The Hand on the Wall

by Maureen Johnson

  “I’ll go with Stevie,” Nate said, cutting through the nonsense.

  In the few seconds she was outside, the wind almost blew Stevie over sideways. Luckily, the snow kept her upright. It was now to her knees. The snowcat wound its way back through the paths, its lights the only thing in the world aside from the swirling snow. Mark didn’t look thrilled about having to come out of a warm building to ferry a bunch of idiot students around in a blizzard, but he said nothing about it. He had probably seen a lot of idiot student behavior over the years.

  Charles and Dr. Quinn were waiting for them. Charles was dressed more casually than normal, in a heavy fleece and sweatpants. Dr. Quinn rose to the occasion in a rose-gray cashmere sweater, a sweeping wool skirt, black cashmere tights, and tall black boots. No amount of cold was going to rob her of her queenly graces. Charles had a look on his face that said, “I’m not angry, but I am disappointed.” Dr. Quinn’s expression said, “He’s passive-aggressive. I’m not. I am aggressive. I have killed before.”

  “We’ll speak to you all when the others are here,” Charles said. “For now, sit over by the fire.”

  Nate and Stevie sat, side by side, warming themselves. The fires were nice at the beginning of the storm, but the appeal was waning. You were either too close or not close enough. One side of you would cook while the other would freeze. There was a lot of moving around, approaching, retreating, sweating, shivering.

  Inside, the massive hall was in brownish shadow. There were some lights on, but the power was clearly being conserved. The Great House, which had been built to withstand Vermont blizzards, creaked as the winds smacked up against it. Cold air crept through the chimneys, under the massive door. It circled and spun in the great hall, sliding up and down the grand staircase and whispering along the balconies above.

  As she sat there, Stevie noticed how the Great House changed its personality in different kinds of light. When she had first walked into it on a brilliant late-summer day, it was cool and vast like a museum, its opulence muted by the bright sun. During the night of the Silent Party, it had sparkled, light dancing off the crystal in the chandeliers and the doorknobs. This was another personality, the stoic one, full of shadows and nooks. A place of hiding from the storm. It never failed to amaze her that this palace of marble and art and glass was built to house three people, really. Three people, their staff, and their guests—but three people. At the height of the Depression, when people were sleeping in boxes in parks. Money lets some people live like kings while other people starve.

  “Sometimes I don’t know why I’m here,” she heard herself saying. “What am I doing? No one can help the Ellinghams. They’re gone. No one is ever going to find Alice.”

  “They might,” he said. “She could still be alive, right? And people—things—turn up all the time. Like in a DNA database or something.”

  “But finding her wouldn’t help her,” Stevie said. “She was kidnapped in 1936. Nothing I’m doing helps anyone.”

  Nate eyed her wearily.

  “I think you’re working out your business,” he said. “We all have business. Like, I know I can write because I wrote something one time. But I think I can’t write again because I’m scared. I’m scared that what I write down won’t be as good as what’s in my head. Because I don’t know how I do it, only that it happens. And because I’m lazy. We’ve all got doubts. But you’ve done something huge. You figured out so much of this case. Tell someone.”

  Stevie chewed on a nail for a moment.

  “What if I’m wrong?” she said.

  “So you’re wrong. They’re dead. They can’t get more dead. And you have . . . stuff. You have clues. Show your work to someone.”

  “But then it’s over,” she said.

  “Well, didn’t you want it to be?”

  Stevie had no idea how to answer. Luckily, Vi and Janelle came in next, interrupting this conversation. The two of them were similarly bundled—Vi was wearing some of Janelle’s clothes, because, of course, Vi had never had a chance to go back to their house after breakfast. Even though there was a chill between them, Janelle was not going to deny Vi a sweater and scarves and a hat.

