Front Page Teaser lhm-1

by Rosemary Herbert

  But Liz remained a solitary figure in the landscape. After about a quarter of an hour, she came to an open fence with a large sign on it: PRIVATE PROPERTY BEYOND THIS POINT. NO TRESPASSING AFTER SUNSET. PLEASE KEEP ALL DOGS ON LEASHES.

  Reminded of Olga Swenson’s warning, “My dog can be protective,” she earnestly hoped the animal would not be loose in this remote spot. Passing through the fence, she saw hundreds of conifers planted on the undulating landscape to her left. They took many shapes and sizes, from classic Christmas tree contours to weeping and prostrate forms. Fascinated, Liz realized this was a collection of trees.

  Then the landscape opened up on a visual surprise. Fronted by a lakeside marble balustrade ornamented at each end with a marble urn, a hillside sloping up to the left was graced with perhaps a hundred carefully pruned topiary trees and shrubs. Some towered more than thirty-five–feet high, trimmed like fat bullets pointing skyward, with cutaway sections adding whimsy to their disciplined silhouettes. Others looked like lopsided lozenges resting on the hillside. Still more had the appearance of sugared gumdrops, bowler hats, or fantastically large chess pawns. As Liz stopped in her tracks and gazed at the topiary, the sun broke through the clouds and caused the ice and snow that frosted them to sparkle.

  Dazzled, Liz stood transfixed, until she was startled by a panting sound behind her.

  A dog, straining at his leash.

  The owner appeared to be more tentative about the encounter. If her carefully coiffed silver chignon was any indication, she looked to be in her late sixties.

  “Wesley Hightower’s Pinetum and topiary garden,” the woman said, pulling hard at her dog’s leash. “Is this your first visit, or do you find, as I do, that each time you come upon this place, it takes your breath away?”

  “It’s my first visit. But I’m sure this is not the only time this sight will leave me breathless.”

  “Then you don’t know the story behind the landscape?”

  “I’m afraid not. But before coming upon this group of sculpted trees, I passed through a collection of conifers in their natural forms.”

  “You know something about trees, then. Most people just think of those trees as ‘pines.’”

  “I would call them ‘pines,’ too, but I can see that there are many varieties here. I’d love it if you’d tell me a little bit more about this place, if you have the time.”

  “Liz Higgins, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Olga Swenson. And this is Hershey. Silly name, I know, but Veronica insisted on it.”

  Liz couldn’t help noticing that, for all his straining at his leash, the chocolate-brown Labrador retriever was wagging his tail to beat the band. His breathlessness, at least, was occasioned by friendliness.

  “How is Veronica?”

  “Sad. Then excited, despite herself, about Santa. And then sad. Very mixed.” Veronica’s grandmother looked about her and seemed to gather strength from an environment she evidently knew well.

  Certain Olga Swenson would tell her more about Ellen if she could first talk about her passion for this place, Liz bent down and patted Hershey while looking at the older woman expectantly.

  “You know, four generations of Hightowers marked their wedding anniversaries by pruning this topiary. Wesley Hightower told me he could always remember how many years he had been married by counting the times he had pruned these trees. He died just a year ago, but not before adding and labeling hundreds of trees to the collection started by R.T. Hightower, Wesley’s great grandfather. R.T. made his fortune in shipping and used it to build the mansion on this property and to indulge his passion for conifers. R.T. took his own collecting trips to China and other eastern climes that are remarkably similar to our own, and he sent men to collect conifers for him. And by allowing us access to the property, Wesley—and now his widow—are sharing their remarkable legacy.”

  “How long have you known this place, Mrs. Swenson?”

