The House on Seventh Street

by Karen Vorbeck Williams

  She went to the bathroom and while washing her hands at the sink, she took a look at herself in the mirror. Pleased with what she saw, she realized that, except for the seventies when she’d worn her hair long, she really hadn’t changed her basic short style since high school. Now the hair was streaked with silver and waved gently around her face. Her skin was plump and healthy looking without obvious wrinkles. Her large dark eyes stared back at her and she smiled at herself. She was still a pretty woman and her lover was waiting for her in the living room.

  On her way back to John, she looked again at the little box on his dresser. It was carved rather crudely as if handmade. She wondered if John had made it. Curious, wondering what kinds of things John kept there, she picked it up. Did he save buttons while they waited to be sewn back on and safety pins? Opening the hinged lid, she saw a collection of old coins and keys and there on top, as if it had been waiting forty-three years for her, was her emerald ring. The ring her grandmother had bought her when she was fifteen. The ring she had lost and had mourned. Her heart beating fast, she picked it up. Tears came as the dark emerald caught the rays of the setting sun.

  “Hey, Winna, what’s taking so long?” John called from the living room.

  Quickly, she put the ring back and closed the box. Why was her ring in this box? Had she somehow dropped it in his car way back then? Had he stolen it from the kitchen or the bathroom counter in her old house? Even as a girl, she never took her rings off except when she did the dishes or was going to clean them.

  “I’m coming,” she called. Her whole body burning, she decided not to confront John then. Frightened, she wanted to get away.

  Hoping she seemed like her normal self, Winna returned to the living room. “I’m sorry, John, but I’m just not feeling well. I must go home. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  “A lot of stomach upset. Maybe I’m not as well as I thought—or maybe it was the way you fry trout.” She had to make a joke.

  He didn’t laugh, but stood up, his expression troubled. Winna called her dogs and grabbed her handbag. He reached for her and she pulled away.

  “I may have a bug of some kind and believe me, you don’t want it,” she said, heading for the door.

  John stood in the doorway frowning, watching her go. He looked worried, or was it anger? The dogs jumped into the back seat. Winna hopped inside, turned the key in the ignition, and backed out of the driveway to the dirt road.

  THE CHURCH HAD been there since before she was born, but Winna had never been inside. Shafts of colored light from the windows lit the nave. She had not slept well and after breakfast, hoping to clear her head, had gone for a walk. Passing through a little park, she found the church, tried the door, and found that it was open. She moved to the front of the nave and knelt in the shadows near the altar rail.

  Why had John kept her ring all this time? She must have told him that she lost it. She remembered looking everywhere, crying because she couldn’t find it, hiding her hand from her grandmother until she went away to college.

  She’d spent the last night drifting in and out of sleep with John holding her in her dreams—a stranger with a body she knew like her own. When she awoke before sunrise, she got up and sat in the parlor with the dogs. Their warm silky bodies comforted her, their brown eyes gazing openly, honestly. No human being, except for Isabelle, had ever looked at her like that. She made coffee and relived her horrible discovery. What did it mean? Why did it terrify her? She shivered, wondering whom, besides Emily, she could really trust. Then she remembered Dougherty’s warning.

  Winna sat in silence in the comforting shadows of the nave, her questions holding her for a long time. Kneeling, her hands fell on the back of the pew and she bowed her head. Feeling utterly alone, she waited, taking in the quiet, calming her mind so that she could think. She had already tried to make sense of everything: the break-ins, the accidents, the poison, and now the discovery of her ring. Nothing seemed connected. This isn’t helping, she thought. She took a deep breath and let it go. It’s too big for me. In the calm that followed, she knew there was one other person she had to trust.

  The sound of the church door opening, followed by footsteps on the terra cotta tiles, informed her that she was no longer alone. She crossed herself and stood to go. As she turned toward the door, she saw Seth slide into a pew and bury his head in his hands. She hoped he hadn’t recognized her and left quietly by the side door.

