How unkind of him! Silja couldn’t believe it. She looked at Henry, who shrugged and held out his hand to Paul.
“Best of luck to you,” he said. “Stay in touch, old pal.”
Paul nodded. “I’ll do that.” He picked up his suitcase and stepped off the porch into the dim, frosty afternoon.
Henry went back to his project—sanding the newel posts and stair railings in preparation for restaining—but Silja stood in the doorway, watching Paul hurry down Lawrence Avenue and disappear around the corner toward the train station.
She was in shock. That he couldn’t even say good-bye to Ruby—and on the day before her birthday—was beyond Silja’s comprehension. It was the ultimate in selfishness.
Something must have happened, she thought—something more serious than the garden-variety breakup of a romance. But she didn’t know what it could be. Did Henry know? She couldn’t tell whether he did or not.
• • •
Later that evening, after Ruby was in bed—crying herself to sleep over Paul leaving—Silja sat Henry down and told him that she wanted to start searching for a new house. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “I cannot stay in this house, in this little town, for one more second. I want what I want, Henry. I’ve worked hard and I’ve earned it. And Ruby has, too.”
His eyes were downcast, and she was sure he’d caught her insinuation—she and Ruby had earned it. But he had not.
But was that fair? He had paid dues that she’d never understand. He’d fought in a war. He almost lost his life. He lost parts of himself—inside and out—that he could never get back.
So she gentled her voice. “It’s for all of us,” she said. “It will be a fresh start for the three of us. You’ll see.”
He looked up then, and she could see the musing in his eye. “Can I build you a house?” he asked. “Would you let me build your dream house for you, Silja?”
She remembered how she’d wanted him to get into construction work years ago, when they first moved to Stonekill. She was touched by his sentiment, but things had changed since then. She didn’t want a prefab house that looked like everyone else’s. Nor—though she appreciated his homegrown skills—did she want Henry to spend years fiddling around, building her some shabby version of what he thought a “modern” house should look like.
So she shook her head firmly. “No,” she said. “No, I would not let you do that.” She took a breath, and then went on, “If you want to get a job, Henry, and pay for the house to be built—fine. But you can’t build it yourself. I want it done right.”
His eyes registered shock, then anger. He stood and left the room without another word.
38
* * *
Angie
The knock on the front door was so insistent that I was sure Paul and Ruby, who were both still sleeping, would awaken. PJ had had an atypically fussy night, and at six-thirty in the morning, I rose for the third time, put on my dressing gown, and fetched the baby from his makeshift crib in the guest room. I warmed a bottle and sat with PJ in one of the low-slung easy chairs by the hearth, the blue and green shawl wrapped around my shoulders. With my back to the front windows, I watched dawn break on the trees behind the house.
When I heard the knock, I turned my head and stood. I shrugged off the shawl, pulled my robe tightly around my middle, and stepped to the front door, babe in arms. I peered through the big glass windows. Over the expanse of lawn, I spotted two police cars, both with New York State Troopers emblems on their side doors, parked in the driveway.
Silja, I thought instantly. They’ve found Silja.
My heart creeping into my throat, I opened the door. Two officers stood on the flagstone step. “We’re sorry to bother you so early, miss,” one of them said. “Is there a grown-up at home?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I’m a grown-up.” They were the first words I’d uttered since rising from bed; much to my dismay, they came out as squeaky as if Minnie Mouse had spoken. I cleared my throat and added, “I’m twenty-one.”
The officer nodded. “Okay. Can we come inside?”
“What’s this about?” I snuggled the baby closer to my chest. “Have you found Mrs. Glass?”
The officer shifted uncomfortably. His gold name tag was etched B. HILL. “That’s not why we’re here.” He paused, then went on, “We’re here to bring in Miss Ruby Glass. We want to question her about the death of her father.”
“Ruby . . . ? What?” I shook my head. “I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”
“Miss, could we come in?”
I eyed Officer Hill. “It’s Missus,” I told him. “Mrs. Paul Glass.”
