by Sharon Pape
When she reached Abner’s neighborhood, she was glad to see that on-street parking was permitted. There was even an available spot right on his block. His house was a two-story adobe Victorian, an interesting combination that Rory had never encountered before. The low railings that ran the length of the front porch, as well as the trim around the windows and door, were all painted green, with smaller architectural embellishments in orange. To Rory’s untrained eye, the house looked to be in good repair for its age, no doubt a function of family pride.
She climbed the few steps to the porch and rang the bell. After what seemed like ten minutes, but was more likely less than two, the door was opened by a woman in her seventies wearing a navy velour sweat suit. Her white hair was neatly coiffed, and there was a light swath of blue eye shadow across her eyelids. She greeted Rory with a pleasant enough “hello,” but her expression was stern, as if her features were locked in permafrost.
“Come in,” she said stepping back to leave room for her in the narrow entry.
“Thanks so much for letting me visit,” Rory said, raising her voice in competition with the television that was blasting in the next room. “I’ll keep our conversation as brief as possible.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Lydia said, leading her into what would’ve been called the parlor back when the house was built.
The interior of the house was clean but dated, little or nothing having been done to spruce it up since the fifties. Of course, even that era was modern in comparison to the age of the house. Looking around, Rory felt a tug of disappointment and realized she’d imagined finding the house decorated as it had been back when the original Jensen family lived there. Now that she thought about it, this wasn’t a museum; it was a house in which real people had lived for generations.
When she and Lydia walked into the parlor, Abner didn’t immediately look up from the TV program he was watching. He was sitting on a tufted velveteen sofa that had probably once been a vibrant red but was now faded and worn to an uneven dusty rose that matched the flowers on the wallpaper. There was an oxygen canister on the floor beside him, and a clear, thin tube snaked its way up from the canister across his chest and into his nostrils.
“You have company,” Lydia yelled, as if she were trying to get the attention of someone across the street. No response. She plucked the remote from Abner’s hand and turned off the television. “You have company,” she repeated only a little more softly.
Abner finally turned toward them, his watery blue eyes as faded as the room. “Why’d you go and turn off my program?” he demanded in a thin, wobbly voice.
Lydia ignored his question. “He’s deaf and won’t wear his hearing aids,” she explained in a quiet aside to Rory. “He’s had three pair and complained about every set of them. So I’ve given up. I’m not throwing any more money down the drain.”
So Lydia was in control of the finances, which meant she wasn’t an aide or other employee. And since Rory had already noted that she wasn’t wearing a wedding band, that left two options—relative or good friend. In either case, Lydia had taken on a huge burden in caring for the elderly man, and Rory’s respect for her instantly quadrupled.
She stepped forward and extended her hand to Abner. “Hello, Mr. Jensen,” she said, raising her voice the way Lydia had. “I’m Rory. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Abner gave her hand a surprisingly firm shake. “Please excuse me for not standing up.”
She smiled brightly and assured him that wasn’t a problem.
Lydia was busy pushing a leather hassock across the hardwood floor to her. “If you don’t sit close to him, his answers won’t have much to do with your questions.”
“Thank you, that’s perfect,” Rory said taking a seat. She’d been wondering if she’d have to squeeze in next to Abner, who was planted in the middle of the small couch.
“If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen,” Lydia told her. Then she looked Abner sharply in the eye. “Now, you behave yourself,” she warned him, before marching out of the room.
“Celibacy,” Abner grumbled. “There’s much to be said for it.”
Rory couldn’t help laughing at the remark. “I’m sorry,” she said as if she were addressing an auditorium without benefit of a microphone. “I just didn’t expect you to say anything like that.”
“I’m chock-full of clever and pithy things,” he said cracking a smile. “But I’m afraid my dear Lydia’s funny bone has dried up and withered away.”
“Dear Lydia”—so she was more than just a friend after all. Maybe a longtime girlfriend and lover. Rory had a hard time picturing them in such a relationship, and since it was really none of her business, she immediately stopped trying.
“Would you mind if I asked you some questions about your family?” she asked, thinking it was a miracle Lydia wasn’t permanently hoarse from constantly straining her vocal cords.
“Ask away,” Abner said, using his palm to smooth down an imaginary cowlick among the few white hairs still clinging to the back of his head. He seemed thoroughly pleased to be the center of attention. He was sitting up straighter, his body no longer sagging against the soft cushions of the couch. Even his face had come alive with expression when she’d started talking to him.
“Do you know much about the Jensens who built this house?” Rory began.
“Less than I should, I’m ashamed to say. Family history never interested me much. But it intrigued my mother no end…”—Abner paused to catch his breath—“God rest her soul.”
“Can I get you some water?” Rory asked, concerned about the grayish cast to his skin. “Should I get Lydia?”
He shook his head. “I just…need to pace…myself.”
Rory waited a nervous couple of minutes and was relieved when she saw his face pinking up again.