  MORNING DAWNED COOL, almost like a fall morning in New Hampshire, with bright sunshine and a cloudless sky. The day after she had called her friend, Winna drove out to Kate’s. She’d been invited to go riding. They saddled up and rode north toward the Book Cliffs hoping to visit some of their old haunts. Kate rode like she was part of the horse. Winna tried to remember how to sit in a saddle. She had not been on a horse in years.

  “You’re going to be sore,” Kate warned as they rode side by side.

  “I know.” Winna grinned at her friend, tipping her hat as they approached a field of ripening cantaloupes.

  “Remember? We used to steal these,” Kate said, gesturing toward rows of thirsty vines.

  “Nothing like a stolen melon ripe and warm from the field,” Winna said. “Where are you taking me?”

  “The ghost ranch is really old now—everything has leaned or fallen. You have to see it. We’ll have lunch there.”

  “I can’t thank you enough—Kate—I—” Suddenly, Winna could not go on without tears. “I’m sorry, but I’m—”

  Kate looked concerned. “What’s wrong, Winna? Nothing new, I hope.”

  “I’m just happy to be here with you,” she said, regaining her composure.

  Kate looked at her friend and smiled. “Same here, honey.”

  They rode on in silence, stopping now and then for Winna to take pictures of the barren landscape: a dry stream bed’s baked mud curls, golden tufts of grass against blue sage, and her friend smiling at her under a Stetson. Finding the mare’s spotted rump especially photogenic, she slowed and rode behind Kate’s Appaloosa.

  The remains of the old corral still stood beside the skeleton of a tree and a dried-up well circled in rocks. The farmhouse, battered by prevailing winds, listed toward the cliffs, its porch rails cracked and broken. At noon, the scene was an abstraction in sunlight and black shadows. Winna swung down off her horse and headed for the house.

  “Don’t try to go in there,” Kate called.

  Winna waved her off and poked her head through a broken window. The house looked familiar except that the walls now leaned in divergent angles and the pine board floors looked perfect for a fun house. Winna caught her breath as a stunning image came into view. She looked at the placement of the sun in the sky and called to her friend.

  “After lunch I’ll need some time and my tripod.”

  Finding shade against the rear of the house, Winna helped with the picnic things. They ate the lunch Kate had packed and drank chilled water. Kate shared her news: her daughter wanted her to babysit and Kate would be in Denver for a couple of weeks. Briefly, they fell into silence.

  “Something’s wrong, Winna. Are you going to tell me?”

  Kate had opened the faucet and Winna’s story poured out. Her words came in a flood filled with attendant emotions. She ended with a question. “What’s going on? Is John behind all this?”

  “Winna, I’m breaking a confidence by telling you this—but John is in financial trouble.”

  Winna’s heart sank, but she said nothing.

  “Thanks to Jim, the company is okay, but John’s personal finances are a shambles. As to his obsession with you, that’s old news. When he lost you, I guess he couldn’t part with the ring—still can’t.”

  “Why are his finances in trouble? Is he gambling?”

  Kate looked at her blankly. “I really don’t know. Jim won’t tell me much, just that he’s worried about him—says John’s thinking about selling his house.”

&nbs
p; “He must be in some kind of trouble. Maybe that’s why he’s asked me to marry him. I’m rather wealthy now, but what does John gain by helping me to my death? I just don’t buy it.”

  Kate gave her friend a questioning look. “Maybe somewhere mixed up with his obsession is rage—maybe he wants revenge because you broke his heart.”

  Winna shook her head. “That was so long ago—unless he’s insane. So you think he would try to poison me?”

  Kate shook her head. “No—I can’t think that of him.”

  “It seems to me that if I were plotting this crime, I’d marry the wealthy divorcée, then, once the sex gets boring, arrange an accident.”

  Kate laughed. “If you keep seeing him, you are nuts.”

