by Susan Breen
That was not officially part of the gold star service, but few people minded a guest with bread pudding.
She decided to walk there. The air smelled clean, but the sky was the color of a bruise, black and blue and edged with yellow. There were branches flung everywhere, twisted and contorted. It looked like a battlefield. She walked along the river. Her beautiful blue river had turned brown overnight because of all the sediment rising up from the bottom. As Maggie expected, when she neared Stern Manor she saw no lights. The whole mansion seemed blanketed in darkness. The granite facing looked imposing, built to keep people out. Maggie rang the doorbell, which didn’t work, of course, and then she knocked on the door. Nothing. Perhaps they were all still asleep. Maggie dialed Racine’s number on her cell, but Racine didn’t answer, and yet Maggie was sure she heard the phone ringing inside. Racine might just be ignoring her, of course, but Racine had been so relentlessly insistent on being contacted that it was hard to imagine she wouldn’t answer.
Maggie stood there a moment more. She looked up at the tower. Domino had fallen to her death from that tower not so long ago. She had to do something. She pushed open the door and called out.
“Hello,” her voice warbled. “Hello.”
No answer. Nothing. She tried phoning Racine and once again heard its ring; she headed in that direction, toward the stairs. First she had to walk down the long hallway, wood-paneled and solemn—as she got closer to the end she saw a bit of white on the wood floor. She ran toward it and found Passion’s body lying at the foot of the steps.
There was no question that she was dead. Her large blue eyes stared blankly. Her mouth was still contorted in a scream. Quickly Maggie called 911 and told them to get right over and then she did CPR, though there was no question of it doing any good. Once again she was transported back to Marcus Bender’s body on her lawn, and then before that, to her dear daughter’s body. Each death called up another. Each horror built on the one that preceded it.
Passion’s hair still smelled of the hair salon. She smelled of peach and cleanliness and youth, and now she was dead. Maggie began to shake, but then she heard another sound, one that sounded like a kitten. Maggie ran toward the noise, up the stairs, and there she found Racine, hunched over and whimpering.
“Racine,” she said, crouching down beside her. “Are you all right? What happened?”
She clutched her beret in her hands like a baby. Maggie’d never seen her without it on and it was startling. There was a large bald spot in the middle of her head, but Racine seemed unconscious of it. This woman who was so proud didn’t even notice how exposed she was, and Maggie wanted to take the beret and plant back on her head, but she thought she’d scare her.
“Racine,” she said. “What happened?”
“It’s too late,” Racine moaned.
“What’s too late?” Maggie asked.
“We’re cursed,” Racine said. “This place will kill us all.”
She had no chance to go further, however, because at that moment Milo and his father came wandering in from another part of the house. The police car and ambulance and fire truck arrived. The door flung open. Walter Campbell was there.
Chapter 33
It should have been pandemonium, but it wasn’t. Walter stood perfectly still, for a moment, for two moments, and everyone around him stayed still, too. Mercy stood behind him, silently, holding a camera. Even Milo and Lucifer didn’t move. It was as though someone clicked pause on a remote. And then Lucifer began to keen and he hurled himself toward Passion, and Walter caught him in midstride.
“Stop,” he said. “Stay.”
Doc Steinberg ran around him, knelt down by the body.
“Can’t you help her?” Lucifer cried out.
Walter gripped his collar. “Is there anything we can do for her?” Lucifer asked as the doctor checked her out.
Doc Steinberg shook her head. “No, she’s been gone for a few hours.”
“She can’t be dead. She just went to get a glass of water.”
Lucifer clawed the air, desperate to escape Walter’s grasp and reach Passion, which surprised Maggie. She’d thought his grief over Domino was sincere, but it was nothing compared to this display of emotion. Perhaps Passion was not as naïve as Maggie thought. Maybe he really did adore her. Maybe he did plan to marry her.
“Dad,” Milo said. “Come on.”
He’d always be the boy forgotten, Maggie realized. Always the one who had to remind his parents he was there.
“She went to get a glass of water. She asked me to get it, but I was tired. Then I must have fallen back asleep.”
“We’ll take your statement soon,” Walter said. “But for now we have to investigate the crime scene and I need you to go in another room.”
Tim Harrison and Joe Mangione had come in with a stretcher, though Walter put his hand up, telling them to wait. Maggie wondered how Tim must feel being back in his old house. He stared down at the pattern on the floor and smiled at it as though it contained special meaning for him. Maggie wondered, if you had a great enough shock in your youth, was it ever possible to recapture the emotions you had then? She began to feel cold.
“Crime scene,” Lucifer cried out. “What do you mean a crime scene? No one would have hurt Passion.”
“It’s just procedure,” Walter said. He’d yanked Lucifer over to the other side of the landing, so that he couldn’t see Passion, and now Walter stood in front of him, blocking his view.
“Until I know otherwise, I have to assume this is a criminal act. We can’t risk losing important information. Now, please, let me go about my business.”
Maggie cringed, thinking of how cavalier Peter Nelson had been that April night on her lawn, so confident Marcus died of a heart attack that he hadn’t even put up crime scene tape. No wonder Walter got so mad.
