Caleb is now the only one still alive who knows all that occurred in this house, but he has not spoken of it since my return, and I dare say he never will, for he is distant, ill at ease in my presence. He will not meet my eyes as we sit at dinner and does not wish to discuss great books as he did before I left.
For good and ill, I am alone with my memories, with the irrepressible burden of hidden truths, and I often wonder if these truths shall be my undoing. I like to think they were Papa’s, and that the truth remains alive as a warning to those who would be driven by the hate in their hearts.
May 21, 1868
The War has brought many changes to these great United States and also to my small town of Lexington. Many of the faces with whom I was familiar are no longer here. Wendell Parker was killed at Gettysburg, Franklin Fiske at Second Manassas and Jedidiah Bridge at Antietam. It is said that dysentery took Quincy Clarke at Malvern Hill and no one is certain what felled the Esterbrook twins. Yet, as I had always longed for it to be, the Negro is now free, and I believe it was worth the price. If only Silas had been allowed to live to see it. If only I had listened to my dear husband. If only Papa had been the man I believed him to be.
Almost all of Mama’s friends have passed on, and many of my own acquaintances have married and are busy with their lives and families in a manner I cannot be. Nancy Wallace, nee Southwick, now lives in Sudbury, almost a full day’s ride, and she is the only one upon whom I might wish to call. I have let it be known that I am not well after my long journey home, and that I shall be unable to receive visitors or pay calls for at least three more weeks.
I sit alone in my room most of the day. My return to Harden House seems to be waking memories I had hoped would remain buried along with my poor Silas. The pain and horror of it all rises up to haunt my days and my nights, as fresh and as powerful as when it first happened. Perhaps I shall be allowed deliverance in madness.
“See?” Langley knelt down and pointed to the splintered wood along the edge of the stair.
I saw. The stair was torn apart, completely gone in the middle, obviously where Blais’ foot had broken through. It looked raw, angry, menacing. “But she’s okay?” I asked again, even though he had just told me Blais would be fine. “It was just her leg?”
“It was just her leg.” Langley waved to three nails sticking meanly out of the left side of what remained of the tread. “It’s possible these nails were purposely loosened.”
I looked down at the nails and then over at Trina. She stood behind the detective, freshman attitude all over her face. She hadn’t said a word since I walked in the door because Langley had come in right behind me. “This is an old house,” I told him. “Things come loose all the time.”
He nodded, as if he were seriously considering my words. “Yes. That’s entirely possible too. The evidence techs will be here within the hour to take their samples. When all the lab work’s done, we’ll know what’s what.” He glanced up at Trina, who turned and stomped back to the west parlor. “Quite a chip that one’s carrying around.”
I didn’t bother to explain about the abusive foster father, the drugs, the dead baby. It’s not that Langley wouldn’t have cared about the details of Trina’s life, it is just that it wouldn’t have made any difference. “She didn’t do this.”
“Did you?”
I looked him straight in the eye, the way innocent people and practiced criminals do on television. “No.”
“Then who did?”
“No one,” I said. “No one did anything here—it all just happened.” But I couldn’t stop myself from casting a nervous glance toward the old cellar and wondering if that was really what I believed.
“Look, Ms. Seymour—Lee,” he corrected himself, holding my gaze, “your grandmother’s dead and my partner’s got a busted leg, so if you know something you’re not telling, I think it’s time to come clean.”
So much for appearing innocent. I turned away and stared silently through the shadows to the uneven, earthen floor below. What I wasn’t telling, he didn’t want to know—and I didn’t either. In the murky darkness beneath us, the dirt seemed jagged and unwelcoming, but certainly more welcoming than the detective’s probing eyes. I leaned over, looking more closely into a place I didn’t want to see. Then I jerked myself erect. There was something down there. Something caught on the edge of the lowest stair.
“You see something?”
I started slowly down the stairs, pressing my left palm to the fieldstone wall, feeling, as well as stepping, my way. The damp stones sent a chill through my hand, turning the bones inside my fingers icy cold. But it wasn’t the dampness that numbed me, it was the feeling of dazed recognition seeping through me that congealed time and space, freezing me between here and there, between before and after.
Langley was right behind me. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”
I kept moving stiffly downward, even though I knew what was there and knew I didn’t want to find it or acknowledge the meaning of its presence. When my feet hit the cellar floor, I stopped and stared. In front of me was a small, red-flannel sack, old and stained by sweat, burned along the bottom.
“Ms. Seymour? Lee?”
