Who Killed Mona Lisa?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  “Like what kind of intimate details do they write about?” said Meredith.

  “Well, there’s a lot about illicit love affairs, as you can imagine.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Meredith agreed. “Do you know we were reading one this woman had written, and she seemed really upset.”

  “Did she sign her name?”

  Meredith shook her head. “Nope. But the man sounds kinda creepy, if you ask me.”

  “Well,” said the innkeeper, “I inherited more letters from my predecessor, and they’re carefully preserved in the basement, if you ever care to read them.”

  Meredith shrugged. “Maybe, if it gets dull around here.”

  Frank Wilson laughed—a big, hearty bark of a laugh—and slapped the girl on the shoulder. “Okay. You just let me know.” He moved off toward the hallway, passing their waitress as he did. “I think they could use some muffins at table six, Mona,” he said, pointing toward Claire and Meredith. As he spoke he touched the girl’s elbow ever so briefly, and Claire thought she saw her flinch and pull away. She was the same waitress they had seen last night arguing with the young waiter, who was apparently not on duty this morning.

  Without a word, Mona approached their table, picked up the empty breadbasket, and went off in the direction of the kitchen. As she passed the table where the two men sat, the younger, dark-haired one stopped her and said something Claire couldn’t make out. She shook her head and continued on her way, and the older, blond man frowned at his companion.

  “Really, Jeffrey, that young woman has enough trouble, don’t you think?” His voice was cultivated, smooth, urbane.

  The younger man shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “Don’t be such a stiff, Richard. I was only kidding. She needed cheering up a little.” His accent was rougher, with a working-class edge to it—perhaps Brooklyn, Claire thought.

  “Well, that was rude. Her sex life is none of your business.”

  “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. It is my business.”

  As Claire was wondering what he meant by that, Meredith shook her head. “I don’t quite believe Mr. Wilson’s ‘jolly innkeeper’ act.”

  “What do you mean?” Claire poured herself more coffee from the silver-plated coffeepot.

  Meredith took a big bite of blueberry muffin. “I don’t know. There’s just something not quite believable about him . . . I can’t quite put my finger on it. I feel like he’s hiding something.”

  The two men at the corner table looked up as Meredith spoke—Claire couldn’t tell whether they had heard her or not—then returned to their conversation, heads low. It looked as though they were having a serious discussion, but they had lowered their voices so that Claire couldn’t make out their words. Richard, the older one, was doing most of the talking, and Jeffrey kept shaking his head in response. His shoulders had the world-weary attitude of a bored teenager, though Claire put him in his early thirties.

  Meredith saw Claire watching them and leaned over her plate of muffins. “Boyfriends, if you ask me,” she whispered.

  “No one’s asking you,” Claire whispered back.

  Just then Claire heard the creak of floorboards and looked up to see two other men enter the room. Both were tall, rangy, and wiry looking, with deep-set brown eyes and a long nose—obviously father and son. The son held his father by the elbow to steady him. The older man looked to be in his seventies, and walked with the uncertain, halting gait of a stroke victim, putting his feet down carefully, as if the ground might give way under him at any moment.

  “Right here, Papa,” the younger man said, guiding his father to a table by the window. “Good morning,” he said, catching Claire’s eye.

  “Hello,” Claire replied, watching as the son settled his father slowly into his chair. The old man moved with the deliberateness of the old and infirm, and once seated, he ran a hand over the few wisps of white hair that still clung to his head. The son unfolded his napkin, tucked it into his father’s shirt, then sat opposite him. The old man regarded the napkin with curiosity, as though it were a strange white bird that had suddenly landed on him, then turned to stare blankly out the window.

  “You staying here, too?” Meredith said.

  “Yes, we’re in room eight,” the son answered. Broad-shouldered and athletic looking, with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, he looked to be about fifty or so. His accent sounded to Claire like a northeastern drawl, and she guessed him to be a New Englander. At the base of his neck a little silver cross lay nestled among his chest hairs.

