by Callie Hart
“What? What letter?”
Officer Hinchliffe frowned at me none too subtly. “So you know nothing about it then? You’ve never seen it before?”
“I have absolutely no idea what the hell you’re talking about!” Losing my temper wasn’t a helpful tactic, but my brain wasn’t working properly as it was and these vague questions were driving me to distraction. “If there’s something in there for me, then you should give it to me, surely?”
Both officers shook their heads in unison. “I’m afraid the room’s a crime scene until the body’s been cleared of any foul play. The letter inside is evidence. We’ll need to read through it thoroughly before we can hand it over.”
“Fine. I don’t even care right now. Can you just get a hold of CPS? The kids are too young for this kind of trauma, and I don’t have a clue how to handle any of it.”
“Gentlemen.” A cold, flat voice slipped over my head, coming from behind me. The accent was even thicker than the officers’, and that was saying something. I turned, and standing in the open doorway of the house was a tall, narrow shouldered man with a pinched face and tufts of gray hair on either side of his otherwise bald head. The coat he was wearing was splattered across the shoulders with droplets of water.
“Mr. Linneman. Surprised it took you so long to get here,” Caruthers said, shifting his position, spreading his legs a little wider, blocking off as much of the hallway as he possibly could. “Ronan’s dead. Not much counsel you can provide him with now.”
“I’m aware of Ronan’s condition,” the sparrow-like man in the doorway said dryly. He said the word condition, as if being dead were something Ronan might recover from. “I’m not here to assist him. I’m here for the girl.” His eyes flickered to me, resting somewhere above my head, like he couldn’t actually bring himself to make eye contact with me. “Ronan left very specific instructions should he die while Ophelia was at the house. I didn’t think I would need to come out here at the crack of dawn to execute his will less than twenty-four hours after she showed up, but there you go. Ronan always was quite…unpredictable.”
Officer Hinchliffe snorted under his breath, apparently trying to rein in laughter. His cheeks had gone an unfortunate rosy color. “That’s one word for it,” he said, his voice strained. “Remember that time when he set the McInnes feed store on fire? You could see the smoke from Port Creef.”
Caruthers gave him a swift, sharp dig in the ribs. “Yeah, well. He’ll not be setting fire to anything now, will he? Come on. Help me take pictures. They’ll be here for the body soon.” Both police officers vanished back into Ronan’s study, closing the door heavily behind them. I remained, frozen to the spot, trying to process, trying to come to terms with the fact that Ronan, who was very much alive and happy enough yesterday evening, had hanged himself and was dead. And moreover, no one seemed all that shocked or bothered by the news.
“Come, girl. I have a number of papers I need you to sign. Ronan left a lot of work for you to do, I’m afraid.” Mr. Linneman edged past me down the hallway, into the kitchen, where he placed a very old, worn brown leather briefcase onto the polished marble and snapped the catches open. Looking up at me, he frowned. “I don’t suppose you have a pen, do you? I’ve left mine at home, it seems.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Inside Ronan’s study, a loud bang fractured the silence. Sounded like they’d tried to cut him down and dropped his body or something. Linneman flinched but didn’t say anything. He was waiting on me to produce something for him to write with.
“Uh, yes. I’m sure…there must be one around here somewhere.” Where the hell would Ronan have kept a stash of pens in this barely furnished, unlived in monstrosity? I hurried into the kitchen and began pulling drawers open. Eventually I came across a sleek, heavy, metal ballpoint that had The Fletcher Corporation printed neatly in gold down the side. “Here.”
“Wonderful.” Linneman began making small scribbles on a stack of papers he pulled out of his briefcase. “If you could please sign everywhere you see a cross, Ophelia, we’ll be done in no time.”
We wouldn’t, though. The sheets of paper were never-ending, as were the efficient little Xs Linneman was dashing everywhere. “What’s all this for?” I asked. “I already signed an employment contract before I left California.”
“This is so you can assume legal guardianship of the children. Here. This one you have to sign twice, see. One here and one here.” He pointed, showing me something, but I wasn’t paying attention.