He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, his lips making a thin, firm line across the horizon of his face.
The other officer—younger, appearing not much older than me—stepped forward. “Please understand, Mrs. Glass,” he said gently. “Miss Glass is not being accused of anything. We just want to ask her some questions.”
I glanced at his name tag, too: R. BRENNAN. “Didn’t you question her right away?” I asked. “When Henry died, didn’t you talk to her then?”
Officer Brennan nodded. “We did,” he said. “But circumstances . . . the situation . . . has been altered.” He looked upward, then back at me. “Further information has come to light, and we’d like to talk to Miss Glass about it.”
“You have found Silja!” I heard the relief in my own voice. “Thank God.”
Hill glared, and Brennan turned red. “Ma’am, we can’t say anything more,” Brennan stammered. “Would you let us in, and let Miss Glass know we’re here?”
I stood still for a moment, and then I stepped aside and let the officers into the house.
I went to the master bedroom. Leaning over my husband, I whispered fiercely in his ear, “Paul. Wake up.” I gently nudged him on the shoulder. “I need to tell you something.”
He opened his eyes, staring at me fuzzily.
“Paul,” I said urgently. “The police are here. They want to talk to Ruby.”
Paul sat up, instantly alert. “Tell me everything.”
After I told him, Paul rose from the bed, pushing me aside. He slipped into a pair of trousers and buttoned a shirt, making me feel half-naked in my cotton robe and thin nylon nightgown. I set the baby carefully in the center of the bed and quickly dressed, putting on stockings, hooking myself into a bra and girdle, and topping my underthings with a wool skirt and a beige sweater. I stepped into a pair of black flats. Paul was right: being dressed was better. I already felt more in control.
“I’ll get Ruby,” Paul said. “You better offer them coffee.”
• • •
Hill and Brennan refused the coffee, though they did sit in the living room when I asked them to. Paul conferred with them quietly, the three men seated around the hearth, while I, still holding the baby, hung in the shadows near the kitchen. Ruby was yet to emerge from her bedroom when all three stood up.
Paul walked over to me. “I’m going with them,” he told me. “I’ll call you as soon as . . . whenever I know anything.”
“What about Silja?” I whispered. “Do they know anything more? Did they tell you anything?”
Paul looked away from me, toward the sliding door to the woods. “There’s no news on that front, Angel.” He glanced at the officers again. “Let me check on my niece,” he called to them across the room. “I’m sure she’s almost ready to go.”
Paul returned with Ruby, who shuffled out in a pair of baggy slacks and a too-large gray pullover sweater that I was sure must have belonged to Henry. Her hair was drawn into a messy ponytail.
Paul gave me a long look, one that I had trouble deciphering. Was he trying to tell me something? I shook my head at him and frowned. If he was trying to say something nonverbally, I wasn’t getting the message. I was more frustrated with myself for not getting it than I was at Paul for attempting to convey it.
Then, after the others were outside and I was starting to breathe a s
igh of relief, Officer Brennan turned around to face me.
“Is it all right if I have a look around, ma’am?”
“A . . . look around?”
“Yes, I’d like to look in Miss Glass’s room, and just around the house a bit.”
“Do you . . . is there a search warrant?” I didn’t know much about scenarios like this, but I’d seen enough episodes of Dragnet to know that the officer should have a warrant.
He reached into his pocket and produced a paper, holding it out for my inspection. I glanced at it, then looked at him. “All right,” I said softly. “Let me show you the way.”
• • •
Brennan was courteous. Although he looked through Ruby’s dresser drawers and the books on her shelf, he did so respectfully, moving items aside methodically and placing them back exactly as he’d found them. He glanced in the girl’s messy closet, shaking his head. “Teenagers,” he said. Watching from the doorway with PJ on my hip, I did not reply.
After searching under the bed, the officer stood and asked, “Okay if I take a quick gander at the rest of the house?”
I saw no alternative, so I shrugged and stepped aside.