  Feeling a bit more enlightened, though heartbroken and astonished, she sat with Kate in the shade for an hour talking about her decision to keep both houses, her connections in the East, and how she wanted to spend more time with her daughter and grandchild. Kate was pleased to know she’d have her friend close by.

  Winna went to collect her tripod. “I promise—it won’t take me more than half an hour to get the picture I want.”

  Returning to the window, she changed lenses and shot, capturing abstract angles in the foreground, on through an open door to an adjoining room and an old rocking chair backlit by the radiant light of a window. As she worked, the tears gathered and she tried to laugh off the thought that the lonely rocking chair could possibly stand as the symbol of her loveless future.

  39

  CHLOE WAITED IN her garden, a picture of loveliness lounging on the garden bench in the shade with a wild display of black-eyed Susans at her feet. She waved when Winna drove up and walked briskly toward her sister’s new car—a bright blue Dodge Durango.

  Emily popped out of the passenger seat. “Aunt Chloe, you sit up front with Mom,” she called, jumping into the back seat with the dogs.

  Chloe gave the car a quick look. “You finally broke down and bought a new car—it’s kinda inelegant and rugged for an old lady though.”

  Winna smiled in recognition of the truth. “If I’m going to compete with Ansel Adams and William Henry Jackson, I’d better be able to get around off road.”

  “They probably rode mules,” Chloe said, fastening her seat belt.

  Winna had arranged to meet Lloyd Collins at the entrance to Unaweep Canyon. He was the man who had found her father’s body. She had invited Emily and Chloe to come along. Both had said that they wanted to see the place where Henry Grumman had died. Cutting through the desert landscape, she drove south out of town toward Whitewater.

  Emily leaned close. “Aunt Chloe, I finally got to meet Todd at the hospital. How’s married life?”

  “Things are going well. Todd’s my favorite husband, so far.”

  “He’s really good looking. When did you meet him?”

  “The year before Dad died. It was love at first sight for both of us. Juno says we knew each other in a past life.”

  “Cool,” Emily said. “I’ve always wondered about that kind of thing. Back there—in the other life—was he a man and you a woman or vice versa?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, we could have been two butterflies. My sense of it is that he was man and I was woman.”

  “I agree,” Winna said. “You are both so overwhelmingly male and female that I’m sure a few centuries couldn’t change that.”

  “When am I going to spend some time with this overwhelmingly manly man?”

  “Soon, Emily, soon. I should cook dinner for all of us—or something—I’ve been painting like a mad woman. Speaking of mad women—Winna, when are you going to give me a key to the house? You changed the locks—again.”

  “Yep, I did and I’m not giving out any keys until we know who was breaking in.”

  “So you suspect me?” Chloe sounded offended.

  “No. I’m just following advice.”

  “Whose?”

  “The police.”

  “Don’t worry, Chloe, she hasn’t given me a key either,” Emily lied.

  Whitewater and the mouth of Unaweep Canyon were only fifteen miles south of Grand Junction. Anxious about her sister’s feelings—she supposed Chloe was sulking—Winna looked at her watch. They would be on time. She turned right onto State Road 141.

  “We’re looking for a signpost for 31 4/10 Road. Keep an eye out for Collins. He’ll be on the left.”

  After about a mile, they saw a brown Range Rover waiting for them in the turnoff to a dirt road. Winna pulled up beside him and rolled down her window.

  “Hello,” she called to the young man she assumed was Lloyd Collins.

  “Do you want to ride with me or follow?” he asked.

  “I’ll follow.”

  He backed out and turned left on 141, the road that ran through the canyon’s green fields where cattle and horses grazed, farmsteads and fences, a rancher’s paradise with blue mountain vistas. As they moved south, the canyon walls changed from gray Precambrian rock to sandstone cliffs and mesas. The earth turned red, and green groves of cottonwoods gathered along the streambed.

