Antique Secrets

by Libby Howard

  “Thanks.” He reluctantly put them back on and pulled a folder over toward him. “What are you working on?”

  Just researching the ghost that’s hovering off your left shoulder.

  “Some history. A Mabel Stevens Hansen who owned my new sideboard before giving it to her daughter, Eleonore Hansen Poffenberger, as a wedding gift.”

  The judge blinked. “Hansen, as in Harlen Hansen, the owner of the department store?”

  “The very same. Do you know anything about him or his family?”

  “Not beyond the fact that he was rich, well respected, and the owner of a successful store. I’m not a local, Kay. I moved to Milford twenty-five years ago, and we didn’t come to Locust Point until after Madison was born. I do know that Hansen was a big donor to the local police. There’s a plaque recognizing something he did over at the courthouse. I think he was pretty close with one of the judges at the time, too.”

  “How do you know that?” I put the stack of journals on a chair next to me, thinking it would be really cool if I could get a hold of journals from a judge back in the twenties.

  “There’s a hallway in the courthouse with pictures of all the former judges, the ribbon cutting from when the new courthouse was built, and some drawings and photos of the old courthouse before it burned down. There’s one of Judge Rickers and Harlen Hansen shaking hands, and they just have that look about them, as if it wasn’t just a formal picture. They look like old friends.”

  That wasn’t too surprising. Harlen was a wealthy local businessman, and Locust Point was a small town. If everyone knew everyone else’s business now, I was pretty sure it was the same back then. Just as my boss had been buddies with our former mayor, I could see the judges back then being friends with Harlen Hansen.

  Of course, J.T. hadn’t known his buddy the mayor was a murderer. If Harlen was an abuser, it would also be possible that his judge friend knew nothing about what happened in Harlen’s home.

  I wasn’t ready to open up to Judge Beck about the ghosts, but I’d learned that he had good intuition and insight as far as people and motivation went. I needed a fresh perspective—someone who wasn’t related to either Eleonore or Mabel or their friends. He might have been busy with the files spread all over the table, but he seemed open to taking a bit of a break. Hopefully he could provide an ah-ha moment of perception that would shed light on why this ghost was hanging around.

  “Mabel Stevens Hansen, Harlen’s wife, felt very guilty about something she’d done. She loved her daughter very much, and people tell me that Harlen was very cold and distant toward the pair of them. I wonder if he didn’t abuse the daughter and she never forgave herself for not stepping in, or protecting her child. I’m hoping her friend might have noted it in her journals, but wondered what you thought about that theory. Would something like that cause enough guilt to…. well, to haunt someone for the rest of their life?”

  Judge Beck gave me an odd look. “I see a lot of domestic violence cases, and what drives many women to press charges and leave an abusive marriage is when it starts happening to the kids. There are a few cases where the woman feels so trapped she stays, sometimes even convincing herself it’s the child’s fault, or that the kid is making it all up, but in those cases, there’s usually a lot of animosity and blame between the child and both her parents. If Mabel and her daughter were close and loving, then I don’t think her turning the other way to abuse was the cause of her guilt.”

  “Maybe she successfully intervened, which is why Harlen was so distant to them. And she regretted that it ever happened. And Eleonore loved her mother because she knew the woman stood up for her against her older, more powerful husband.” I was grasping at straws, but something in my gut told me that Mabel’s torment had something to do with Eleonore.

  “Back then, Harlen would have held a lot of power in the marriage. There wouldn’t be much Mabel could have done beyond leaving him, and that would have been a huge public scandal. She either left, or she stayed and swept it under the rug, or he wasn’t abusive at all.”

  “But he wasn’t affectionate,” I argued. “He barely spoke to them. He hardly spent any time with them outside of at dinner.”