“Excuse me? Legal guardianship? I don’t think so.”
More bird-like than ever, Linneman’s head twisted on his neck so that he was looking at me, his body still facing forward. “Oh, yes. Ronan said he spent a great deal of time selecting you for this purpose. He said you agreed to care for the children for a period no less than six months. Is that not the case?”
“I did, yes, but…but I thought he was going to be alive while I was looking after them. He said he was going to be writing a book! I don’t…are you saying he planned this?”
Linneman shrugged, trickles of water now dripping from the hem of his coat, leaving tiny puddles on the kitchen tiles. “Ronan was a pragmatic guy. He always did consider the future. I suppose that’s why he did so well in New York. Never made any brash decisions with his money there, or so I’m led to believe.”
“He just fucking killed himself! Those cops said he set fire to some feed barn just a minute ago. He clearly wasn’t sane. I can’t look after his kids!”
“Pssshhh. Ronan was eleven when he set that fire. And there was always speculation that it wasn’t even him. A long time’s passed since then.” He didn’t seem to be hearing the part where I told him I couldn’t care for Connor and Amie. He held out the pen to me like it was Excalibur and I was meant to try and yank it out of his hand or something.
“I think given the situation I should probably go back to California,” I said, using my most level voice—the one I reserved for unreasonable five-year-olds who wouldn’t do as they were told.
“I see.” Linneman closed his hand around the pen, dropping his arm to his side. “Well, that is a shame. Ronan seemed so sure you’d be able to get everything settled here if he were gone.” He paused, and then said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave the papers here for you to look over. If you reconsider, you can always call me on my cell and I can come and pick up the documents tomorrow morning, before the social worker gets here.” He said this so breezily, as if it didn’t matter either way what I decided. It did, of course. It mattered a great deal. State care was awful—Connor and Amie were in for a rough time. But I was only supposed to be their tutor. Their nanny. I wasn’t supposed to be legally responsible for their welfare at all times. It was too much to ask. Way too much to even think about right now.
“You’ve got my number, of course,” Linneman said. “Now, I’m sorry for the flying visit, but I have to get going. There’s more paperwork that needs to be signed, and Sully shouldn’t hear the news from those two buffoons in there. Better it comes from me.” He briskly closed his briefcase, leaving the stack of annotated papers behind on the kitchen counter, then hightailed it off down the hallway again, coat tails flaring out behind him, revealing a dusky gray suit underneath.
“Wait, Mr. Linneman? I’m sorry? Who’s Sully?”
Linneman paused, casting a brief glance at me over his shoulder. One of his ruffled, steel gray eyebrows twitched slightly. “You don’t know?” He sighed. “No, well, Ronan wasn’t likely to mention him to you, I suppose. He wouldn’t have brought him up if his life depended on it.” He smiled, perhaps a little ironically. “Sully is the benefactor of Ronan’s will, Ophelia. Sully Fletcher. He is Ronan’s brother.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ghost
Sully goddamn Fletcher.
If Ronan had a brother here on the island, then why the hell had he asked his lawyer to make me the legal guardian of his kids? It made no sense. None whatsoever. And yet I could see hi
s blocky signature, countersigning all of the documents Linneman had left behind, shouting at me like a voice from beyond the grave. Take them! Take them! Wherever he was right now, Ronan was probably having the biggest laugh about all of this. I’d barely known him at all, but I could picture that just fine.
“The coroner’s guys can’t get here until tomorrow either now,” Officer Hinchliffe said. I hadn’t heard him leave the study, and my heart jammed itself as far up my esophagus as it could go as a result of my surprise. “We’re going to have to leave him here.”
“You aren’t leaving him here. You can’t.”
“I know. Only joking, Miss. We already put him in the car.”
I blinked at him. “How? I didn’t see you bring him out?” It wasn’t that I was desperate to get another look at Ronan, stiff and cold and blue, but it seemed impossible that they could have stretchered him out without me noticing.
