Emily and Chloe drove off in high spirits to deliver the basket. I imagined they’d be singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” by the time they got to the Bay Bridge. Although she chided me for fussing, I insisted she take my cell phone.
Almost two hours later, while I was caught in an automated answering system death loop with a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C., our call-waiting tone cut in. I toggled the switch. “Hello?”
Emily was talking so fast that I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. My antenna shot up. “Slow down, Emily! What’s wrong? Has there been an accident? Are you OK?”
On the other end of the phone, I heard Emily take a deep, shuddering breath. “I think I’ve found Gramps!”
I was certain I’d misunderstood. “What did you say?”
“You’re going to think I’m absolutely crazy, but I think he’s at LouElla’s.”
This didn’t make sense at all. I clicked my brain into reverse. LouElla had invited me into her house just the other day. Surely she wouldn’t have done so if Daddy had been there. And then I remembered. LouElla didn’t invite me in, Chloe did, by crawling into the house after Speedo.
“Mother? Are you there?”
“Em, are you sure about this? I was just there!”
“I know! That’s why I thought it was odd when LouElla answered the door with Tinky Winky in her hand. She didn’t want to let me in, even when I offered her the basket. But then she noticed Chloe out in the stroller and just melted. She invited us into the kitchen and we were playing with Speedo when I heard the most incredible thing!”
“What?”
“You know that Thomas Hampson CD that Gramps likes so much? Well, I heard it playing kinda softly when I came in and I thought, wow, that’s really nice, and I got a little choked up because it’s Gramps’s favorite CD and all and I was, like, really missing him. Then it got to ‘On the Road to Mandalay,’ and I swear to you that Granddaddy was singing along!”
As Emily’s story unfolded, my heart began to pound. “Are you sure it was your grandfather?”
“You think I wouldn’t recognize his voice? It was Gramps. Definitely. Remember how he always does that funny warbly thing with the f’s in ‘flying fishes play’?”
“Where do you think the music was coming from, Emily?”
“Upstairs.”
A plan began to take shape in the muddle of gray cells that passed as my brain. “Where are you now?”
“In the car. I’m parked on North Court Street, so I’ll be able to see if LouElla leaves her house.”
I was relieved to hear that. No matter what role LouElla may have played in all this, even if it turned out that she hadn’t murdered Darlene and kidnapped Daddy, she might still be dangerous. “Does she suspect you heard the singing?” I asked my daughter.
“I don’t think so. Once I figured out it was Gramps I acted real casual, picked up Chloe, collected Tinky Winky, told LouElla we had a party to go to, and got the hell out.” At the end of this recitation, Emily was breathless. “What should I do, Mom? Call the police?”
I had to think about that. I knew we should call the police, but I didn’t want them to be the first to find Daddy. I was afraid they’d arrest him. Besides, they’d have to get a warrant. With no more to go on than a few snatches of an old music hall tune, the judge might laugh them right out of court. And there was always the possibility that Emily was mistaken, but, oh heavenly days, I hoped she wasn’t.
I made an executive decision. “Sit tight, honey, I’m coming right over.” I started to hang up, then had another thought. “If LouElla is watching, she’ll think it’s strange if you don’t actually leave, so drive away now and meet me at the Feast of Reason on High Street.”
“Where?”
“It’s a little restaurant just across the street from the Imperial Hotel. It’s got a statue of a chef and some copper pots in the window.”
“OK.”
“And Emily?”
“Yes?”
“Let’s both be thinking about a good way to lure LouElla out of her house.”
I scribbled a note for Paul, pinned it to the refrigerator where I knew he wouldn’t miss it, then broke every speed limit posted between downtown Annapolis and the Bay Bridge. At the tollbooth, I discovered I’d left home without my purse, so I had to search the ashtray, tear up the carpet pads, and borrow ten cents from a driver one car back before assembling enough loose change to get me across the bridge.
