too. If he didn't, he made life such hell for the newcomer that the family, out of pity, usually ended up taking the poor wretch back to where they'd found him.

  They had no choice in the matter, because Uncle Bill, not the marrying kind, wasn't the cooking kind, either; he ate with the family as often as he could and always on Wednesday, when Comfort served her Chicken Pie with Secret Seasonings.

  So it was Bill Atwells's voice, as usual, that elbowed its way through all the rest.

  "Are you gonna tell us what happened or not, Meg? In the meantime, pass them pertitters. And I don't mind another dollop of chicken pie while I'm at it, Comfort; it's wicked good tonight. Well, Meg? Don't just sit there poundin' sand. You went to the man's house and the nurse let you in and what?"

  Meg cast a wary eye at her irrepressible uncle. She was treading over tricky ground here. Bill Atwells might find it fascinating that someone had had a crush on his mother, but he wouldn't think much of the "drunken-lout" description of his father. And what about Allie? Did Allie really need to be reminded that drinking ran in the family?

  Meg tried simple evasion. "We don't want to bore Mr. Wyler with our little small-town dramas, Uncle Bill."

  "Don't be silly, Meg. Tom wants to hear," Allie said with a confident, beguiling look at her invited guest.

  Meg had seen her sister — who could look seductive reciting the alphabet — use that look before. It was very effective, almost a form of hypnosis.

  Tom Wyler gave Meg a good-humored smile and said, "I like a good mystery."

  "C'mon, tell!" said Timmy.

  "What're you afraid of?" asked his twin brother Terry.

  "Okay," Meg said with a sigh. "As I said, Mr. Tremblay's not in great shape physically. But he's very sharp mentally. It turns out that he's noticed me around town. In fact he says I look exactly like Grandmother."

  "Don't be silly," Everett Atwells said. "You look exactly like you."

  "Well, all right; but here's the part he seemed determined for me to know: He was wildly in love with Grandmother."

  "That son of a bitch!" Bill Atwells said through a mouthful of chicken pie.

  "It never went anywhere, Uncle Bill; you won't have to challenge Mr. Tremblay to a duel," Meg said ironically.

  "When was this?" Everett demanded. Plainly it was all news to him.

  Meg explained that Orel Tremblay and Margaret Mary Atwells had both worked at the Eagle's Nest at the same time, and that Tremblay, like the rest of the staff, was smitten with her grandmother's great natural warmth.

  "Which, by the way, he told me I didn't have," Meg added wryly.

  "He said that to you? That he had a thing for Grandmother, and that he thinks you're cold?" Allie was agape with indignation. "What nerve!"

  "He didn't exactly say cold," Meg said, coloring. "I think he said I was ‘guarded'."

  "Well, that has been true since Paul killed himself," said Comfort naïvely. "He knew about Paul?"

  "No ... I don't know. Paul did not kill himself, Comfort. Anyway, cold or hot was not the point," Meg said, exasperated. "Orel Tremblay wanted to show me the dollhouse; it was because of the dollhouse that he summoned me."

  She went on to describe in great detail the exquisite miniature of the Eagle's Nest that was hidden away in Or
el Tremblay's unassuming home. She avoided dwelling on the obvious — that the dollhouse was a replica of the tomb of Margaret Mary Atwells — and she made no mention at all of Orel Tremblay's scathing opinion of her grandfather.

  She limped to the end of her story, which clearly had no conclusion, and waited, knowing that her family would jump all over her to provide one.

  Uncle Bill weighed in first. "That's it? He had you over there to look at a dollhouse? What for?"

  "I don't know."

  "It must be worth a pile," said Lloyd. "How much, do you think?"

  "I don't know."

  "How come he has the dollhouse?" asked Terry suspiciously.

  "I don't know."

  "Probably he stole it," his twin brother said. "After he fixed it up he kept it for hisself. Brother. What a dumb thing to steal."

  "It must be worth a pile," said Lloyd again. "How much did you say it was worth?"

  "I don't know."

  "This dollhouse — " Meg's father began.

