Ophelia

by Jessica Lynch

  Four Years Ago

  Maria took the turn onto Main Street, gritting her teeth as she rode her brake. It wasn’t very often that she took her new car out for a ride—usually, Lucas was more than willing to drive, or Maria chose to walk for the exercise—so, when she did, she went as slowly as possible.

  Her brother promised that it would become comfortable with time and Maria was just stubborn enough to keep on trying. It was easier when she snuck out of Hamlet, going to the local arts and crafts shop about an hour away, but it made her nervous when she was driving around town. Almost like her neighbors were watching her curiously through the slats in their blinds, ready to page Lucas the first time she ran a red light.

  If Lucas knew about her jaunts in and out of Hamlet, he never said. Maria never felt the need to enlighten him about them, either. As far as he thought, she was given the coupe in case she needed to get around town.

  Like right now.

  Maria rolled her head on her neck, trying to relax. So what if someone judged her for driving slower than Mrs. Birmingham? Lucas wasn’t around. No one would be able to snitch on her until he came back to Hamlet.

  His absence was exactly why she was out on the road instead of overseeing the contractors this morning. For once, she was going to have a chat with Caitlin without Lucas breathing down their necks.

  Maria didn’t know what she could do to help but she wanted to try. She could at least check in with Caitlin and make sure she was doing okay. Because, Lord knows, their four-year-old marriage definitely wasn’t.

  Lucas spent long hours at his new office building on the mountainside of Hamlet and, more and more recently, he was visiting the budding bed and breakfast instead of going straight home to his wife. Some nights he didn’t even leave, choosing to stay over in his old bedroom.

  It was one of the rooms she refused to renovate or change. Just like the kitchen and her childhood bedroom, she wanted to keep some part of the De Angelis home separate from her business. It might be the same building, yes, but she wouldn’t let herself forget that this was where she was born and raised. Lucas, too. Amid all the disarray of constant construction, it was nice to have something familiar to cling to.

  Maria’s bedroom was on the first floor, on the west end of the house. Her brother’s room was directly above her, only upstairs. Though the space separated them, she could sometimes hear Caitlin’s heated shrieks and Lucas’s much quieter replies as they argued over their radios. His wife wanted him home. Lucas liked to throw in her face that he already was.

  Those nights, Maria placed her pillow over the back of her head and tried to drown out their fights.

  Then there were his trips. It seemed to her that Lucas was using any excuse to speed his Mustang out of Hamlet now that his residency was over and he started his local practice. Remembering the last time Caitlin actually confronted him at Maria’s house, she decided she didn’t blame him.

  And that was the last time, too. Far from driving over to drag her husband home, Caitlin refused to return to the De Angelis house at all. Not since the night Lucas calmly threatened to buzz Cait’s own deputies and have them arrest her for making such a scene.

  What was it he called it? That’s right: domestic disturbance.

  Her temper was legendary, her possessiveness frightening. Lucas learned long ago how to manage Caitlin. As much as his threat infuriated her, it did calm her down and shut her up. But Caitlin was also spiteful. If Maria wanted to see her sister-in-law, she had to go to her house—or to the station house.

  Which was exactly where Maria was painstakingly driving her brand new mint green coupe to.

  The car had been a gift for her 24th birthday. Supposedly it was from Lucas and Caitlin. Because she knew full well that the gift idea had really been Cait’s—no way in hell would Lucas think that Maria needed a vehicle of her own without Caitlin’s “persuasion”—she decided to take the ride over and thank Caitlin while Lucas was away again.

  And then, if that went well, maybe she could do some prying. She was Lucas’s little sister. Shouldn’t they expect her to be a little nosy?

  Besides, it never hurt to make sure the sheriff was doing all right on her own. When Lucas was gone for too long, Caitlin had a tendency to go a little… pazza.

  Crazy.

  There was only one car in the lot when Maria coasted carefully into the spot two down from the Hamlet Sheriff Department cruiser. That wasn’t unusual. Since Sheriff McKinley retired and Caitlin was voted in to replace him, only three people were left to run the department: Caitlin, Wilhelmina Parker and Mason Walsh.