  “We’re in room six,” Meredith said.

  “Chris Callahan,” he replied, extending a tanned, strong-looking hand.

  Meredith shook it solemnly; his hand was so big it totally enveloped hers. “Meredith Lawrence. This is my friend Claire Rawlings.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Claire,” he said, taking her hand. Claire couid feel calluses on his palms, the pleasantly rough, weathered skin of a man who was used to outdoor life.

  “This is my father, Jack.” He indicated the older man, who looked as though he were beginning to doze off. “Say hello, Papa.”

  Jack’s head jerked a little and he made an effort at a smile. “Hello,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Alzheimer’s?” Meredith whispered to Chris, who nodded. The girl shook her head. “That’s too bad. What brings you here?”

  “We’re here visiting my sister, who works here—ah, there she is,” Chris said as their waitress reentered the room.

  “She’s your sister?” said Meredith as Mona approached their table.

  “Well, actually my half sister; we have different mothers,” he replied. “Her mother was Italian. Called her Mona Lisa Marie, a name for a good Catholic girl. Dad looks pretty alert this morning, don’t you think?” he asked as she placed a pot of coffee on their table.

  “I guess,” she answered with a little shrug. She folded her tray underneath her arm and put a hand on her father’s shoulder. “Good morning, Papa.”

  The old man swiveled his head toward her and studied her face as if he had never seen it before. “Mona Lisa Marie,” he murmured with a vague little smile.

  Mona returned his smile. “That’s right, Papa, it’s me.”

  At that moment a dog came bounding into the room. It trotted over to Chris and Jack’s table and sat in front of Jack, looking up at him expectantly, its pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth.

  The dog looked as though it had been assembled from miscellaneous spare parts. Its ungainly body was low and long, set on stubby legs, so that when it walked quickly it put one in mind of a centipede, the little legs moving quickly to keep up with each other. Its tail was absurdly long, and jutted out at a forty-five-degree angle from its back side, reminding Claire of a weather vane. The dog had the face of a terrier and the ears of a beagle, the brisk muzzle of an Airedale and the big black nose of a basset hound. Its coat was a mottled black and white like an English setter and its fur curly in some places and straight in others.

  It was as though Nature, tired of the responsibility of creation, had, in a frivolous mood, decided to throw together leftover bits and pieces from other animals to make this dog. It was, all in all, the ugliest, most mismatched creature Claire had ever seen.

  “Whose dog?” said Meredith.

  “Oh, he’s Mrs. Wilson’s dog,” Mona replied as she poured coffee for her brother.

  “What’s his name?”

  Mona placed a basket of rolls on the table. “Shatzy.”

  “He’s a nice dog, isn’t he, Papa?” said Chris.

  Jack gazed at the dog. “Yes, he does pretty well,” he said after a moment, then added, “He has to study to move his little legs.”

  “Really?” said Meredith.

  Jack leaned forward, encouraged. “He gets all his knowledge from the little books he reads.”

  Meredith nodded politely, but Claire wasn’t sure whether she should promote this train of thought.

  “Poor Papa,” sai
d Mona, stroking his cheek. “His mind isn’t really there anymore—is it, Papa?”

  Jack thought for a moment. “I think you might try looking in the kitchen,” he said. “Maybe I just misplaced it somewhere.”

  Mona turned to her brother. “Have you talked to the people at the home about him yet?” she said softly.

  “You know how I feel about that,” he replied tightly. “I promised Mama—”

  “You promised her that you would look after Dad. That didn’t mean dragging him around with you wherever you go.”

  “I told her on her deathbed—”

  Mona snorted. “Oh, don’t dredge up that deathbed guilt thing; it won’t work on me!”

  “He has a better life with me than he could ever have in a home!”

  “You don’t know that—but it certainly gives you control of his money, doesn’t it?”

  Chris glanced over at Claire’s table and his sister blushed, as if suddenly realizing that their conversation had been overheard. Claire and Meredith were, at this point, the only other diners, the two men at the corner table having slipped out of the room so quietly Claire hardly noticed them leave.

