Bone White

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “How did Oswald feel about Horace?”

  “Oh, he was very protective of his little brother, and an excellent role model in the early years—he was an avid horseman, and a champion oarsman. He excelled at academics, and he was the most popular boy in school. He graduated first in his class and was accepted to Dartmouth.”

  “It must be a family tradition. Braden Mundy just graduated from there.”

  “Who?”

  “Rowan’s son.”

  Ora smiles absently, poised with the plate and spoon. “That’s nice. And was he on the crew team, as well?”

  If she digs in to eat that, I’ll have to stop her.

  Aloud, she says, “I have no idea.”

  “Oswald was going to be on the team, but then he had his accident, and everything changed.”

  “He was hit by a train, right? What happened, exactly?”

  “It was late at night, and he was walking alone. He must have tripped and fallen.” She stoops over to put the plate on the floor, and Briar Rose begins devouring it.

  Crisis averted. Phew.

  “Oswald was lucky he survived, but he lost his left arm. So tragic. And of course, that was when everything changed with Horace.”

  Emerson watches her put the dirty spoon back into the drawer, and the empty can back into the refrigerator.

  “Um, Miss Abrams . . .”

  “Yes, dear?”

  If she interrupts the tale, she may never get to hear the rest—at least, not from the old woman who knew her great-grandfather and uncle personally.

  “You said Oswald had an iron arm?”

  She shudders. “Yes. The doctors fitted him with it, a hideous thing, virtually useless. Rowing was out of the question. And his face was scarred after the accident. One cheek and his jaw were like the pulp of a blood orange.”

  “It must have been painful for him.”

  “Well, back in those days, they prescribed laudanum to manage the pain.”

  “That’s opium.”

  “Yes, and highly addictive. It impaired Oswald’s cognitive skills. The following year, he did enroll at Dartmouth alongside Horace, but he didn’t last very long.”

  “He failed out of college? What did he do then?”

  “What else was there to do but come home to Mundy’s Landing?”

  Emerson can picture the former hero, maimed, addicted, and depressed, a disheveled has-been.

  “But he did eventually fall in love and get married and have a son,” she remembers—her own grandfather.

  “Love? I don’t know about that. He had a dalliance with a teenage hired girl, and that resulted in a pregnancy and a shotgun marriage. An utter disgrace to poor Aaron and Sarah.”

  “I’m sure it was,” she murmurs. “What about his son, Donald?”

  “Born just four months after the wedding. He was the same age as Horace’s youngest, Arthur.”

  “I wonder if it made Oswald happy, for a little while, anyway. Being a father, having someone to love,” she adds, seeing Ora’s quizzical expression.

  “Oh no. Not at all. There was no love. That baby made him miserable, and his wife, as well. She ran off with another man, never to be seen again.”

  Thinking of Didi, she marvels that history had repeated generations later with her own mother’s abandonment.

  No wonder her father had been so unhappy. So damaged, and angry.

  So am I.

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “Aunt Etta told me.”

  “How did she know?”

  “She knew everything.” Ora shrugs.

  “And the baby? Donald?”

  “What about him?”

  “Did she know him? Or did you? Did you know what became of him after his mother left?”

  “Horace’s poor wife had to nurse him alongside her own infant, Arthur, so that the poor thing wouldn’t starve to death. She’d have taken him in and raised him, and Oswald probably would have handed him over in a heartbeat, but Aunt Etta said Horace wouldn’t allow it. He sent them away when the boy was weaned.”

  “Away . . . where?”

  “They were nearby at first. And then I don’t know whatever happened to them.”

  “Did you ever meet Donald?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Ora, who prides herself on knowing everything, gives an offhanded shrug to indicate the insignificance of the child who grew up to become Emerson’s grandfather.

  No wonder Donald didn’t like to speak about his past. No wonder he was estranged from Oswald, a bitter embarrassment by the time he died in his nineties.

  “I feel sorry for him,” she tells Ora.

