It was then he saw what he prayed was a drunken man’s mirage. On shaky legs, Sam tried to move forward, on instinct, wanting to help. But the vision at the cliff’s edge and the alcohol overwhelmed him. He staggered backward, falling down again beneath the elm, as a woman’s scream was muffled by the roar of the crashing surf.
SUNDAY
—— JULY 18 ——
CHAPTER
27
Grace slept fitfully, periodically peeking at the digital clock as it marked the passing of the night. She got up again and again, to get a glass of water, to fiddle with the thermostat on the air conditioner, to play back the message.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Lucy. Guess what? Daddy and Jan and I are coming to Newport! Daddy knew about your hotel and he got a room for us there. Isn’t that cool? We can hang out. Well, call me back at Daddy’s. Love you.”
It had been too late to return the call when she had gotten back to the Viking, and that was probably just as well. Grace didn’t want to get Frank on the phone and get into an argument about how utterly inappropriate his intentions were. He would just feign ignorance and innocence.
Grace’s intuition told her that her former husband had a plan, though she wasn’t sure yet what it was. Maybe he was trying to psyche her out, make her more nervous than she already was on her first out-of-town assignment. He probably wanted her to fail. Or maybe Frank would be looking for things to use against her in his court case. He’d be watching her, taking mental, if not written, notes on the long hours she worked here in order to have evidence when the time came.
Was she being paranoid? Grace wondered as she punched at the pillow. No. That was how Frank Callahan worked. When he wanted something, Frank used all his considerable energies and resources to get it.
But Lucy wasn’t something. She was everything.
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The loose-fitting cotton slacks and long-sleeved blouse she took from the hook on the back of her closet door were the same clothes she had worn the previous morning and the one before that, but Elsa couldn’t have cared less. She was not out to impress anyone this early. In fact, experience told her that there wouldn’t be many people out there to impress. She would be home again, showered, and dressed in more socially acceptable attire before most of the residents and vacationers in this town were even out of bed.
Elsa grunted a bit as she bent over to tie her rubber-soled walking shoes. She was feeling more than her age this morning. At forty-two, one shouldn’t be stiff when getting out of bed. She wrote it off to the balled-up position she had found herself in when she awakened. Her sleep had not been a relaxed one, and her muscles were tense.
She walked down the wide, elaborately carved staircase and picked up the binoculars and her cell phone from the large marble-topped table in the expansive foyer. Glancing out the long, leaded-glass window, Elsa decided not to stop to brew her usual cup of breakfast tea. It was getting lighter outside and she had to hurry. She could have her tea later. Maybe she would bake some nice raisin scones and bring them over to Oliver and they could have tea together.
Elsa listened to the driveway’s crushed stones crunching beneath her shoes as she began her walk. As she’d expected, when she reached the road, it was deserted. Only the low roar of the ocean and the occasional call of one of her feathered friends filled the air.
At the end of Ruggles Avenue, she reached one of the several entrances to the Cliff Walk. Elsa didn’t need her binoculars to identify the familiar black-legged kittiwakes gliding above the water. She knew they nested in colonies on the cliff edge. The seagulls were joined by sandpipers and plovers, none of them rare to the Rhode Island coast. Of course, she was always on the lookout for one of the native species in imminent danger. The pied-billed grebe, the northern harrier, the barn owl, the American bittern, and the upland sandpiper. These five birds were threatened with extinction in Rhode Island. That fact greatly disturbed Elsa, and she had made it her crusade to save them. Chairing the annual fund-raiser—this year at The Elms— was her contribution to the cause.
Heading north on the walkway, Elsa looked for the orchard oriole she had spotted yesterday in the hedgerow at the edge of The Breakers’ sweeping lawn. It had been a male with a distinctive, dark chestnut color and a short, pointed bill. The orchard oriole was uncommon, though not endangered, but as far as Elsa could determine now as she searched the hedgerows, he had chosen to make himself scarce this morning.
