by Webb, Wendy
We sank into a pair of armchairs by the fire, and in hushed tones I told Will about my confrontation with Mira, my decision to move to the house, and my determination to get to the bottom of what really happened there all those years ago.
“This mystery about the murder, I just can’t let it be. I have to try to clear my dad’s name.” I paused. “But there’s something else I want to find out, too, something that’s like a thread running through everything.”
“What’s that?”
“I know nothing of my family history. My greatgrandfather built the house I now own, and I don’t know the first thing about him, or about anyone else who ever lived there over the years. I want to know them. I want to know what I’m really made of. The good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Will chuckled. “Good and bad, maybe. Ugly? Never.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. “Will, seriously.”
“Seriously, I suspect you’ll find a little of all three.” Will leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. “That’s how family histories usually go. I’m sure you’ll find it all at the house. There’ll be boxes of old photos and other family memorabilia stashed somewhere.”
I nodded. “Henry has already taken my bags over there. After I get settled, I’ll dive into the mystery of Julie Sutton’s death. Do you think the local police still have their records of the case?” I really had no idea what I’d do with those records, if I even got a chance to see them. The chances of finding any new information after thirty years were slim to none. Still. It was a place to start.
“I’m sure they’ve got them in some dusty file cabinet somewhere,” Will said, finishing his coffee with a slurp. “Listen, I have to get back to the office. How about dinner tonight?”
On the one hand, the thought of being alone in Madlyn’s house for the whole evening was less than appealing. But on the other, I didn’t want to give Will the wrong idea.
Seeing the hesitation in my eyes, he prodded. “There’s a great place on the other side of the island. A girl’s gotta eat.”
I caved. “Sounds good to me.” What could it hurt?
As I gathered up my purse to leave, Jonah called from behind the counter. “Did I hear you right, you’re staying awhile?”
“I am indeed,” I told him, smiling broadly. “I’m moving into the house today.”
He threw a bag of coffee beans my way. “Madlyn was a tea drinker.”
I caught the bag with a smile. “Maybe you can come over to help me drink this one day soon.”
“I’d like that,” he said.
Will threw him a look as he guided me out to the street. “I’d drive you up myself, but I’ve got some calls to make in a few minutes and they might take a while.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll call Henry to come and get you. He usually makes his way downtown around this time anyway.”
I walked with Will toward his office and was about to ask him what time he’d pick me up for dinner when I heard the familiar sound of hoofbeats.
“Henry! Right on cue.” Will waved him over. I noticed my bags were tied on top of the carriage. “This lady needs to go up to the Crane house.”
Henry pulled his horses to a stop and Will held out his hand to help me up into the carriage. “How’s six o’clock for dinner?”
“Great.” I smiled and clambered up to my seat, and Henry headed off. We were only a few blocks into the ride when he stopped the carriage, hopped down, and poked his head in the window. “I thought you might want to stop at the grocery store to get some provisions. I’ll wait here for you.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me to get groceries. “Thanks. I won’t be too long, Henry,” I said, as I hurried into the store.
I wasn’t quite sure what I needed. Yogurt, eggs, and some fruit. Peanut butter, English muffins, milk. I whipped through the store’s deli section, picking up sliced turkey, cheese, and tortillas. I threw a bag of lettuce and some blue cheese dressing into my cart, along with a pound of hamburger, buns, and a couple of low-calorie French bread pizzas. Potato chips and onion dip. Four bottles of wine—What the hell, I’m under stress—and I was good to go. I could pick up more provisions later.
The feel of a hand tugging on my sleeve caused me to whirl around in surprise. It was a woman in her early seventies, with curly gray hair and kind brown eyes.
“Is it true?” she asked.
“I’m not quite sure what you mean, ma’am,” I said to her quietly. “But if you’re asking if I’m the daughter of Noah and Madlyn Crane, the answer is yes. My name is Hallie James.”
She shook her head violently, the kindness in her eyes replaced by a simmering fury. “Tell me, Halcyon, how has your life been these past thirty years?”
The man behind the deli counter looked up. “You okay there, Mrs. Sutton?”
Mrs. Sutton! I bit my lip and braced for the impact. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Sutton,” I stammered, “but—”
“But what?” She cut me off. “What could you possibly be intending to say to me?”
I suppose I was intending to say that my father hadn’t killed her daughter. But standing there with this sad old woman, her eyes brimming with bitter tears of rage and grief for her long-dead daughter, I was speechless.
“Was my daughter afraid when your father tried to strangle her? Did she cry out for me when he pushed her through that window?” She gripped my arm with her bony hands. I looked up and down the aisle for help, but the shopkeeper had disappeared.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Sutton, but I can’t remember anything about what happened,” I told her quickly, trying in vain to free my arm from her grasp. “The first I had ever heard about your daughter’s death was yesterday. And for that matter, the first I had ever heard about this island and my whole life here was just a week before that. I believed, all my life, that my mother died in a fire in Seattle when I was five years old; that’s all I ever knew.” I said all this in one breath, hoping she would realize I wasn’t to blame for her loss.