He went back to the main room first. Looking up at the tall ceilings, he let out a long whistle. “Didn’t want to say so in front of my superior . . .” He smiled at me, as if we were in collusion. “But this is quite the place.”
His grin was so infectious, I couldn’t help smiling back. “Yes, it took me by surprise, too, when I first saw it.” I lifted PJ higher onto my hip. “My understanding is that my sister-in-law designed it, or at least worked with an architect who shared her vision for it.”
Brennan nodded. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure didn’t grow up in digs like this.”
“Me, neither.” I glanced around. “This whole world is foreign to me.”
He was pacing the front room, walking the perimeter and looking inward toward the furniture around the hearth, as if gauging something. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Wisconsin. A peninsula called Door County, on Lake Michigan.” I held up my right hand, palm facing the officer. “If my hand was Wisconsin, my thumb would be where Door is. It’s a tourist area, and we have lots of fruit orchards, too.”
“Sound like a pretty place,” Brennan said.
I smiled again, despite myself. Officer Brennan reminded me of the boys I grew up with. He would have fit right in, back home in Baileys Harbor.
The baby started to fuss, and I grabbed the shawl from where I’d left it draped over the chair. I placed the shawl and the baby on the carpet with the measuring cups and bowls.
I turned back toward Brennan. Pleasant as the officer was, I was ready for him to leave. “Are you about done?”
“Yes, of course.” He started for the front door, then glanced down the hallway. “Wait—I almost forgot the other bedrooms,” he said, and then added, apologetically, “Sorry, ma’am. I’m kind of new at this.”
My heart thudded. I followed Brennan down the hall to the master bedroom. He began by opening the closet door and poking his nose inside. “Quite a full closet here.” He didn’t say anything about all the items in the closet being a woman’s clothes.
My eyes darted toward the dresser where Silja’s jewelry box sat, with the envelope inside it containing who-knows-what.
Heavens, Angela, I scolded myself—you may as well have shouted and pointed it out to him. But the officer was still going through the closet, sliding the hangers one after the other from right to left.
He moved on to the dresser, but he didn’t touch the jewelry box. After a few minutes, he turned on his heel and went into the guest room. “Baby sleeps in here?” he asked, seeing the bed set up with the dining room chairs around it.
“Yes. We have nowhere else to put him. We’re going home on Tuesday, so it’s okay.”
It struck me that perhaps we would not be going home on Tuesday. What was going on at the police station? I wished I could be a fly on the wall there.
Brennan opened the closet door to reveal Henry’s clothes. He turned toward me. “You have any idea if Henry Glass had been sleeping in this room?”
I shrugged and didn’t reply.
The officer glanced at the baby’s suitcase. “Baby’s bag?”
I nodded, thinking of the little snapshot album snuggled between the clean folds of cotton diapers. But Brennan just chuckled. “For such little people, they sure need a lot of stuff.” He passed out of the room, and I followed him back to the main part of the house.
“Thanks for letting me look around,” he said.
He peered at me almost shyly. His innocent look made my heart ache. Why in heaven’s name had I decided none of the nice boys in Baileys Harbor were good enough for me?
Because, I sternly reminded myself—because I’d held out for the man of my dreams. And he’d appeared, just as I knew he would.
We’d be fine, I told myself. Paul and I would be fine, once we were able to leave this house forever.
“Sure,” I said softly to the officer. “Anytime.”
I desperately wanted to ask him to reveal any tiny detail about Silja that he might have. But after Hill’s silent rebuke earlier, I knew Brennan wouldn’t comply.
“If you need anything, Mrs. Glass, please let me know. You can reach me at the State Troopers’ station in Hawthorne.”
I nodded. “Thank you, officer,” I said, ushering him out the front door.
• • •
I closed the door and leaned against it. I glanced across the room at PJ, who was watching me from where he sat squarely in the middle of the spread-out shawl. “Well, that was a close call,” I said to him. He babbled in response.