“Did you touch her?” he asked Maggie.
“I tried CPR when I got here. But I could see she was dead.”
He nodded.
“Harrison, would you take Mr. Raines and his son to a room and wait for me to debrief them, and Ms. Stern, I imagine you’ll want to get back to your mother.”
“She’s all alone,” Racine said, jumping to her feet. She seemed to come out of her trance, looked at the beret and plunged it on her head. She began running up the steps.
“Maggie, would you please go with Ms. Stern. I’ll want to talk to you in a bit.”
She didn’t think she’d ever seen Walter that calm.
“Walter, how long is her body going to be here?”
They both looked at Passion, flung out at the bottom of the staircase. Her hand stretched forward, which seemed right to Maggie. She was a forward-looking girl. She was preoccupied with the future.
“It will take a little time,” he said. “We have to take photographs and sketch the scene.”
“I’d like to stay here while you do that.”
He shook his head. “I can’t allow that, Maggie. It’s a complete violation of all the rules.”
“Walter, she’s someone’s daughter and now she’s dead. If I were her mother, I would want to know that someone sat by her when the police were here. You know I didn’t kill her. Would it hurt to be kind?”
“Did you know her?”
“Not well,” Maggie said, “but I might be the closest thing to a friend she had here.”
He crossed his arms.
“Please,” she said. “I know it’s irregular. But I think it’s the right thing to do.”
He was a man who would always want to do the right thing, she suspected, even if it meant breaking the rules. In fact, she realized for the first time that Walter didn’t care about rules at all. Except for his own. That’s why he was teaching the Sunday School class his way although he knew it would get him in trouble. She said a prayer, hoping that her own brand of magic would work, and it did.
“You can stay, but you have to remain out of the way. Sit over there.”
He pointed toward a Gothic
chair tucked into the corner, and Maggie went and sat down. She watched as they went about their business. She was glad to see they were gentle with Passion. No joking, the way they did on TV. Mercy took photos. Walter sketched out a map. Doc Steinberg spoke into her phone. There was something almost religious about all the murmuring.
“We’re going to take her away,” Walter said. “We’ve spoken to her parents. They’re flying in from Texas. They’ll be here tomorrow. Come on, let’s see what information we can get. You doing okay?”
“I just saw her,” Maggie said. “Just yesterday afternoon. At the hair salon.”
“How did she seem?”
“She seemed really young,” Maggie said, and she replayed the conversation with him. He took out his notepad and wrote down notes.
“She planned to marry him,” Walter said.
“Yes. Definitely. Do you think this really is a crime scene? Was she murdered?”
“Doc doesn’t think so. Doesn’t see any bruises, beyond the ones you’d expect. Nothing to suggest it. Probably just a tragedy. Wandering around in the dark. These old houses have a different building code than we have now. You’d never have a staircase like this anymore. It’s a death trap really. Stairs so close together. So easy to fall.”
He went on talking, thinking out loud. He nodded toward the EMTs, who were removing the body, and then he began walking up the steps, treading carefully. “Haven’t found a flashlight. She could have gone to get a glass of water, and then been startled when the lights went out. She’d be trying to make it back to her room, lost her way and fell down these steps. Easy enough to imagine, and it happens enough.”
“Seems awfully coincidental though.”
“Not really,” Walter said, walking across the landing and then pausing at the outside of Madame Simone’s bedroom. “People are more likely to get into accidents when they’re tired and confused. It makes sense that, after witnessing a violent death, Passion would be off balance.”
Walter waited for a beat. He looked at her carefully. Maggie suspected he was the only person in town who didn’t know she had a new haircut. “Why are you here, Maggie Dove?”
“Because I wanted to bring them a bread pudding. I don’t even know what I did with it now. I was worried about them and I called last night and didn’t hear anything and so I thought I’d come by and check up on them.”
“And bring her a bread pudding.”
“Yes, that’s exactly right,” she said. How to explain that she had been touched by the kindness other people had shown in reaching out to her, and she wanted to respond in kind. “I felt badly for them, after the storm, after all they’d been through. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s all.”
He sighed. He was a big man and when he sighed it felt a little bit like the wind was changing direction.
“Let’s see what we find out here,” he said, and then went into the Madame Simone’s room, which looked transformed from the last time Maggie had been there. Then it had seemed so charming, with all its little details and knickknacks, but now it looked cluttered and a little tawdry.
“Ah,” Madame Simone said. “Look who got a haircut. Very flattering.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said, though it hardly seemed the moment.
“Turn your head. Let me see your profile.”
“Madame Simone,” Walter said, “I have some questions to ask you and your daughter about the death that has taken place in your house.”
“That woman did not belong in my house. I did not want her here. I didn’t ask her here. She was an embarrassment to my daughter. My son-in-law has a lot to answer for.”
“Mama,” Racine said. “Please don’t get upset. Not now. I can’t bear any more tragedy.”
“Did you hear her fall?” Walter asked.
“I heard nothing,” Madame Simone said. “I couldn’t hear anything over that storm.”
