Throwing the book on the desk, I did what I should have done in the first place. I went back to bed. And couldn’t sleep. That secret grave at the edge of the cemetery disturbed me. I had to find out who was buried there.
CHAPTER 16
A few hours later, I was back in the kitchen where I drank a cup of green tea and ate a few chocolate chip cookies someone was thoughtful enough to leave on the counter.
Refreshed, I settled in the telephone room with the now-tepid bottle of water and prepared to dial. Before I could begin, however, it rang.
It was Sheila Overton. “Sorry to phone you on vacation, Lyris, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“That’s okay, Sheila. What’s going on?”
“We’re being downsized.” She said this mournfully, as if the world were coming to an end.
I laughed and took a drink of water. “We’re downsized every six months or so. Nothing ever happens. We’re all still here, aren’t we?”
“Not for long. They mean it this time.”
I sighed and settled myself into my velvet chair. I pushed the door open a little wider. “How do you know they mean it?”
“They’ve issued an information package. Twenty percent of the staff are over complement. They’re offering a financial incentive to leave, based on your seniority. If not enough people take it, they’ll start laying off the junior people, with four weeks’ termination pay.”
I sat up straight. “Twenty percent. No way. Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’m holding the package in my hand. You’ll be okay, you’ve got lots of seniority. But I’ll be gone, and Daphne. Faye too.”
After I hung up I sat there without moving until the heat forced me from the tiny room in search of more water. As I drank a glass of tap water laced with ice cubes, I pondered my job without Sheila or Faye, or even Daphne. They drove me crazy, but they knew their jobs, except for Daphne, and the thought of training an entire new staff left me mentally exhausted. I couldn’t even imagine the consequences of being laid off on those who needed to work to survive.
I had to put my job worries aside for the rest of the week. The success or failure of the reunion rested on my shoulders and there were few enough days left until blastoff. Putting the Blackshore Hydro Commission at the back of my mind, I returned to the telephone room and managed to check off a few more items from the list.
Caroline called me for lunch. After a plateful or two of macaroni and cheese, I felt rejuvenated. It was real macaroni and cheese, creamy and flavourful, as unlike the orange mess I had served Conklin before Caroline’s arrival as night and day. The dish was accompanied by fresh green beans and sliced tomato. I felt blessed.
After lunch I decided I could spare a little time from reunion business and drove around the concession road to Lychwood. It had been necessary to call ahead, and after announcing myself to the security guard at the gate, I was waved in and instructed to drive to the administration building and park where another guard waited for me.
He escorted me to the main office and left me in the hands of a formidable woman in a purple and pink flowered sundress. Her clothing notwithstanding, she was cool and authoritative enough to wring every last morsel of information from me, from my relationship to Aunt Wisty to my reasons for visiting her.
This last took some verbal manoeuvring, as I could not deny I had never visited Mrs. Pembrooke before. I managed to convince Miss Olga Venhuiss that my motives were pure and that Mrs. Pembrooke really was my second cousin once removed, a kinship which may or may not have been true. We Pembrookes never bothered much with accurate lineage—it was enough to know we shared DNA, how much was not important and best not to know in certain instances like marriage proposals.
Miss Venhuiss passed me over to a younger lady, who chatted as she led me through a colourful flower garden to a row of fairytale cottages. She walked to one near the middle with a discreet brass plaque on the door engraved with the number 7. A clump of black-eyed Susans on either side of the step bowed their heavy heads in the afternoon heat.
The door was opened by an even younger female in a white smock and pants who took me through the air-conditioned cottage. I scarcely had time to register the sitting room and a miniature perfect kitchen before I found myself stepping out the back door.
These accommodations and the excellent care did not come cheap. Uncle Patrick had paid the bills for over sixty-eight years, and his estate would continue to pay until Aunt Wisty’s death.
My escort indicated a reclining lawn chaise under a soaring oak. “I’ll wait for you inside when you’re ready to leave,” she whispered. Then she disappeared into the cottage.
I moved with tentative steps to the recumbent figure in the chaise and sat down on a nearby bench. I watched the slow rise and fall of Aunt Wisty’s chest. Her thin white hair waved in the almost nonexistent breeze. In spite of the stifling heat, she was covered in a pale yellow knitted afghan. She appeared to be asleep and I was reluctant to disturb her.
I looked around the well-groomed yard. It was separated from its neighbour on either side by a high, heavy chain-link fence. Across the back, the fence was even higher and angled inward. I felt a shudder of anxiety. There was no escaping this prison.
Aunt Wisty stirred and brushed away a fly that had landed on her cheek. She opened her eyes and looked around in bewilderment, as though she found herself in a strange and unfamiliar land.
“Aunt Wisty,” I said softly so as not to startle her.
Her fluttering eyes finally settled on my face and she showed no fear or even surprise. “Hello. Do I know you?”
“I’m Lyris. Lyris Pembrooke. My father was Kevin.”
“How is Kevin? I haven’t seen him for a long time. Can you ask him to come and see me?”
