The Girl at the End of the Line

by Charles Mathes

  “Thank you, Henry,” said Dora. “We’ll see.”

  The library was on the other side of the living room and almost as big. A fireplace occupied one wall, the other three were lined with brass grilled bookcases full of leather bound volumes, hundreds of them. “Bindings,” as such books were called in the trade, were cheap enough to be sold by the yard to decorators. These, however, looked to Molly like actual first editions.

  Coffee and an assortment of pies, cakes, and chocolates were set up and waiting for them when they arrived, along with the surly Mrs. McCormick. They served themselves and found places in comfortable old (as in English Regency) library furniture. Dora situated herself between Molly and Nell on a leatherbound sofa.

  “I’m so happy our girls have come home,” she said, giving them each a gentle pat on the knee.

  “Good pie,” said Russell, shoveling a piece into his face. “I’m surely going to miss all this when I get back to Washington and resume my bachelor ways. Fund-raising dinners always leave you feeling wanting. You should come down and visit me sometime, George. Two single men, out on the town—we could have a hell of a good time.”

  “I’ll think about that, Russell,” said George in a voice that indicated that he wouldn’t.

  “How long do you and your sister plan to be in the area?” asked Henry Troutwig in his flat New England dialect, looking down his huge nose at Molly like some kind of gigantic owl.

  “We’re really just passing through.”

  “Wouldn’t you consider staying for a while?” asked Dora. “You said at dinner that you didn’t have any immediate plans. It’s going to be terribly lonely here again when Russell leaves.”

  “No, we couldn’t possibly.”

  “I know you’re polite girls and don’t want to impose,” Dora went on in an intense, earnest voice, “but at my age I’m allowed to be selfish and ask for what I want. I really wish you both would stay here at Gale Castle with me awhile. Please, my dear?”

  “Well we’d like to, of course, but …”

  “Then it’s settled, and I won’t hear another word. You can have your own room in the west wing. You’ll have all the privacy you could want and there’s plenty to do—gardening, there’s the badminton net and the pool in back. We can even surf the Internet on the new computer that Russell bought me. You’re determined to make me into a techno-babe, aren’t you, Russell?”

  “Aw, Mama,” said Russell, his bald head blushing beet red.

  “Mrs. McCormick, will you be kind enough to have Ruby make up one of the big rooms in the west wing before she leaves for the evening?”

  “Can’t I at least finish my damn piece of pie?” said McCormick, her fork in midair.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” said Dora, raising a hand to her mouth. “Of course finish your pie. Where are my manners?”

  “Very neatly done,” said Henry Troutwig to Molly in a voice as dry as dust.

  “Excuse me?” said Molly.

  “The way you’ve already insinuated your way into the family. A few hours ago nobody even knew you existed. Now you’ve arranged for a bedroom.”

  “Henry, please,” said Dora, her kind round face registering dismay. “Molly and Nell are my family. They are my guests.”

  “I’m sorry, Dora, but this is all just a little too pat for me. These two showing up from nowhere like this. Now, when you’re most vulnerable. And when the payoff is the largest.”

  “See, I told you so,” said Russell to George. “We saw their credentials, Henry. Everything looked pretty good.”

  “Not good enough for me,” said the attorney. “I intend to put my investigator, Mr. Puttridge, on the case by the morning. We’ll see what he has to say.”

  “Henry, I forbid you to make trouble for these girls.”

  “Please, Mrs. Gale,” said Molly. “Please don’t get upset again. There’s nothing anyone will find about us but the truth.”

  “Thank you, Molly,” said Dora, reaching over and taking Molly’s hand, a pained smile returning to her face. “I appreciate your concern. But I won’t have you embarrassed in my home. And let’s not have any more of this ‘Mrs. Gale’ business. I’m just plain Dora.”

  “Even if they are who they say they are, Dora,” said Troutwig, making a sniffing sound, “remember the kind of people they’re coming from. It was no secret that Atherton’s daughter Margaret was a tramp and a common thief.”

  “That’s not true,” said Molly, rising from her seat.