  “Some men aren’t physically demonstrative, Kay. And back then, there was a ridiculous social standard that men be the strong breadwinners while women were the nurturers and homemakers.” He grimaced. “I’m dealing with that myself. I was gone all the time, working insane hours to build a stable career to provide for our family, where Heather was a stay-at-home mom who made sure everything behind the scenes ran smoothly. I’m sure I seemed distant and uninvolved a lot of the time, because I was. I was barely able to keep up with what was happening at the law firm, and then at the courthouse, let alone know what sports the kids had which night, whether they had a math test the next day, or who was doing what for their science fair project.”

  “I see you with Madison and Henry, and you are far from cold and distant,” I protested. “You might have been uninformed, might not have known the details of their schedules and their activities, but I can tell you’ve always shown affection toward them.”

  “A kiss goodnight when they’ve already been asleep an hour isn’t enough—for a child or a parent. I resented it.” His voice grew gruff. “I envied Heather getting to see all those special moments, getting to put bandages on skinned knees and bribing the kids to eat their carrots. That resentment made me pull away from them even more. I retreated into my work, hating this bargain we’d made, but not knowing how to turn it around. I missed my children’s childhood, and no amount of money and career success makes up for that.”

  How did we go from Harlen Hansen to the judge’s personal life? This was the first he’d really gotten into the details of his crumbled marriage with me. I knew what a private man he was, and even though we were off topic, I was pleased he considered me enough of a friend to confide these things to me.

  “My father was a cop. I know all about that kiss in the middle of the night. And no matter how much adults tried to hide it, I knew in my heart there was always a chance that he might not come home from work at all. Yes, Mom was the one at all my parent-teacher conferences, the one baking cookies for teacher appreciation day and taking me to the park, but I adored my father and knew how much he loved me, even though his schedule meant he wasn’t around much.”

  Judge Beck took off his glasses and rubbed his face. “I know my kids probably understand just as you did, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t resent it. I blamed Heather, and I still kind of do blame her. I worked these insane hours, then I’d come home and she’d be chatting on the phone with her friends, making plans for play dates at the country club pool and arranging for a sitter so she could meet them for lunch. After a while, I felt like I was just a paycheck to her. I felt like the only purpose I served for my family was to bring home money. When we’d gotten married, it seemed like the right thing to do. I made more than she did. My career had more potential than hers. She wanted to stay home with the kids, and it was unheard of for a man to do the same. But as the years went on, I began to feel like she got the best end of that deal.”

  “Yes, but you’re changing that,” I told him softly, resisting the urge to reach out and take his hand. “I know trying to juggle both your career and parenting is exhausting, but you’re finally able to spend time with your children. You changed that dynamic.”

  He grimaced. “Heather changed that dynamic. I was trying to get more regular hours, to make time to go to the kids’ games and do family things on weekends as opposed to being locked in my office, but it seemed like the more time I spent at home, the more we fought. Then she dropped the divorce bombshell.”

  Oh, my heart ached for him. As much animosity as he and Heather had for each other, I could tell he still loved his wife, and that there was still something in her heart for him. Was it just the longing, the memories of what they’d had before? Was their love so dead that there was no hope that it could rise again, like a ph
oenix from the ashes?

  “Maybe Mabel cheated on Harlen,” Judge Beck said, his voice bitter. “Trust me, that’s a hard thing for a man to take. And back then, a divorce would have been humiliating. Bringing the fact that he was a cuckold to light would have been tough for a successful, prominent man like Harlen Hansen.”

  I winced. Then I asked something that was absolutely none of my business.

  “Did Heather cheat on you? I heard you mention someone named Tyler before.”

  He hesitated a moment, then sighed. “I had a private investigator follow her, not that infidelity means much in today’s no-fault divorce proceedings, but I thought it might help with the custody case. They couldn’t find any evidence that she’d been sleeping with Tyler prior to filing for divorce, but their relationship clearly didn’t come out of nowhere. Tyler has a son Henry’s age, and he’s a single dad. They were at a lot of school events together, on several fund-raising committees. There was an affection there. And while there might not have been any physical infidelity that I could prove, I’m certain there was emotional infidelity.”

