by Webb, Wendy
“I should leave,” he said softly, turning his eyes to the door. He didn’t look at me again. He just walked out of the house and into the storm without a backward glance, and I let him go.
I stood there for a moment, wondering what I had just done.
It rained for the rest of the afternoon. I tried to fill up the time with reading and watching TV and playing with the dogs, but my mind was on Will. The look in his eyes before he left was devastating.
I tried to call him several times but only reached voice mail. Then I took the phone into the living room, made a quick calculation about the time difference, sank into one of the armchairs, and dialed Richard, half a world away.
“Well, it’s about bloody time,” he said gruffly, and instantly I was filled with the warmth of his humor and his caring. “I’ve been worried sick about you. Tell me everything.”
And so I did. I told him about the house and the dogs and Iris, Jonah, and Mira and the island itself. I told him about inheriting everything from my mother, and what little I knew about her. I told him about Iris, laughing about her dour demeanor. I told him about the singsong tune I kept hearing and about my strange experiences here in the house and at the inn. And I told him about Julie Sutton.
“It all sounds quite Gothic,” he said. “A huge old house, stuck on an island in bad weather, an unsolved murder, mysterious encounters with ghosts and rude townspeople, even the eerie old maid.”
I agreed, laughing. “It does sound rather Gothic. The house is just gorgeous, Rich. You’ll have to come someday soon.”
A silence, then. I could hear the tiny clink of his spoon against the side of a china teacup. “Hallie.” He was still stirring, which he always did to fill time when he wasn’t quite sure how to phrase what he wanted to say. “What aren’t you telling me? I know there’s something you’re not saying.”
I hesitated for a moment before admitting it. “Okay,” I said quickly. “I met someone and I think I just screwed it up.”
“Ah. That’s the real reason for your call. All this ghost talk was just the preamble.”
I felt a twinge of guilt. I should’ve called him sooner, as I had promised. “I really need somebody to talk to, Rich. Somebody who knows me. Somebody who isn’t weirded out by how much I look like a dead woman. To everyone here, I’m just this freak who died thirty years ago.”
He chuckled at this. “You really do fit in there among the skulking maids and haunted houses, don’t you?”
“Finally, a place where I belong.” I laughed, too.
“All right, freaky girl. Go ahead. Tell me about him. Who is he and what did you do?”
“He’s a lawyer here on the island,” I began. “We were friends when we were kids.”
“That’s starting off very well. Go on.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time together; he was my mother’s lawyer. He’s the one who contacted me initially. We get along great. It’s like we’ve known each other forever. He’s easy to talk to, and . . .”
“And?”
“Well, he’s everything I’ve ever looked for in a guy,” I admitted, both to Richard and to myself. “He’s smart, thoughtful, funny, and we like to do the same things. I don’t know. He’s a real catch. Plus, he’s gorgeous.”
“Oh. Well, then, I can see why you threw him out, or whatever you did. He sounds perfectly hideous.”
A smile crept across my face. “That’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s just—when he tried to kiss me, I froze.”
“What do you mean, froze?”
“I mean, I froze. I couldn’t respond to him.”
“Why ever not?”
I thought about this for a moment. “I’m not sure. We were having such a great time on our picnic. And then it started to rain. We ran into the house—”
“It sounds quite romantic, Hallie.”
“It was. It’s just . . .”
“What? The right setting, the wrong guy? No chemistry?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not it, not exactly. There’s plenty of chemistry between us.”
I heard Richard stirring his tea again. “What happened then?”
Poor Will’s face swam into my mind. “He seemed really confused and embarrassed and muttered an apology. And then he left. I haven’t talked to him since.”
More stirring. “I’m going to ask you a question now. You’re not going to like it, but I’m going to ask it anyway.”
My stomach tightened up. Richard has a way of cutting right to the chase, and he is not known for his gentleness in doing so.
He went on. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by that.”
“Well, come on, Hallie. Gorgeous guy. You get along great. He’s got no discernible flaws, and you’ve got chemistry between you. You’re both single. Why not give it a go? I mean, really. What’s the worst that could happen?”
All of a sudden I realized why I had wanted to talk to Richard. “Well, he could be the love of my life, marry me, and then discover I’m not his type.”
Richard sighed. “I wish I were there right now to throw my arms around you, tell you how sorry I am, and make you believe that it’s never going to happen to you again.”
“I wish you were here, too. I wish a lot of things.”
Richard cleared his throat. “I have to ask. Have you dated anyone since we broke up?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I’ve been on a few dates, but—”
He cut me off. “Listen, Hallie. You’ve got to get back out there. You are a terrific woman, the best I’ve ever met. You’re drop-dead gorgeous, and now you are a woman of means. You deserve to be happy, my darling. You can’t cut yourself off from love because of me, you just can’t. I cannot have wrecked you. I’d never forgive myself.”
“But I believed you,” I said. “I trusted you, and then my world came crashing down.”