“Well, I know different,” she spat back at me, her voice growing louder. “I know my daughter never went to a dance. She never had a boyfriend. She never went to a prom. She never fell in love and got married. She never had children. And all the while, you were alive, doing all those things, raised by the man who killed her.”
She was tightening her grip on my arm, a fierce look in her eyes. I had to get away from her immediately. I couldn’t bear to hear her grief. More than that, I felt she was a real danger to me. The woman was in a rage; there was no telling what she might do. I finally broke free of her grasp and, abandoning my cart, ran from the store. I heard her calling after me, “How dare you come back to this island? How dare you?”
“Thanks so much for waiting,” I managed to choke out as I got back into the carriage, my whole body shaking from the force of the encounter I had just experienced.
“No trouble at all, Halcyon.” Henry nodded as he gently snapped the reins, easing the carriage into motion. He didn’t ask about my lack of groceries; blessedly, he didn’t ask about anything at all as we clopped our way home.
When we reached the house, he took my bags from the carriage and carried them to the front door. “She was a good girl, Madlyn was. Her father and I were friends, back then. He was our local veterinarian, you know.”
I smiled into Henry’s caring face. “No, I didn’t know that. I don’t know much about my family history, I’m afraid.”
“That’ll change, I have a feeling,” Henry said. “It’s a miracle, you being back here. She grieved for you every day of her life. It’s a pity she couldn’t have seen what a lovely woman you’ve become.”
Tears welled up and I turned my head with an embarrassed blink. “Thank you.” I nodded at him, fumbling with the keys.
“If you need anything, just holler,” he said, patting my arm. “I’m just a phone call away.”
“You’re going to be sorry you said that.”
“No, indeed. Night or day.”
· 11
Tundra and Tika greeted me like a returning hero—tails wagging, ears back, bodies wiggling round and round—but their enthusiasm did little to abate my uneasiness as I eyed the grand staircase of my childhood home, wondering how I was going to put one foot in front of the other and climb into the unknown. I hadn’t ventured up to the second and third floors last night. Why hadn’t I explored the whole house with Will by my side?
I got the distinct feeling I didn’t belong here, as if I were a trespassing teenager in danger of being caught by the ill-tempered homeowner at any moment. This was my house now, I reminded myself. Madlyn wanted me to have it. She wanted me here. I went from room to room on the main floor, repeating it aloud—”This is my house now; this is my house now”—as if to explain my presence to anyone who might be listening.
I stood at the foot of the stairs awhile, looking at the gleaming wood and the soft maroon of the rug running up the center. Just do it, already. I took a deep breath and climbed the stairs, chanting I belong here with each step. When I reached the top, I found myself in a long hallway containing several doors, all of them closed.
I opened the first door gingerly, and then poked my head into each room in turn. Guest bedrooms, mostly. A guest bath at the end of the hall. The second floor of the house had the same feel as the first—cozy, warm, welcoming. Handmade quilts covered the beds; photos (I assumed they were taken by Madlyn) hung on the walls. Why had I felt so uneasy about coming up here?
I kept hoping my memories would come rushing back, that the act of opening a door would somehow unlock my long-forgotten childhood. Surely I would recognize what had been my own room? But nothing looked familiar. I was seeing it all with new eyes.
Two last doors stood at the end of the hallway. I opened the nearer door and, to my astonishment, found a woman standing beside the bed. I saw her only for a second or two, because I screamed and slammed the door.
In movies you see women shrieking at the top of their lungs all the time, but I always doubted I would—or could—make a noise like that if a truly terrifying circumstance ever arose. Wrong. I screamed like a banshee when I saw that woman in the bedroom and reeled backward, after slamming the door, my back colliding with the opposite wall.
I stood there trembling, trying to catch my breath. I had assumed the dogs were my only companions in the house, so I was completely taken aback by finding someone there. In combination with her rather unsettling appearance, it made for quite a fright. She was wearing a long black dress and sensible shoes, and her wispy gray hair was twisted into a severe bun on top of her head. Her skin was as white as alabaster.
She opened the bedroom door and scowled at me. “May I 1help you?”
“I—I—”
“I’m Iris Malone, Mrs. Crane’s housekeeper,” she said. “I’m here to go through her things.”
Oh, of course. I was starting to get my wind back.
“And you are . . .?” she wanted to know. This woman had a haughty air about her, as though she, and not I, belonged there. Technically, I suppose she was correct in that assumption. She was the housekeeper, so it made sense if she felt a certain ownership of the place. And I was a stranger. I might have been anybody—a fan, a looter, or worse—for all she knew.
Still. Those things she was going through had been my mother’s, and now they belonged to me. I went from frightened idiot to indignant heir in a matter of seconds.
I straightened up. “I guess you haven’t heard.”
She squinted at me in response.
“There’s no need for you to go through Mrs. Crane’s things,” I proclaimed. “I’m Halcyon Crane, Madlyn’s daughter. I believe it’s my place to do that.”