“Aunt Wisty, Dad is dead. He died about seven years ago.” I wasn’t sure if she even remembered who my Dad was, and I didn’t know if I should tell her he was dead. But if I wanted her to tell me about that reunion weekend, the here and now had to be clear. Or so I reasoned, although I knew nothing about what went on in Aunt Wisty’s mind. Had time stopped for her in 1943?
“Dead. Everyone is dead.”
I thought I should leave. Raking up the past, a past that cost her so much pain that she retreated into her own mind, could not be helpful to her. But I stayed. It was not just the living that deserved rest.
I cleared my throat. “Aunt Wisty. Do you remember we saw each other yesterday? At the cemetery?”
“Cemetery?” Her face changed as she looked at me. The eyes had faded to a colour more translucent than blue, reflecting some green from the leaves above. “Clem was there, and a gentleman. I saw you too.”
“Yes, that’s right. Do you remember why we were there?”
“Yes. Yes. My baby, my little Tommy. Clem told me.”
I sat still as I could.
“It’s been a long time now, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, Aunt Wisty. More that sixty-eight years”.
“Sixty-eight years? I never thought it would be that long.”
“Did you know where he was?”
She was still staring into my eyes, and although it was almost painful to me, I held her gaze. I knew it was the only way to maintain a connection.
“It was a different world back then. They had the death penalty. Hanging, you know.”
“Did somebody do something to hurt Tommy?”
“Nobody would hurt Tommy, not on purpose. Everybody loved him. He was so sweet and funny. He laughed all the time and he talked too. So smart.”
“Somebody did hurt Tommy, Aunt Wisty. And somebody hid him in the closet in the tower room.”
“It was different back then. A woman had to do what her husband said, and she couldn’t tell. No one would listen.”
I was wishing I had brought a tape recorder. Some of this didn’t make sense and I wasn’t sure I could remember every word. I didn’t want to break her concentration by rummaging in my purse for pen and paper ei
ther.
“Your husband, Aunt Wisty. He was in the army, wasn’t he?”
“Thomas? The army? Yes. Yes, he was. He hated it too. It was very hard on him, the killing and the noise. He was so cold all the time, he said.”
“Why isn’t his name on the memorial in the cemetery, the one with the names of the men who died in the war?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She sat up straighter and rocked back and forth.
“Aunt Wisty, do you know anything about the grave at the edge of the cemetery, the one that has no name?”
She continued to rock and did not answer.
I changed to another subject. “Aunt Wisty, can you remember who was staying in the house that time. Remember, it was during the reunion.”
She pulled the afghan up to her chin and lay back again. She was watching the leaves of the oak stir above her head. I wasn’t sure if she heard me.
“Clem was there, wasn’t she, Aunt Wisty? And Patrick. You were there too, and a man named Bruce Wingate. Can you remember him?”
“Yes, we were all there. We were all so young. The men were going back to their outfits. Clem too. She loved her work, and took it very seriously. She said the things that went on there would win the war for us, that’s how important it was.”
“Why were you and Clem staying at Hammersleigh House, Aunt Wisty? Your parents had a house in town, Hollyhock Cottage. Why didn’t you stay there?”
“Tommy and I were living with my parents while Thomas was overseas. That weekend we had a lot of relatives staying with us, so Patrick said that Clem and I, and Tommy of course, could stay at Hammersleigh.”
“What about Bruce Wingate?”
“Bruce Wingate?”
“Yes, was he a friend of Patrick’s? Why was he there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember any more.” Her head moved back and forth on its cushion.
I glanced at the cottage door expecting the young aide to fly out to protect her charge.
I knew I didn’t have much more time. I leaned over and took both her hands in mine, trying to capture her gaze. But her eyes were closed. Her hands were twitching and trying to pull away from me.
“Aunt Wisty. Please listen to me. Who hid Tommy in the tower room? Was it Bruce Wingate?”
“Hanging. Hanging.”
She keened low in her throat. Before the sound could reach the ear of anyone in the cottage, I reached over and patted her shoulder to soothe her. “It’s okay, Aunt Wisty. It was a long time ago. Just forget about it now and try to sleep.”
Her hands stopped moving and her breath came low and even, like it had when I first entered her little garden.
The aide smiled and opened the front door for me. I saw no one else on my way out except the security guard at the gate.
Minutes later, I sipped a cup of oolong tea in my shade garden. I sat on the same wooden bench where Marc and I had spent those few romantic moments after the dinner party. I lay back and stared up into the cloud of green leaves. Much as Aunt Wisty had gazed upwards in her own little garden. A die‑hard robin squawked at me from somewhere high above. I was too close to her nest, although her babies should already have left her.
Aunt Wisty had said some peculiar things about hanging and a wife having to listen to her husband. But she didn’t admit knowing where Tommy’s body had been all these years, and she didn’t admit harming him herself. Nor did she blame anyone else.
But I was convinced that the tragedy played out in Hammersleigh in July of 1943 happened because of some interaction between one or more of the four people staying here that reunion weekend. Aunt Wisty knew all or part of it.
I had to either tackle Aunt Wisty again or get what I needed from someone else who was there. Uncle Patrick was dead, so that meant Aunt Clem or Bruce Wingate.