  “She stole a valuable ring from her mother so she could run off with some nobody. I’ve heard the story from a dozen people who knew Atherton well.”

  “Well, I have news for you, Henry Troutwig,” said Dora, before Molly could respond. “Felicity Gale was my best friend and she told me the whole story of that ring the year before she died. Felicity gave it to Margaret along with her blessing. When Atherton and I started seeing each other after Felicity’s death, he told me that Felicity had lied about Margaret, about him, about a lot of things. I believed Atherton, but it wasn’t long before I learned who the real liar was. If I had trusted Felicity I could have saved myself many years of unhappiness.”

  “Well, I only know what I’ve heard,” declared Troutwig. “And until it’s proven to the contrary, I will continue to believe what everyone else believes: that Margaret stole her own mother’s ring and sold it to support her selfish ways.”

  “Then this must be the proof you’re looking for,” said Molly.

  Everyone in the room turned to look at Molly. She took the chain from around her neck and held it out. The dangling emerald caught the light of the fireplace and sparkled with an eerie green glow.

  “My grandmother didn’t sell this ring because she didn’t steal it. It was a gift from her mother, just as Dora said.”

  No one spoke. For a moment Molly didn’t know what to do next. Then suddenly everything became clear.

  “This ring has caused so much grief for so many people over the years,” Molly went on, breaking the silence. “I think our grandmother would want some good to come from it. You’re involved with a lot of charities, Dora. Would you help us arrange to donate it to a worthy cause? That is, if it’s okay with you, Nell.”

  Everyone turned to look at Nell, who surprised everyone by breaking into a big smile and nodding her head vigorously.

  “Thank you, girls,” said Dora, taking the proffered ring, her pale old eyes again moist with tears. “I think that Felicity would be very proud of you. I know I am.”

  “Game, set, and match,” said McCormick, rising to her feet. “Guess I’ll go have that room made up.”

  Henry Troutwig stiffened and made a noise that sounded like “harrumph.”

  “Well, I really must be running along,” he declared. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, Dora, as always. George, a pleasure. Russell, I’ll probably see you again before you leave. I enjoyed meeting you and your sister, Miss O’Hara. I’m sure we’ll have occasion to speak again.”

  “So long, Troutwig, been good to know you,” said Mrs. McCormick heading back to the kitchen.

  Troutwig scratched his cheek.

  “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Dora my dear, but you know that I have an obligation to look out for your interests. I’m also very fond of you as a person and I don’t wish to see you hurt again after all you’ve just gone through.”

  “I appreciate that, Henry,” said Dora, primly. “I won’t stay mad at you for long, but I will not have you coming between me and my family.”

  “Very well, then. Good night.”

  “Good night, Henry.”

  The lawyer turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

  “Thanks,” said Molly in a soft voice. She wasn’t used to having anyone stick up for her.

  “Oh, Henry’s harmless,” said Dora. “Everybody’s been so very protective of me lately. You see, Molly, a terrible thing happened here last month. I haven’t been exactly sure how to tell you this, but …”

 
“We already know. George and Russell told us all about it.”

  “About the reunion? About the terrible plane crash?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry, my dears,” said Dora, reaching out and taking Molly’s and Nell’s hands. “I’m just a Gale by marriage. After hearing about how alone in the world you’ve been, I understand what it must have meant to you to find your way here to Gale Island. Now the rest of your family is gone before you ever got a chance to meet them.”

  “We still have you.” said Molly. “And George and Russell.”

  Dora gave her hand a little squeeze.

  “Thank you, Molly. That means a lot to me. Russell, say thank you to your cousin.”

  “Aw, Mama,” said Bowslater. “I’m eating my pie.”

  “Our grandniece,” said George, correcting Dora. “We’re all happy to have you here, Molly.”

  “Thanks,” whispered Molly.

  The library’s magnificent old tall case clock chimed ten times. Molly found herself yawning. She was suddenly immensely tired, and no wonder. Only yesterday they had been on another continent. What they learned over the past few hours had placed them in a different world.

  “George, please hand me that photo album from our reunion,” said Dora. “It’s right there on the bottom shelf of the cabinet next to you.”