  Chris laid a hand on his sister’s arm. “Look, Mona, let’s try not to argue, okay? We came here to have a nice time with you.”

  Mona sighed and nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that . . .” Instead of finishing her thought, she sighed and turned away.

  “What?” said Chris. “What’s wrong?”

  Mona shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all. I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you later.” She turned and left the room, followed by the little dog, its toenails clicking on the hardwood floor.

  Meredith shook her head as she watched it go. “Man, that’s one ugly dog. I wonder how many breeds they crossed to get that thing?”

  Jack stared at her, his eyes cloudy. “They crossed when the light was green.”

  Meredith looked at Chris. “What did your father mean just then?”

  Chris shook his head. “See, my father randomly responds to words, and not necessarily to the sense in which they’re being used. He understands that it’s a question, but beyond that he’s just confabulating.”

  “Confabulating?” said Meredith.

  “Yes, that’s when the demented person is inventing what he thinks is an appropriate response—or making up things to mask his dementia. It’s like they’re following the forms of social intercourse, but the context is gone.”

  Claire thought of her own mother and father.

  “If we ever get like that, just shoot us—please,” her mother had once said after a visit to Aunt Ellen, Claire’s great-aunt, who had gradually lost her mind through a series of small strokes. There had been no such gradual decline for Claire’s parents, however—a drunk driver had seen to that.

  Mona entered the room again and walked over to their table. “Can I get you anything else?” she said politely to Claire.

  “More muff—” Meredith began, but Claire shook her head.

  “No, thanks; this ought to hold us until lunchtime.”

  “Why can’t I have more muffins?” Meredith said when Mona had gone.

  “Because you only ate half of your eggs. You can’t live on cake, Meredith.”

  “But it isn’t cake, it’s muffins.”

  “Cake, muffins, cookies—they’re all full of sugar, and too much of it is bad for you.”

  Meredith sighed and tossed her napkin on the table. “All right, I get it already!” She looked over at Chris and Jack. “See what I have to live with?”

  Chris shook his head. “It’s tough being a kid.”

  After breakfast Claire suggested a walk to look at the old gristmill and church. Both were closed up for the winter, but she and Meredith wandered around the buildings, stepping on the frozen hard-stubbled grass, peering in the windows. The gristmill sat over a stream, which flowed swift and cold over the rocks below, and through the dusty window Claire could make out the shaft of the huge wheel inside where the grain was ground up. There was a faint smell of cornmeal in the air. The place looked spooky, silent, and deserted, but Claire found it easy to imagine it two hundred years ago, filled with people working the mill, carting sacks of flour and cornmeal off to the inn to be used for baking bread and Indian pudding. Though there were no hands to work the mill inside, the huge wheel turned slowly and inexorably, pushed along by the water flowing and bubbling beneath it.

  The church across the road, too, was empty and locked up. As she and Meredith stood on the steps in front of its thick wooden door, Claire thought what a nice place it would be to get married. The guidebook had mentioned that it was a popular spot for weddings, and Claire imagined coming out of the church to a big reception at the inn. There could be no more festive place for a party.

  Meredith stomped her feet and hopped up and down. “Gettin’ cold. Let’s go have some cocoa or something.”

  The wind had picked up and was blowing strongly from the north. As they walked back to the hotel Claire noticed for the first time another house just down the road from the inn, nestled behind a copse of beech trees. It was a rambling wood-frame house, of the type built in the late Victorian era. A single light burned from a third-floor bedroom; other than that, the house was dark and quiet.

  That afternoon, the snow began to fall. At first it fell so lightly that Claire, sitting by the window, felt she could trace the path of each flake as it fluttered slowly to the ground. But even as she sat watching, she could see the sheet of white advancing steadily from the north. Soon the individual flakes thickened into a mass, then a swarm, and finally an army. By dinnertime the sky was a blur of white that blocked out the outline of trees, cars, and people, until even the maple tree outside their bedroom window was swallowed up in the advancing blanket of white.

