by Susan Breen
“Of course.”
The sun diffused as it came in through the window, which reminded Maggie of Lucifer and the library. It occurred to her that Domino had asked Trudi for special candy.
“You were friends with Domino Raines?”
“We knew each other a long time,” Trudi said. Her bracelet jingled as she picked out a bag of M&M’s and tore it open. She shook out a few into her hand. “I guess that made us friends.”
“You seem like very different people.”
“We ended up very different,” Trudi said. “But we started off more similar than you’d think. We both went to Cranston.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“My mother felt strongly that a private school education was better than a public one. She took out a mortgage on the house to send me there. She wanted me to become fluent in ancient Greek, which I did, and I also became friendly with Domino.”
Some kids came in from the middle school then, jostling around, holding their quarters. Some things didn’t change, Maggie thought. Kids were always exuberant. They made a lot of noise. They traveled in packs. They could be cruel. She wondered what Edgar would be like in five years’ time. She tried to picture it but couldn’t. Maggie noticed Trudi position herself so her hands were covering a jar of loose candies. She was gentle, but she was also shrewd. They lived in an affluent area, but that didn’t stop kids from stealing. It reminded Maggie of something she’d read in the book on sin that the reverend had given her—that larceny rates were higher at religious seminaries than anywhere else. When the author asked why, the seminary dean said, “Because we all believe in forgiveness. We’re not worried about punishment.”
“What was Domino like when she was young?” Maggie asked, after the kids had gone. “I don’t remember her at all.”
Trudi never answered a question quickly. She always thought about it, so when she didn’t say anything, Maggie knew to wait.
“She was loud,” she said. “She always liked sugar straws—the purple ones. Her teeth were always a little purple. She always had a boyfriend, sometimes two. She wore a leather jacket that she loved. She got it when she worked at the gas station. She was one of the gas girls.”
“Gas girls?” Maggie queried.
“They pumped gas. You’d drive in and they’d sashay out and pump your gas. I applied for the job but didn’t get it.”
“Just as well.”
“She wasn’t a good friend. I mean, she wasn’t someone you could trust, but she was fun to be around. She always knew where the parties were. Which kids had the best basements. Where there’d be liquor. Who had the cool parents.”
“She sounds so normal,” Maggie said.
“That’s just it,” Trudi said. “If you’d asked me to come up with one word to describe her, I’d have said ‘ordinary.’ But then she turned herself into someone who was really extraordinary.”
“Was that why she left? Because she knew she was extraordinary, but felt she couldn’t be that way here? In Darby?”
“No,” Trudi said, looking toward the window, Maggie following her gaze in time to see Billy Kim maneuvering on his hover board. He rode it right in the middle of Main Street. A parade of cars waited behind him, some honking, which was what had drawn Trudi’s attention.
“She left because she was run out of town. After the incident with the poppet.”
“The voodoo doll?” Maggie asked.
“Yes.”
“What happened there? I’ve heard only rumors.”
“Domino didn’t talk about it, so I’m not sure I know the full story,” Trudi said. She settled herself back on a stool, and gestured to Maggie to sit down herself. A great honor. Very few people were allowed behind the counter. The world looked so different when the candy was behind you instead of in front of you, Maggie thought. One of her Sunday School students came in just then, and started when she saw Maggie near the cash register. She giggled and ran out of the store.
“I cost you a sale,” Maggie said.
“She’ll be back,” Trudi said. “Peanut M&M’s.”
“So, the poppet.”
Trudi nodded. “Domino was dating Tim Harrison.”
“I heard about that,” Maggie said.
“I don’t think she liked him that much, but she liked the idea of going out with him because he had lived in Stern Manor. She liked the twist of fate. I suspect she liked toying with him, hinting that if they were to marry, his family would be back at Stern Manor. She could be cruel.”
“Yes,” Maggie said, remembering how she’d bit Passion’s lip.
“In fact, she was going out with someone else at the same time.”
“Grant Winfrey?” Maggie asked.
Trudi looked startled. “You’ve heard of him? Yes. Grant Winfrey.
“Tim broke things off with her because he fell in love with someone else. She was a sweet girl—Laura was her name, I think. Loved Juicy Fruit. Bought a pack every day.” Trudi closed her eyes. “She wore white Keds. I always remember that because I wanted a pair but my mother wouldn’t let me get them. Anyway, Domino laughed when he broke it off. She said he was a loser, but I didn’t think she really cared. She had so many boys who wanted her.”
Trudi paused. Maggie found herself wondering if Trudi’d had boys who wanted her. She had a daughter, so there had to be a boy in the picture at some point, but Maggie’d never seen a man associated with her—or her mother, come to that.
“Then one day this poppet shows up in Laura’s locker. There was a pin sticking out of its neck, and everyone’s saying that Domino put it there.”
“Did she?”
“She must have,” Trudi said. Her long fingers pushed around the M&M’s on the counter. “It was the sort of thing she would do, and yet when she found out Laura’d died, I thought she was surprised. I remember how she laughed about it. She seemed transformed, as though she hadn’t realized she had that power in her.”
“She didn’t feel badly.”