Once in Chestertown, I squealed left onto Queen Street, where yellow crime scene tape still streamed like banners from the pillars of Darlene’s porch, reminding everyone of the tragedy that had so recently taken place there. I turned right on High and, by a miracle, found a place to park in front of an antique store, well out of sight of LouElla’s.
Inside the Feast of Reason, Emily and Chloe waited for me at a table near the cold drinks cooler under a series of colorful Heather King vegetable prints. Emily cradled a steaming cup of tea in her hands, and Chloe was working on a bottle of orange juice.
I sat down at the table opposite my daughter. “OK. Let’s brainstorm.”
She smiled uncertainly and raised a naturally lush, unplucked eyebrow. “I think I’ve figured out a way to get LouElla out of her house long enough for you to search it.” Emily paused for a moment, driving me nuts because the best idea I’d come up with during my hour-long drive was to pound on LouElla’s door and shout, “Fire! Fire!”
I stared at my daughter. She wore a smile, the mischievous one, and her cheeks were flushed. I braced myself for a far-out suggestion.
With a quick glance at a customer who was taking his time in front of the dessert case, Emily leaned across the table and whispered, “I’ll go back, tell her that I’ve found some fleas on Chloe and that I think she’ll need to get Speedo treated.”
I nodded, impressed. LouElla seemed inordinately fond of Chloe. Anything that would prevent our little charmer from visiting LouElla would deeply concern her.
Emily continued. “LouElla’s house is so spotless I know she’ll freak. So I’ll offer to take her to the vet’s to get Speedo dipped.”
“What if she won’t go?”
“Then we’ll think of something else.”
“What if you can’t get in to see the vet?”
She patted the cell phone. “I checked. I found one who’s available. I actually made an appointment. We may have to wait a bit but that’s even better, isn’t it? Just so long as you can get into the house.”
All of a sudden I remembered the locks LouElla had installed, even on the backyard fence. “She’s got locks on all the doors. How am I supposed to get in?”
“I’ll think of something when I get inside,” Emily said. “Just try the front door.”
“How will I know when it’s safe?”
“You sit here and finish my tea.” She pushed her cup toward me with two fingers. “After I get LouElla and the dog, I’ll drive by the window.” She pointed toward the front of the store. “Then go for it!”
I helped Chloe back into her sweater, then watched through the window as she and her mother disappeared around the corner, slightly stunned at the role reversal that had just taken place.
I nursed Emily’s lukewarm tea for five minutes, worrying. I asked for more hot water, added it to the tea bag in the cup, and made it last for ten. I talked to the girl behind the counter for three minutes about the trip she was planning to take to Guatemala next summer. I paced for two. After what seemed like hours, Emily drove by in her father’s car. There was no doubt about it. Speedo’s head hung out the left rear window, his tongue and ears flapping in the winter breeze.
I grabbed my coat and waited near the door until the car had passed through the stoplight at High and Cross. When I could no longer read the license plate, I tossed a quick “thank you” over my shoulder, then hurried down Court Street to LouElla’s.
Trying to look nonchalant but quaking in my shoes, I stepped up on the tiny
porch. What if the door was locked? In that case, I decided, I would call the police. I grasped the knob on the front door and turned. To my delight, the door swung open. I promised myself I would ask Emily later about how she managed it, but right then, the only thing that concerned me was getting myself inside LouElla’s house.
I stepped into a dark entrance hall and closed the door behind me. I took a deep breath and held it, listening as the silence deepened around me. To my left was the familiar living room; to my right, a small office. Emily had said that the music seemed to have been coming from the second floor, so I looked around for a stairway, but didn’t immediately see one.
Just ahead of me a large green plant blocked a door that could have led to a staircase. Using both hands, I knelt and muscled the plant aside, shoving it the final few inches with my foot. I opened the door to reveal a yellow raincoat, a blue Polartec jacket, and a red parka with a fur collar that might once have belonged to LouElla’s son, all heavy with the odor of mothballs. Definitely a closet.
