Blue Lake

by Elizabeth Buhmann

  Their father had distributed a portion of his estate among his children as a gift when he recovered from the first stroke. Regina kept her share in the bank, untouched. Mary blushed.

  “Don’t tell me it’s all gone.”

  Mary said nothing, but the implication was clear. Robert Medina would have helped himself. Handsome, ambitious Robert, for whom Mary was a base camp and a source of cash.

  Regina knew her words had cut. She offered, “Anyway, there’ll be more money.”

  “There’s money, but you know it’s not a fabulous amount, not enough to live on for the rest of my life. Certainly not here, paying taxes and help.” She leveled a reproachful look at Regina on the last word.

  They finished in silence, Regina contemplating what it took to keep Blue Lake in existence. There’d been no question while William Hannon lived, but Alice, though physically healthy, was helplessly dependent. The woman in the portrait glowed with complacent well-being, the center of her world. But she’d been taken care of all her life.

  When Mary rose and took up dishes, Regina followed her, carrying her own plates and thinking about what Al had said, fantastic things about murder, ghosts, and suicides. Murder! How could she even ask? But she wanted to, if only to assure herself that the rumors Al had heard were unfounded.

  “Mary?” Her heart sped up. “Was there ever any question about how Eugenie died?”

  Mary set the dishes in the sink with a clatter and turned to look at Regina. Her mouth formed a soundless O.

  Regina set her plates down more quietly, squirming inwardly. “Was there anything suspicious about it?”

  “What are you talking about?” Sharply, for Mary.

  “Someone told me there were stories.” Offhand, vague. “Crazy things. About us, the Hannons.” Fishing. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word murder.

  Mary studied her for a long moment. “That’s just foolishness, Ree.” Again, she spoke with uncharacteristic asperity. But she added more gently as she washed dishes, “People have always talked about us. We’ve never mixed much with the people in town. Papa’s and Alice’s friends were from Richmond and Savannah and Alexandria.”

  Regina reached for a dish towel and dried the dishes as Mary rinsed them.

  “Back then…” Mary shook her head. “It was just different. You know.”

  Regina did know. It was different when the Hannons were the richest family in the county, when Alice was young and Blue Lake was ablaze with festivity.

  “We always had so much more than everyone else in town.”

  This we, Regina knew, did not include her. Mary was talking about the old days, when “the children”—the other children—were growing up. Before the Crash and Depression.

  “Papa employed quite a few people in Piedmont. There was a time when we had a dozen people working for us. I was a child, of course.” Mary, who was nearly fifty, could remember the nineteen-twenties. “Anyway, servants gossip about their employers.”

  Regina noticed that Mary had deflected her question about Eugenie by more than twenty years but said nothing.

  “Everything we did was embroidered and embellished. The parties, the people, the spending.” She shook her head, then turned to look at Regina with concern. “I didn’t realize you heard things when you were growing up. It was all so long ago.” But after a few moments passed in silence and the dishes had been returned to their places in the dining room, Mary asked in a lower voice, “Why would you even ask, after all these years?”

  Regina drew breath to apologize and change the subject, but her mouth disobeyed her mind. “I heard the death was investigated. By the police.”

  Again Mary’s response was not immediate. Finally she said, “The police are always called when someone dies. That doesn’t mean anything.” She leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded, studying Regina. “I don’t know what you heard, but the police didn’t find any evidence that it was anything but a terrible accidental drowning.”

  6

  Chez MacDonald

  Home for Al was in the town of Piedmont, three hours west of Richmond. As he drove, Al’s mind turned back to the year Ree Medina ran away. Ran away, moved away, or according to one rumor, was sent away by her family. The rumors, he remembered, had been crazy. Facts, at least those available to him, had been scarce.