  They were followed by Hunter and David. Pix brought up the rear. Once everyone was in place, Call Me Charles and Dr. Quinn started their rant—how they were disappointed, and yes Charles understood (Dr. Quinn was silent on this) that it was hard to leave school. But the students put themselves and others at risk, like Mark, who shouldn’t have had to go out in the snowcat tonight. He was red and shivering from his many trips in the snowcat.

  “It’s too cold upstairs,” Mark said. “We need to conserve the heat. If they sleep in the morning room, I can get that up to a decent temperature.”

  “Fine,” Charles said. “I’ll help you get the blankets and pillows from upstairs.”

  “We can all help,” Pix said.

  “No. Everyone stay down here. I’m not taking any chances on anyone falling in the dark.”

  So everyone sat by the fire, cowed and quiet. All except for David, who got out a tablet and continued reading as if nothing was wrong at all. Mark and Charles tossed blankets and pillows from the upper balconies to save the trips down. All of these things were dragged into the morning room, which was colder than any room had a right to be.

  “We don’t have any cots,” Charles said. “There are some rubberized floor covers that we use in the ballroom. That will take off the chill and make it a little less hard. But you will have to sleep on the floor. One or two of you can use the sofas and chairs. You all have to stay in this room or the main hall. No upstairs. No outside, obviously. I’m sorry for this, but it’s what we have to do. There’s food and drinks back in the faculty kitchen.”

  They headed out of the room to let the group settle. The wall sconces were on halfway, bathing the room in soft light, just enough to see the way around the delicate French furniture.

  “Everyone find a spot,” Pix said. “Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while.”

  Everyone began to pick through the pile of random bedding. There were enough blankets for everyone to have two each, but two wasn’t going to cut it, especially sleeping on the floor.

  “Funnnnn,” Nate said in a low voice, picking up a pillow. “This is like being on one of those trips to Mount Everest. You know, the ones with the ten percent death rate and half the landmarks are frozen bodies.”

  “There’s Wi-Fi,” Vi said. “That’s something.”

  “Is it?” Nate asked.

  David grabbed a blanket and set himself up on two chairs, pulled his blankets over himself, and kept reading. It wasn’t as dickish as taking the sofa. And yet, somehow, taking the slightly less dickish path felt even more dickish. Janelle and Vi once again looked at each other, then looked away, each setting up their nests in a different little nook around the low, ornamental tables full of Ellingham brochures.

  “What is going on with those two?” Pix asked Stevie in a low voice.

  “Nothing,” Stevie said. “I don’t know.”

  Stevie opted for the floor behind the sofa. There was carpet there, and the sofa felt like a windbreak. Nate curled up in the corner. Hunter was left with the sofa, as being on the cold, hard floor would have been difficult on him.

  Once the blankets were down, the room quickly divided into two camps: the people with the tablets and the people without them. Vi, Hunter, and David sat in proximity to each other and read, occasionally comparing notes. On the other side of the room, Stevie, Janelle, and Nate sat together and separate, each zoning into their own world. Janelle had her headphones on and was listening to something loud enough that the sound was seeping out. She was reading a book with a lot of mechanical diagrams in it. Everything in her manner said she was trying to block out what Vi was doing. Nate flicked between his book and his computer. Stevie even thought she saw him open up a file that looked like his book. She saw the word chapter at the top of a few pages as he scrolled down. Since Na
te only wrote when forced to, this indicated pretty clearly what he thought of the situation.

  Stevie was left to marinate in confusion and a light, undefined panic. If she could, she would have done nothing but stare at David. Her fingertips could still feel his hair, the muscles in his shoulders. Her lips remembered all the kisses. And the warmth—being next to someone like that.

  He might as well have been across the ocean, not ten or fifteen feet away, behind a gilt-legged table and a rose-colored sofa.

  As for working on the situation at hand, well, she had no privacy, and she needed privacy to think. She needed to pace and put stickies on walls and mumble to herself.

  Maybe nothing was going on. Maybe Hayes and Ellie and Fenton had died in exactly the ways that everyone else thought. Accidents do happen, especially if you take bad chances. They were living proof of it right now. They had gambled with the weather and broken the rules, and now they were trapped here together.