Was it only yesterday that she saw the bird? So much had happened. Charlotte’s identification, Oliver’s grief intensified again. Elsa had wanted Oliver to come to the Vickerses’ party with her, wanted them to be seen as a couple. But maybe it was just as well Oliver hadn’t come. It would have appeared unseemly for him to be out partying last night. He would have been criticized for going.
People were more understanding, though, of Madeleine’s attendance. The poor child had been through so much. Everyone agreed that Madeleine had done nothing wrong, and people were supportive of the idea that the young woman accepted the invitation to be in a festive atmosphere, celebrating life.
The sun’s bottom rim had risen over the horizon now. Elsa continued up the Cliff Walk, past The Breakers. She saw nothing unusual but appreciated the familiar winged creatures that glided across the sky above her.
She went as far as the bench at the end of Narragansett Avenue, her customary spot to sit, rest, and meditate for a while before heading back. She seated herself, feeling the coolness of the metal through her thin slacks. She noticed the cigarette butts and empty beer cans carelessly left behind by the fireworks-watching revelers the night before. An early-morning jogger saluted her as he sailed by.
Elsa got up from the bench and stretched, taking in a deep breath of the fresh morning air. The sea was especially glorious today, she thought, as she took a few paces closer to it. The Forty Steps lay beneath her now, with Madeleine’s twisted body at their base.
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Officer Tommy James came out of the Dunkin’ Donuts with two crullers and a disposable cup full of steaming coffee. He was settled into the squad car, looking forward to his breakfast, when the call came in on the radio. He shoved the coffee into the holder and slammed the car into gear. Pulling out onto Broadway, he didn’t bother turning on the siren. There was no traffic on an early Sunday morning.
As he sped onto Narragansett Avenue, Tommy passed the Vickerses’ house and felt a twinge. He was hurt that Joss hadn’t invited him to her party. He’d had to hear about it from one of the guys at the station house. Seemed they all had a good time. Police had responded several times after neighbors called to complain about the noise.
Joss should have invited him. Especially since he had gone out on a limb and copied that diary for her. What was she thinking? Was she only using him?
In his heart, he knew she was. Yet he still couldn’t give up on her.
Tommy drove up the curb at the end of the street and stopped, getting out quickly. The scent from a giant honeysuckle at the side of the road filled his nostrils. Funny how you could notice something like that at a time like this.
The small group of joggers who had gathered at the top of the Forty Steps moved aside as Officer James approached. A middle-aged woman with binoculars around her neck grabbed him by the arm. She was sobbing as she pointed downward. “I’m the one who called. I’m Elsa Gravell, and that is my godchild, Madeleine Sloane.”
Tommy ran down the steep stone steps, stopping at the battered body that lay on the landing near the ocean’s edge. The head was twisted at a grotesque angle. Unblinking brown eyes stared from the motionless face. He went through the motions, feeling the young woman’s neck for a pulse. As he expected, there was none.
Madeleine Sloane. Tommy considered the name.
Joss will want to know about this.
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30
Sam was awakened by the sensation of something crawling over his face. He swatted at the b
ug and opened his eyes, squinting against the morning light, grimacing at the horrible taste in his mouth. On his back, he looked up to see the thick canopy of leaves above him and reached out to feel the dewy grass that had been his mattress.
Dear Jesus, he had slept out here all night. Or rather passed out.
He sat up, his head throbbing as he began to recall what had happened. The party. The beer. The fireworks. The vomiting. The horrific sight at the cliff’s edge.
Maybe that last had been only something he imagined in his drunken stupor. If he was hallucinating now, he was really going to have to swear off the alcohol, tough as that would be. But if what he had seen had really happened, that would be a lot tougher to deal with.
Getting to his feet, Sam brushed the stray blades of grass from his pants and smoothed out his rumpled shirt. He braced himself as he came from behind the giant elm and looked toward the ocean.
The police car. The crowd. The ambulance driving up.
No. He hadn’t imagined it. It had really happened.