  Caity kept saying she needed to hire at least one more deputy but, either from a lack of candidates or because she was just too damn picky, they were still shorthanded.

  On the plus side, there were rarely any crimes in Hamlet.

  She reached up to the hollow of her throat, stroking the edge of her cross in a fervent caress. And thank God for that.

  Maria was used to the station house. Since Caitlin started working there right out of school, she’d been by a hundred times. One of the most familiar sights to her was finding Willie Parker sitting behind her desk, watching a movie on the portable DVD player her three kids bought her for Christmas a couple of years ago. Just because no one in Hamlet had cable, it didn’t mean that there was no entertainment.

  The player was turned on. A flash of color reflected off the lenses in Willie’s black-framed cat’s eye glasses. Music piped out of the speakers suddenly as if whatever she had playing was just starting.

  A plus-sized woman, Willie’s uniform shirt accentuated her generous curves. Maria could see a gap forming where the buttons struggled to stay closed over her chest. She thought one of them might pop as she reached over to grab a stack of papers before returning her attention to her computer. She was bopping her head in time to the music as she swiveled her chair and squinted at the computer screen.

  Maria liked the tune. It sounded old-fashioned, upbeat and poppy. It reminded Maria of old-fashioned girl groups from decades ago. Doo wop, maybe? Peeking around the side of Willie’s desk, she saw she was partly right. Three girls walking through the rain, singing about—

  She cocked her head, listening.

  —a little shop of… horror?

  How lovely.

  And then it clicked.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, causing the older woman to jump in her seat. So engrossed in her movie and her paperwork, Willie obviously hadn’t seen Maria slip into the station house. “Isn’t this that movie about the plant that eats people? Lucas told me about it. I thought it sounded interesting.” With an amused snort, she added, “He won’t let me watch it.”

  Pushing away from her desk, Willie turned to look up at Maria. Her eye shadow was a vivid chartreuse, climbing up past the rim of her glasses. “You should know by now about my weakness for musicals.”

  “I do. Weren’t you watching some half-masked phantom the last time I was here?”

  “It’s good,” Willie said defensively. “This one is, too, so you go on and tell that brother of yours that you’re a grown woman, sug. A silly movie won’t give you nightmares. Bev loves it.”

  Ah, Jesus. Beverly Parker was all of twelve years old.

  Maria sniffed. If Willie’s oldest could watch it, then she definitely would. Sometimes Lucas treated her like she was even younger than some of the neighborhood kids. Hmm. Maybe it was time she got a portable player of her own. Willie would let her borrow a movie or two if she asked.

  It was worth a thought. And what was one more secret that Lucas didn’t know about?

  Reaching over, Willie turned the screen off with a flick of a switch on the side. The girls’ singing abruptly died. “Now, I’m sure you’re not here because you want to watch a flick. What can I do for you?”

  “Actually, I was wondering if Caitlin was in.” Since there was only one cruiser parked out there, Maria figured that she’d already missed her. “If she’s not, I can always come back. Or
try her on her radio. It’s not an emergency.”

  “Let me check on the sheriff. Take a seat, sugar. I’ll be right back.”

  There were two visitors chairs in the whole of the station house. Turning to take one, she noticed that one was already occupied by a very petite woman. Her friendly face was lined with faint wrinkles, a cloud of blonde hair so light it was nearly white styled perfectly with an impeccable make-up job to match. The floral summer dress she wore draped over her tiny frame spread out across the seat of the padded chair.

  She recognized her at once, offering a quick smile in welcome. Maria would’ve held out her hand in greeting instead if it wasn’t so obvious that her hands were full.

  “Mrs. Walsh, I didn’t see you sitting there. What brings you down to the station?”

  The older woman rapped her hands on the top of the large tupperware container resting on her lap. From what Maria could see, it looked like enough food to feed half of Hamlet.