  She had to move around. The bathroom. She could go there.

  Stevie got up, grabbed her backpack, and headed out into the hall. The bathrooms were behind the stairs, past the ballroom and Albert Ellingham’s office. Both of those grand doors were closed. She killed time brushing her teeth and washing her face, staring at herself in the mirror—her blond hair was overgrown now. The brown roots were showing. Her skin was chapped from the cold, and her lips were dry. She leaned into the sink, the same sink where the glitterati had come to touch up their lipstick and dry-heave all those years ago.

  Maybe it was over. She had solved the case—in her mind—but her evidence was thin. She could go home, write it all up. Maybe post it online, see if it got traction on the boards. Show her work.

  And it would all be over. What then?

  She blew out a long exhale, picked up her things, and went back out.

  David was waiting for her, sitting on one of the leather chairs out in the hall.

  “Remember that favor I did for you?” he said. “I have something, if you want to see it.”

  He held up his phone.

  TO: jimmalloy@electedwardking.com

  Today at 9:18 a.m.

  FROM: jquinn@ellingham.edu

  CC: cscott@ellingham.edu

  Mr. Malloy,

  I don’t see how that document is any of the senator’s business.

  Regards,

  Dr. J. Quinn

  “She shut that down,” David said. “It’s kind of hot.”

  “But!” Stevie said, her face flushed with blood. “She said that document. Which means there is a document. There is a document.”

  “Sounds like it,” he said.

  “Which means we need to see it. We can reply. I mean, Jim can reply. Jim should reply.”

  “Jim is busy,” David replied. “Jim isn’t here to do your bidding.”

  “David,” she said, wheeling around in front of him. “Please. Look. I know. You’re pissed at me. But this is important.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if there is a codicil, it means there is a motive. It means there is money. I need to see it.”

  “I mean, why is this important to me,” he clarified. “I know you said not everything is about me, but . . .”

  “Seriously?” Stevie replied.

  “And if I find something? What if I said I would do it for you if you left me alone?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll do what you want,” he said. “I’ll reply. I’ll help you get your information. But you and I, that’s it. We don’t talk anymore.”

  “What kind of a weird request is that?” she said, her throat tightening.

  “It’s not weird. It’s really straightforward. My dad gave you something you wanted in order for you to come back and watch over me. So I’m giving you something similar. I want to know which is more important. Me, or what I can do for you?”

  It felt like the Great House was tilting to the side.

  “Taking a long time to decide,” he said.

  “I don’t think it’s fair.”

  “Fair?” he replied.

  “You’re saying this while you are, right now, having other people go through your dad’s stuff. Which you stole.”

  “To stop him from getting more powerful.”

  “And I’m trying to find out what happened to Hayes, to Ellie, to Fenton.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Yes,” Stevie snapped. “It is.”

  “Because it sort of looks like you want more dirt for your pet project.”

  It was the words pet project that did it. A kind of blue-white rage came up behind her eyes.

  “I want the information,” she said.

  David smiled that long, slow smile—the smile that said, “I told you this is how the world works.”

  “Okay,” he said chirpily. “Let’s write a nice note.”

  The note poured forth with surprising speed. David spoke under his breath as he typed. Perhaps this was what it had been like when Francis and Eddie composed their Truly Devious note, head to head:

  The senator regards anything involving his son as his business. This is why the senator donated a private security system to assist you after your recent issues. I need not remind you that two students have died at the school and the senator’s son ran off while under your supervision. The senator would like to know of any potential issues that may arise due to your negligence; this includes any publicity having to do with the historical issues of the school. We felt this was a polite way of getting information, but if you wish for us to take more legal action, we will do so.

  Regards,

  J. Malloy

  “There,” he said. “I knew all the years I spent around these choads would pay off. Your note. And now, we’re done.”

  He hit send, then he turned and walked back toward their camping room.