I went to the kitchen, finally able to make the coffee no one else had wanted. Pouring a cup, I looked around, wondering what I was supposed to do while I waited for Paul and Ruby to return. Clean some more? There was ample opportunity; the house presented a seemingly unlimited buildup of dirt and grime.
But what was in that snapshot album?
No, I told myself firmly, sipping coffee. No, it was not mine to know.
Not under normal circumstances, I argued back. But these are hardly normal circumstances.
I set my cup on the counter. I’d just go check on it, I thought. Just make sure it was still there, was still in the baby’s suitcase.
• • •
I held the small leather book in my hands. Turning it over, I ran my fingers over the soft spine. How many times had Silja opened this album? How many times had she looked fondly at these photographs—whatever they showed?
“No, Angie,” I chided myself—aloud, as if I’d be more convinced by the hum of my own voice than by thoughts alone. “You have no right.” I reached forward, determined to nestle the album back into the suitcase.
Then I stopped, reconsidering.
What if the photos revealed information that would help? Who would I be, if I didn’t even look for clues? Didn’t even try to help?
Glancing furtively around, I went back to the main room, the little album clasped in my fingers. The baby was still playing happily on the shawl.
I picked up my coffee cup from the counter, sat down on the davenport, and slid my finger under the album’s flap. I held my breath as the snap came undone with a tiny, almost inaudible click.
39
* * *
Ruby
They all sit in a little windowless room, just like on television. There’s a table and chairs and the cops offer coffee or water to Ruby and Uncle Paul, and they both say no. A chunky ceramic ashtray, brown as a pile of dung, sits in the center of the table. It’s the kind of thing kids make in shop class in seventh grade. Ruby wonders if some officer’s kid made it, and the officer brought it to work and said he didn’t want that ugly thing on his desk, the department could have it, and some secretary didn’t know what else to do with it, so she put it in the interrogation room. Does the officer’s kid know where it ended up?
Ruby asks if she can smoke. But they say no, she can’t, because she’s a minor.
On the other side of the table is Officer Hill, and seated next to him is another man who introduces himself as Detective Slater. He wears a suit, not a uniform. Ruby keeps her eyes on Hill’s name tag. She doesn’t like Hill, but she likes his name, because it’s a real word. Hill is almost as good a name as Glass.
Hill doesn’t talk; he just sits there. Slater does all the talking. He’s chain-smoking Viceroys, stubbing them out in the ceramic ashtray. Ruby watches him with envy.
Slater starts off by saying, “Ruby, I see in these notes from Detective Duffy, who you talked to a few days ago, that you’ve been asked a number of questions already.”
He looks up from the piece of paper in front of him. Like he’s just reading it casually. Like it’s a newspaper article or a magazine he picked up at the drugstore, something to read while he waits for the train, the way Ruby’s mother used to do. Life Harper’s Architectural Digest (her favorite). She’d bring them home and give them to Ruby when she was done with them.
Slater seems to be waiting for Ruby to say something, but she’s not sure what, so she just nods. She pulls her sweater—Shepherd’s sweater—tighter around her body. She wraps her hands inside the sweater’s cuffs, gathering the wool in bunches.
“I just want to go over it one more time,” Slater says.
He’s looking at Uncle Paul when he says this. But then he turns to Ruby and takes the cigarette out of his mouth. He smiles briefly, like he’s trying to encourage her. Befriend her.
And she can’t blame him. That’s his job, right? His job is to get her to trust him.
“So tell us again, Ruby,” Slater says, “exactly how you came to find your father’s body.”
“The house was dark when I got home,” Ruby explains. “Neither of my parents were there.”
“No sign of your mother? Any indication she’d come home from work?”
Ruby pulls her hands out of her sleeves. She wants to reach inside Shepherd’s sweater and bring out her mother’s necklace; her fingers long to play with it. But revealing the necklace is a bad idea, so instead she twirls her ponytail in her fingers. “I checked the garage, and my mother’s car wasn’t there. That seemed strange and I started to worry.”
The Glass Forest Page 18