“My mother was always telling me and my father,” he resumed in a halting manner, “about every little thing she dug up about the ‘first people.’ That’s what she called them. I don’t think my father paid any more attention than I did. What I do remember is that the Jensens settled here in Tucson, and somewhere along the line, they built this house next to their general store. I think there were three children. One of them, a girl I believe, was kidnapped and murdered. A terrible tragedy in any era.”
Rory was starting to worry that she’d come all this way only to find out what she already knew. No, she scolded herself. Giving up was unacceptable. Abner’s memory might just need some more priming. “Do you recall hearing about a federal marshal by the name of Ezekiel Drummond in relation to the girl’s death?”
Abner closed his eyes as he shuffled through the files of his memory. When he didn’t open them for a while, Rory wondered if he’d fallen asleep. She was debating the best way to go about waking him without giving him a heart attack when he looked up at her again.
“I do believe I’ve heard that name,” he said, “but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Just a second.” He called out for Lydia.
She came running into the room, wiping her hands on the apron she was now wearing. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her brow creased with concern.
“Nothing’s the matter,” Abner said irritably. “If something was the matter, I probably wouldn’t be able to yell for you.”
Lydia shook her head and sighed as if this was an exchange they engaged in far too often. “Then what’s so important that you had to interrupt me when I’m trying to make your favorite stew?”
“Remember that diary you found in the attic some years back?”
“Of course.”
Rory’s heart tripped into overdrive. A diary was more than she could have hoped for if she’d freed a genie from a lamp.
“Do you recall if it mentioned a federal marshal by the name of Ezekiel Drummond?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, it did. It would be hard to forget a name like that. Why?”
“Rory here was just asking about him.”
Rory realized she’d been h
olding her breath. If she wasn’t careful she’d wind up needing a hit or two from Abner’s oxygen tank. “What do you remember reading about him?” she asked, trying not to sound too deranged with excitement.
Lydia shrugged. “Just that he was after the man who killed their daughter and some other young girls. To be honest, as diaries go, it was pretty dull stuff. I skimmed through most of it.”
“Do you still have it?” Rory thought she might actually cry if she found out it had been discarded.
“Of course, but the better question is where did I put it? I know I didn’t take it back into the attic. It was horrible up there, and I have no intention of ever going up there again. I was almost bitten by a brown recluse spider.” She shuddered at the memory. “Just give me a moment—it’ll come to me.”
Rory was willing to give Lydia all the moments she needed between now and her flight home. Who was she kidding? She’d pay the cancellation fee and change her flight if that’s what it took to get her hands on that diary.
For ten endless minutes, Abner worked at his breathing, and Rory tried not to fidget while they waited for Lydia to have a breakthrough. Rory was about to suggest they start searching through the house for it when Lydia’s face brightened, and she came as close to smiling as Rory had yet seen her. “I’ve got it,” she declared triumphantly as she headed out of the room.
She returned holding a plastic storage bag with what looked like a thin writing tablet inside it. “It’s very fragile, so I put it in the bag to help preserve it.” She handed the bag to Rory. “I’m afraid we can’t let you take it out of the house. Abner’s determined to give all of these old things to the historical society.”
“It’s the least I can do,” he said, “since I don’t have any heirs to keep the family name going.” He seemed genuinely apologetic about this failure.
“Is it okay if I stay to read it?” Rory asked, to be polite, even though it was clearly the only option they’d left her.
“Well, I don’t see any other way around it,” Lydia said. Not the most gracious invitation but one that Rory quickly accepted.
“I think you’ll be better off sitting in the dining room,” Lydia added a bit more hospitably. “That way Abner can watch his programs, and you won’t have your ears blasted off.”
Rory, who would have been willing to sit on a bed of nails at a drum recital in order to read the diary, gladly followed her hostess across the entry hall into the formal dining room, where sliding pocket doors helped drown out the worst of the TV noise.
“Can I get you some water?” Lydia inquired.
She was really rolling out the red carpet. Rory thanked her but declined. She was taking a seat on one of the ornate dining room chairs, eager to get started, when she noticed the portrait of a young woman on the wall across from her. Her heart quickened with recognition. The woman’s hair and clothing, even the style of the painting, were clearly from an earlier era.
“Excuse me,” she said, stopping Lydia who was on her way back to the kitchen. “Who’s the woman in that painting?”
“That’s Katherine Jensen. She and Frank were the first owners. I’m sorry, but I have to check on the stew.” She was gone from the room before she finished speaking.
Rory opened her purse and took out the tube containing the sketch. When she unrolled it, she was amazed by how well it captured the woman in the painting. There was only one way that could have happened. Eloise had seen Katherine Jensen in some way, in some form. There was simply no other explanation for it. Had Katherine contacted Eloise because she wanted Rory to come here and find the diary? That sounded six shades of crazy even to Rory, who was a card-carrying member of the “I believe in ghosts” club. Surely departed souls had better things to do than co-opting old ladies and sticking their metaphorical noses into mortal affairs. Rory shook her head as if to clear her mind. Regardless of how or why she’d come to be in this house, the most important thing now was the diary that lay on the table in front of her.
