Albert shook her hand. She was very pretty, as far as he could tell.
“I understand you teach piano,” she said.
“He's already given Maylene two lessons,” Miz Grandy volunteered. “One last night, and one this morning. You know, Professor, I'm sure I could make out some music in there when she was banging away. You may have a prodigy on your hands.”
That's what people had called Albert when he was five. He looked it up once and couldn't imagine at first how it applied. Then he read the third definition: 'Something out of the ordinary course of nature. A monstrosity.'
These words had etched themselves on his brain, thereafter defining his self-image. He didn't think it was a good thing to call a little girl.
“I don't think so,” he said, not sure what face to put with the words. “She’s just retarded.”
Miz Grandy and Heather exchanged questioning glances. Albert could feel it. “Sarah tells me you're from New England, Professor. I've heard it's lovely up there.”
“Sometimes,” said Albert. He hadn't really noticed since he was a child. Summers were nice. “Summer,” he added. He'd liked autumn, too. “And autumn.” Not spring, though. “Not now, though. Mud and rain.” He would never like spring in New England again, but he never had. “And graves,” he thought aloud.
“Much like where I'm from,” said Heather with a smile.
“Cornwall,” said Albert. He crooked his head and looked at her.
“St. Ives,” said Heather. The amazement in her eyes was sprinkled with alarm. “Oh, Sarah must have told you.”
“I did no such thing,” said Sarah. “I wouldn't know St. Ives if you served it to me piping hot.”
“Then how . . . ?”
Albert stood there caressing his beard. It itched. “Accents,” he said by way of explanation. “They're kind of a hobby.” Funny, he'd never thought of it that way. “And maps. “
“Well, given the number of English accents – I'm certainly impressed. You hit it right on the head.”
“Miss Proverb – Heather,” Sarah said with a nod and a smile, “is in the States researching her family tree.”
“Rather backwards,” said Heather. “Anglo-Americans usually go to England to find their roots. It's just the opposite with me. I mean, originally we were from England, as far as I know anyway, but when I started the research . . . “
“She's working on her thesis, calledShadows of Blood.”
“Oh, I've changed the name, Sarah. I forgot to tell you. I was afraid it sounded too much like a horror novel, or a mystery. I'm calling itShadowborn.” She looked at Albert. “Because modern people seem to know so little of those from whom they come. I, for one. You know, not a year ago I couldn't even tell you the name of my great-grandparents on either side. My parent's didn't even know! That's shameful.
“At any rate, I discovered that one of my great-great-great . . . “ she thought a moment, counting on her fingers, “great-great grandfathers was from Rhode Island. He was a lawyer there, just before the Revolutionary War. A Royalist. Didn't go over very well at the time, as you may imagine.
“Did you know the colonists did some terrible things to royalists in those days? At least, the revolutionaries did. I read in some old diaries I'd found that an entire family had been tossed down a well in their own backyard, because they refused to renounce King George! The father and mother were thrown first, and the fall killed them, but their bodies broke the fall of their three children – one of whom was only six months old.
“They screamed and cried for four days, but no one dared help them out, for fear of the terrorists – the Loyalist perspective, there. Finally the crying stopped, and the well was boarded over.”
“How horrible!” said Sarah, who had begun to shell peas, presumably for Maylene.
“Anyway,” Heather continued, just above a whisper. “My grandfather – all those greats ago – packed up the family and came back to England. His younger brother, on the other hand, remained behind; a great acolyte of Thomas Paine, apparently. After that, the families just lost contact with each other.”
“And you've come to track them down,” said Sarah. “Now have you ever heard anything so fascinating, Professor? It makes me wonder what kind of stories I have in my background. It may be just as well I don't know. Cutthroats and pirates, I shouldn't wonder.” She poured some peas from her lap into a white ceramic bowl. “Still, it is alarming we don't have a better understanding of our own roots.”