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31
The angry ring of the phone cut through the quiet hotel room.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Grace. It’s B.J. Did I wake you?”
“I wish you had,” said Grace. “I’ve been lying here for hours, wide awake.”
“Well, throw on some clothes and meet me out front right away. Madeleine Sloane’s been found dead.”
Grace bolted upright in the bed.
“Oh my God, no.” Her voice cracked.
“We can talk about it in the car. Now get going.”
Grace pulled on a pair of jeans and a maroon Fordham T-shirt. As she ran a toothbrush around her mouth, her heart beat faster. How could this be? She had just seen Madeleine at the fireworks. Grace thought she’d been weeping for her mother. Grace had identified with that. They both had lost their mothers, their touchstones.
Grace brushed back her hair in a ponytail, wound a covered elastic around it, stuffed her feet into her sneakers, and sped out the door. Even the seconds it took to wait for the elevator were too much. She found the stairwell. As her legs hammered down the steps, she realized she was getting her first taste. This was what it was like to be covering a breaking story.
But this wasn’t a story involving anonymous people, or a situation where it would be easy to maintain an emotional distance. Grace had known Madeleine, if only for a little while, and she had liked her. The fact that Madeleine was dead left Grace feeling sick.
B.J. was in the driver’s seat waiting. As she got into the car, Grace noticed that he had his camera lying on the backseat, ready to grab when they arrived at the scene.
“What do you know?” she asked as she snapped her seat belt into place.
“Just that Madeleine’s body was found this morning, right where we watched the fireworks last night.”
“My God, I was just talking to her at the party.” Grace swallowed.
It was a short ride from the Viking down Bellevue Avenue to Narragansett. B.J. had a heavy foot, and the whole trip took less than three minutes. As B.J. parked behind the ambulance and police cars, Grace asked, “How did you find out about this?”
B.J. turned off the ignition. “The assignment desk got two calls. One from Joss and another from Sam. The interns are really paying off this year.”
CHAPTER
32
The morning sun sparkled outside, but Agatha wailed in the shuttered dimness of her cluttered bedroom. Piles of old newspapers and magazines, boxes of outdated clothing, and empty cookie tins were scattered across the floor. Three cats lay curled on the worn carpet, watching disdainfully as their mistress sobbed on her unmade bed.
She’d brought this on herself. She should never have listened to Gordon Cox. She should never have let them into the tunnel. It should have been treated like the sacred burial place it had turned out to be. It should have been left alone.
With every fiber of her being she knew that, if they had never found Charlotte, Madeleine would still be alive.
Now, her beloved Madeleine was gone.
Agatha wiped her face against the frayed satin pillowcase, her troubled mind suddenly lucid. She should have sold this place years ago, just as Charlotte had encouraged her to do. If she had only done that, the next owner could have dealt with the damned preservationists and their obsession with the slave tunnel. If she had sold it as Charlotte had wanted, they would have been long gone from this place and Charlotte wouldn’t have been entombed all these interminable years, just a few acres away from where Agatha lay now. If Agatha had sold Shepherd’s Point then Madeleine would be alive.
None of this unbearable heartache would have happened.
It was all her fault.
Agatha didn’t respond to the tapping at the door.
“It’s Finola, Miss Agatha.”
Still no answer.
The housekeeper entered the room, wincing at the mess that Agatha wouldn’t allow her to clean up. It was hard to watch, even with her failing eyesight. Finola had been at Shepherd’s Point in its glory days, when the mahogany shone, the silver was mirror-polished, and the crystal gleamed. The large staff had worked long days making sure that the Oriental carpets were beaten and the lush draperies cleaned. The brass fittings in the bathrooms sparkled, as did the ceramic fixtures. The glassfronted cabinets in the kitchen and pantry showcased glowing copper pots and fine porcelain dinner services. Shepherd’s Point had been a magnificent estate, frequently opening its doors for lavish parties and entertainment.