“You’re right. That’s exactly what happened. But the thing is, Hallie, that wall of protection you’ve built around yourself isn’t going to bring you happiness. It might bring safety, but it’s awfully cold and lonely living alone in a fortress. You have to dare to take a risk. You have to risk having your heart broken, again and again and again. That’s the only way you’ll find happiness, my love. It’s the only way.”
· 17
I tossed and turned all night, Richard’s words rattling through my brain. Was he right? Had I really built a fortress around myself?
The next morning, I called Will at the office. Still no answer. Obviously, he was avoiding me. Had I destroyed whatever had been happening between us before it even had a chance to start? I toyed with the idea of marching into town to find him, but the rain hadn’t let up overnight. It was still pouring outside.
No Iris this morning either, and even the dogs had retreated to parts unknown. I was on my own. I sank into one of the kitchen chairs next to the window, looked out onto the rainy yard, and sighed.
Hours passed. I rattled around the house trying to occupy myself; I watched a DVD, read a bit, but always kept coming back to the kitchen window. Staring out seemed to make the most sense; it seemed like the right thing to do. I desperately wanted to talk to Will, but I wasn’t sure what I would say.
Finally, I saw a figure coming up the drive, and a moment later Will burst through the back door, his clothes soaking wet. “Hallie, I—” he started, the rest of his thought hanging in midair.
“I know,” I said, crossing the room in an instant. I brushed a wet tendril of hair off his forehead. “I’m sorry. I’ve been through so much lately, and I reacted badly.”
He grasped my arms in his hands, finally finding his voice. “I understand you’ve been through the wringer, but you’ve got to understand something. I’m not your ex-husband. And I’m not your father. What you see is what you get; I’m as un-complicated as that. I have no secrets, no hidden life, no agenda. It’s just me, a man who is scared to death because he’s fallen in love with you
and you don’t seem to be on the same trip.”
My heart began pounding. I wanted nothing more than to run out of the door, away from the edge of the cliff. But I didn’t do that. With Richard’s advice ringing in my ears, I leaped off the precipice, not caring how hard I might hit the ground. I wound my arms around Will’s neck and pressed my mouth to his, tasting wind and rain and forever. With thunder growling outside and the lights flickering on and off, we made our way up the back stairs to my bedroom and fell into each other’s arms.
Later, Will wrapped himself in a robe and went downstairs to the kitchen to retrieve our wine. We lay in bed together, talking about our dreams, our disappointments, our important stories. But truly, nothing in my past seemed as important as what was happening between us right then.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I finally said, twisting the sheet between my hands.
Will reached up and brushed a strand of hair from my eyes. “I know it’s hard for you to trust me,” he said gently. “But I’ll never let you down like they did.”
I looked deeply into his eyes and knew I was hearing the truth.
“By the way,” he asked, as he rolled onto his back and stretched. “When did you have time to make dinner?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. “I didn’t.”
“Somebody did. There’s a pot of something on the stove. I noticed it when I went down to the kitchen to get the wine.”
We both pulled on robes and investigated. It was true, there was a big pot of barbecued boneless spareribs simmering on the stove, along with cornbread muffins in the oven. Suddenly, I was famished.
“It looks fabulous,” he murmured.
After I had set the table and served us both big plates of ribs, I explained. “Must’ve been Iris.”
“This is the second time you’ve mentioned her. Who’s Iris?” Will wanted to know. It struck me as funny that, on an island this small, he didn’t already know her.
“The housekeeper,” I explained. “I found her going through Madlyn’s things the first day I moved in. She told me she had been keeping house here for decades. Her mother worked here before her, when the first Hills built the house.”
“Oh, right,” Will said slowly. “I vaguely remember Iris. I haven’t seen her in years. But of course I haven’t been to the house in years. Madlyn and I would do all our business in my office.” He thought a moment. “Iris was old thirty years ago, or she looked old, at any rate. She must be—what—pushing eighty now?”
“More than that, I think,” I told him. “She told me she knew the triplets, used to play with them as a child. But that was ninety years ago.”
“And she still comes here to clean?”
“She cleans like a tornado.” I laughed. “Look at this place, it’s spotless. She cooks, too, as you can see.”
Will squinted at me. “Don’t you think it’s time Iris retired, slave mistress?”
“Believe me, I’ve tried to rip that dust mop from her hands on more than one occasion. I feel guilty every time she’s here, working like a dog while I sit around watching soap operas. But she won’t let me help and gets off ended when I tell her to take it easy.”
“She’s proud.”
“Yes, that’s it. She feels a sense of ownership of this place, and rightly so. She grew up here.”
We sat in silence for a moment.
“You’ve got to meet her sometime. I’m telling you, Iris is the eeriest human being alive.”
“How so?”
“It’s her manner,” I mused. “She seems to have taken her persona right out of a Vincent Price film. Dour, ashen-faced. She wears a long black dress and winds her white hair into a tight bun on top of her head. And she comes and goes whenever she wants. I’ll get up in the morning and discover she’s been creeping around while I slept. She was down here in the kitchen today while we were—upstairs.”
Will laughed. “She sounds lovely.”