  "I never understood what they were doing at the Eagle's Nest in October, anyway," Allie said, interrupting him. "Okay, we know Gordon Camplin was staying on through the hunting season. Fine. But why keep his wife and two children and the whole staff there? Why not send them back to New York or Boston like everyone else? Did you ask Mr. Tremblay?"

  Meg shook her head. "He threw me out."

  Her family began hooting her off the stage with cries of "So you don't know beans!"

  Meg wouldn't have cared, except for Tom Wyler. He was sitting there as calm as a clock while her family took turns beating her up. It bothered her that he was neither embarrassed nor amused by their antics. She had the sense that he was watching them the way a psychologist might watch a play group through a one-way mirror.

  No doubt it was part of his job. She was struck by the way he held himself, so casually alert, so ready to spring. If a fire alarm went off, he'd be the first one into action. But whether it would be to help the women and children, or to step over them on his way out the door — that, she couldn't know.

  "Uncle Bill? A piece of my roobub pie?"

  Without waiting for an answer, Comfort cut a wedge the size of an Egyptian pyramid, eased it onto a dinner plate, and passed it down the table to her husband's uncle. Comfort began dividing what was left of dessert among the rest of the family, and the talk settled down into pleasing, pie-filled murmurs about everyone else's day.

  Uncle Bill, however, wasn't interested in everyone else's day; he was interested in the new man at the table. Uncle Bill had money — he'd sold his hardware store at the peak of the boom in ‘87 — and as a result he tended to respect other people who had money. He wanted to know how much respect Tom Wyler deserved.

  "So. Whatsit you do for a living, Mr. Wyler?"

  Chapter 3

  Tom Wyler disliked being asked that question so much that he usually did what most cops do: hung around people who already knew the answer to it — other cops.

  But he wasn't among his own kind now. He was at the table of an odd bunch who seemed to enjoy picking on one another almost as much as they enjoyed eating. The Waltons, they were not. And yet they weren't mean. He'd experienced mean, up close and personal, like the time his third foster father threw a coffee cup across the table, opening an inch-long gash on his forehead. Wyler still had the scar to remind him of his nightmare youth.

  "I work on the Chicago police force," Wyler said as vaguely as he could.

  Allie chimed in with, "He was even on the cover of Newsweek!"

  "Well, now, that sounds interestin'. What exactly do you do?"

  "I'm in … ah ... homicide." Dammit.

  "Homicide!"

  The usual electric current rippled through his audience.

  "A homicide officer in Chicago. Well, now," mused Bill Atwells. "‘Course, the idea of needin' a man — much less a team — just for trackin' down murderers is a little hard to fathom. Worst thing we've had lately was a break-in at the day-care center; stole three hundred fifty dollars in bake-sale proceeds. Shocked us all. But homicide; well, now. That's different." He sat back in his chair with his arms folded across his beefy chest and nodded. "Ayuh."

  Terry gave Wyler a skeptical look from under half-lowered lids. "You don't look like a homicide cop," he said as he pulled absently on Coughdrop's ear. "What's your rank?"

  "Lieutenant."

  "Let's see your badge."

  "Whist!" warned his mother. "You're far too bold, child."

  "Comfort, don't scold him," said Allie, laughing. "This is the most the boy's said since I've been home. Anyway, Terry's right," she said, turning to Wyler with a smile that kicked his hormones into overdrive. "You don't look like a detective. Tell us something really scary. Tell us about a serial killer."

  "Allie, there is a time, and there is a place."

  It came from her older sister. Wyler had noticed during dinner that Meg Hazard was acting more like a mother than a sister to Allie. But it was obvious, at least to him, that Allegra Atwells had no interest whatever in being mothered anymore. That ship clearly had sailed.

  "Something really scary ..." Wyler repeated, stalling for time.

  He could tell them that the severed head they'd found in the sixth district did end up matching the body they'd found in the fourth. Or he could tell them about the minister raking the leaves of his front lawn who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting intended for his neighbor. Or, he could tell them about the little girl's face, little Cindy's face, with a bullet hole in it.

  "I'm afraid all homicides are scary," he said tersely.

  But Timmy, for one, seemed eager to show how up-to-date he was. "Mostly shootings, right? Nowadays everything's guns," he said sagely, pressing his fork into the last of his crumbs.

