A shadow fell on the page. It was Mrs. Falco.
“I see you’re interested in Eleanor Montrose. Principal Albert told me.”
“Yes. Did you know her?”
“I think I knew her better than anyone here.” She sighed and looked out the window. “But then, no one really knew Eleanor.”
Chapter 8
Mrs. Falco told me she had been warned by Principal Albert to be wary of me. “I don’t trust him,” she sniffed. “Too rule-bound.”
I confessed to her who I was, and what I was doing. Not everything, of course. I left out that Eleanor thought she and I shared the same mother.
“Can you help me? I need to know as much about Eleanor and her family as I can.”
She nodded. “Not here. I leave the school grounds for a lunch break in the park a block away. Meet me there at noon. Mr. Albert advised me you weren’t to wander around the halls talking to anyone, but I’ll bet you lose your way and find Amy Winthrop’s office. She’s the school counselor. I don’t know if Eleanor talked with her or if she would be willing to say anything about Eleanor, but turn left out of here and her office is the first door on your right.”
I looked both ways to make certain Mr. Albert wasn’t around, then I dashed down the hall and knocked on Ms. Winthrop’s door. Amy Winthrop was a petite woman dressed in casual slacks and a white blouse. With the exception of her short haircut, Amy reminded me of Madeleine—perky, a twinkle in her eye, and an open nature that made you want to tell her everything about your life.
“Ms. Winthrop,” I said and held out my hand to shake hers.
“Actually, it’s Doctor, but around here we’re informal, so it’s Amy to you and the staff, students, and parents. What can I help you with?” She gestured me toward a chair, and she took the one nearby. No hiding behind her desk. I liked that.
I introduced myself, told her I was a PI exploring the murder of Mr. Montrose, and of my discussion with Mrs. Falco.
“I heard about Mr. Montrose’s death and have been worried about Eleanor,” she said. “We got word her mother had gone off somewhere. Before we go on, I must tell you that I can’t say much about Eleanor because—”
“Confidentiality. I know.”
“That, and the fact that I don’t know much about her. She never came to my office to seek my counsel.”
“Yet you seem to be worried about someone you don’t know. Can you tell me why?”
“Let’s just say her mother was an issue.”
“Her mother?”
Amy stared out the window for a moment, then leaned forward in her chair. “It’s a matter of public record, anyway. Eleanor’s mother came into my office one day, mad as hell. She accused me of advising her daughter to suggest she get professional help—the mother, I mean. Of course, I had nothing to do with that because Eleanor never came to me, but I’m pretty sure she did tell her mother to get help because she needed it. The mother wouldn’t leave, was very agitated, and launched herself across the desk at me. I buzzed for security, and they came and escorted her off the school grounds. Well, actually, they had to wrestle her off the grounds. Her husband showed up and calmed her down. As I said, I never met Eleanor, but I felt sorry for that girl. That was one of the many times her mother contacted the school with some wild story. The police might be of help to you. I know these incidents came to their attention over the years.”
No wonder Eleanor had kept such a low profile here. She’d been trying to fly under the radar in an effort to prevent her mother from making any more scenes and to save herself from the inevitable taunts of the classmates who’d witnessed these unpleasant events. Poor Eleanor. Her mother was nothing like my mother, another flaw in Eleanor’s story.
“You seem somehow relieved to hear about how unhinged the woman was.”
“Oh, sorry. I was thinking of something else.” I got out of my chair, thanked her, and left for the police station. I knew more about Eleanor’s life now, but nothing seemed linked to my father-in-law. Perhaps there was no link. Regardless, the background I was putting together had to be relevant to Mr. Montrose’s murder.
Nappi had dropped me at the high school and taken the SUV to make his inquiries. We were to meet later at the motel to exchange information. I checked my watch to make certain I had enough time before I was to meet Mrs. Falco for lunch. I could walk to the police station and then to the park. I had plenty of time to stroll the tree-lined streets of the village.
The town was small and lovely, summer coming on in full force, the trees leafed out in dark shades of green. It reminded me of places in Connecticut where Madeleine and I grew up. The villages there were more affluent than this one, but it appeared the merchants here were attempting to attract tourists who might be coming through on their way to the resorts in the Catskills or heading north to climb the Adirondack peaks. The main street boasted a cute little coffee shop and several stores offering gifts and clothing. One shop featured equipment for camping, fishing, backpacking and displayed canoes and kayaks for sale and rent.
I’d read that the area had been flooded last fall by a hurricane that worked its way up the coast and stalled over parts of rural New York. We’d been spared the wrath of the storm in Florida, but its torrential rains had wiped out entire villages here. I could still see the water line on some of the buildings. The cleanup must have been overwhelming. I wondered how much damage the storm did to residences. Eleanor had said nothing about the storm, so I assumed her parents’ house had been spared.
Tucked in between a hardware store and an eatery, the police station looked as if it had taken a hit from the fall storm. One of the plate-glass windows on the right side of the entrance was boarded up with plywood. I understood. Town budgets weren’t equipped for many emergencies, especially damage from a hurricane.