  “Are you sure you want to, Mother?”

  “They’re just pictures, George, and I know Molly and Nell would like to see them. I wish everyone would please stop treating me like I am made of glass. I am a resilient person and an adult.”

  George brought over a large photo album bound in red leather. Dora opened it on her lap and began flipping through the pages. There, in four-by-six color photographs, were the Gales, laughing with one another, eating outdoors, posing with Dora, Russell, and George.

  As Dora turned the pages she named each relative and said a little something about him or her, always nice. Beverly Gale, Grant’s daughter, had the most beautiful clothes. Little eight-year-old Winston Gale had just won a prize for his clarinet playing. Melville’s grandson, Louis, was a doctor.

  George and Russell came over behind the couch, adding their often humorous perceptions. Lolly Gale had had so many face-lifts that she looked like a snare drum. Alesandro Gale and his wife Marta had come in from Buenos Aires but all they wanted to talk about was their new Mercedes. Louise Gale Sockelberry wanted to know if everyone liked her knobs.

  Nell looked and listened and nodded like she was having the best time in the world. Molly smiled and tried not to yawn too obviously. She wasn’t ready to go to bed yet. Despite the deaths of the Gales and her fears about what had happened in Pelletreau, it was easy to be with these people, it was as if she had known them forever. Molly felt full and happy, like she and Nell really were part of a family for the first time.

  When they finished one album, Dora brought out another and kept turning the pages until Molly found herself looking at the last photograph. Unlike most of the others, this one had only one person in it.

  “And here is your cousin James, Barnaby’s son,” said Dora sweetly. “He’s never been very sociable and wasn’t too keen on having his picture taken with the group.”

  “Where was Jimmy tonight, anyway?” asked Russell. “I thought he was supposed to come for dinner.”

  “I called him on the telephone twice this afternoon to remind him,” said Dora, “but there was no answer. Lord knows what that boy gets up to.”

  Molly stared at the photograph. All the cozy warm feelings she had been reveling in vanished. Molly suddenly felt cold and frightened, yet strangely unsurprised. From the minute she learned about the Gale trust and Atherton’s will, she had expected something like this, but hoped against hope that it wouldn’t be true. At last everything was beginning to fit together, however. At last the puzzle was beginning to make sense.

  The man in the photograph had a glass of iced tea in his hand and an annoyed expression on his face. Jimmy Gale also had rust-colored hair and a bushy mustache.

  Thirteen

  Molly was being attacked by giant bumblebees. They cascaded from the sky like black-and-yellow dive bombers. She ducked as one missed her head by inches, buzzing angrily. Buzzzzzbuzzzzzz. Buzzzzbuzzzzz. She awoke with a start.

  She was lying in an impossibly comfortable bed in a strange room. Nell was asleep in a bed that was the twin of Molly’s. Light poured through a lacy curtain and made elegant patterns on the pale yellow wallpaper.

  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz, droned the sound again.

  For a moment Molly thought the bumblebees of her dream had pursued her here, but then she noticed an intercom next to the room’s polished rosewood door. The buzz was coming from there.

  Suddenly it all came back. The Gales. Dinner. The photograph of the man with the red hair and mustache—their cousin, Jimmy Gale.

  After Molly and Nell had finished looking through the albums from the ill-fated family reunion, Dora had brought them to this lovely room with its own adjoining bath, its own telephone line, and its own John Singer Sargent watercolor. They had crawled into bed without further ado. There was no point trying to decide what to do next until they had gotten a good night’s sleep.

  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  Molly pulled herself out of the bed and scurried over to the intercom in her bare feet, shivering. The room’s wide-plank floor was uncovered save for a small Turkish rug, and she was wearing one of the skimpy white cotton nightgowns that she had bought at the mall in Pelletreau with Oscar just a few days ago. Despite its still being the dead of summer, the morning here was cold enough for flannel.

  “Hello?” Molly said, picking up the handset.

  “Someone here to see you,” snapped a curt voice that Molly recognized as that of Mrs. McCormick.