  He told a girlfriend about it in college. The girlfriend, whose name was Nancy, was the only one he’d ever opened up to about what happened, though why he had, he didn’t know, as he wasn’t especially close to her. They were drinking coffee in the kitchen of a house she rented with five other girls, talking about past relationships, and he told her that in high school, there’d been only Ree for him. He dated half-heartedly senior year, never anybody special. Though he laid out the story in what he thought was a non-committal way, the depth of his feeling communicated itself.

  Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “Why’d you break up with her?”

  “I didn’t. She disappeared the night of the prom.”

  Nancy pulled back. “What?”

  Al looked away, sorry he’d brought it up. “She was going to the prom with me, but when I went to pick her up, she was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Left town.”

  “Just couldn’t face it.” She laughed, but when she saw that she’d offended him, she got serious again. “What did she say when you saw her next?”

  “Never did.” The hollowness he’d felt came rushing back.

  “Something happened to her?”

  “No, she just left school and went away.” Without a word to him, before or after.

  “How do you know nothing happened to her?”

  “Her family wasn’t worried. It’s a small town. We’d have heard if something really happened to her.” As if he hadn’t lain awake nights, imagining the worst.

  “Ah.” She looked wise.

  “What?”

  “Pregnant.”

  “No!” The idea shocked him. He began to think he didn’t much like Nancy. “She just went somewhere else and nobody said anything. At least, not to me.”

  He could tell Nancy believed her own theory, but she only said, “Weird. And you’re still carrying a torch.” She said that triumphantly, as though she’d caught him out.

  He’d dropped Nancy abruptly after that, avoided her, which wasn’t hard, since they weren’t even going to the same school. He’d been planning to enlist anyway.

  With the distance of years, he realized the pregnancy theory made a certain amount of sense. He refused to believe it though.

  He banged his fist on the steering wheel and said, “No, that wasn’t it.”

  So what was it? What he’d learned that morning, that she was a Hannon, threw a whole new light on the past. He couldn’t see how that answered the questions that had dogged him for so long, but he felt sure it was a clue.

  The last rays of sun winked from between trees, and the clock on the dashboard said eight o’clock when Al turned into the steep driveway of his parents’ boxy, two-story house on the edge of town, at the foot of a broad, grassy slope. Al let himself in the front door, which was never locked, and bent to greet the family’s plump and aging golden retriever, Ruby, who coiled around his legs, tail thumping.

  Dinner would be long over, though the house still smelled of spaghetti, and his father was asleep on the couch in front of the television, which had been turned down to a faint murmur. Al headed back to the kitchen, where his mother sat reading the local newspaper with a cup of tea.

  “Hey, Mum.”

  “Al! Oh, I just put the spaghetti in the fridge. I knew somebody was going to want it. I had a feeling.”

  “No, Mum, I ate already. I got a hamburger at a drive-in on the way out of town.”

  “That was hours ago, you must be starving.”

  He continued to protest while she reassembled the entire meal, pouring sauce into pans that were already washed and dried, reheating noodles, setting out Parmesan cheese, plate,
and napkin, and heating up the kettle for the cup of tea he tried to say he didn’t want. But actually, he was still hungry, and his mother’s spaghetti was his favorite food in the world. He was himself a pretty good cook, he thought, but he never could replicate her tomato sauce, even when he cooked it for hours the way she did.

  He told her this, not for the first time, and she repeated what she always said, “The trick is not to stir it.”

  “I think it’s that pot. I looked all over for a pot like that. I got one of those really expensive French pots, and it still doesn’t come out the same.”

  “You can have this one.”

  “No kidding? I’ll give you the French one.”

  He ate, she talked. “Drunk,” she said, shooting a look of disgust in her husband’s direction. Al nodded, unconcerned. His father knocked himself out every night. He would have been better off without the excess weight the beer put on him.

  “Turns on the television, leaves it running, and goes to sleep until bedtime. Ridiculous.” Al’s mother groused at length about this, until Al changed the subject.

  “I ran into a girl from high school. She works in the same building as me.” He had polished off a huge plate, and his mother, over further protest, served him more—served out the whole pot, in fact. “Mum, no, I had enough.” But he kept right on eating, talking around mouthfuls of noodles, red sauce, and cheese. “Ree Medina.”