Watching Iris’s face blanch in that moment, I saw that it really is possible for a person to turn a whiter shade of pale. She walked over to me and raised one claw, and for an instant I thought she was going to slap me or scratch my face or God knows what. But she didn’t. Placing her hand on my cheek with what I could only assume was as much warmth as she could summon, which wasn’t much, she croaked, “So it’s true.”
I nodded, as much to free my cheek from the touch of her talons as to confirm her statement. “I was just as surprised to learn this as you are.”
I don’t know if she heard me. She was staring at my face and stroking my hair, her eyes unfocused and hazy, as though she were somewhere else, in another place and time.
“It is you, Hallie,” she murmured. “We thought you were dead.”
Iris wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close. Her embrace felt cold, as though she were trying to transmit her chill into my body. She smelled of decaying roses and dirt. I pulled away after a moment, a little too forcefully, perhaps. This seemed to bring her back into the moment. She shook her head and looked at me with clear pale-blue eyes.
“Yes, it is really me. I’m Hallie, and very much alive. I’ve met with Madlyn’s attorney, who read her will. She has left the house and everything in it to me, her daughter. So, please, I’d like to be the one to go through her things.”
“Of course,” Iris said, nodding in that efficient yet deferential manner I had always imagined in household servants of the very rich. We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. A standoff, of sorts. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“So. What they’re saying is true?” Iris wanted to know.
“If you’re talking about the fact that my father has also been alive all these years, the answer is yes. If you hadn’t heard the details, we were living in Washington State, where I was a copy editor at the local newspaper and my dad taught math at the high school. He died a few weeks ago.” For good measure, I added, “Until very recently, I had no idea that my mother was alive. I had been told she died in a fire when I was a child.”
Iris clucked. “And you believed that?”
“Of course I believed it.” Who was she to question me about my life? “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Iris—”
“Your mother was a wonderful woman,” Iris said, with fury in her eyes, as if she thought I needed convincing on that point. She fiddled with her apron, and I could see the tears she was trying desperately to conceal. She withdrew a balled-up Kleenex from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. It was a gesture so fragile and vulnerable that my anger began to subside.
“Did you work for her very long?” I asked her.
“I was here before she was born, and I was here the day she died,” she said proudly. “I took care of Mrs. Crane for her entire life, and this house for longer than that.”
I caught my breath. “You knew me when I was a child.”
Iris nodded, and a slight smile slowly cracked across her face. “I was here when you were born and I was here when she got the news that you and your father were dead. I was sitting beside her at your memorial service.”
She seemed almost gleeful. I felt an urgent need to get out of the hallway.
“Why don’t we go downstairs and have some tea, and you can tell me all about it?” I said, hurrying toward the stairs.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. I should take my leave,” she said, and she began to shuffle toward the stairs, one pained, measured step after another.
Guilt crept in. Here was this old hen who had taken care of my mother all her life. Iris was obviously grieving the loss of her employer and, indeed, her whole way of life. I looked at her, standing there in her shabby black dress, holding the tissue every old woman seems to have up her sleeve. What I really wanted was for this creepy old bat to climb on her broomstick and leave me to my house and its secrets. But my mother had employed her all these years. (And yet, oddly enough, left her nothing in her will. I didn’t know what to make of that.) I wondered if Iris had enough money set aside to make ends meet, or if my mother’s death would put her in the breadline.
We reached the bottom of
the stairs, where my bags were sitting in the corner. Iris looked at them pointedly. “You’re here to stay?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “For the immediate future, yes. I’m going to stay for a few weeks. Long-term, I’m not sure. I don’t have any concrete plans.”
“I’ll come a few times each week to help out while you’re here, then.” This was not a question but a statement. “I’ll tend to the laundry and the cleaning, and do some cooking as well.”
“That’s really not necess—”
“It’s no trouble at all,” she said quickly. Maybe she really did need the money. Or at least something to do, a reason to get up in the morning.
I caved. “Great. I’ll be glad to have your help, and I’ll pay you whatever my mother paid you. I’m sure there are records around here somewhere?”
Iris nodded slowly as we walked into the kitchen. “It occurs to me, Miss Crane, that given your particular circumstances growing up, you must know little to nothing about your mother and her—your—family. If you’d like, I can fill in the details for you. I’ve been here through it all.”
I looked at her carefully; her clear blue eyes blinked back. “You’re absolutely right! The truth is, I’m desperate to learn about my mother and her ancestors. The only thing I really know about Madlyn Crane is what I’ve read about her work.”
At this, Iris smiled. “I’ll be happy to tell you all I can.”
I hadn’t been sure how I was going to learn my family’s history. Pictures and records existed, names and important dates. But here was somebody who could tell me about the people themselves. “Hearing those stories will mean the world to me, Iris.”
She smiled a self-satisfied smile. “I’ll take my leave of you now, miss, so you can settle in,” she said, with an air of finality. But as she made her way toward the door, she turned one last time. “Is there anything I can do for you now, before I go?” Her eyes were oddly expectant, almost childlike.
“I can’t think of anything, no,” I said.
“All right, then. Expect me back on Monday morning.” With that, she left through the kitchen door.