“No, I wouldn’t say she was remorseful. I had the strangest sensation she was afraid. Perhaps she just thought to scare the girl and hadn’t planned to kill her. She was shaken up, and she left not long after. I don’t think she even graduated, and I didn’t hear anything more about her again until she got a part in a movie in Hollywood. She sent me a postcard. Then she went on and married Lucifer and became herself. I think Laura’s death transformed her, made her feel powerful, but maybe it also made her recognize how strong those powers were.”
“Do you think she actually caused Laura to die?”
“I know she believed she did.”
“What about Laura’s parents,” Maggie asked. Suddenly it occurred to her that if anyone had a motive for hurting Domino it would be them, but Trudi shook her head. “They died a long time ago. The grief killed them.”
There wasn’t much to say after that. Maggie could only imagine how horrifying it would be to lose a child in such a way. To think that someone intentionally wanted to take your daughter’s life. The fear and anguish they would have felt. Trudi gave her an extra Snickers bar when she left.
“For free,” Trudi said, and Maggie took it for the present it was, though she swore to herself she would not eat it for a month, and then she set out for the office, except that as she started to walk, she felt too buzzed and decided instead to walk a bit on the aqueduct.
The aquaduct was a long path that ran from the Croton River in Westchester down to Manhattan, but a part of it ran right through Darby. Once its pipes carried fresh water to New York, but now it was just a long and peaceful swath of green, large parts of it so covered with shrubs and vines that it seemed primordial. Many of Darby’s great mansions backed onto it, and without precisely meaning to, Maggie found herself walking in the direction of Stern Manor.
No one else was around, though it was a clear, fine day. The leaves were falling in bunches. They crunched underneath Maggie’s feet, but periodically there’d be one bright red one, underneath the
dead ones, shining brightly. Some of the leaves looked as though they had lip liner around their edges, which made her think of Domino. She’d never liked that look herself. Thought it made you appear like you were bleeding, or that you were artificially constructed, and perhaps that was the point.
Maggie kept on walking, past the old aqueduct markers. She always liked to touch them, remnants of an earlier time. Trudi’s words rang in her head, old friends lost. So many losses and yet so much continuity as well. She walked past a little rock painted yellow in order to stop bicycle riders from flying over it. She kept going and soon enough there was Stern Manor in front of her.
From this angle Maggie had a more comprehensive view of Stern Manor than you could get if you stood in front of it, though from any angle it was a forbidding place. The thing that struck you most of all was just how big it was. It extended back farther than she’d realized. There were windows piled on top of windows. She could see the windows of Madame Stern’s room, noticed curtains blowing out of them. Underneath that was a cupola. The building made her think of a hive. There was life inside it but it was hidden and the house was designed to look secretive, she suspected. All the windows were hidden by cornices. It was impossible to look in. Dominating the whole thing was the tower. It seemed to off center the house, Maggie thought. But then, it was a discordant sort of place. It wasn’t balanced. That was the point.
As she looked at it, Maggie thought over all she’d learned about Domino in the last week. She kept coming back to the question that had started everything. Was she evil? Had Racine been right when she came to Maggie’s office and explained why she wanted to hire her, a Sunday School teacher and private detective.
It was all so complicated. Maggie lived in the modern world, and the modern world was full of reasonable explanations. People were abused, they were sick, they were damaged. There were so many reasons for why people did what they did, and they made sense. So was there something deeper underlying all this? Was there an exterior force that moved people to do harm? Maggie believed in a force for good, so how could she not believe in its reverse?
She stared at Stern Manor and thought of the people who’d perished in its cellar. A human being had chained up other people and forced them to die. Something dark and ugly moved inside that house and moved there still. She shivered. Could she really defeat such a force? She was a 62-year-old Sunday School teacher suffering from anxiety and self-doubt. It seemed a lot to put on her plate. But she wasn’t alone, she thought, and that was a comfort. She was never alone.
Chapter 28
Maggie planned to spend Saturday getting ready for her Sunday School class. She needed to come up with something stupendous. Domino’s son, Milo, would be there, as would Walter, and she suspected neither one would be easily amused. She set out a pad of paper, she got out the curriculum, she began to write out ideas and the phone rang. It was Racine.
“I’m sorry to bother you at home on a Saturday,” Racine said.
Maggie never understood why people said things like that. If you were truly sorry, you wouldn’t do it.
“No problem,” Maggie replied.
Maggie also didn’t understand why she said things like that, given that it was so clearly a problem.
“I just wanted to see how you’re coming with today’s report.”
Maggie had emailed Racine a report for each of the last four nights, but she hadn’t realized Racine expected one on the weekend too.
“It’s only 10:00,” Maggie said, hoping to keep querulousness out of her voice. No one wanted a whining detective. Detective Grudge certainly never whined. He grunted. “Nothing’s happened yet,” Maggie pointed out.
“What time will you get it to me? I know I’m being a bother, but I rely on those reports and the one you sent me last night was short. And late.”