  He frowned, ran his tongue around his teeth, didn’t say she now called herself Regina Hannon.

  “Medina. I think I’ve heard that name. Your class?”

  He nodded but didn’t elaborate. His mother wouldn’t remember about him and Ree, whom she had never met, and he hadn’t confided anything to her about the prom at the time. Or maybe she’d known something happened but was too tactful to ask questions.

  She sipped her tea. “I know that name, Medina…”

  They heard his father stirring.

  Ray MacDonald staggered into the kitchen. Blond hair like Al’s was interspersed with white. “Hey, Al.”

  Al’s mother got up and cleared the table, looking somewhat exasperated. He was a harmless enough drunk, never cranky, but his wife complained.

  “Howza new job?” He browsed the table and the stove. All the food was gone. He opened the refrigerator, swaying on his feet.

  “Job’s great, Dad. Really good.”

  “Ray, who do you know named Medina?”

  “Oh.” He nodded sagely and picked up a beer, which Al’s mother promptly snatched. He pulled plastic containers out of the snack drawer. “That’s that missionary guy.”

  “This was a girl. Here, give me that. You want a sandwich?”

  Al said, “I’m confused. I ran into a girl I knew in high school. I thought her name was Medina, but she says Hannon. Like the Hannon place is hers now.”

  “There’s a Hannon about your age. Girl. She ain’t no heiress though.”

  He pronounced it hair-ess, and Al’s mother rolled her eyes. Her husband’s grammar, especially when he was drunk, drove her crazy. That, and his Western Pennsylvania accent.

  Al’s mother said, “Mary Hannon’s daughter.”

  Ree had said sister.

  “I sold that Medina guy a car.” Al’s father owned a car dealership. He was a shrewd and successful businessman, charming when sober, which he was during the day. He dropped into a chair at the kitchen table, and Al’s mother thunked a plate down in front of him with a ham and cheese sandwich.

  She said to Al, “Sure you don’t want one?”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, I heard Old Man Hannon’s in the hospital, not doing too good. Them Hannons, they was in school when I was. Frank, the oldest boy, he’s my age. There’s a lot of them Hannons. They’ll probably sell the house when he’s gone. It’s worth too much to keep and there’s too many of them, all over the place. I didn’t think any of them lived around here anymore.”

  His mother banged a pan in the sink. “I already told you, Mary—oh, I know how I know the name Medina. That’s Mary Hannon’s married name. Georgia Peters is going to sell the house, and Mary Hannon is the one who called her.”

  “That’s what Ree said! Mary Hannon is Mrs. Medina.” One fact checked, anyway. “There was a little girl that drowned, right? A Hannon girl? Her sister?”

  “Nah.” Ray MacDonald sounded more alert now that he was eating. “Couldn’t be her sister. Aunt maybe.”

  Al frowned into his teacup. He was sure she had said sister.

  His father continued. “But there was a Hannon girl that drowned. They said murdered.”

  “I thought so!”

  “Long time ago. They said it was a servant, or a servant’s son, I forget, but they couldn’t prove nothing.”

  “Why did they think he murdered her?”

  His mother rattled pots in the sink. “Oh, Al, it was a horrible business. Do you want dessert?”

  Al said, “No, I’m stuffed,” but his father said, “What’ve you got?”

  She rolled her eyes again as her husband rambled on. “They figured him for all them murders in Richmond.”

  Al’s jaw dropped. “There were more murders?”

  His mother was shaking her head, lips pursed.

  Ray said, “Oh, you bet. They had him up for a goddamned serial killer.”

  “Ray, I don’t want that kind of language in this house.”

  “Couldn’t prove it though. His parents alibied him for the drowning, but them Hannons said that was bullshit.” He quickly held up his hand. “Excuse me, Your Highness. It was poppycock.”

  “When was this?”

  His mother answered, “A long time ago. The forties?”