  “For Mason,” she explained in a clear, melodic voice Maria recalled from her childhood. How many years did she sit there, listening to Mrs. Walsh speak in an effort to better her English? Three? Four? “Since my boy moved into a place of his own, I can’t be sure he’s eating a home-cooked meal if I don’t come down and bring him one from time to time.”

  It was such a considerate, motherly thing to say. And though her Mama had been gone for more than six years now, Maria still felt the pang.

  Not that she would ever let anyone see that.

  Choosing to remain standing, she wrapped her arms around her middle in a comforting hug as she continued with the small talk that was not only encouraged in Hamlet but expected, too.

  “How have you been? How’s school?”

  “Fine, fine. Smaller class than usual, but what can you do?” Mason’s mother shook her head sadly. “We haven’t had any new families move in in some time, and the children are growing up faster than we can replace them. I know I’m still waiting for my son to give me grandbabies but, well, I might be waiting for some time yet.” A long drawn out sigh followed, though her eyes—a warm shade of cocoa, just like her son—twinkled. “My boy, he’s married to his job.”

  It was a common complaint about law enforcement. Hamlet gossip ran that Sheriff McKinley’s wife was the reason he took an early retirement. Willie Parker’s husband was long gone, though Maria heard that had more to do with an outsider waitress than her position as one of Hamlet’s deputies. And, of course, Lucas often accused Caitlin of choosing her job over him.

  Then again, Cait always retorted that Lucas was just as devoted to his work—and if she was his wife in the eyes of God and the courts, then his flashy red Mustang was definitely his mistress. She was insanely jealous of his car.

  Caitlin was, admittedly, insanely jealous of anything when it came to her husband.

  Not for the first time, it amazed Maria that Caitlin and Lucas hadn’t thrown in the towel yet. Even Mrs. Birmingham could see that those stubborn idiots were clinging to a broken marriage, and the old dear lost her sight more than a decade ago!

  “You know, Maria, I always thought you two might—”

  A deer in headlights. Beneath the fringe of her new bangs, Maria felt her eyes widen in panic as her friendly smile froze in place. She didn’t want to offend Mrs. Walsh but her? And Mason?

  Because they were in the same classes through high school, Maria had a front row seat to the trainwreck that was his unfortunate two-year relationship with Lindalee Murphy. She was a pretty girl—and an outsider—who was so smothered by Mason’s attentions that she escaped Hamlet the first chance she had in order to get away from him.

  Mase was handsome and kind and certainly an asset to the sheriff’s department. But to date him?

  Non succede mai. No way in hell.

  Her expression must have given her away. Mrs. Walsh chortled, leaning out of her seat in order to pat Maria sweetly on her hip. It was as high as the petite woman could reach with Maria refusing to sit. “Just a thought, dear. Just a thought.”

  3

  Why don’t you sit down? These chairs are quite comfortable.”

  Maria shook her head. “I’m fine. Thank you, though.”

  Valerie Walsh only had one child—her beloved boy, Mason—but she raised dozens of others as one of the few teachers who ran the Hamlet school. She remembered Maria De Angelis vividly. The dark-haired beauty was a wonderful pupil, very sweet and extremely hard-working, though she had a stubborn streak that came from being spoiled and coddled, first by her parents, then by her older brother.

  She remembered Lucas De Angelis, too. Handsome. Far too intelligent for his own good. Guarded in a way that left many of the adults in town wondering what went on inside that head of his.

  As a doctor, his skills were unrivaled in Hamlet. She had a touch of bronchitis last winter and Lucas fixed her right up. All the same, she was grateful that her son drove her to every appointment. It made her feel better, knowing that Mason was out in the waiting room as Dr. De Angelis eyed her like he expected her to end up in his morgue.

  Maria stayed on her feet. No surprise there. “I’m sure Willie will be back soon,” she said in that raspy, accented voice of hers.

  Mrs. Walsh let out a soft tsk. “One would think. Except I’ve been waiting for Mason to return Wilhelmina’s page for close to half an hour now. If the sheriff is out on patrol, it might be just as long before she checks in to find us waiting here.”