“I don't know mine,” said Albert, who felt he should contribute something. He’d seen a picture of his father once. He knew his mother, of course, and his sister – if the color of her hair hadn’t changed again, which it always seemed to be doing. Probably something to do with hormones which, he seemed to recall, were something women had but men didn’t. His mother had a lot of them, apparently, and were to blame for all her faults.
Heather turned to him. “You know, I believe that's one of the reasons there seems to be so little regard for human life these days. I mean, there have always been atrocities committed in times of extremes, but now those atrocities are all around us. Society revels in them, and life is cheapened, because there's no appreciation for individual history; for the continuity of life and the remarkable tapestry of humanity that invests each of us with our identity.”
Albert didn't even remember his father's name. He had to think a minute to remember his mother's. Emily. His sister was Abigail Grace. They formed the nucleus of his family. Uncle Albert constituted the remainder.
“Doesn't she speak beautifully?” said Sarah.
“It's from the introduction to my thesis,” said Heather with a blush. “But thank you.”
“Well, it's true. Your vocabulary gives such force and color to your thoughts.”
“Thank you,” Heather replied, with a slight bow of the head, “But I know a lot of people who have a prodigious vocabulary, and not a thing to say. You should sit in on a session of Parliament.” She laughed. “I hope I'm not among them!”
“Hardly, my dear.” Sarah assured her with a pat on the knee. She looked at Albert. “So, you’ve never traced your family, Professor?”
“No,” Albert replied. He'd thought of something clever to say about feeling as if he knew them all, but by the time he opened his mouth, he'd forgotten how to phrase it, so he coughed instead. “No.”
“Well, that's the tragedy, you see,” said Heather.
Her voice was very soft. As were her eyes. Albert felt he would like to have her read him the story of her family tree. “When I think of all I would have missed if I'd never gotten into this thesis. All the adventures. The triumphs and tragedies.”
“Tragedies,” said Sarah, dropping her chin somewhat, but not her eyes.
“Yes,” said Heather. “Some very recent.”
“The Judge was Heather's uncle, Professor.”
“Cousin, actually,” Heather corrected. “I called him uncle. He liked that. Really, though, we were very distant cousins.”
“Distant as Pluto,” said Albert, remembering Carmody’s phrase.
“I’d say that describes it pretty well, Professor. The Judge and Mr. DuShane were last of the line on this side of the family, and they’re related by both blood and marriage. I'm the last on my side.
“I'm afraid we're not as prolific as we once were. However, there were other times when the line nearly died out. Perhaps – “
“Aren't you the one who found him, dear?” said Sarah, aware that the subject was painful for Albert, but burning to fill in a few gaps in her own understanding of events.
“I’m afraid so,” said Heather, lowering her eyes. “Kitty wasn’t far behind me.”
“Kitty Odum is – was – Judge Antrim's housekeeper,” Sarah confided.
“She's still there,” Heather said. “We both are.” She turned again to Albert. “I had simply wanted to interview the Judge about the family,” she continued. “But he insisted I stay with him. He had as many questions about my side of the
family as I had about his. Turned out it was something he'd always wanted to do – trace the family tree. But never got around to it. You know how it is.”
It was definitely one of the things Albert never got around to. He didn’t have a family tree, that he knew of. He seemed to remember a potted plant of some kind at the bottom of the stairs at his mother’s house in Maine. She’d probably taken it to Florida when she moved.
“We stayed up night after night, comparing notes, looking at photographs, laughing. “ She fell silent. “He was a – strong – man. Not nearly as severe as he seemed in his official capacities. Humorless, perhaps a little too conscious of his position.
“When he, when . . ." she was speaking with difficulty. “I’m so sorry, Professor.” Tears pooled in her eyes as she gathered herself together. “Kitty and I made a mutual decision to stay in the house until everything was settled. Meantime, I have tons of cassette tapes to transcribe. And I help Kitty with the spring cleaning. Sort of pay my way, you know.
“Frankly, I’d be a little frightened to stay there alone.”
A car pulled into the driveway of DuShane's. “Well,” said Sarah. “I wonder what that means.”