“Hey, at least she leaves food in her wake,” I said.
When we had finished eating, we went back upstairs, watched a Woody Allen movie, and then snuggled down in my bed. I slept better in Will’s arms than I had during my entire stay on this island: no ghostly visits, no scary dreams, nothing that went bump in the night—except each other.
· 18
The next morning I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Will when the phone rang. It was a call for him, oddly enough. He had given my number to his answering service, apparently, and now real life—a client from the mainland—was intruding on our love affair. I had imagined we’d spend the day together.
“Duty calls,” he said, kissing me goodbye. “I wasn’t expecting this conference call, but I’ve got to get to the office.”
I pouted. “That’s what they all say.”
He stopped and scooped me into his arms. “Dinner tonight?”
“I’ll cook,” I said. “I’ll make my famous Cornish pasty. You’ll love it.”
“I knew you’d force me into eating English food sooner or later.” He grinned as he made his way out the door.
A short while later I was climbing out of the shower and heard a soft whirring; someone was vacuuming downstairs. I pulled on my clothes and went down to greet Iris.
She scowled at me. “You’ve had an overnight guest.”
I wasn’t sure if she was simply making conversation, in her strange and uneasy way, or if she was passing judgment on the fact that Will had spent the night. In any case, what business was it of hers?
“Yes,” I said, a bit too loudly, over the vacuum. “Will Archer. I hope to see a lot more of him.”
“Your choice, of course,” Iris muttered darkly, and went back to her vacuuming.
I was about to deliver a sermon about minding one’s own business when I thought better of it. Perhaps I could coax Iris to sit down with me again today. Maybe she’d tell me another story about the past. I could’ve sworn I saw a slight smile creep across her face as I walked past her toward the sunroom, as though she knew what power she held.
I whistled for the dogs, and we walked down the hill to the grocery store, to stock up for dinner tonight and for the coming weekend. It felt good to get out of the house and into the bright blue day. The dogs ran ahead, playing and barking and then circling back. They never strayed too far.
I’d learned that the grocery store had a delivery service for residents who didn’t have the means to get the bags back to their homes. Just pick out your groceries, pay for them, and they arrive on your doorstep within the hour. I was immensely grateful for this as I walked leisurely through the aisles, finding the ingredients for Cornish pasty and wild rice soup and throwing in some cheeses, fruit, crackers, and wine as well.
When I finished shopping, I went outside and whistled for the dogs. To my horror, there on the other side of the street stood Julie Sutton’s parents. I was not up for another confrontation with these people, so I tried to slink around the building into the alley, but then I heard my name called. “Halcyon! Please wait!” Damn it all. I turned to find that they were walking across the street in my direction, so I steadied myself and braced for a fight.
I didn’t get one.
“Halcyon, I’m Frank Sutton,” Julie’s father said to me, extending his hand. “I believe you met my wife, June, the other day.”
I nodded, wondering where this was going. “That’s right.”
“I’m just sick about the way I treated you,” June Sutton said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I had no right to talk to you the way I did, and I want you to know I’m sorry.”
I squeezed her hands. “I can’t imagine what you went through back then. I can only tell you that I didn’t know anything about it until I got here to the island.”
“I know,” June said. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. It’s just that, after all these years—”
I could see she was close to losing it again, so I spoke up. “Please, think nothing of it. We’ll put it behind us and start f
resh.”
The Suttons nodded, each suffering the particular hell that only parents who have lost a child can know, and we went our separate ways. I was more determined than ever to learn the truth about what had happened to their daughter, once and for all.
I walked up and down the streets of town, one destination on my mind. Finally, two blocks off Main Street in an old three-story brick building, I found what I was seeking: the police station.
I took a deep breath and pushed open the door to find a man seated at a desk immersed in paperwork. He looked up as I walked in. “Ah . . . I’d like to inquire about the possibility of gaining access to the police files dealing with a closed case.”
He squinted at me. I wasn’t sure if he knew who I was or not. “Which case?”
“Well, it’s something that happened here on the island thirty years ago, and—”
He cut me off. “You’re Halcyon Crane.” He was not smiling.
I nodded, putting my hands on the counter. “That’s right. I’d like to see the file of the Julie Sutton investigation, please.”
“The Sutton murder,” he corrected me.
“Her death.” I could feel tension in the air between us, as though the very mention of the case was making this man angry.
He shook his head. “No can do, I’m afraid.”
I knew I couldn’t just waltz into the police station and emerge with the file, so I was prepared to fight. “Aren’t police records of closed cases, especially ones this old, a matter of public record?” I wasn’t sure about this, but I thought I’d seen it on a Law & Order episode.
He nodded. “You’re right. Closed cases are a matter of public record. But this case isn’t closed.”
“But”—I was confused—”it happened thirty years ago and the suspect is dead. Maybe you hadn’t heard that my father died a few weeks ago.”
“Dead or alive, his status has no bearing on the case,” the policeman told me. “It’s an open investigation.”
“I don’t understand. Are you investigating another suspect?”