  That was the biggest downside to Hamlet’s standard radios. Most of the residents carried one—their answer to a personal cell phone—and there were countless channels for the professionals in town, but there wasn’t any way to leave a message or let someone know they’ve been buzzed. If a call was missed, it was as if it didn’t exist.

  Maria knew that better than anyone. Though she wasn’t absent-minded in the least, she had a habit of leaving her radio in her bedroom so that she could avoid certain people buzzing her. Not that that ever stopped Lucas. If he didn’t hear from her, he just drove over to the house to check up on her.

  “That’s true,” Maria agreed.

  “Come. Sit. And tell me all about how your little project is going. Opening soon?”

  Stiffening, Maria struggled to keep a friendly smile in place. After four years of working towards building her bed and breakfast, she should have been used to well-meaning neighbors asking about it. In a way, she was. But it didn’t make it any easier to hear the questions.

  Because, inevitably, she only had one answer for them all.

  “Soon, Mrs. Walsh. It’s just not quite ready yet.”

  She was beginning to suspect it might never be. Four years after her “project” began, they’d barely gotten out of the construction phase.

  Construction was essential. The De Angelis family home was quite large but it hadn’t been built as an inn like Bonnie Mitchell’s. Once Maria decided to create six rooms for guests—three on the first floor, three on the second—she enlisted the services of some of Hamlet’s finest contractors and handymen to help her knock down walls, build the new bedrooms and add bathrooms to each suite.

  Since there were only four people in town who did that kind of work and they couldn’t always work with her, she expected it to take some time. She planned on it taking a year. Eighteen months, max.

  But that was before all of the… incidents.

  Maria tried her best not to dwell on them because, superstitious Catholic that she was, it was all too easy to believe that this endeavor of hers was cursed. How else could she explain it?

  It started with small things. Minor things. And then it escalated.

  Lumber she ordered from outside of Hamlet never arrived. When Lucas drove into town to find out why, he came back and reported that someone had called and canceled the delivery. But how, she wondered, when there weren’t any phones?

  Maria was hesitant to let any of the contractors use her Papa’s tools. She had no choice when hammers, slides, screwdrivers all seemed
to go missing as soon as someone put them down. She guarded Papa’s well-loved tools fiercely, watching them closely, and breathed a sigh of relief every time she put them away in Papa’s handmade toolbox.

  Frank Davies and Guy Larabee quit halfway through the project for no reason that Maria could tell. All the same, she couldn’t quite blame them. For every one step closer to opening she got, construction seemed to take two steps back. She tried to convince them to stay on and got nowhere; even she had to admit her efforts were half-hearted. So, with only two workers left—and Lucas pitching in whenever his practice and Caitlin let him—construction crawled along at a snail’s pace.

  Just when Maria thought they might be making some progress, a pipe in one room burst. Two days later, right after they finished cleaning up the flood downstairs, a second one went.

  Mike Johnson gave up last spring. Poor guy walked out after an industrial-sized bucket of spackle somehow fell on top of his head. He nearly suffocated before she yanked it back off, apologizing effusively even though she’d been on the other side of the house when it happened.

  Last time she saw him, there was still white dust behind his ears. She tried waving at him. Mike grabbed his wife by the hand and hid inside of Jefferson’s store.

  And then, only a couple of weeks ago, Phil Granger and his golf cart arrived with a letter for Maria. Some uppity fellow high up in the county sent a warning that her permit applications were denied. As if she actually filled out an application for a construction permit.

  That one almost made her laugh. Since when did anyone in Hamlet allow an outsider to dictate what they could or could not do—or, in this case, build—in their own village? Maria crumpled the letter up, tossed it in the trash, said a quick prayer and threw herself back into her work. After all this time, she was getting pretty damn good with a wrench.

  Since Lucas had been away on his most recent trip, the last man standing—Benedict Nixon, a wily old carpenter who looked like he was born with a hammer in his gnarled hand—finally pronounced that construction was done. She didn’t want to believe it, though she was practically itching to get to the next phase: decorating the bed and breakfast.