  And that hurt just as much. He admitted he’d been distant and uninvolved, and Tyler evidently had stepped up to the plate in his stead. But this had been the agreement he and Heather had made between them, the division of roles. Had she expressed her dissatisfaction with those roles before Tyler was in the picture? When Judge Beck decided to try to change things, was it just too late to revive what they’d once had?

  He shook his head. “She suspected the same about me. I found out she’d hired someone a year before she asked for a divorce to follow me around and make sure I really was working those late nights and not heading off to a hotel with some woman. She’d accused me of that before, but now I wonder if it was just wishful thinking on her part—her hoping that I’d give her an excuse to ask for a divorce without looking like the villain.”

  “Did you ever cheat on her?” I asked, just to be fair.

  “No. There were a few times I was tempted. When you work long hours and feel like a stranger to your own family, it’s difficult to not be drawn to that person who shares your passion for your career, who you think truly gets you. But I know that’s an illusion, and a coward’s way out. I came very close a year ago, and that’s when I decided I needed to look long and hard at my priorities and my work schedule, to stop being bitter about the roles in our marriage and work actively to change them into something that would make me happy. I guess I was too late.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him.

  He shrugged and put his glasses back on, pulling a folder over in front of him. “It hurts. I’m not the first to survive a painful divorce, and I doubt I’ll be the last. My goal now is to make sure everything works out the best it can for Madison and Henry.”

  He’d tried to make a change. Even if he was too late to save his marriage, it wasn’t too late to be an active and involved parent to his kids. And for that I truly admired Judge Beck.

  I watched him for a second, then turned my thoughts back to the ghost standing off in the corner of the room. If infidelity had broken apart Harlen and Mabel’s marriage, it had most likely happened after Eleonore was born. And Harlen didn’t strike me as the sort of man who would forgive that.

  Were the judge and Matt right? Had a young, beautiful Mabel strayed from her marriage? Was that what made her beg for forgiveness? I looked up at the ghost in the corner of the room and wished I could see her better, wished she could talk to me and tell me what made her linger here after death. But there was something off in my theory. Harlen might have never forgiven Mabel for having an affair, but he wouldn’t have taken it out on Eleonore, his only child. And from the timing, Mabel had become pregnant soon after her marriage, when she would be unlikely to have had an affair.

  Hopefully the answer would be in Evie’s diaries. I looked at the stack of faded books I’d put on a dining room chair and pulled the first one to me. It was dated 1920 in an elegant swirling script. Evie would have been fifteen, and Mabel thirteen.

  An hour in, and I was ready to throw the book through the window. Reading Evie’s handwriting was difficult enough, but she tended to use initials and documented the most mundane and boring events. I did find out that she was eagerly anticipating her sweet sixteen party, and that MS would be invited, even though Evie was a bit worried that MS’s beauty would catch the eye of HP, whose tall straight form and kind eyes she greatly admired. I finished out the 1920 diary, deciding that I knew far too much about Evie’s menstrual cycles, which she marked with a little circle, and her practiced arguments to sway her parents into allowing her to cut her hair in a more fashionable style. At the end of the year, Evie had turned sixteen, Mabel was now fourteen, and Evie’s hair was still long and braided “like the elderly ladies wore”.

  I skipped ahead four years, figuring that I might find out more when Mabel was older. That put Evie at nineteen and Mabel at seventeen when the journal started. Evie had finally gotten the haircut she’d so wanted, but she now lamented that her thick, coarse hair wasn’t so easy to tame at a shorter length. She openly admired MS’s shiny, fine black locks that waved perfectly around her beautiful face, and expressed gratitude that her friend was not the sort of girl who would steal HP’s affections away with her good looks—not at all like her sister LS.

  That was right. Mabel had a twin, an equally beautiful twin, who seemed to vanish around the time of her marriage. I’d assumed Lucille had married beneath her and that the controlling Harlen hadn’t allowed them to associate, but now I wondered. Matt hadn’t known about his great aunt Lucille so perhaps she’d died young, and it had been her passing away and not Mabel’s stern husband that explained the lack of mention. I made a note on my pad of paper to look through death notices, wincing at the fact that I might need to dig through twenty years of them to find out when Lucille died.