  April 13, 1937

  MONTGOMERY, THE BUTLER, PRESIDED OVER THE MORNING’S SIDEBOARD with his usual taciturn efficiency. The house still turned out a good and ample breakfast, with great lashings of the famous Vermont syrup gently warmed by a spirit lamp. There was enough food to feed twenty guests, but the four people at the table wanted very little of it. Flora Robinson sipped at a cup of coffee from the delicate fairy rose pattern that Iris had chosen. Robert Mackenzie was going through the morning mail. George Marsh hid behind a newspaper. Leonard Holmes Nair made a few stabs at his half of a grapefruit, none of them fatal.

  “Do you think he’ll come down this morning?” he asked the group.

  “I think so,” Flora replied. “We need to act as normal as possible.”

  Leo was polite enough not to laugh at this suggestion.

  It had been exactly one year since the kidnapping. One year of searching and waiting and pain . . . one year of denial, violence, and some acceptance. There was an unspoken agreement that the word anniversary would never be spoken.

  The door to the breakfast room swung open, and Albert Ellingham came in, dressed in a light gray suit, looking strangely well rested.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I apologize for my lateness. I was on the telephone. I thought we might . . .”

  He eyed the breakfast suspiciously, as if he had forgotten what food was for. He often had to be reminded to eat.

  “. . . I thought we might all go for a trip today.”

  “A trip?” Flora said. “Where?”

  “To Burlington. We’ll take the boat out. We’ll stay in Burlington for the night. I’ve had the house there made ready. Could you be ready to go in an hour?”

  There was only one answer to give.

  As they stepped out to the waiting car, Leo saw four trucks rumbling up the drive, two full of men, and two full of dirt and rocks.

  “What’s going on, Albert?” Flora asked.

  “Just a bit of work,” Albert said. “The tunnel under the lake is . . . unnecessary. There is no lake. Best to have it filled in.”

  The tunnel. The one that had betrayed Albert, letting the
enemy in. It would now be smothered, buried. The sight of the rocks and dirt seemed to trigger something in George Marsh, who set down his bag.

  “You know,” he said, “it might be better if I stayed here to keep an eye on things.”

  “The foreman can handle anything that comes up,” Albert replied.

  “It may be better,” George Marsh said again. “In case any reporters or sightseers try to get in.”

  “If you think it’s best,” Albert replied.

  Leo took a better look at George Marsh, and the strange, fascinated way he was watching the wheelbarrows full of dirt and rocks that were heading to the back garden. There was something there, on George’s face—something Leo couldn’t quite identify. Something that intrigued him.

  Leo had been watching George Marsh since he had learned the truth from Flora, that Marsh was Alice’s biological father—the great, brave George Marsh who had once saved Albert Ellingham from a bomb, who followed the family everywhere, providing reassurance and protection.

  Of course, he had not protected Iris and Alice that fateful day, but he could not be blamed for that. Iris liked to go out on her own. He couldn’t be faulted for not retrieving them that night—he had gone to meet the kidnappers and gotten himself beaten to a pulp in the process. He wasn’t a great brain, a Hercule Poirot, who solved crimes in his head while tapping on his boiled egg with a spoon at breakfast. He was a friend, muscle, a good person for someone like Albert Ellingham to have around. And yes, he was with the FBI, but he never seemed to do much for them. Albert had made sure he was made an agent, and there were vague notions about him looking for drug smugglers coming down from Canada, but he’d never seemed to notice the ones Leo met regularly, the ones who supplied Iris with her powders and potions of choice.

  Or maybe he had and had looked away.

  Right now, George Marsh was lying about why he wanted to stay. Of that, Leo was certain. That people lie was nothing of particular interest. It’s not the lie itself that matters—it’s why the lie happened. Some, like Leo, lied for fun. You could have some excellent evenings with a good lie. But most people lied to hide things. If it was as simple as a love affair—well, no one would have minded that. Whatever it was was secret, not just private.