The foyer of the station was anything but welcoming. There was a bench and a reception window with a sign on the wall beside it that read, “Ring bell for attention.” I did, and a woman in uniform appeared.
Her smiling face lit up the cold room. “Can I help you?”
I told her I wanted to talk to someone about the Montrose family.
“Isn’t that just awful? I heard about Mr. Montrose. Now all the daughter has for family is her mother.” The officer made a face, eyes wide with sorrow for Eleanor’s loss but lips tight with disdain—I assumed for the mother. I showed her my PI license from Florida. She took it and said she’d be right back. I roved the small area, reading the posters about bicycle safety and a notice of a village board meeting tacked to a bulletin board.
After a few minutes, the door to the right of the window opened, and the officer ushered me in.
“Chief Raleigh is through there,” she said, pointing toward a door. “Can I get you coffee?”
I shook my head and proceeded toward the door. Before I could knock, it opened, and a tall, sandy-haired man gestured me into the room.
“Bunny offer you coffee? Bunny, could you get me one? Thanks. Have a seat. You’re here about the Montrose murder? Did the police department hire you to look into it?”
“No, another party, and ….”
“You can’t say who. I get it.”
“From everything I’ve learned, Mrs. Montrose seems to have the temperament for murder, and she’s missing, you know.”
Chief Raleigh looked at me in surprise. “I guess you don’t know everything about the family if you’d say that. Mrs. Montrose would be the last woman to kill her husband. He was the person she seemed to trust, the one who could control her. With the kind of abuse Eleanor suffered at that woman’s hands, I’d take a closer look at the daughter. I felt sorry for the girl, but she has to have stored up a lot of resentment with regard to her mother over the years. It could have spilled over to the father for not protecting her.” He paused for a moment, looking closely at me. “Say, you remind me of the mother a bit. Same blonde hair and blue eyes. If Eleanor didn’t have brown hair, she’d look just like your sister.”
&nb
sp; “So people have told me.”
The chief’s friendly demeanor faded. It wasn’t replaced by animosity or suspicion exactly, but he seemed less open and more cautious. “You aren’t a relative, are you?”
“Certainly not. Lots of people have blonde hair and blue eyes.”
“Sure. Now, how can I help you?”
I liked his forthright manner, so I decided to reciprocate by being truthful up front. It was the best way to get the most information from him. “You’re right. I don’t know much about the family. I only recently met Eleanor, and I must say, she’s a little, uh, odd.”
He gave a small laugh. “That she is, but it’s understandable, with the mother she has. The girl had few friends because the mother embarrassed and humiliated her every chance she got.”
“How do you know this?”
“I heard her do it. We’d get called in because of a disturbance at the school or in the local supermarket or even out on the street. It would be Mrs. Montrose ranting about something, often about how ungrateful the daughter was, how she should never have left her first husband and child, how perfect they were, compared to Eleanor.”
“She was married before?”
“That’s what she said. She would talk endlessly about living in Connecticut and sailing on the sound there. An ideal life, it seemed. Why she married Montrose, I can’t figure, but he was a kind man and he tried to give her and Eleanor a good life. He just couldn’t hold down a job, probably because he had her on his hands.”
Sailing? On the Sound? I gulped and gripped the arms of the chair.
“Say, you look kinda green around the gills. You’re not going to faint, are you?”
“Certainly not. I’ve never fainted in my life.”
And then everything went black.
I awoke lying on the leather couch in Chief Raleigh’s office. Someone was patting my hand, and someone had placed a cold, damp cloth on my head.
“Who hit me?” I asked.
The chief looked at me with concern. “No one. You fainted.”
“Impossible. I’m not a fainting kind of person.” I tried to sit up, and the world spun around me. My vision narrowed and I felt nauseated.
“Well, you are now, miss,” said the female officer patting my hand. “You’d better rest here a minute.”
The door opened, and Nappi walked in.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“I saw you come in earlier. One of the officers said you were back here. What happened?”
“And you are …?” asked Chief Raleigh.
“My uncle and my associate on this case,” I interjected.
The chief gave Nappi a serious once-over. “You look familiar.”
“I’m a familiar-looking guy,” Nappi said, introducing himself and shaking the chief’s hand. “You know how it is, Chief. You live long enough, and everybody looks like someone you’ve met before.”
The chief nodded, unconvinced.
“I think your niece could use a bit of a lie-down,” said the female officer. “She still looks a little peaked. It could be a summer cold. It’s going around.”
I still felt shaky, but it wasn’t a cold. It was what the chief had said about Eleanor’s mother sailing on the sound. It hit too close to home, too close to what my mother did with my father, and—I reminded myself—how they died.
“I think I do need some rest,” I said. I held out a hand, and Nappi helped me to my feet. We left police headquarters and got into Nappi’s car parked outside. He looked at me closely as I buckled my seatbelt.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
I told him about Mrs. Montrose’s rants about living in Connecticut and sailing and of her first husband and daughter. All my attempts to reason away what Chief Raleigh had told me failed. Something seemed to burst inside me, and I gave way to tears. Patting me gently on the shoulder, Nappi let me have my hysterical cry, then handed me his clean white monogrammed linen handkerchief.