Her palms were clammy with nervous anticipation as she opened the plastic bag and withdrew the tablet. Lydia was right; it was terribly fragile. The dry, Sonoran weather had taken its toll. A piece of the cardboard cover flaked off in her hand as she turned to the first page. Since she didn’t know where in the diary she would find references to Zeke and since she couldn’t just go flipping through the pages without causing major damage to them, she decided to start reading from the beginning. Although the writing had faded badly with time, Katherine’s penmanship was impeccable. Rory had no trouble deciphering her words.
Chapter 28
Rory boarded the plane for home with a feeling of accomplishment and several pages from the diary that Lydia had almost graciously copied for her on Abner’s combination printer/copier/fax machine. She’d also been given copies of three letters that she’d found tucked into the back of the journal. Zeke was going to be thrilled. Or he would be after he got over his anger at having been duped into staying home. Only one thing niggled at her. Whatever information he’d wanted to keep from her was still a mystery. She hadn’t discovered anything scandalous. There was nothing that even painted him in a bad light, other than a mother’s understandable frustration with a law enforcement system that had failed to protect her child.
Aside from that, when Rory had left Abner’s house that day, she’d had everything she’d come for, and since it had taken only one afternoon, she’d been left with a free day to enjoy like a real vacation. She’d been out hiking in Sabino Canyon early the next morning when Leah called.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings again,” she’d said. “The woman you sketched in the SUV remains a mystery. In spite of her talent for breaking and entering, she hasn’t made the criminal database, and she’s not a comrade in arms. I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear, but I have to admit I’m kind of glad. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is such a thing as bad publicity, at least when it comes to the police.”
Rory had stepped to the side of the trail to allow other hikers to pass more easily. “Hey, I’m completely with you on that. I just had to check all the possibilities.”
“Could the sketch be somewhat off, because you didn’t get a good enough look at her?” Leah asked.
“I could swear I did.”
“Listen, you were trying to avoid a collision. That’s not the best scenario for a cool-headed, objective memory of a face that flashed by you in a second.”
“You’ve got a point,” Rory grumbled, “but that doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out who she is and what she has to do with my case.”
“Those questions will still be around when you get home,” Leah said, “so you may as well enjoy the rest of your time out there. Otherwise, that woman, whoever she is, will be guilty of stealing your vacation on top of everything else.”
Rory knew she was right, but it had been difficult to let go of the disappointment. She’d resumed her hike, channeling her frustration into a faster pace that left her tee shirt clinging to her body in sweaty patches.
Back at the hotel, she’d showered and changed her clothes, then treated herself to a ridiculous lunch consisting of a chocolate-ice-cream soda and salty, greasy french fries, which made her feel a whole lot better. Her uncle Mac had introduced her to that guilty pleasure when she was nine years old. They’d made a pact back then not to tell her mother, and to the best of Rory’s knowledge, her mother was still in the dark about their snacking habits.
After that she’d spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the shade of a palm tree at the hotel pool, questions about the mystery woman temporarily deep-sixed beneath a sugary, fat-filled high. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so marvelously unfettered. No one was expecting anything of her—no family members, no Way Off Broadway Players, no deceased marshal, no Hobo. Although, to be honest, she was beginning to miss the dog.
By the time she’d settled into another middle seat for the flight home, she was feeling mellow enough not to
care that she was wedged in between two oversize men. She even managed to fall asleep for a few minutes. But her “mellow” ended abruptly when she was awakened by a tap on her shoulder. Judging by the reactions of the two men, she realized she must have jumped up from her seat as if she’d been poked with a cattle prod.
“Didn’t mean to scare you, miss,” said the man in the window seat. “I just need to get out to the bathroom.”
Rory tried to gather her wits as she stood up and followed the man in the aisle seat out of the row. She was still half expecting to see Zeke, or parts of him, floating nearby. But since none of the passengers looked like they’d seen a ghost, her heart slipped out of her throat and back into her chest, where it belonged.
Once she and her seatmates were reinstalled in their designated places, she withdrew the journal pages from her handbag. There were a lot of entries in the diary that she hadn’t asked Lydia to copy for her. Since they weren’t pertinent to Zeke’s quest, there was no need for him to see them. They’d been difficult enough for her to read, and that was with a buffer of more than a hundred and thirty years and no direct connection to the family.
In those pages, Katherine Jensen had described the way they’d struggled with the loss of Betsy. Her husband, Frank, devoured by an angry sadness, worked late every night until sleep felled him at his desk, where she would find him in the morning. Their sons put up a brave front in public rather than risk being ridiculed by the other boys, but Katherine heard their breathless sobs during the night. Then there was her own exquisite pain, which hollowed her out, leaving a deep numbness in its wake, so that for a long time, she could hardly feel anything at all.
Remembering her words was enough to make tears spring up in Rory’s eyes again. She clenched her jaw and blinked them away before anyone could notice. The last thing she wanted to do was draw the stares and curiosity of an airplane full of people. She quickly unfolded the less emotional entries she had with her and got busy reading them for the second time.