She Stopped for Death

by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

  “Connie’s not home,” a pleasant voice on the other end of the line said. “She’ll be back in a few days. Up to Munising, visiting her aunt. Can I take a message?”

  “Do you have another number for her?” Jenny asked.

  The woman hesitated. “Does she know you?”

  “No, ma’am. But I do need to talk to her as soon as possible.”

  “Well, since you don’t know Connie, I’ll bet you anything it can wait until she gets back. Are you with a credit card company? I can tell you right now, she’s got a Sears card and won’t have anything to do with any more of the things. Too much temptation, you know, having that card right in your pocket.” The woman laughed.

  “No. I really need to talk to her.”

  “May I ask about what?”

  “It has to do with a patient of hers at the state hospital in Traverse City.”

  “Oh.” The voice cooled. “That was a long time ago. Connie doesn’t like to be reminded. Very hard work. A lot of tragedy up there in that place.”

  “If I leave my number, do you think she would call me back?”

  “Of course she will. Connie’s a good person. Least of all, she’ll see what you want from her.”

  Number given, Jenny hung up as Zoe came in the back door.

  “You get ahold of the nurse?” Zoe asked.

  “Out of town. I left my number.”

  Zoe looked around the kitchen. “Where’s Dora?”

  “She’s shopping and then going over to Abigail’s house. Abigail’s all worked up and worried about the event. Two weeks to go and Emily won’t answer the phone nor come to the door. Abigail’s afraid the whole thing’s about to blow up in her face.”

  Zoe, barely listening, pulled herself up on a chair and made a face at Jenny. “I may be nuts.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Remember, that neighbor said it was a red car parked in Althea’s drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “A red car, Jenny. You know what that means.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. If you’re thinking ask yourself ‘why?’”

  “Maybe it’s Lorna. Don’t forget, she killed her mother.”

  Jenny thought a while. “You think Lorna’s still around?”

  “I don’t know what to think any more. The whole thing’s like trying to see through a dirty window. Be great if we had a magic mirror. ‘Magic mirror on the wall, what the heck is going on . . .’”

  “Doesn’t rhyme.”

  “Who cares?”

  “Let’s wait and see what the nurse says. She should know the name of her patient. Then we’ll go have a talk with Detective Minty. Maybe he’s got more clout with the court and will be able to get in that garage.”

  Chapter 23

  The weatherman on Channel 9&10 was talking about the possibility of thunderstorms and strong winds overnight. Power outages, he predicted. Trees down.

  That could have been Walter Shipley at Althea’s house,

  Zoe opened the kitchen curtains and looked out at her yard. Everything had been so upside down that Zoe hadn’t been paying attention to her garden, and now the fairies would be jostled and thrown about, their houses blown away. A much bigger calamity for them than for her. There was an hour of daylight left, enough time to get the last of the fairies tucked into the shed and wipe her hands of them until spring. For the first time, the idea of being free of work made her smile.

  She wrapped her grandmother’s moth-eaten green sweater around her body and went outside.

  When her red wagon was loaded with fairies and houses, she hauled it over the brick path to the shed and set the houses carefully on the shelves, wrapping each of the fairies in brown paper and packing them away in boxes, wishing all of them a good sleep.

  Lilliana was the last to get settled in because Zoe would miss her the most. Zoe would have considered taking Lilliana into the house with her but knew there would be jealousy if she did.

  When she picked Lilliana up to kiss her gently on the top of her head and set her down in her own, very comfortable box, she was certain she heard the word again: pride. Or proud.

  Or something else.

  Proust.

  Zoe was sure of it. Constance Proust. The nurse. That was the word scuttling around in her head. Some tiny part of her brain had been trying to get her attention.

  Lilliana had helped. “Proust.”

  Lilliana had been trying to help out all along.

  As she whispered the word to herself again and again, she heard someone call her name. Jenny was at the open back door of her house, yelling to Zoe to come on over.