“What about you, Ms. Stern? Did you hear anything?”
“She didn’t hear anything either,” Madame Simone said. She smacked her hand against her covers. “She was here. With me. Looking after me. I was hungry and I wanted some tea, but Racine didn’t want to leave me alone. She would not let me suffer.”
Maggie tried to imagine the two of them in that storm, the old lady increasingly querulous, Racine trying to take care of her. What a nightmare life that woman led, Maggie thought. Did she have any idea when she returned home from France, to take care of her mother, just what she was giving up? Maggie doubted she’d have the patience for it herself, though her mother, a laughing woman, would never have demanded it. She died too soon. It could also be a tragedy to die not soon enough though, Maggie thought.
“Would you tell me, please,” Walter said to Racine, “how you found the body? I assume you did find her. Please let your daughter talk,” he cautioned Madame Simone, who clenched her jaws closed.
The room seemed to crackle. It was all so overheated. The whole family dynamic was overheated, Maggie thought. For the first time she wondered why on earth Racine had stayed here all this time. What was in it for her? People did things for reasons. They didn’t just decide to throw away forty years of their life for nothing. Something motivated her.
“There was an explosion and I woke up. I thought it was a gun firing. I ran in to check on my mother, but she was asleep. I thought I would go downstairs and get some tea, but when I got down the steps, I found her.”
“That was in the middle of the night. You didn’t call the police then?”
“No. I couldn’t move,” she said. Maggie thought of her sitting on the stairs, without her beret, and she believed her. “I thought if I didn’t move, then maybe she would come alive.”
“She might have come alive if you did move,” Walter said. “You might have been able to save her.”
A breeze gusted in right then, blowing the curtain open. Maggie jumped up and pulled the window closed, though Walter was quickly there, shutting for her. “I have it,” he said.
“I know that,” Racine said. “I know that now. But with the storm raging, I thought it was coming for…but I thought it got her first.” Even her mother seemed struck dumb for the moment.
“Racine didn’t do anything wrong,” Madame Simone said. “She shouldn’t have been wandering around like that. She got what was coming to her.
“Passion,” she muttered.
“My mother’s exhausted,” Racine said. “Please, you have to let her rest for a while.”
Walter didn’t press the point. Perhaps he too felt defeated by the atmosphere. Instead he nodded and got up and said he would be in touch later that afternoon. Then he went back down the stairs, and for just a moment the two of them were alone, by the front door.
There was something so massive about Walter that Maggie felt tempted to lean against him. He was the sort of man who would protect you from anything. No raging storm, no quirk of fate would bother you. Come the apocalypse, Walter would stand and watch, and she realized, as she breathed his scent, that there was something tremendously appealing about that. It was like landing at a safe harbor. You might not want to be there, but how could you bring yourself to leave.
She looked up into his gaze, reading there concern, and she knew in that moment that if she did surrender, she’d never get herself back, and she’d fought so hard to get herself back. She liked where she was, but oh what a tempting harbor he would be. He represented everything she’d lost, everything she’d craved for so long. Security and safety and love. But in order to get that, she’d have to give up her hard-won independence, and she didn’t think she could do that. It seemed like it would be a sin, after all the people who had struggled so hard to get her here.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Chapter 34
Maggie intended to leave Stern Manor and go to the office and report in to Agnes and Helen, but as she started to walk
in that direction, she paused for a moment to admire the copper beech tree. It was a truly majestic tree. Its leaves were the color of cinnamon. Many of them had blown off in the storm, but enough hardy ones clung to the branches that it retained its beautiful shape. Maggie’d always loved the way that tree flamed out in the fall. One day it would be its normal brown and then suddenly it burst into color. Like a surprise party. She didn’t like surprise parties, actually, but she did like this tree, and this particular one was a magnificent specimen. It must have been fifty feet high. It stood so proud. Admiring it, Maggie thought that maybe what she liked so much about trees was their independence. They stood alone, even when in a grove. They were battered and occasionally hacked down, and yet there was always something dignified about a tree. You never saw a pitiful tree, except for the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. She aspired to treehood, she thought. A worthy goal, and she was smiling, thinking about that, when she noticed someone sitting under the tree, lounging on a pile of leaves.
Tim Harrison.
Thank God he was sitting, she thought. She could not bear to discover another body lying prone under a tree. He must have sent the ambulance on ahead and decided to stay behind.
“Hey, Miss Maggie Dove,” he drawled. “How you?”
Tim had bright blond hair, bleached from spending so much time in the sun. Although he didn’t have a dog with him at the moment, he had that sort of rumpled look she associated with dog lovers. She noticed several bits of dog hair on his shoulder.
“I’m okay. How about you?”
Maggie scrunched down beside him. She hadn’t sat in a pile of leaves in a while and it felt good, though she noticed a bee buzzing around. The last time she was stung by a bee, it was when she jumped into a pile of leaves, and she had no desire to duplicate that experience. At the same time, she felt a conversation with Tim Harrison would go better in a pile of leaves. He wasn’t the sort of man you could talk to from across a desk.