“Took him out the window,” Hinchliffe said. “Seemed like the best bet. Didn’t want Connor or Amie catching sight of him now, did we?” He gave me a look, like I was the inconsiderate one. Winching a dead man out of a window seemed far more insensitive to me, but I wasn’t going to argue.
“Where does Sully Fletcher live?” I blurted.
Caruthers appeared through the front door, coughing into the crook of his elbow. “Down Kinkeel way, that one. Proper hermit. Bit of an asshole.”
“I should go and see him with Connor and Amie. He should see his niece and nephew. Perhaps he should be the one to talk to the children about Ronan.”
Both Caruthers and Hinchliffe began to violently shake their heads. “Not a good idea, Miss Lang. Sully won’t be pleased to see them. In fact, he’ll probably be crowing from the rooftops when he finds out what Ronan’s gone and done.” Caruthers got his notebook out and started scribbling in it. “He and Ronan haven’t spoken in years. You can bet your bottom dollar he’d rather claw his own eyes out than lay eyes on those children.”
Such a brutal thing to say. How could this Sully hate a five and a seven-year-old so badly? By the sounds of things, he’d never even met them. I got the feeling Caruthers was painting the situation a little bleacker than necessary. He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and handed it to me. “That’s Sully’s number there. He’s the best carpenter on the island. The only carpenter really. Everyone knows his number off the top of their heads. Anyway. Call before you go swanning over there, Miss. He isn’t too friendly at the best of times. If he thinks you’re connected with Ronan in any way, he’ll probably shoot you dead.”
“He has a gun?”
“Probably. Who knows? Let’s get out of here,” Caruthers said, kicking at Hinchliffe with his steel toe capped foot. And to me: “We left you the letter after all. No one’s second-guessing this one after all, it seems. We did have a read, though, just to make sure there was nothing incriminating inside.”
It didn’t seem smart to ask if they’d actually found anything. I just wanted them to leave. The longer they stood here, jabbering away, the less time I had to prepare myself for dealing with Connor and Amie. The two of them looked like they’d had enough of poking around in Ronan’s stuff, now, anyway.
“We’ll be on our way, Miss Lang. If you need anything, you just give us a call at the station, okay?” Hinchliffe tipped his hat to me in a very old fashioned way—was he hitting on me? Oh lord. That was all I needed.
“I’ll make sure to do that.”
Hinchliffe smiled from ear to ear. “Grand.”
******
“But where did he go?”
Despite all the commotion and the noise downstairs, Connor had still been asleep when I crept into his room. Amie was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, nightie pooled around her as she doggedly chewed on her breakfast. Most of the pancakes were gone, and she was looking a little green. Connor wasn’t too happy that Ronan was “out.” I didn’t know what else to tell him.
“I wanted him to show me the island today. He said I’d like it here, but I hate it. I hate it. I want to go home.” His heart-shaped face was turning purple with frustration. Almost on the verge of tears, he was fighting not to let them fall. I was in the same boat. I’d been stunned earlier. Shocked. Now that shock was wearing off, and I was on the very brink of breaking down. Ronan had killed himself, and he’d left me to pick up the pieces. How stupid of me last night, lying there in bed, mulling over the possibility that I might allow myself to consider getting close to him. Chances were right at that same moment in time he was tying the noose, lashing it over the ceiling fan in the office, standing on his desk, taking a look around, taking his last breaths. His children were sleeping. He just fucking left them.
“It’s going to be okay, Connor,” I told the little boy, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I can show you the island. We’ll have a fun day. You, me and Amie. What do you say?” I wanted to get out of the house anyway. Needed to. I still couldn’t shake the image of Ronan hanging from the ceiling. It was torture, being trapped within the same building where he committed such a desperate act. Why the hell had he done it, anyway? The note he left on the door wasn’t giving up any clues. The letter addressed to me in his office probably did, but I was too freaked out to go in there and get it.
Connor shrugged away from my touch. “I don’t know you. I don’t like you. I don’t want to go anywhere until Dad gets back.”