  “Right after the war,” said Ray. “I hadn’t been back long. Maybe 1945.”

  Al was still riveted by the idea of serial murder. “Did they ever catch the Richmond killer?”

  His parents looked at each other and Ray said, “Not that I heard. But that guy, he disappeared after that.”

  “Did they really think the drowning here was related to the Richmond murders?”

  His mother shoved the last pots and pans under the sink. “The police couldn’t prove anything about that. People were just hysterical about the idea of little girls being killed. That kind of thing didn’t happen back then.”

  “They said Old Lady Hannon went nuts after that too.”

  “Ray!”

  Al studied his fork until his mother changed the subject to her favorite topic: Al’s sister and brother, both older, both living in nearby towns, and their children. Ray returned to the television, and his mother joined him. Al declined TV and headed upstairs.

  She called after him, “Use the guest room.”

  The room Al had shared with his brother was unchanged from childhood, one of three second-floor bedrooms. A tiny room at the top of the stairs had been his sister’s. The second largest bedroom had been his parents’ room back when they first moved in, but after his father’s car dealership took off, the MacDonalds added on a downstairs master bedroom suite, abandoning the entire second floor to the kids. His parents’ room became a guest room, but although it was elaborately decorated, none of the children ever used it. When Al came home, which was often, he stayed in his old room, crowded with bookcases, sports equipment, desks and dressers, twin beds, sports trophies, and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle posters.

  He threw his overnight bag next to the bed he’d always slept in and immediately went for the bottom shelf of the bookcase. He pulled out the yearbook from 1959 and went right to a picture he’d looked at often—Ree Medina as a sophomore. He turned to 1960. Ree Medina, junior, Latin club, French club, but no pictures of her at the prom they should have gone to together.

  He got sidetracked for a while, absorbed in pictures of other classmates, and of himself wearing hand-me-down shirts and sweaters. His clothes had always looked good on his athletic brother. They looked stupid on him. He was athletic too, but he had always, for some reason, chosen the less glam
orous sports, like archery, tennis, and track—not the sprints or hurdles, but cross country. When his brother played football and ran the mile, he was cool. Al was not.

  A quick search revealed, as he expected, no Hannons. It occurred to him to look up Hannon in his sister’s yearbooks, since Gracie was the oldest of the three MacDonald kids, but he found nothing. His father had said the Hannons were much older, his parents’ age. He couldn’t see how Ree fit in, if she wasn’t Mary Hannon’s daughter as his mother said.

  His mind went back to the night she disappeared. As always, he winced and closed his eyes. He’d gotten his driver’s license only the week before the night of the prom. His father had loaned him a car from the showroom. Nothing flashy, a Bel Air. But it was a brand new 1960, loaded. He’d shown up at Ree’s house in a suit, corsage in hand. Screwed up his courage and knocked.

  A thirty-ish woman answered. She looked a good bit like Ree, but her features were heavier, her skin white without rose in the cheeks, and her hair was coarser, wiry, more red than gold.

  “Hi. I’m Al. I’m here for Ree.”

  The woman at the door looked behind her.

  An older woman with short, glossy black hair approached and looked over the younger woman’s shoulder. “Can we help you?”

  “He’s looking for Ree.”

  “Oh—” In her eyes, he saw great pain and sadness.

  The younger woman said, “Ree isn’t here.” She gave him a little nod, expecting him to leave.

  The older woman turned back into the house, and the younger one started to close the door.

  Involuntarily, Al put his hand out to block the door open. “Wait.” Confusion, face red. “She’s not ready?”

  “Not here.” A dismissal.

  “Where is she?”

  Her smile was a smirk, unpleasant. “Oh, who knows?” She looked at his hand on the door, and Al stepped back. As the door was closing, she looked him up and down and said, “Hiding somewhere, no doubt.”

  A man appeared behind her—Ree’s father, Al assumed. “What do you want with her? She’s gone.” He shut the door in Al’s face.