I closed the door, carefully replaced the plant, straightened my spine, and shouted, “Daddy!” I listened, straining my ears, but the house was as quiet as a funeral parlor. Feeling guilty, I tiptoed into the office that, from its proximity to the kitchen, might once have served as a dining room. A small wooden desk sat in an alcove formed by a bay window. I imagined LouElla sitting there in the hard, straight, ladder-back chair, writing letters to the editor of the Chestertown Gazette or to her congressman. I stood in front of her desk and peeked out the window.
LouElla’s house had been built at the intersection of two lanes. From this spot, she had a clear view of everything going on in her neighborhood; no one coming up Court Street ahead of me or down Church Alley to the left would escape her notice.
On top of the desk in front of me lay a record book of some kind, bound in black with red leather trim and held open by rubber bands. It lay open to a new page, at the head of which today’s date, December 27, was written in bold capital letters. LouElla had recorded today’s observations: the temperature that morning at six A.M., 31 degrees; and 0723, the time the sun rose. LouElla’s newspaper had been delivered at 0645 precisely. As I browsed down the entries I mused that Chestertown’s lawyers better not try any creative billing. LouElla had their comings and goings well documented—P.L., whoever he was, had come to work at 0905 and left precisely at 1023. I noticed he came back again at 1100, probably after a coffee break. The book was nearly full, so I slipped off the rubber bands and turned quickly to the front where events as far back as last summer were recorded. In addition to the weather and temperature, other odd notations at the top of each page caught my eye: 23jb on July 10, 18jb on the eleventh. LouElla collected minutiae. Fascinating, if you had the key.
I closed the logbook and slipped the rubber bands back in place, hoping LouElla didn’t pay as much attention to how she left her papers as she did to the sunset. I turned away and began searching the rest of the house, but as quietly as I tried to move, my own footsteps were deafening as I made my way from LouElla’s office toward her kitchen. There had to be a staircase around here somewhere!
I paused in the hallway, considering my next move. Could this be one of those old houses where the staircase pulls out of the ceiling? I walked, head tipped back at a painful angle, checking the hallway and likely spots in the kitchen, but there was nothing overhead but plain white ceiling.
I bumped into a counter. On it, a Crock-Pot simmered. I lifted the lid and sniffed. Beef stew. Nearby, two loaves of bread had been left to rise, covered with a checkered dish towel. My stomach rumbled.
Why was I tiptoeing about? Emily could keep LouElla busy for hours and hours. “Daddy!” I called again. I stopped, not breathing, praying for a response. I tried calling a little louder. “Daddy! It’s Hannah!” My voice sounded muffled, as if I were shouting into a padded box. There was no response but the sound of the furnace roaring to life.
I began methodically opening doors. The pantry door I recognized; next to it, a door led to a dry, dusty basement. To the right of the stove, there was another door. Bingo! Feeling half jubilant and half foolish, I peered up a stairway into the dark.
The staircase was steep with walls on both sides. I felt around for a light switch, and nearly cheered when a single bulb in a cheap glass globe cast a shadowy light from directly above me.
I took two steps and called again. “Daddy!” I crept up, placing each foot carefully on the uncarpeted treads, not that there was anybody to hear me. I was now certain that Emily’s imagination had gotten the better of her. Maybe Thomas Hampson wasn’t singing alone; maybe it was that other CD she heard, the one where he sings duets with Jerry Hadley. I paused and leaned against the wall, vowing that if I got out of this house alive, I’d make Emily swear that this breaking and entering would be our little secret.
At the top of the stairs, the late afternoon sun strained to penetrate the gloom of the hall through a narrow slit in a pair of dark velvet drapes. Doors lay to my right and to my left.