  “Since we moved here, shortly after Ellen was born.” She gulped in a breath and paused to compose herself. “We have a house on this lake, farther along the shoreline. When Ellen was a girl, I was not quite a stay-at-home mother, since I was active in a number of charities and my garden club. We had a nanny helping us out. But Ellen and I always had our Thursday afternoons together, just the two of us. We called it ‘Our Afternoon.’ And more often than not, no matter what the season, we’d stroll along here with our dog. Wesley discouraged public picnicking here, but he made an exception for Ellen and me. He allowed us to sit in the summerhouse you see there, with our sandwiches. When the weather was fine, we sometimes took along books and I read to Ellen. As she got older, we read our own novels side-by-side. I always think it’s no mistake Ellen became a librarian and married an environmentalist.”

  “And became such a good mother, too. Now I know where she got the idea of spending a mother-and-daughter afternoon on a regular basis with Veronica. Has there been any word at all from Ellen?”

  “Not a one. And I hope that goes for any words I share with you. Not one will be printed in the paper. I’m talking to you strictly to give you background information. I hope I may have your word on that.”

  “Yes, of course. Any insights you can provide may be invaluable. May I ask, what made you consider talking with me? Was it because I know Veronica?”

  “She did press me to see you. But that didn’t decide me. It was because you spoke of Ellen in the present tense. You wouldn’t believe how many people—officials and even close friends—talk of her as if she is not just missing but gone. Gone forever.”

  “Not her friend Lucy Gray, surely. And not me. From what you are telling me, it seems Ellen enjoyed an idyllic girlhood. And her home and family life certainly present a good impression. Was this the whole story, Mrs. Swenson?”

  “I feared it would come to this. You want me to dig up some dirt on Ellen or her husband, just like the rest of the media.”

  “You’re a gardener, Mrs. Swenson. You know you can’t cultivate anything without getting your hands dirty. The result itself doesn’t have to be filth, however. It might be something quite beautiful, in fact—like the truth.”

  “That’s very prettily put. Your talents are wasted in a tabloid. But where will your pretty words lead me, and Erik, too?”

  “I hope they will take us to Ellen.”

  Olga Swenson shivered. She turned and began to walk to the far side of the topiary garden, making no objection as Liz stayed by her side. She remained mum as the pair passed masses of rhododendrons, their leaves curled as tightly as profiteroles against the cold. Liz imagined the mother and daughter laden with picnic basket and picture book, rejoicing in the flowers that would bloom here each June. Was the scenario too good to be true?

  With footfalls softened by the snow, only the sound of the dog’s panting disturbed the peace as the women followed the wooded lakeshore. When Ellen’s mother picked up her pace, Liz was grateful, for the increased speed helped warm her. A quarter of an hour passed in this manner before Liz sensed the silence had become a companionable one. Then the older woman struck away from the shoreline up a small rise to the basement door of a stone and wood-shingled house. Nodding an invitation to Liz, she stepped inside to wipe Hershey down with an old towel.

  “Would you mind waiting in the mudroom?” she asked, and disappeared up a stairway before Liz could reply.

  There was nowhere to sit, so Liz stood as she surveyed the large workspace. While the New Englanders of her acquaintance tended to term an unheated porch or perhaps a vestibule “the mudroom,” this one existed on a much grander scale. It contained a large potting bench stocked underneath with bags of potting soil, vermiculite, sand, and peat moss. Another potting bench stood nearby, apparently used for flower arranging. Beside it were shelves packed with unusual vases. On the floor nearby, even in the dead of winter, stood a half-dozen French florist containers made of dust-colored aluminum, holding cut flowers fading on their stems. It seemed likely they wer
e purchased before—and had not been touched since—Ellen’s disappearance.

  “Coast clear,” Olga Swenson said from the top of the stairs. “I wanted to be sure Erik had not returned with Veronica yet. Thank you for waiting. Come on upstairs and warm yourself.”

  Following her hostess’ lead, Liz removed her boots and padded, in her stocking feet, up the steps. Mrs. Swenson looked on approvingly and pulled a pair of terrycloth slippers from behind her back, offering them to Liz when she reached the landing.