All that had changed, long ago, when the last silver mine was fully tapped. The staff now consisted of just herself and Terence—and the house and grounds looked it. They were both getting on in years, and there was no way they could do the work that a dozen people had once done. Finola did the shopping and the cooking, and did her best to keep things picked up. But even that was difficult with Miss Agatha not wanting things moved around in any way.
Out of loyalty, she stayed, because the Good Lord knew that the money wasn’t the draw. Finola’s pay had been the same since Miss Charlotte had disappeared, and even that amount wasn’t dependable every two weeks. Still, Finola had a room to sleep in and food to eat, and truth be told, she didn’t feel up to looking for work with another family. As eccentric as Miss Agatha was, she was familiar, and Finola knew she could handle her job at Shepherd’s Point.
“I brought you a nice hot cup of tea, Miss Agatha.”
The frail figure on the bed didn’t move.
“Come now, it will make you feel better.”
“Nothing is going to make me feel better, Finola. Nothing. Madeleine is gone.”
Finola had no response. She knew her mistress was right.
CHAPTER
33
The satellite trucks lined Narragansett Avenue. WJAR, WPRI, and WLNE, the NBC, CBS, and ABC Providence affiliates had sent news personnel to cover the sensational story. This story was going to lead the local broadcasts that evening. It had all the elements. A young woman found dead the day after the identification of her missing mother’s remains. A body found off the cliffs that shouldered the mansions of Newport high society. A present-day murder wrapped in the mystery of a fourteen-year-old disappearance.
Grace scanned the satellite trucks. So far, KEY News was the only network presence. “Why aren’t any of the other networks here?” she asked B.J.
“We lucked out,” replied B.J., switching off his camera. “We just happened to be nearby. The other nets will get their video from their affiliates. Which reminds me, we have to see if we can contact someone from a local station and get file tape of whatever they did on the Charlotte Sloane story back then.”
“Fine. I’ll ask around,” said Grace as she remembered her conversation the night before. “And I wanted to tell you, B.J., I met someone at the clambake who knew Charlotte Sloane since they were kids together. It’s our scrimshander, Kyle Seaton. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get him to t
alk about Charlotte for the camera, though.”
“Why not?”
Grace grimaced. “Just a feeling I got. I don’t know how to describe him, really. I guess you would say he’s an uptight sort. Very proper.”
“Snobby?” asked B.J.
“I guess you could say that.”
“Well, let’s turn on the charm when we shoot the scrimshaw takeout on him and see if we can get him to cooperate on the Sloane stories.”
Grace noticed that there was only one black person in the sea of whites milling around the Cliff Walk. It was Zoe Quigley, who was taking pictures of the Atlantic Ocean with her camcorder.
If Grace felt that her age made her stick out among the younger interns, what must it be like to be the only black person in a situation like this? In any situation, for that matter?
Zoe had come all the way from England to do her internship, so the young woman certainly had gumption. Maybe she was so self-assured that she didn’t even think about being in a minority. But Grace somehow doubted that. Zoe had to be conscious of it.
As if she had felt Grace’s eyes upon her, Zoe turned and waved. Grace walked toward her. “I was going to go over to the affiliates and see if we can find file tape of old stories they’ve done on Charlotte Sloane’s disappearance. Want to come with me?”
Zoe seemed to weigh her response. “Thanks ever so much, but actually, I have something else I’m working on.” Zoe didn’t elaborate on what that might be, and Grace instinctively didn’t ask. She didn’t want to get into a competitive thing.
“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll see you later, back at the Viking?”
“Brilliant,” said Zoe. “See you later, then, Grace.”
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34
Walking past the fabulous estates, Zoe was glad she’d worn her trainers. It was quite a distance on foot from the Cliff Walk back to the hotel. But from there, the Touro Synagogue was just around the corner. She joined the group gathered in front of the beautifully proportioned building and waited for the Sunday afternoon tour to begin. The docent came out to welcome the sightseers. Noticing Zoe’s camera, he made an announcement. “We ask that you refrain from taking pictures on this tour.” Zoe slid the camera into her knapsack.
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