  "Is that how you got hurt?" asked his twin brother Terry, narrowing his steel-blue eyes. "You were shot?"

  "That's a long story," Wyler said, deliberately laying his napkin on the table and pushing his chair back. "But it's not tonight's story."

  Christ, he thought. They're like a bunch of trial lawyers.

  "Okay, boys, now that you've guaranteed we'll never have Mr. Wyler as a paying guest ..." Meg said, throwing him a wry, sympathetic smile. "How about you clean up these —"

  "I remember that dollhouse!" Everett Atwells shouted, emerging from a very private revery.

  He'd said little during the meal; Wyler had a hunch that Everett Atwells liked having his older, louder brother there, taking charge. But now Everett's mild manner and vague expression were transformed: he was like a kid who'd remembered, finally, where he'd left his slingshot.

  "Ma used to tell us about a dollhouse when she came home at night, that it was a magical place where sprites and fairies lived. Bill? You remember?"

  His older brother shook his head. "Nope. But then, I wasn't the one pinin' away for Ma every day like an abandoned puppy. And you not a kid, either. What were you, fifteen, when Ma —?"

  Everett hardly heard him. He was somewhere else, another time, another place. The sudden flashback to the summer of '47 was clearly a gift, and he was overjoyed to have it.

  "I remember now!" he said with rising excitement. "Ma said the dollhouse had a nursery just like the real one in Eagle's Nest. And there was a nursemaid doll just like her, only the doll's uniform was longer than the fashion then, and Ma said — yes, I remember this! — she said the fella who was repairing the dollhouse actually shortened the dress to match the hemlines of ' 47."

  A beatific smile lit up his face, as though he'd made a quick stop in heaven. "God almighty, Bill! How can you not remember?"

  The twins exchanged looks, and then Terry snorted and said, "A grown man, playing with doll clothes? What is he, a pervert or somethin'?"

  Comfort Atwells sucked in her breath. "Not another word, Terrence Atwells. Leave the table this instant. The rest of your pie can stay right where it is. What kind of talk!"

  Timmy got shooed away next and screamed bloody murder over it.
"What'd I do? I didn't do anything! Can I at least have the rest of his pie? Ma-an ..."

  That left the grownups, if you counted Allie as a grownup. And Wyler was doing exactly that. The whole Atwells family was interesting to him, the way any cohesive group was interesting, whether they were cops on a squad or kids in preschool.

  But Allegra Atwells! She was mesmerizing. No question, she was every man's fantasy. Violet eyes; full lips; hair the color of a gleaming clarinet ... no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

  ****

  From across the table, Meg Hazard watched Tom Wyler with a mix of amusement and pity. Lieutenant Wyler had fallen into The Trance. She knew it, and everyone else at the table knew it. Like everyone else, Meg could just be nice and ignore it.

  Or not.

  "Well, Mr. Wyler," she said, following the direction of his gaze. "You look like you're ready for bed."

  The detective flushed and said with obvious irony, "You seem to've read me like a book, Mrs. Hazard."

  Like that was so hard. "We don't stand much on ceremony around here, Mr. Wyler," she said, letting him off the hook. "So if you want to pack it in for the evening — feel free."

  She added a wry smile. "I think you'll find most everything you want in your room, except an extra blanket. Don't let this heat wave fool you; our nights get cool. I'll bring you a spare."

  "Don't bother, Meg; I'll get the blanket," Allie volunteered, jumping up from the table.

  "No, you won't, Allie-cat," Everett Atwells said with a benign and fatherly smile. "Meg's been running you ragged ever since you got here. You're having a nice cup of tea with me in the parlor; you can catch me up on all your news. Trouble with our Meg is, she forgets there's more to life than work."

  "Silly me," said Meg, rolling her eyes at Allie. "Whatever was I thinking? Comfort — great meal, as usual."

  Everyone agreed and then everyone took off: Everett Atwells, with his newfound daughter; Lloyd, for a rendezvous with the furnace; Comfort, with a stack of dirty dishes; and Meg, with the limping detective at her side. Only Uncle Bill stayed behind, with his Dutch Master cigar and his bottle of Canadian Club, ruminating. They let him be; it was his way.