  “For the father, or the child?”

  “Both. They were victims of a terrible tragedy.”

  “Plenty of people survive traumatic injuries and go on to live productive lives. Oswald’s unfortunate accident didn’t have to result in his becoming such a . . .”

  “A train wreck?”

  The irony in her comment doesn’t escape Ora, who flashes an appreciative smile.

  “Precisely. Oswald made bad choices that led to colossal failures, including his marriage.”

  “His marriage led to the birth of his son.”

  “A miserable marriage, and a miserable child, Aunt Etta said. It cried all the time.”

  “Of course it did! Because its mother was gone, and its father was broken! And it was not an it. You’re talking about a human being.”

  “I’m aware of that, my dear.”

  She’s talking about Donald Mundy.

  Not about you.

  Yet Emerson can’t help herself. She goes on, “A child can sense when her parents wish she’d never been born.”

  Ora catches the slip. “She?”

  “He. Thank goodness that little boy was born, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “That isn’t true, my dear. Oswald’s failings had very little impact on Horace’s family life. His marriage was stable, and his children were—”

  “Oswald was my great-grandfather. Not Horace.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  They’re toddlers playing tug of war with a plastic sandbox shovel, and Emerson can’t let go.

  “My grandfather, Donald Mundy, was Oswald’s son.”

  “That can’t be.”

  “It is. It was. I don’t know why you keep insisting—”

  “Because of your eyes, Miss Mundy. It’s very simple. ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oswald’s eyes were dark. Horace had one blue eye, and one gray. Heterochromia is passed from parent to child, and it appears in every generation. Aaron had it. So did two of Horace’s boys, and my little playmate, Artie. Oswald’s son couldn’t have had heterochromia, so he couldn’t have been your grandfather.”

  “But my father said . . .”

  Her father.

  Her father, who had piercing blue eyes.

  If Ora really does know everything, then not only can Oswald not be Emerson’s great-grandfather, but—

  Her mind’s meandering along that treacherous path is curtailed by a scream.

  This scream, Sully knows, is not swimming pool child play.

  It’s an adult voice, a woman in trouble, and it came from somewhere on Prospect Street or beyond.

  She jumps up, grabs her badge and gun, and heads for the door.

  Barnes starts to follow.

  “No!” She whirls to stop him. “Stay.”

  “You stay, too.” He steps around her, blocking her path.

  “What the hell, Barnes! This has nothing to do with you.”

  “How do you know? I haven’t even told you—”

  “Get out of my way!

  “Don’t go blasting out of here until you know what’s going on.”

  “I need to go do my job!” She gives his chest a push, a feather duster attempting to budge a concrete wall.

  “Dammit.” He steps aside, but again tries to foll
ow her.

  “I’m not the one who’s hiding. You are. If you set foot outside, people are going to know you’re here. Do you really want that?”

  Another scream, shrill and terrified.

  Leaving him behind, Sully races down the steps and out onto the sidewalk.

  Barreling around the corner onto Prospect, she spots a knot of people gathered in the front yard of the Dapplebrook Inn.

  The manager, Nancy Vandergraaf, is at the center of the group. She’s obviously the one who was screaming. The others are trying to calm her, and Nancy keeps gesturing at the behemoth maple tree several yards away.

  “Sully!” Trevor, her waiter pal, spots her. “Hurry!”

  She sprints toward them.

  Trevor keeps one arm wrapped around Nancy’s thin shoulders and points toward the tree with the other. His shirtsleeve has ridden up, and this time, she can see his tattoo. So much for his mother’s initials. At a glance, she thinks it’s a swastika, but a shocked double take reveals an ugly black spider.

  “What’s going on? Nancy, are you all right?”

  She wails unintelligibly.

  Trevor translates: “There’s a dead person hanging from the tree.”