“Marchant?” Heather asked, a slight tremor in her voice.
Sarah watched the driver get out of the car and go to the kitchen door. She nodded. “Mm. Certainly is. I guess they've let him go.”
“Out on bail,” said a voice behind them. They turned toward Commander Beecham as he let the screen door slam.
“Bail, Commander?” said Sarah.
“I was just talking to Ob Carpenter on the phone. He's been indicted. Trial's next month. Scheduled for down at the courthouse, but I expect his lawyer will petition for a change of venue.” The Commander leaned against the doorframe and tucked his left thumb behind his suspender strap. “$250,000.”
“$250,000!” said Sarah louder than she should have. She lowered her voice immediately. “Bail? Where on earth did he come up with that kind of money?”
“Put up the house, I suppose,” the Commander replied.
Sarah lowered her head and spoke behind her hand. “If that place is worth $250,000, I’m a minstrel show.”
Mention of the house brought a question to mind. “Mrs. Grandy?” said Albert.
“Yes, Professor?”
“Do you have a date on the house somewhere?”
“What do you mean? When it was built?”
“Yes.”
Sarah deliberated. “I'm sure we must. I seem to remember . . . “ She closed her eyes and scanned the files in her brain.
“It'd be on the cornerstone,” Commander Beecham volunteered. “Right there in front of the house, I should imagine. Though I doubt Moses could part the thicket of bushes Sarah has growing there.”
“No,” said Sarah with a wag of the head. “That's all lattice work. I remember!” She slapped her knee. “It's under the porch.” Aside: “Mr. Grandy added the porch onto the original structure, you see, back in the sixties. You'd have to crawl underneath to see the date. I'm sure it was built in the last century. Sometime before the War of Northern Aggression,” she said with a wink at the Commander, a transplanted northerner.
He whistled a few bars ofYankee Doodle.
“May I look?” asked Albert.
“What do you mean? Crawl under the house!” Sarah said. “Oh, I don't think that's such a good idea, Professor. It's a mess under there.”
The Commander sat on the top step. “Why do you want to see the date anyway, Professor?”
“I'm just curious about something,” said Albert. “When I was across the street, I saw dates on the other houses . . . those two,” said Albert, pointing at Antrim's and DuShane's. “But I didn't see a date on this house.”
“I know!” said the Commander. “You must have a photograph of the house somewhere, Sarah. Don't you? One taken before the porch was put on?”
Sarah was up in an instant. “I should say I do! We have a whole box of photos dating back to before the war. Tintypes, daguerreotypes, all the way right up through the 1950's.” She was already in the house, rummaging through some drawers built-in under the staircase. Her voice echoed in the hall and was clearly audible through the screen door.
“My husband's sister, Constance, came upon them in an old trunk down at the historical society shortly after we bought the house.” A brief pause followed punctuated by the sounds of drawers opening and closing and Sarah huffing and puffing. “She worked there. Here we are!” She withdrew a flat, black box from the drawer, which she pushed shut with her ample posterior, and chugged back to her seat on the porch.
The slam of the screen door echoed through the neighborhood like a gunshot.
Sarah removed the cover from the box and studied its contents with a magnifying glass. “I can't imagine how the historical society ever got them, nor could Constance, but – here it is. 1847. There, see?” she said, handing Albert a snapshot and the magnifying glass. The black and white photo had a white border, wavy edges and a date printed on the border in black: Jan. 7, 1957.
“The 8's the same as the others,” said Albert to himself.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sarah. Apparently she'd been eavesdropping. “All three houses were built in 1847?”
“No,” Albert replied. “See the '8'?” He held the magnifying glass over the photo and everyone huddled for a look. “The bottom has been chipped out.”
“So it is,” said the Commander. He stood up and stretched, arching his back. “Probably hit by a rock from a lawnmower,” he theorized.
“They're all that way,” said Albert.
“All what? The Judge's and DuShane's?” said Sarah.
Albert nodded. “Yes.”