I eased open the door on my left and entered a pleasant bedroom decorated with rose trellis wallpaper. A cream-colored rug and dark plum draperies complemented a pink bedspread; lavender throw cushions had been propped against the headboard. At the foot of the bed sat an oversized laundry basket that had been lined with a pink quilt. I smiled, warming up to this odd woman who took such good care of an orphaned dog. A small bathroom adjoined the bedroom. I peeked in. I honestly didn’t know you could buy porcelain in that color: a bathtub, sink, and toilet, all in lavender, harmonized with the purples in a Monet water lilies shower curtain. I slid open the door to the medicine cabinet and glanced in quickly. Advil, Scope, nail polish remover, Band-Aids, deodorant, bleaching cream, a fiber laxative, tiny paper cups—nothing remotely resembling clonidine.
Feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, I backed out of LouElla’s room and, with no great expectations, tried the door across the hall. Surprisingly, it was locked. I put my ear to the panel and listened. Nothing. “Daddy!” I shouted. I banged on the door with my fist. “Daddy! Are you in there?”
I stood outside the door considering my next move. I remembered what Virginia had told me about LouElla’s son. This must have been Sammy’s room. Maybe she’d kept it just the way it was the day he died, the painful memories locked away behind this door.
I struck the door with my fist, almost in frustration. Locks were always an interesting challenge; should I have a go at picking this one? I had already started downstairs to assemble some makeshift tools when, thinking it was my imagination, I heard creaking, like bed springs. “Daddy?”
There was a thud, and then silence. “Daddy? Is that you?”
A voice, hoarse and slightly groggy as if trying out its vocal chords the first thing in the morning, croaked, “Hannah?”
Ohmygawd! I began pounding on the door. “Yes, it’s me! Open the door!”
I waited, my ear pressed to the wooden panel. The next time Daddy spoke, it was directly from the other side of the door. “I can’t. It’s secured.”
Secured? LouElla had locked Daddy in! I put my eye to the keyhole but was blinded by sunlight hitting my eye like a laser beam. I blinked and stood up. “Do you have a key?”
“I’m so glad you’ve come to visit me.”
Visit? Daddy was really disoriented. I grasped the doorknob, jiggled it back and forth, and rattled the door until it shook on its hinges. “Just a minute. I have to find a key.” I prayed LouElla hadn’t taken the damn thing with her. I imagined a whole ring of them, tied to her belt with purple ribbon so that she clanked like a jailer whenever she walked. If I couldn’t find a key, the hell with picking the lock. This was an emergency! I would do an Emma Peel and kick-box the door until it splintered away from its hinges.
I threw open the drapes and searched the hallway. Ta-da! On a brass cup hook screwed into the chair rail near the door hung a single, old-fashioned key. Sick with relief, I grabbed it, fitted it into the keyhole
, and turned.
The tumblers fell into place and the door swung open.
Daddy stood in front of me wearing only his underwear and a broad grin. The deep lines had been erased from his face and he looked rested, better than I had seen him in years. I closed the gap between us in less than a second, grabbed him around the waist, and held on to him tightly. Now that I had him, I wasn’t about to let go. “Thank God I’ve found you!”
Placing his broad hands on my shoulders, Daddy held me at arm’s length and smiled into my face. “I didn’t know I was missing.” His voice was husky, but not from alcohol. Suddenly he blushed, grabbed a thin blanket off the bed, and wrapped it around his waist.
A pitcher of ice water sat on a table. I poured him a glass, then thought better of it. I sniffed the water, thinking it might be drugged. It smelled OK, but to be on the safe side, I dumped it out in the sink and filled the glass from the tap. “Here, Daddy. Drink this.”
While he drank, I stared at him, my mouth at half mast. “We’ve been looking for you since the party. We looked everywhere! The police, too.”
Daddy handed me the half-empty glass, sat on the edge of the bed, and patted the space next to him, indicating I should sit down. “Not everywhere, or you would have found me!” He sounded stronger, more confident. Calm, almost cool. What on earth was going on? I’d read about the Stockholm syndrome, about people like Patty Hearst who ended up identifying with their captors. Maybe that’s what had happened between Daddy and LouElla. I grabbed his hand in both of mine. “How did you get here, Daddy?”
Occasion of Revenge Page 17