  Letter

  Horace J. Mundy

  68 Prospect Street

  Mundy’s Landing, New York

  August 8, 1894

  Dear Horace,

  This morning, Mrs. Anderson told me I had a letter. I was certain it would be from you, and that it would contain the funds I requested.

  Bully for me. I was half right.

  In response to your written request that I never again darken the doorstep of your fine new summer home, I shall remind you of two incidents.

  Do you recall the time three horrid older boys cornered you in the schoolyard? They were bigger and stronger than you, as most were. Yet they were also bigger than me. I heard you shouting for me and I took them on. Three against one. Those bullies went home wailing, with black eyes and fat lips all around. You told me that day that if ever I needed a favor—anything at all, even a tremendous one—I should call upon you.

  Now I have, only to be denied. I remind you that I requested a loan, not a handout. Heaven knows you have more than enough money to spare. If you can provide the means to get me by for a few months, I shall turn things around, look for work, perhaps heal from these terrible injuries at last.

  If you cannot . . .

  Ah, yes. There was one other memory I wanted to share. Forgive my lapse. My brain hasn’t functioned properly since the accident. I fear nothing has.

  Yet for all that I forget, one memory stubbornly persists.

  After the accident back in ’88, you were at my bedside, and Mother, too, in despair over my condition.

  She believed I was comatose. You both did. The doctors confirmed it was the case. Yet I heard every word.

  I heard Mother asking you how it could have happened. I heard you tell her that we were fishing down by the river, and quarreled about some silly thing, and you left to walk home alone.

  You neglected to mention that we’d been sipping Father’s bourbon—imagine Mother’s fury if she knew that he kept a hidden flask, or that we had helped ourselves to it, intending to learn to drink spirits like a man. You see, Horace? I remember far more of that night than you do. Or perhaps, just far more than you want me to.

  You told Mother I must have stumbled while I was crossing the railroad trestle, and fallen onto the tracks.

  After she left the room, I felt your hand squeeze mine—the only hand I had left. I heard you sobbing pitifully. I heard you apologize for what you had done, praying that God would forgive you. That I would forgive you.

  I did not know then what you meant.

  Now, all these years later, I do.

  As a boy, you used to look at me with great admiration and respect. Somewhere along the way, it turned to envy. On that last night by the river, I saw pure hatred—unleashed by drink, but hatred nonetheless. When I last looked into those mismatched eyes of yours, I see pity and disdain, and guilt.

  You came up behind me as I was walking home, didn’t you? You pushed me in front of the train.

  You wanted me to die.

  It would have been better for both of us if I had.

  But you have achieved your goal. You’ve replaced me as the favorite son, golden boy of Mundy’s Landing. And so you shall remain, as long as you can see fit to help a fellow to whom you do, after all, still owe a tremendous favor.

  I await your response.

  Your brother,

  Oswald Mundy

  c/o Mrs. Anderson

  162 Academy Street

  Poughkeepsie, New York

  Chapter 10

  “Ora? Ora!”

  A voice, not Aunt Etta’s, but a female voice, steals through the darkness. She feels a cool, moist cloth dabbing at her forehead.

  Someone is gently tending to her.

  Mother?

  She must be dreaming, or . . .

  Perhaps her time has come. If so, then it isn’t nearly as traumatic as she’d expected. One minute, she was sitting in at the table, the next . . .

  She opens her eyes, hoping that Papa is here, too. Heaven looks very much like her kitchen, and her mother looks very much like . . .

  “Thank goodness!” the woman says, her eyes—one blue, and one gray—wide with concern.

  “What . . . ?”

  “You fainted.”

  Fainted?

  Ah, then this really is her kitchen, and the woman is Emerson Mundy.

  Ora feels oddly disappointed to find herself alive and well.

  Or perhaps not entirely well. She doesn’t seem to have the strength to sit up, and her eyes insist on closing again.

  “Ora? Ora, can you hear me? I’m going to call . . .”

  Untethered, she allows herself to drift into the darkness again.

  Sirens are wailing before Sully can call for backup.