  Clearly, she was alive at this point in 1924 when Evie was increasingly in love with the man who I assumed was Howard Pratt—her future husband. Lucille was equal in beauty to Mabel, but according to Evie, a flirt. I began to stay alert for any future mentions of LS, and was surprised to see that there weren’t many of them. Didn’t twins tend to hang out together? Have the same group of friends? I wasn’t really sure, having been an only child myself, but I imagined sisters would be close enough that they’d hang in the same social circles.

  By the end of 1924, it became clear to me that as close as Evie was to Mabel, she truly disliked Lucille, who in roundabout terms she described as a flirt and a wild, immoral girl.

  I might not have had a sister, but I was a woman and I knew how girls could be, so I took all this with a giant boulder of salt. It was clear that Evie didn’t consider herself a beautiful woman in the norms of the time. Mabel was beautiful, but was kind and quiet and somewhat shy, so she wasn’t seen as a threat. Lucille wasn’t shy, from what I could tell as I delved into 1925. She snuck out and went to parties where there was alcohol and dancing, where she smoked cigarettes and associated with colored folk and came home late or sometimes not at all. MS had fretted about her sister’s safety and reputation, and Evie worried that Lucille’s wild ways would reflect poorly on her friend.

  But this was only one side of the story, and Suzette had said both Evie and her daughter Sarah were incredibly loyal people. Could it be that Evie was making Mabel into the saint she wasn’t, and painting her sister a far more sinister shade than she deserved? I was sure envy had something to do with her opinions. Mabel was her shy friend, where Evie not only turned all the boys’ heads, she encouraged their attentions. Had Howard once cared for Lucille? Because I’d seen more than once how jealousy could cloud a person’s judgment.

  Then I turned the page and caught my breath. Evie’s journal entries were all carefully worded and coded, because she was trying not to be a despicable gossip, but the woman was clearly upset, and for once had spelled everything out.

  “What?” Judge Beck asked me. He’d been eyeing me occasionally
as we worked, clearly curious about what I was reading.

  “Lucille, Mabel’s twin sister. She was caught in a rather compromising position with a married man by the police chief. He told her father, and she was kicked out of their home. Her father put her on the street with a bag of clothes and told her never to come home, never to speak to him again.”

  The judge winced. “That seems rather harsh.”

  It was, but Lucille’s partying and drinking and smoking and dancing must have set the stage for this straw that broke her father’s back. And from what I’d read, he’d had a lot to lose. Mabel was expecting a proposal from Harlen any day, and this scandal with her sister might have put that alliance in jeopardy.

  But to put his own daughter out on the street? “I thought people sent their children away to visit relatives out of state when that kind of thing happened, not kicked them to the curb.”

  I was getting an idea of what happened to Lucille. That must have been when she’d vanished from Mabel’s life. Had she run off with her married lover to live in sin somewhere, disowned by her family? Was that the guilt Mabel carried? Did she wish that after all those years she’d reached out to her sister? Had Lucille died before a reconciliation could happen, and Mabel regretted not extending the olive branch sooner?

  But the ghost had made it sound like the guilt was from something she’d done. And while I could see asking for forgiveness—both of her sister and of God—for not reuniting before it was too late, I couldn’t imagine this was what would drive Mabel to haunt a piece of furniture for decades after her death. It wasn’t like she was the one who’d kicked Lucille out of the house. It wasn’t like she’d forced her wild sister into the arms of a married man.

  “You said this was around 1920? Loose behavior was still a stigma, but I’m sure with the changing social norms, Lucille found friends to take her in,” the judge commented, a frown on his face.

  I made another note on my paper. Try to find out Lucille’s date of death, although that might be difficult if she’d left the county, and see if there was any note of who she may have moved in with.