  “There’s a storm coming,” she called and waved. “Mom wants you and Fida to stay the night.”

  “Did you hear back from Myrtle’s nurse?” She had to cup her hands around her mouth against the growing sound of the wind. Even then she had to repeat her question twice before Jenny shouted back, “No. Not yet. Come over when you can.” Jenny pulled the door shut.

  Wrapped in her dead grandmother’s knitted arms, Zoe looked back at the house she’d never dreamed of owning. The wind pushed her hard, almost knocking her over. She saw the glass in the kitchen windows shake in the frames and prayed that her world would get through the night.

  Inside, Zoe called Jenny.

  “I’m going to stay home,” she told her. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Mom’s worried about you,” Jenny half-whispered. “She thinks all this Emily Sutton business is getting between you and your writing.”

  “Tell her that’s why I’m staying home. I can work today.”

  “Okay. But if you hear anything coming get down in your basement.”

  “I don’t have a basement. I’ll sit in the bathtub.”

  “Don’t play games, Zoe. We’re worried about you.”

  “And I’ll be worried about you, too. But we’ll be fine.”

  “Did you just see that?” Jenny interrupted. “The lights flickered.”

  “I better get my candles and matches together. I’ll make a fire in the fireplace,” Zoe said and hung up.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go to Dora’s; it was the thought of leaving her house alone. Not possible. The grandmother she never knew left it to her. Her grandmother had cut out all her other grandchildren, who then started legal battles to get the house away from Zoe. Zoe stood up to the unknown cousins as they battled her in court and yelled at her in the halls of the courthouse. The judge took one look at the group allied against Zoe and gave Zoe the house and all its “appurtenances,” which left Zoe wondering which “appurtenances” he meant, and where she’d find them.

  The walls moaned and shuddered in the wind. That didn’t frighten her as much as when the wind stopped. Silence was worse, as if the wind had pulled away to gather strength and would soon roar back and blow her and her house and her friends and all her neighbors off to Oz.

  Zoe curled up in a chair under a blanket, with her grandmother’s arms pulled around her body. Fida burrowed under the blanket, her wet nose against Zoe’s arm. The fire was lighted and soon glowing. Falling sticks crackled and fell as bright red-and-orange flames leaped.

  She thought she heard her cell phone ringing again and again out in the kitchen, but she ignored it. The house was getting cold. She and Fida were safe where they were. She had no intention of getting up to answer a ringing phone and break the spell she’d wound round herself: safe in her grandmother’s arms, safe with her dog, with her own fire, in her own house.

  When she finally slept, it was only for an hour or two at a time. All night, she woke up hearing voices in the storm, and then the crash of falling trees. She thought of her fairies and was relieved that they were safe.

  Chapter 24

  Emily Sutton wasn’t afraid of thunderstorms. She didn’t mind the wild rain lashing at her walls. She welcomed it. With her hands in the air, she danced back and forth across the kitchen to static-filled music from the radio. The music was loud. It filled
every corner of the kitchen and every room in the house. The house was alive again, the way she was alive again.

  From time to time, she turned the radio down and called Zoe Zola, leaving a message when her voicemail picked up. She chided her that the delivery she’d been expecting hadn’t arrived, telling Zoe that she hoped a little rain didn’t bother her. Feeling expansive, and liking the sense of having someone to call, she left a lilting thank you to let her know there were no hard feelings.

  She needed her delivery, of course. Makeup and hair dye. A brilliant red this time. A red that would keep her fans transfixed as she sat on that stage and read from her new work. Work like no other. Her own. Her very own. Poetry for the ages.

  She danced and pumped her fists in the air, feeling joy down to her fingertips and toes. This had to be freedom, a loosening of life’s constraints like nothing she could remember. Soon she would be traveling the world. She would be known. She would be applauded everywhere she went.

  She stopped still when the naked light bulb above her head began swinging back and forth, flickering. Ah, soon there would be brighter lights around her. Soon she would walk out on to a stage dressed even more wondrously than she’d dressed for Abigail’s tea. People would stand. They would applaud and applaud until the curtain was brought down to stop them.