  “I called them when I heard Nancy,” Trevor tells her.

  Sully touches his arm, grateful that the ugly black ink spider has crawled back up his sleeve for now. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nancy went outside to water the flower beds, and—”

  “I do it every morning!” Nancy’s interjection is a shrill protest, as if someone had expressed doubt. “Every single morning! I water those flowers, and today . . .” She shakes her head.

  Sully has never seen Nancy Vandergraaf disheveled, and this moment is no exception. Though trembling and shell-shocked, the woman doesn’t have a hair out of place. Her mascara isn’t even running.

  Trevor resumes his account. “When I heard Nancy scream, I was thinking, you know, about the yellow jackets. There’s a hive in the window well back in there by the hose.” He indicates the rose of Sharon hedge alongside the house. “She got stung the other day, and I thought she’d been stung again, till I looked out the window and saw . . .”

  He points to the maple tree growing at the corner of the veranda. A human hand, swollen and blue, pokes from behind the thick trunk, motionless, suspended a few feet off the ground.

  “There’s a note on the tree,” Trevor says as a squad car pulls up at the curb.

  “A suicide note?” Sully asks.

  “Not really. Some kind of game. Here, I’ll show you.”

  “No, Trevor, we need to wait right here for backup.”

  Sully finds herself scrutinizing him, all of them—Nancy, and the neighbors who have gathered around.

  A shivery old woman hugs herself as if she’s frightened or freezing, the latter unlikely given her hunter green velour tracksuit that’s too warm for June. Wide-eyed adolescent boys whisper to each other, skateboards under their scrawny arms. A ponytailed mom balances a baby on her hip and a cell phone in her hand, texting as her child whimpers.

  More neighbors are heading in this direction, others are out on their porches, passing cars are stopped in the street, their drivers gaping at the commotion.
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  Sully recognizes only Dr. Yamazaki, the plastic surgeon who lives in the Murder House across the street. She usually sees him coming and going from the hospital or office wearing scrubs or sport coats. He must be off today, dressed down in a turquoise St. Barts T-shirt. He’s carrying a pooper-scooper and a knotted plastic bag, and is accompanied by his Akita, Rita, straining on a leash.

  Lieutenant Nick Colonomos steps out of the police car and strides toward them, accompanied by Officer Meagan Johansen, who steps in to hold the new flood of gawkers back from the property.

  “What’s going on, Detective Leary?”

  “DB over there,” she tells Nick.

  Dead body. His dark eyes widen.

  “Did you confirm?”

  “No, I just got here myself, but I was about to—”

  “Let’s go take a look. Officer Johansen, you stay here with the witnesses. Take statements.”

  Sully doesn’t miss the spark of envy in Meagan’s eyes. An attractive brunette with a bikini body that’s prominently featured in her social media photos, she often gazes at Nick Colonomos . . . well, probably the way Sully herself looks at him. He doesn’t seem any more interested in Meagan than he is in Sully.

  Her cell phone vibrates with a text as she and Nick walk across the grass. She pulls it out of her pocket and sees that it’s from Barnes, and consists only of several question marks.

  Not breaking her stride, she writes back, All OK.

  It isn’t, but she is, and that’s presumably all he wants to know.

  “Did they say whether it was a local or a guest?” Colonomos asks Sully in a low voice as they approach the tree.

  “No.”

  Spotting the corpse, though, she stops short in shocked recognition.

  “Suicide. And it’s a partial,” Colonomos mutters.

  Partial—the word registers, and she grasps it somewhere in the back of her mind, in the part that’s not reeling with disbelief.

  Partial hanging, as opposed to a complete hanging, in which the body dangles from the noose. In a partial, the body is asphyxiated by a ligature, but maintains contact with the ground.

  She’s seen both on the job. Neither is pretty.

  The victim is kneeling at the base of the tree, head bent at an unnatural angle. A length of rope is embedded around the neck and rides up the bark, disappearing into the branches overhead.