  “To see us?” Molly asked. Who knew they were even on Gale Island?

  “It’s the law,” said McCormick, answering the unspoken question. “The New Melford sheriff. Gale Island comes under his jurisdiction.”

  “We’ll be down in a few minutes,” said Molly, amazed. The police were the first people she had intended to call this morning. The New Melford sheriff must be some kind of a mind reader.

  “Take your time,” rasped McCormick. “I’ll fix him a waffle. Can’t hurt to make friends with the cops is my motto. Never know when you might get busted.”

  Molly hung up the receiver and walked back to the beds. Nell had pulled a pillow over her head to block out the noise and light. According to the gilt brass mantle clock over the room’s dormant fireplace and Molly’s new silver wristwatch it was nine thirty-five.

  “Come on,” said Molly, giving her sister a push. “We’ve got to get dressed.”

  It took a few more pushes, but finally Nell emerged from beneath her pillow. It was another ten minutes before they had brushed their teeth, washed their faces and rummaged through their suitcases for something unwrinkled to wear. The law would have to settle for T-shirts and blue jeans.

  They emerged from their room into a long, deserted hallway, filled with old master portraits, Brussels tapestries (she could tell from the monogrammed Bs stitched into their bottom selvages) and suits of armor.

  Molly had been too tired last night to appreciate fully the pains to which Atherton Gale had gone in creating his castle, but marveled now at the exquisite details that were everywhere—Renaissance bronzes of sea monsters and horses, intricately carved Flemish coffers, repoussé silver candle sconces. The whole place was like a museum. And it was huge.

  The wing in which their room was located was to the west of the great central mahogany staircase. Dora’s room and the others were on the other side in an even longer hallway. You could probably hold a rodeo on either side and not disturb the people on the other.

  Molly and Nell descended the stairs together and made for the dining room where they had eaten last night. No one was there, but the aroma of frying bacon was coming from beyond the rear doorway.

  Molly led her sis
ter through the door into a dark passage lined with china cabinets that rose to the high ceiling. This opened into a huge, light-filled kitchen as cozy as the rest of the house was ornate and formal. Big old-fashioned ovens dominated one wall, long metal sinks another. The floor was checkered with black-and-white tiles. A rear door led out to a drive alongside a wall of conifers that circled the castle.

  A man in a Smokey Bear hat and tan shirt with a gold badge over his breast pocket sat at a long rustic pine table by the windows. With one hand he sopped up maple syrup with a forkful of waffle. With the other he held a piece of bacon and nibbled blissfully.

  “You two want breakfast?” she barked, seeing Molly and Nell. “This is Prin’s day off, so you’ll have to trust me not to poison you.”

  Nell nodded enthusiastically and plopped herself down at the table across from the man.

  “Where’s Mrs. Gale?” Molly asked, sitting uncertainly, wondering why he was here.

  “Russell took her over to the hospice in Newbyville,” said McCormick. “She’s got a woman on her last legs over there who she visits on Wednesdays.”

  The sheriff had now finished the last piece of bacon on his plate and was wiping his fingers with a linen napkin.

  “I’m Molly O’Hara,” said Molly, taking the initiative. “This is my sister, Nell.”

  “Dan Glickman,” he replied, reaching across the table to shake her hand.

  The New Melford sheriff was a handsome man in his early fifties. Though he was seated Molly could tell he was tall. He had a pleasant open face with tired blue eyes, short graying hair, a straight nose, and perfect white teeth. He put everything to good advantage in a sad, but friendly smile.

  “What was it you wanted to see us about, Sheriff?” asked Molly, taking a sip from the stoneware mug in front of her. Mrs. McCormick’s coffee was strong enough to kill a cat.

  “Here’s your waffles,” said McCormick, depositing plates in front of Molly and Nell. With her face well scrubbed and her sleeves rolled up, the hatchet-faced nurse looked almost human in the morning light.

  “Troutwig the lawyer thinks you’re mass murderers though I’m not supposed to tell anybody he said so,” said Glickman, rising to his feet with his mug. “Any more of that coffee, Mrs. M?”