  Winna saw Collins’s brake lights go on as he slowed and turned left onto a dirt road. Dust from the Rover poured over Winna’s SUV. They put up the windows as the road grew steep and rocky. Winna slowed down and shifted into four-wheel drive.

  “Hold on, this is steep!” Winna called out to her passengers as the road narrowed, forcing her to drive very near the edge of a deep ravine. For what seemed a very long time, they bumped along the rutted road wondering if this had been a good idea.

  Lloyd Collins’s Range Rover stopped. Winna pulled up behind him on the road high above a dry streambed. The women got out of the car in silence and walked to greet their guide.

  Following handshakes, he said, “We’re on the road where the car was found.”

  “Right here,” Chloe said.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t here when they found it, but if you look way down there to that streambed, you’ll see where we’re going. I was hiking down there.”

  Winna looked at the winding road. “I don’t know why he took this road. When he drove me here, the road he took was in much better condition. I’m surprised that Dad was able to get his car up here—it’s really steep and rough.”

  “He had to push it hard to make it this far,” Collins said. “That’s probably why the engine blew and the car caught on fire.”

  “What on earth was he thinking?” Emily said.

  Chloe knew the answer. “He knew it was time to die and came up here to be in nature.”

  “Like an old Indian wandering off alone?” Emily looked skeptical.

  “Yes. Those really connected with nature—”

  Emily interrupted. “Why didn’t he just sit here and wait for death to come instead of falling off the cliff?”

  Winna was not in the mood for an argument. “We can’t know the answers to these questions and never will. So let’s not speculate.”

  Collins asked if they would like to go down to the place where he found Henry Grumman’s body. They returned to the cars and continued up before the road turned on itself and went downhill.

  After descending for a while through the canyon where the streambed ran, the Range Rover came to a stop and the driver’s door swung open. Feeling queasy, Winna pulled up behind and they all got out.

  “Follow me,” Collins said as he prepared to walk down a slope to the streambed. “Does anyone need a hand?”

  “Thanks,” Winna said as she took his arm.

  Emily, in hiking boots, and Chloe, in flip-flops, scrambled down on their own. He led them across the streambed toward a rock slide.

  “He was there,” he said, pointing. Coming closer to a large boulder that had fallen and diverted the stream, he stopped. “Behind there.”

  “How on earth did you see him?” Winna asked.

  “Just luck—how much detail do you want?” Collins looked uncomfortable.

  “I don’t want any deta
il,” Chloe snapped. “This doesn’t look right. It’s not what Daddy—what he—” She backed off, sobbing, and headed back up to the car.

  “Excuse my aunt,” Emily said to their guide. “She’s not upset with you, Lloyd. How are you doing, Mom?”

  “I’m okay,” Winna said, looking at Collins. “I do want details. Please tell me.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, looking concerned.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I was walking upstream with my dog. He found the body and brought out a bone.”

  “My God, that must have been terrible for you—finding him,” Winna said. “It’s why I didn’t search. It’s like my nightmare, Emily,” she said, moving into her daughter’s arms.

  Collins looked down at his boots. “It’s something I can’t forget. I’m happy I was able to put an end to your search. It was in the papers so I guessed who he was,” he said, his voice wavering.

  Winna took his hand. “Thank you, Lloyd. Now, will you two give me just a few moments here alone?”

  Collins and Emily withdrew and headed back to the cars. Winna sat down on a nearby stone. “Dad—Daddy, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t think you even noticed, but I neglected you.” She looked around and, seeing some weathered wood, picked it up. She found tufts of tall grass growing near the streambed and, with that, lashed two small pieces of wood together to make a cross. Placing the cross inside the enclosure where her father’s body had lain, Winna prayed for the deliverance of his soul.

  40

  WINNA THOUGHT BACK to the morning after she had found the ring. John had called to check on her health. Trying to sound normal, truthful, she had said that she was ill. When he asked for details, she led him to believe that she had tried to go out too soon after her release from the hospital. He offered to come for a visit and she had panicked.