  It was the sort of house in which one “retired” to a sitting room where a fire was laid ready to blaze at the flick of a match. The matches were some ten inches long, and they were kept in a brass match holder permanently attached to the stone fireplace. Kindling and extra logs stood end-up in brass containers, too. These objects spoke more of comfort than money. While a professional no doubt laid the fires and cleaned the room, the brass wore the patina of age and usefulness. “Not a bad goal for any one of us to aspire to,” Liz reflected.

  “My husband always prided himself on laying the perfect fire,” Olga Swenson said. “He’d never have been able to admit our housekeeper can do as well.”

  “Where is your husband now?”

  “He may be safely spoken of in the past tense. He drowned in the lake twenty-six years ago. It was the beginning of the end.”

  “Oh, how awful! How old would Ellen have been at the time?”

  “She was just eight years old.

  “The same age as Veronica is this year.”

  “Of course I’m haunted by that coincidence. I can’t bear the thought of Veronica suffering as my Ellen did. That’s why I’ve decided to talk with you. In confidence. I beg you, in confidence.”

  Liz nodded.

  “You’re an unusual woman,” Mrs. Swenson said.

  “How is that?”

  “You don’t ask the obvious. Yet I feel drawn to answer your unvoiced questions.”

  Liz held her peace.

  The widowed woman crossed the room to a sideboard.

  “Madeira?” she asked. “Or, have you got beyond that?”

  It sounded like a line in a drawing room comedy. But the seriousness of Olga Swenson’s expression erased that impression immediately.

  “Madeira sounds lovely.”

  “Yes, the word is melodious. But you’re thinking, ‘The drink may loosen her tongue.’”

  Liz only smiled and took the small glass from her hostess’ hand.

  “I thought I’d go to my grave with the information I’m about to share with you.”

  “Now you won’t do that alone. I will take it to my grave, too.”

  Mrs. Swenson considered her glass. Then she set the drink down, untasted, on the table beside her chair.

  “My husband’s drowning was ruled accidental, and it may have been. But that does not mean it was not complicated.”

  Liz resisted the urge to lean forward.

  “It so often seems to me the English language lacks the capacity for shades of meaning that you find, for instance, in French. No, I’m not going to break into another language. Don’t worry. English suffices to describe Karl’s state on the day he died. He was beside himself. Pure and simple. Beside himself.”

  “May I assume that was unusual for him?”

  “Not entirely. I’d seen him that way when Ellen was born. When the night-blooming cerius came into flower. When our whippet died after lapping up antifreeze in the garage. When Ellen shot her first skeet into smithereens. At times of great emotion.”

  “What caused him to be beside himself that day?”

  “It was Ellen. He had to know it wasn’t her fault. She was only eight years old. I kept telling him, she’s only eight years old!” Olga Swenson said. “But he was so sure she’d sought to tease. Ellen was an early bloomer. Some girls are these days, you know? But within her generation she was very early. She was at that stage my generation reached at around thirteen years old. You know, more than prepubescent.”

  “If she caught the eye of some man, she would not have been the first to do that at a younger than expected age. Why was your husband so distraught?”

  “Karl came upon them in the Pinetum. Under a weeping cypress.”

  “He came upon whom?”

  “Ellen and Al, one of the young men from across the way.”

  “‘Across the way?’”

  “The school for delinquents, near the property where the Massachusetts Horticultural Society is headquartered now.”

  “Ellen and this young man were under a tree together?”

  “No. Karl was under the tree. He was spying on them.”

  “They were not aware of your husband’s presence?”

  “Not at first. I had the impression Karl caught the boy ogling Ellen. When she heard Karl and Al arguing, she ran and got me. That’s how I know how she was dressed. She’d been running along the shore, like a little bird. She seemed to have no idea of the nature of the argument. I calmed her down, helped her change her clothes, and sent her off to her skeet-shooting lesson before I went over to the Pinetum. By then, Karl had his hands around the young man’s neck. If I hadn’t been there, he’d have killed the fellow, I have no doubt.”

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you. . .”