Bruce Wingate was the unknown factor. Was he still alive? And if he were, would he or could he help me? My best bet seemed to be to wait until the reunion and talk to Aunt Wisty and Aunt Clem. Whether together or separately remained to be seen, I would have to wait for an opportunity.
On my way up to bed that night, Caroline called to me from the bottom of the stairs. “Lyris, in case you’re wondering, I moved the wildebeest into the tower room. I knew that’s where you put the rest of the heads and such, so I figured the wildebeest might as well go there too. Hope that was okay?”
I assured her that the tower room was exactly where I wanted the antelope to be stored, and feeling that I wanted to be proven right about something―anything―I sat down at my computer.
Ten minute later I hoped I would never have to think or hear about antelopes or wildebeests again as long as I lived. What had at last found its way into the tower room was indeed an antelope as the little brass plaque on the back proclaimed. However, it appeared that antelope was an encompassing term for many species, such as gazelle, buffalo, goat, and yes, wildebeest. My curly-horned head belonged to the wildebeest species, a black wildebeest to be exact, which was now almost extinct. It was also known as a gnu.
So I was correct in calling it an antelope, but everyone else was more correct in calling it a wildebeest. After admitting to this, I lost interest.
In disgust I almost terminated my Internet connection, but on impulse, initiated another search.
By entering “veteran,” then specifying “Canada,” I was led through Veterans Affairs Canada to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial. On this website, a last name could be entered and a list of all those with that name who died during the First or Second World Wars appeared onscreen. When a particular name was chosen and entered, all known information on that veteran appeared.
If, that is, the veteran died from war-related causes either in battle or after. The date of death was recorded, as well as the names of his parents or wife, his age, regiment and any medal he may have won. The burial place was also specified.
From the site, I was able to access the various Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries, in Holland, Belgium, Malta, Italy, France, England and various other locations around the globe where Commonwealth war graves are revered and maintained to this day.
I keyed in “Wingate” and in a blink, discovered three Wingates had died during World War II. One of them was Bruce.
Bruce died on September 16, 1943, two months after the reunion. His burial place was listed as the Vimy Memorial in France and this seemed to mean his body was never recovered or buried.
At this point my imagination took wing for a minute or two. Maybe Bruce Wingate killed Tommy, then returned to his war in France where he arranged to disappear and make it look like he had died in battle, except there was no body to bury. He made his way to Switzerland where he waited out the rest of the war, then created another identity for himself and was now living in peaceful retirement in a veteran’s home in the Alps.
I couldn’t sustain this fantasy for very long. Although something was niggling at my memory, I had to let it go. I had hoped Bruce was responsible for Tommy’s death. Now I was sure he was not. The truth was still waiting to be unearthed, and the name on the Vimy Memorial was not a significant piece of the puzzle.
Next I typed the name Pembrooke and got twenty-four hits. Ten of them died during World War II and I recognized among them the three names from the memorial in the cemetery. The other seven were from various places around the country, and any one of them may or may not have been related to the Blackshore Pembrookes.
But there was no Thomas Pembrooke. Of the ten Pembrooke men who fell during World War II, none was Thomas Pembrooke, husband of Wisteria, father of little Tommy.
I spent some time looking through the lists of names in the Commonwealth war cemeteries and memorials. There were so many names. I looked until my back ached and I had to squint through blurred eyes. I searched until there was no place else to search.
I glanced at my watch and realized that five hours had passed since I sat down at my terminal. As I shut it down in the darkest hour of the night, I knew that Thomas Pembroo
ke had not perished in battle during that terrible world conflict.
CHAPTER 17
I wasn’t quite as dumb as I looked. There was something nasty going on between Caroline and her husband.
So when I appeared in the kitchen on Thursday morning, still thinking about my Internet marathon the night before, and noticed a fresh abrasion on Caroline’s cheek before she could turn away, I decided to speak up.
I hoped she would confide in me without prompting, but we had met just a few days ago and I understood that she wanted to keep her personal problems from me. But I could not ignore that sort of mistreatment. I waded into shark-filled waters.
“Caroline, let’s talk.” I wrested the teapot from her fingers and pulled her over to a chair. She dropped into it with a fatalistic sigh.
“You can’t go on this way. Scott is abusing you. You know it, I know it, I’m sure Conklin knows by now. We can stop it. Let me call Marc.”
“No.” She started to get up and I stepped in front of her. I might not be good at that kind of thing, but I knew if she didn’t admit it, no one could help her.
I was no expert, but Patsy had seen her share of abuse victims at the hospital. According to her, statistics showed the main roadblock to helping these women was getting them to admit that first, there was a problem, and second, it was not their fault.
“You’re letting Scott into the house at night, aren’t you Caroline? Why are you doing that? If you don’t let him in, he can’t hurt you.”
“It’s not that simple, Lyris. You just don’t understand how it is.”
“Tell me, so I do understand. He hasn’t been coming to the front door and ringing the bell. If he wants to see you, and you want to see him, why doesn’t he come to the front door? Why wait until the middle of the night and then sneak around the back?”
She wouldn’t look me in the eye. “It’s not quite like that, Lyris. Our separation has been hard on Scott. I have to make him understand that we can’t be together anymore.”
Cheat the Hangman Page 17