  She closed her eyes and pictured the outfit she planned: a sweeping skirt of sea-blue scarves. A bodice of sea blue wound over her bosom. A magenta scarf around her head. She’d found the perfect thing in the attic. Pure poetry as poetry should be—a frame for a true poet.

  No interview on stage as Abigail Cane wanted. No one stealing her limelight.

  If the audience had questions, she would answer them later, after she’d read her new work. Her own work. The best of her poetry. All wild and beautiful and deep. Like nothing Emily Sutton had ever written before.

  She danced again, then fell into a chair to draw her notebook to her. Poems bubbled and lined up inside her brain. So many to write. Not two weeks left before the grand event.

  She wrote:

  I couldn’t see him in the dark.

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  I know that water closed his eyes

  And drowning set him free.

  Knocking came from upstairs and then a terrible clamor—hail beating against the house.

  Nothing disturbed her. Not while she was caught in creation. Not when she had found the words that would finally release her from this place.

  She curved her arm around the notebook, bending over it to write:

  And then a bone, a skeleton, an eternal love—all mine.

  The overhead light flickered. She sighed and got up to hunt for a candle in the pantry, in among the dusty cans and boxes. She chose a thick red candle for the table.

  A candle to create wondrous poems by.

  The wind blew hard enough to blow the house down. The lights went out. Nothing could stop her. She lit the candle. She stared into the flame for a long time before picking up her pen again. She was the candle, she told herself. She was the flame. She was the light. Soon everyone would follow.

  Chapter 25

  The next morning, chainsaws roared up and down Elderberry. When Jenny looked out her window, it was to a mess of branches and leaves everywhere. The old walnut tree leaned so close to the house, she could reach out and touch it. Tony, already working in the yard, was bent over a large limb he was cutting.

  She heard Dora say something and Zoe answer. They were out there with him while she’d slept in, having spent a worrying and sleepless night, troubled by things Dora’d said in the dark. “Getting things off her chest,” she called it. But painful for Jenny to hear.

  She dressed in her oldest outfit and headed out to help. She was welcomed, when she pushed the back door open, by light that had never gotten through before, and masses of sticks and downed branches.

  In the yard, Jenny tapped Tony on the back and mouthed “Thank you” when he looked up, dark eyes magnified by his safety glasses. He stopped long enough to put one gloved hand to his lips and blow her a kiss.

  For most of the morning, Jenny helped Dora and Zoe drag broken limbs to the fire pit at the back of the yard. The three of them raked leaves into piles that would be used for mulch after the winter snows flattened them. With the work mostly done, she made lunch for everyone. She kissed each of them on the cheek, though Tony put an arm around her and pulled her close.

  Because Zoe asked anxiously again and again about calling Myrtle’s nurse, she assured her she would call that morning. And she did, after the electricity came back on. No answer. She left a message.

  In the afternoon, Jenny was off to Trixie’s House of Beauty. The shop was full.

  This was her twice-yearly trim. Perfect time for it, with the opera house event coming up fast. She didn’t mind the shop, always filled with town ladies, always with different things to talk about, though today she imagined it would be nothing but the storm and she welcomed it. What she didn’t feel like hearing was anything about the Sutton event.

  Dryers blew. Women laughed. Women said “Hi” and “Well, what do you know? If it isn’t, Jenny Weston!” when she walked in. It was fun to sit down at Trixie’s station, lean back to have her hair washed, and have women stop to make comments on the cut, offer suggestions, and share their own experiences: bad haircuts, bad color jobs, bad moods.

  When someone did ask about the opera house and how Emily Sutton was doing, she walked around the question with a smile, a nod, and a single, “Fine. Just fine.”

  Cassandra Hatch wanted to know how Lisa was doing out in Montana and when she was coming home for a visit.

  Louise Dyer smiled as she strolled past just as Trixie sat Jenny up straight in the chair. “And how’s your carpenter boyfriend doing?” she asked.