“I don’t feel very well.” Amie had been quiet through this whole exchange. Now she was standing up, holding her belly, looking very queasy. The plate at her feet, the one I had stacked so high in my panic to get her out of the way, was empty. “I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.
“Okay, baby. It’s okay, come with me. Come on.” Damn it. I’d already made Connor angry and Amie sick, and we were still technically on day one of me caring for them. Stellar job, Ophelia. Gangbusters. Seriously. I hurried to the bathroom with Amie, barely getting her there before she vomited all over the tiled floor. She started crying, shivering, her little body shaking as she retched, bringing up a huge amount of food. Her belly must have been stretched way beyond capacity. What a terrible mother I would have made. I scooped her up and held her to me as she slowly began to settle, the shaking growing less and less until she was just lying still in my arms, looking up at me, strands of her dark hair plastered to her forehead. Her eyes were clear, the lightest of blues, so different to Ronan’s. “I feel much better now,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I made a mess.”
“That’s okay, sweetie. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have given you so much to eat, should I? What do you say, you hang out with your brother in his room again while I get this cleared up, and then we can maybe watch a movie or something, huh?” Amie, sweet little Amie, nodded, smiling. I already knew I was never going to get the same easy compliance from her brother. No point in even trying.
While I cleaned up the bathroom, I finally allowed myself to break down. I was in way over my head. On the other side of the country, on a tiny island where I didn’t know a soul, and my boss had just thrown me in at the deep end in the most profound, irreversible way. So unbelievable of him. So unkind. So fucking cruel. Did he really expect me to just float around The Causeway with his two young children in tow, teaching them and playing with them and pretending like nothing had happened? How delusional could one person be?
The letter downstairs. It would shed more light on the matter. I couldn’t face it though. Just couldn’t. Instead, I wiped my eyes, finished mopping up the puke from the floor, and I went and got the kids.
“I don’t care what you want right now, Connor. You can not like me all you want, but your dad left me in charge, and that means you have to do what I say, okay? And we’re going to get dressed and get out of the house. All day. We’re going to find somewhere to eat lunch, and we’re going to explore down by the beach.”
“Yay! The beach!” Amie started dancing around in her camisole and underwear, spinning in a circle with her hands in the air. “I love the beach!”
>
“It’s too cold.” Connor folded his arms across his chest, chin tilted down, eyes narrowed. He looked like he could have played Damien in the eighties horror movie quite convincingly. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Go.”
“Well. I’m sorry to hear that, buddy, but you don’t have a choice. Now get your shoes on.”
******
Ronan’s car keys were in the ignition of the SUV in the garage. There was an orange Post-it note on the middle of the steering wheel that said, USE THE CAR SEATS on it. Of course I’m going to use the goddamn car seats. Helpful, Ronan. Really fucking helpful. You know what would have been really helpful? You not killing yourself, that’s what.
I screwed the Post -it up and quickly threw it into the glove box.
Connor pulled the most dramatic, unhappy face when I opened up the back seat door for him. “Do I have to sit in the back? Dad normally lets me sit up in the front with him.”
“Sorry, kiddo. There’s a booster back there for you. Amie, look at your car seat. Isn’t it cool?” It was red with green dinosaurs all over it. Amie clapped her hands when she saw it; Connor looked like he wanted to set the entire car on fire. Disgust radiated off him in scorching degrees.
“This is bullshit,” he mumbled under his breath. His eyes flickered to me, his shoulders stiffening as he waited for my reaction. I gave him none, which, by the looks of things, made him really mad.
I’d dealt with enough kids like him at school though, acting out to get attention. If you gave them nothing, they generally learned it was pointless and stopped after a while. Connor’s situation was more complicated, though. He was going to do more than act out when he learned about Ronan. His whole world was going to come crashing down. Again. How the hell was I qualified to handle that?
I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going when I drove down the long driveway and out onto the road, but I tried to appear confident, if only for the kids’ sake.