Maggie was tempted to say many things. She’d discovered a tarantula and been yelled at by Walter Campbell and a slew of other things that would not be appropriate to put in a gold star report. She was also tempted to point out that this was her first real job as a private detective, and she was doing the best she could, and if Racine criticized her any more she would cry. But she suspected that this was yet another matter in which it would be best to say nothing. No one wanted to hear their private detective suffered from anxieties. No one wanted to know that it had been a very long time since anyone had expected something more of Maggie Dove than that she show up and be pleasant.
“What are you doing today?” Racine pressed on. “What are your plans?”
Maggie looked at the pad of paper on her desk, the stacks of curriculum, the cup of coffee slowly cooling.
“In fact, I was planning to stop by Stern Manor to speak to Passion.”
“She’s not here today. She’s gone into New York City. She’s never been there before. Why, did she tell you she’d be home?”
“No. No,” Maggie said. “Then I think I’m going to talk to Tim Harrison.”
“Tim.” Racine laughed. “The garbage man? What do you think he can tell you?”
Maggie wondered if Racine even knew about Domino’s romance. It must have taken place in Domino’s last year of high school, and Racine was living in France at the time. The two sisters were separated by fifteen years, and no sooner had Domino left than Racine came home. When you thought about it, Domino and Racine had probably not been together for close to fifty years. What must it have been like for Racine to come back from France with her sister accused of murder and her father dead, because his death had come soon after. It often happened like that. Disaster swept through a family. Her husband had died a year before Juliet, which was a blessing, in retrospect, because it spared him having to live through that nightmare, but it set in motion shock waves Maggie was still reeling from.
“They were close when they were young,” Maggie explained. “I’m hoping he can help me understand her.”
“You think that what happened to Domino had its origins in something that occurred so long ago?”
“Her death was not long after she arrived home for the first time in decades. Maybe that’s a coincidence, but it seems unlikely. I think something happened.”
“Okay,” Racine said. “So when will you get me the report?”
“Six-thirty,” Maggie said, which was as good a time as any to do something that she hadn’t planned out at all.
“I’ll be waiting.”
She wasn’t worried about finding Tim Harrison. There was no garbage pickup on Saturday, so he could only be at D’Amici’s. She’d talk to him and write up a report. She supposed she should change out of her pajamas, in that case. Her pajamas were like her regular clothes. Black pants, black top and a white shawl, but they were all softer. She went to her bedroom to put on her clothes. It had gotten chilly, a more normal version of November weather. She was just trying to decide between heavy black pants and middle-weight black pants when the phone rang. She hoped it wasn’t Racine again, and it wasn’t.
It was Leona Faraday.
“Everything’s a disaster,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Have you looked at the menu for that Ghanaian restaurant?”
“Not yet.”
“There are cow hoofs are on the menu.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to order them. I’m sure there’s something with rice.”
“You know, there’s a nice church up in Tarrytown that has a Dining Out Club and they’re going for Italian food. Right in Tarrytown.”
“That’s nice, but we could do that any day of the week. Where’s the adventure in it?”
“May I speak frankly?”
Which was another expression Maggie was not wild about. She would rather someone asked if she could speak kindly. “Leona, you can speak frankly, but it’s not going to change anything. Reverend Sunday has chosen this restaurant. She’s excited about it. She wants to introduce us to her culture. To not go would be an insult. We will just have to attend, taste the food and be pl
easant.”
“Well,” Leona said. “You’ve become a different person since being a private detective.”
“I hope so,” Maggie said.
She went back to getting dressed. She fluffed up her white hair and put on her pearl earrings. She hadn’t had breakfast yet, but she figured when she was at D’Amici’s she’d get a bacon and egg sandwich. She was looking forward to that when her phone buzzed again.
“Yes,” she said.
“Hey, Maggie Dove,” Helen said. “Do you have a minute?”
“Always,” she said, and sat back down. She kept a careful eye on Kosi as she sat. He’d been quiet since she shut him out of her room last night, but she didn’t trust him.
“Everything okay?” Maggie asked.
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “I’ve been thinking about that tarantula. Don’t you find it odd that it showed up at your house?”
“I just figured it followed me.”
“There are 6,000 people in Darby, more or less. Why would it follow you?”
It was a reasonable point. “I suppose I was so surprised to find a tarantula in my living room that I didn’t stop to wonder what it meant.”
“I think it’s a warning,” Helen said.
“About what? I haven’t done anything.”
“You must have.”
Maggie was dumbfounded, though it made sense. She knew something and didn’t know what she knew. Why else would someone put a tarantula in her house? She felt frightened. She’d been to a witchcraft store; she’d followed a strange man. What if there was a coven after her?
Helen said, “You don’t have a security system, do you?”
Maggie eyed Kosi. “Nothing formal.”
“I have some friends I can get hold of. Let me bring them over. We’ll get the house wired. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“It seems like a lot.”
“You’re precious, Dove. Anyway, why take chances?”
Indeed, Maggie thought. She didn’t go out the rest of the day. She spent the afternoon with the men and women who showed up with Helen. She was fascinated by the transformation in Helen when she was with her co-workers. Normally so exhausted and beleaguered, with her cohorts she was dynamic and confident. It made Maggie realize how much of a toll Edgar was taking on her.