  After dinner Claire and Meredith retired to their room to watch the falling snow.

  “Ooo, are we going to be snowed in?” Meredith said, bouncing up and down on the bed.

  Claire turned away from the window. “I don’t know. It sure is coming down hard.”

  “I’ll say!” Meredith yelped, bouncing harder.

  “Okay, that’s enough of that,” said Claire. “Time to give the bedsprings a rest.”

  “Oh, all right.” Meredith flopped down onto her stomach and shoved her forefinger in her mouth. “Can we go downstairs and get the weather report?”

  “Okay,” Claire said. She, too, was curious about the approaching storm. “Put your shoes on.”

  Meredith complied, and together they crept down the creaky staircase to the bar, which was a cozy room just off the main entrance. The broad, dark floorboards were splattered with candle wax and stained from the splashing of a century of Scotch and sodas. The room was almost empty except for a young couple in the far corner, hunched over their beers, apparently oblivious to anyone else. Meredith stood shaking her right leg impatiently, humming to herself. She was standing at the bar, her nose close to a pot of mulled cider. Claire could smell the round, juicy aroma of the apples simmering in cinnamon and cloves.

  “Want some of that?” said the bartender. He was young, in his twenties, with pink skin and a faint harelip.

  “Mmm . . . I guess,” Meredith replied, shrugging, her shoulders thin under her thick green wool sweater, a birthday present from her father.

  “What’ll it be for you?” the bartender asked Claire. She thought she detected a slight Irish twist to his consonants, a faint Celtic cadence to the vowels.

  “Oh . . . I guess I’ll have the same,” she replied. “It smells so good.”

  “Apples from the orchards out back,” he said, stirring the pot with a wooden ladle. “Been apple trees there ever since Longfellow’s time, they say.”

  Claire noticed that in New England people had a tendency to leave off the beginnings of sentences, as though there wasn’t time enough to say all the words.

  “Have you heard the weather report?” Meredith asked as the boy po
ured out two steaming mugs of cider. He put a fresh cinnamon stick in each one.

  “Oh, haven’t you heard? Biggest nor’easter to hit New England since the blizzard of ’eighty-nine.” He placed the mugs on the bar counter. “Charge it to your room?”

  “Uh—yes, please,” said Claire. “Room six.”

  “How did you know we were staying overnight?” said Meredith, tapping her foot against the bottom of the bar.

  The young man shrugged. Claire noticed that his shoulders were broad and thick, like a football player’s. She could see the round outline of muscle under his white shirt.

  “Everyone who isn’t an overnight guest has left by now, with the storm coming and all. Besides, I saw you check in.”

  “Oh?” said Meredith. “You’re pretty observant.”

  The boy smiled. “That’s pretty hard not to notice,” he said, pointing to Meredith’s bright sweep of orange hair.

  Meredith scrunched up her nose. “Very funny, Einstein. So why aren’t you headed home?”

  “I am in another half hour,” he replied, wiping the counter down with a rag. “Soon as the honeymooners over there go up to their room and I can close up the bar.” He indicated the young couple in the corner. If they heard his remark, they made no sign of it. They appeared completely wrapped up in each other; one of the woman’s legs dangled on top of the man’s, and their foreheads were touching. Her face was obscured by her long dark hair, which hung straight and smooth, like a curtain. His hair was dark blond and curly as a spaniel’s.

  “If they were any closer to each other they’d be sharing DNA,” Meredith muttered. Meredith had once told Claire she thought that “necking and stuff is yucky.” Claire had actually been relieved to hear it. Although she hoped sooner or later Meredith would break out of her geeky phase and date boys, Claire saw the girl’s nerdiness as a way of protecting herself from the pressures of incipient adolescent sexuality.

  Claire took a sip of cider. It was hot and spicy and tasted so much like fresh apples that it was startling. The insides of her cheeks contracted sharply.