“I couldn’t,” I said.
“Take it. I have hundreds more, and it’s far better that you get this one soppy than have snot running down your face. It’s not a pretty sight.”
I looked at him, thinking his comment was shocking and just plain mean, but he winked at me, and we both broke out in laughter.
“As if Eve Appel ever would stoop to letting snot run out of her nose. You look appealing even when you cry.”
“Really?” I said, glancing at my image in the rearview mirror.
“No, but my lie got your mind off crying. I hate to ask and bring it up again, but what was that cry about?”
“Don’t you see? It’s possible Eleanor is right. Her mother was my mother. And Grandy lied to me. My mother has been alive all these years.”
Nappi was silent, tapping his manicured nails against the burl-wood steering wheel. “So you’re willing to believe the story of a crazy woman?”
“We don’t know she was crazy. Maybe she was just stressed. If my father was a violent man and she ran away from him by staging that sailing accident, she must have been terrified. And if he wasn’t dead, then she had to have lived in fear he would find her and her new family.”
Nappi started the car. “We need to talk, someplace other than in front of the police station. Makes me nervous. Let’s go back to the motel.”
“I know what you’re going to say. You’ll defend Grandy, but she had to have known.” I tried to put the brakes on thoughts that raced to grab onto the possibility my mother was still alive. I wanted that to be true. Or did I? It meant betrayal by the one who had raised me—Grandy.
“Look, Eve, if this woman did stage the accident and was running away from a man she feared, why would she let anyone know? If the story is true, Grandy wouldn’t have known.”
I thought about his words as we sped down the village streets toward our motel. He made sense. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I knew something was wrong with believing Mrs. Montrose was my mother. I couldn’t imagine the woman I’d known as my mother embarrassing or abusing any child of hers. And my father, an abuser of my mother? That couldn’t be. I felt nausea stirring in my stomach again.
“You okay, Eve?” asked Nappi. He reached over and patted my hand.
“Sure.” But I wasn’t okay. I might never be okay again. The wonderful world of just a few weeks ago with my husband, sons, and family had been broken by the loss again of Sammy’s father and the possibility that he’d killed someone, and I couldn’t shake this strange and upsetting story about my parents. I couldn’t imagine how life could be put right.
“I checked around town and found out where the Montroses lived. The property is being managed by a real estate agency. I’ve got an appointment to meet the agent. Mr. Montrose put the house in the agent’s hands to look after when he left town to look for his daughter and wife. I talked the agent into letting me see the house this afternoon.” Nappi leaned back in the upholstered chair in my room while I lounged on the bed.
I thought about what kind of talking he did with the agent. He could be very persuasive, I knew. I just hoped it hadn’t entailed any physical threats this time.
“Oh, don’t look so worried, Eve. The agent was a lovely woman, around my own age. We hit it off right away. It might be a good idea for all three of us to have dinner tonight. She’s a treasure trove of information about his town.”
When he said “treasure trove of information,” it brought to mind my own treasure trove, Mrs. Falco.
“What time is it?” I asked, sitting upright and looking at my watch. “I’ve got an appointment at noon.”
Nappi jumped out of his chair and pushed me back into the pillows. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I feel fine now.” I told him about Mrs. Falco.
“I’ll drive you there and come with you.”
“You can drive me, but I think it would be better if I talk to her alone. She might be put off by your smooth sophistication.”
Nappi smiled knowingly. �
�You mean she might think I look like a mobster.”
I gave him an appraising look. “No, I meant what I said. You look like an urban sophisticate—you know, sophisticated in a ‘connected’ sort of way.”
“And she’ll think I look like a mobster. I’ll sit in the car and wait for you, out of sight.”
Nappi dropped me at the entrance to the park. I spotted Mrs. Falco on a bench near the fountain, sitting in the shade of a maple tree and eating her lunch. She greeted me, and I joined her on the bench.
“Nothing for lunch?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry.” Hmm, I wasn’t hungry—an odd experience for me. I always wanted to eat.
Once Mrs. Falco got to talking about the Montrose family, she provided more details about Eleanor’s odd mother. As Chief Raleigh said, the mother couldn’t seem to appear in public without causing some kind of a scene. Usually it took the form of yelling at someone, a store clerk or a passerby, and accusing them of trying to “take her back.”
“What did that mean?” I asked.
“No one got it at first. I think we all thought she was talking about ghosts or something trying to carry her off to the world of the dead, but Mr. Montrose told a friend of mine that his wife had been in a mental hospital and didn’t want to go back there. It explained a lot.”
“What hospital?”
“Mr. Montrose didn’t say. I think a number of people thought she should be committed, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He seemed to be able to calm her down, and he was the only one who could. She seemed to despise Eleanor. ‘That hateful child,’ she always called Eleanor. I know County Social Services was notified on occasion, but when a social worker came to the house, Mrs. Montrose was always calm and Mr. Montrose didn’t want their help. I guess they figured he was able to handle his wife and protect Eleanor. Aside from Mrs. Montrose’s public displays, no one saw much of the family. They kept to themselves.”
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