“How curious,” said Heather. “I'm going to go have a look.” She bounced down the steps and across the lawns. Had she been naked and a good deal rounder and hotly pursued by a centaur, she could have modeled for a painting Albert had noticed once on a wall somewhere.
Sarah was rummaging through the box of photos. “Maybe it's always been that way,” she said. “If not, we can find out when it happened.”
“We can?” said Albert.
“Sure. Just compare the earliest photos to later ones.”
With these few words Sarah was propelled to the stratosphere of Albert's admiration. Hers was a prodigious brain. “Ah, see?!” She held out a daguerreotype. “This is the earliest photo of the house. The date is etched right here in the glass. 18 – I can't make that out, can you, Professor? You have the youngest eyes.”
Albert squinted at the picture. “1853,” said he of the young eyes.
“1853,” Sarah repeated. “Almost a hundred and fifty years ago. Look at that penmanship. Didn't they write beautifully in those days?”
“It doesn't have the chip in it,” said Albert through the looking glass. He looked at Sarah who looked at the picture. The Commander stooped over their shoulders for a peek as well.
“You're right,” said Sarah.
“So he is,” said the Commander.
“He's right!” said Heather as she ran back up the steps out of breath. “Both 8's have the same marking. A little wedge or triangle.”
Sarah sat up and looked at Albert. “What a coincidence,” she said. “You're very observant.”
Nobody had ever said that about Albert.
She stood up. “Well, I have to go get lunch started. Would you like to stay, Heather? We're having cold chicken, cantaloupe and potato salad.”
“No, thanks,” said Heather, rising. “Kitty and I are going shopping. I think we'll have lunch downtown.”
“Ah, there it is,” said the Commander. The paperboy had just embedded the paper in the bushes. “He's losing his touch. Usually he gets it in the gutter.” He retrieved the paper from the herbaceous border.
One by one the little party dispersed.
“You may look at those, if you like,” said Sarah, referring to the photographs. “Just leave them on the hall table and I'll
put them away later.”
“Thank you,” said Albert. He sat with the box in his lap and his knees together. He didn't want to drop any.
“Well, I think it's interesting, Professor,” said Heather, tossing him a smile as she went down the steps. “And I'll tell you something. Those little marks are no coincidence. They're all exactly the same. They were carved that way on purpose. Have a nice lunch!”
Too late, thought Albert, as he watched her go. The menu's already planned. What he really craved was a jelly donut and pickled onions. He'd had the combination once by accident, and it had left an impression.
Half-way across the lawn Heather turned and waved. “Good meeting you, Professor!” Albert didn't notice. He was gazing intently at the pictures through the magnifying glass.
He found a tintype of the Judge's house, a date was scrawled across the back in large writing. '58. There was the chip!
All the remaining photos showed the chip, and all were taken after 1858 . . . at least those that had dates.
Sometime after 1858 someone carved identical chips in the dates on these three houses.
Who?
Why?
So what?
That afternoon, on the way to his lair, Albert made a careful study of cornerstones in the neighborhood. Not every house had them. In fact, all those that did bore 19th Century dates. But of those, none exhibited the little wedge-shaped idiosyncrasy; only the house of wood, the house of stone . . . and the house of straw.
Chapter Five
“What's arraignment mean?” asked Cindy.
Albert shrugged. He wasn't sure.
“Well, it's part of due process,” said the Commander. He put down his spoonful of tapioca and crossed his arms thoughtfully on the table. “First he was indicted.”
“What are we talking about?” said Sarah, returning to the room from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron with a Macbethean vigor that would have removed any damn spot, and resumed her seat at the head of the table.
“Young Marchant DuShane,” said Boz. “The Commander's explaining the legal process.”
Sarah brushed some crumbs into her hand and put them in the pocket of her apron. “I wouldn't mind a little illumination along those lines myself, Nicholas.” She raised her right hand. “Praise God, experience has kept me from first-hand knowledge.”
Dead in D Minor Page 5