  “No, you aren’t. Not really. You hope it will solve the case, make your career, if you know what they were up to. Well, if you keep your promise, it won’t do the latter, since you will never put this in print.” Olga Swenson took a swig from her glass at last. Then she continued speaking. “From when she was much younger, Ellen liked to imagine she could fly. She’d run among the trees in the Pinetum, arms out, trailing some of my scarves. She called it ‘flitting and flying.’ Well, on this occasion, it was swelteringly hot, so she took off her blouse and ran around in her little undershirt. The effect was—just too stimulating.”

  She rose from her chair and added a log to the fire.

  “Karl was disgusted with Al, and not just because, as he put it, ‘the bastard got off on watching.’ He was furious at Al’s reticence. The young man was tongue-tied. I don’t know whether it was from shock and embarrassment at being caught with his pants down, as it were, or because he was learning disabled, or both. Anyway, he kept humming tunelessly and mumbling something like ‘Rah, rah shock. Rah, rah shock,’ like a cheerleader gone crazy.

  “It absolutely infuriated Karl, I can tell you.

  “Anyway, I urged—I insisted—that Karl get out in the kayak to cool down. I was afraid he’d be arrested. He wouldn’t have taken my advice, except Al’s absence had been noticed at the school and a teacher came looking for him. My husband didn’t bother with the kayak. He stripped off his polo shirt and jumped straight into the lake while I explained to the teacher that there had been an unfortunate misunderstanding. The school was on its last legs financially then, so the administration wasn’t looking for any bad publicity. The boy was transferred to another school. Nothing about the boy ever made the press.”

  “Even though there was a drowning?”

  “That happened six months later. And it was ruled accidental. After a deep freeze, Karl walked out on the ice. But he misjudged the ice’s thickness. We were all devastated, of course.”

  “You said the summertime incident was the beginning of the end. Do you feel it was related in some way to the drowning?”

  “Did I? Then I misspoke. What I mean is that was the first shattering incident in a terrible year.”

  “If it was so neatly stored away, why are you opening the door on this skeleton in the closet now?”

  “Because every year, on the anniversary of his death, I receive a strange phone call. Every year except this one, that is.”

  “The calls seemed connected with the incident?”

  “Let’s just say, they brought the incident to mind.”

  “How come?”

  “The caller hummed tunelessly, just like that boy Al did. But they were just phone calls, nothing more. No letters, no other con
tact. I tried to put them out of my mind. But now that my daughter’s disappeared, I wonder if the caller found her this time. Could the caller have abducted her? Was it that boy, all grown up now?”

  “Do you remember the boy’s last name?”

  “It was Leigh.”

  “How would you spell that?”

  “I always assumed it was ‘L-E-I-G-H’. He was foreign but not Chinese. But I thought you weren’t going to put this in the paper.”

  “I’ll keep my word. What about his age at the time?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Do you know if Al had any prior record of violent behavior or run-ins with the law?”

  “He had struck out at his mother. She used the incident to get him some special education in that disciplined school environment, but she did not press charges against her son. Karl looked into it. If he had anything else in his record, I’m sure my husband would have moved heaven and earth to have the boy put away for life.”

  “How certain are you that Ellen was unaware of the sexual nature of the incident? Do you think if Al confronted her recently, he might have stirred up memories that would have caused her to strike out at him?”

  “I hope she has no memory of it. Frankly, I think it’s more likely she’d strike out at a perfect stranger who surprised her in her kitchen.” Ellen’s mother gazed out the window. “It’s getting dark. Are you parked at the faculty club? Perhaps I should drive you around to it.”

  “That’s all right. I think there’s enough light for me to make the walk. I could use the time to digest what you’ve told me.”

  “That’s good. Then I won’t have to leave the house while the fire is still burning. And I’ll be here when Veronica returns.”

  The two women walked downstairs to the mudroom, where Liz handed her hostess the pair of slippers and donned her boots and coat. As she stepped out into the snow, she turned and said, “I am assuming your demand that I do not print what you have told me does not extend to any information it might lead to.”