  There were hoots from the other stations.

  “He’s doing fine, Louise.” Jenny looked out through the wet hair hanging down her forehead. “He was over all morning cutting the trees for Mom.”

  “Good thing.” Louise grinned around at the women looking their way. “He’ll have all the wood you can ask for, huh, Jenny?”

  Laughter spread as Trixie turned Jenny to the mirror to face her own burning cheeks.

  She should have been in a better mood when she got home with her hair so neat and curved around her face, black bangs straight across her forehead. The beauty shop women had been pleased, agreeing that she looked like Lady Mary from the TV show Downton Abbey.

  She set her bag of shampoo, conditioner, and nail polish on the kitchen counter. She’d bought things she didn’t need because everybody knew Trixie had a sick kid and could use the extra money.

  Tony was gone. Dora wasn’t home. A note on the table said she went shopping. At the bottom of the note were three x’s and the words “I won’t be long. I have a surprise for you. And I’m sorry.” Jenny smiled as she tucked the note into her pocket, wondering what the surprise would be. Maybe more chocolate chip cookies. Mom’s surprises were beginning to make Jenny’s jeans tight.

  Zoe didn’t seem to be around—her car wasn’t in front of her house. Jenny checked her haircut in a small mirror over the sink and wished she felt better about everything. She was still disturbed by the night before and what Dora’d said to her, despite the “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t like to think that her mom had used the storm and the dark to get some things off her chest.

  They’d stayed up a long time in the dark, talking by candlelight. Lightning flashed, the house shook, then Dora would say again how sorry she was to bring it all up.

  “But I just don’t want you hurt.” She’d taken a deep breath.

  Again and again she apologized, but went on anyway, saying things she must have had bottled inside for weeks.

  “I didn’t say a word when you got so serious about Johnny Arlen, Jenny. I didn’t say a word and look what happened. Look what he did to you. All of it—none of it your fault. Then Ronald. I can’t tell you
how my heart hurt to see the way he treated you. I’m still sorry I never had the courage to open my mouth.”

  “You’re talking about Tony now, aren’t you?”

  “Is he still married?”

  “Oh, Mom. I didn’t think you knew.”

  “I heard.”

  “He filed for a divorce.”

  “But he lied to you.”

  “I know, Mom. We’ve talked it out. Maybe it was a good thing. Now he knows what I won’t tolerate.”

  “Oh, Jenny, the man you choose to marry has to be the right one for you. Women think love takes care of everything. It doesn’t. Not after the kids come and the man’s afraid he’s getting old, or the woman decides she hasn’t lived enough and takes off to find herself.”

  “Tony’s a good man, Mom.”

  “It’s not about good or bad.”

  Dora would stop talking when the whole house shook and they sat still, waiting for what came next. Then she’d go on. “He’s already chosen one wrong woman. Maybe he needs to take time to be sure next time.”

  “I thought you liked him.” Jenny heard a sad little girl’s voice come out of her.

  “I do. This isn’t about liking him or not liking him. It’s about you. I don’t want you hurt again. Not in my lifetime. If I have to speak up to stop that from happening, then I will.”

  When neither one of them could find anything more to say, they went to bed, finding their way by candlelight, making the evening even stranger than it had been.

  All night Jenny dealt with the emotions Dora had stirred. Maybe she should go back to Chicago after all. Get out of her mother’s life. She’d made her worry plenty. Maybe when you’re a thirty-six-year-old woman, you shouldn’t make your mother as miserable as Jenny was making Dora. Next, Jenny would get angry. Then she’d question Dora’s right to come down on her like that. Jenny was a grown woman. She would love whomever she wanted to love. And she wouldn’t be told to watch what she was doing, to learn from her mistakes, to not jump into anything too fast.

  Maybe that was part of what she felt was wrong here—her mother still thought of her as a child. Maybe the whole thing with Mom was her problem and not about Jenny at all.