I nudged the charm bag with the toe of my sneaker. Jesus.
“That the bag you were looking for the other night?” Langley asked.
I slowly reached down and picked up the tattered sack, pressing it tightly between my hands. Did this mean the impossible was possible?
May 23, 1868
The memories have not abated. If anything, they have grown more powerful, swirling around me like a maelstrom of pain, drowning my present in the horror of my past. I miss my dear Silas and my dear, dear Levi beyond all reason. I long for the love and the camaraderie Silas and I shared, the quiet hours reading by firelight, the stories told through the cold winter nights. I long for the weight of Levi in my arms, for his sweet baby smell, for the whisper of his breath on my neck. I long for my child, for my husband, for the life we should have had. I am full of anger as I press the charm bag to my breast, but mostly I am very, very sad.
I know it bodes ill for my sanity, but to soothe myself, I sometimes speak with Silas in my mind. I tell him of the smallest events of my day and of the deepest longings of my heart. I touch his charm bag through the fabric of my dress and tell him I love him and will keep him with me always.
Sometimes I imagine he hears me, answers me, that he is indeed still with me. I know this cannot be true, and instead of deluding myself with the pleasures of this falsehood, I turn my thoughts to a prayer that wherever Silas may be, he is finally a free man.
May 26, 1868
On Monday, I felt the touch of Silas’ hand on my arm, on Tuesday, it was the brush of his lips along the back of my neck, and today, I heard his whisper in my ear. These imaginings are a great comfort to me, and although I may live within them more often than is wise, I find I am unable to stop the wash of belief that rises within me at these moments. I miss my dear husband so, and his companionship is such solace.
May 27, 1868
I went for a walk through the apple orchard today. The trees were in wild bloom and the fragrance was heady. I imagined the infant apples, tiny and determined, pushing from within to become round and rich and full of sweet juice. Soon I was crying, thinking of my precious Levi, wondering where he might be, how he might be growing. Then, with a certainty I cannot explain, I knew Silas was beside me. He took my hand and we walked to the edge of the orchard. “Do not cry,” he whispered inside my head. “I am with you.”
When I closed my eyes I could almost believe it was true.
May 28, 1868
I imagined Silas came to me as I worked on my needlepoint in the east parlor today. Again, it was while I was weeping, and again Silas told me not to cry, that he would never leave me. I know these visions are just the fantasies of my muddled brain, and yet he seemed so real, his words so clear.
I remind myself that Silas is not here.
I was with him when he died, and I know where he lies.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The evidence techs were in the cellar for over an hour, and when they finally left, Langley did too. He took Trina with him, ostensibly to give her a ride back to SafeHaven because he “was going that way,” but my guess was that he was looking for a chance to catch her with her guard down. Knowing how street-smart Trina was and how she felt about cops, I figured his chances were pretty much nil. Langley had been nice enough while he was at the house, polite and respectful to us both, but it was obvious he had a lot of suspicions, and, as good a suspect as I might make with my motive and opportunity, Trina’s dark skin and drug use made her a far better one in his eyes. Even a nice cop can’t help but think like a cop.
I punched the “play” button on the answering machine, and the blinking light disappeared as the tape rewound itself. I looked at the small red sack lying on Gram’s blotter next to the telephone. Where had it gone when I lost it, and why had it been returned? I put the tattered bag under a pile of papers in the bottom desk drawer and closed the drawer with my foot.
The voice on the machine was Mike Dannow’s. He apologized for not getting back to me sooner and said he would be in his office all afternoon. I was relieved to get his message, but instead of calling him, I looked up the number for the Lexington library. When the phone was answered, I asked for Ms. Tosatti, the librarian who had promised to try to find the Harden papers. At first she didn’t remember who I was.
“Oh yes,” she said after a long stretch of dead air. “Your name isn’t Harden. You’re the one whose grandmother gave some boxes to Nancy Winsten.”
“It’s really very important,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask why. I had no lie prepared, and the facts were too preposterous to state out loud. If I opted for truth, I would have to say, “You see, Ms. Tosatti, there’s a ghost in my house, and I need to find out what’s bothering him so I can get him to stop hurting people.” Instead, I explained that I needed the papers right away, and that I’d be forever grateful for any help she could give me.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called you back, but I don’t have much to tell—nothing really. Nothing about your boxes anyway.”
“But you found something?”
“Not me. One of the reference librarians came across it and—”
“Someone found something of my grandmother’s?”
“Not of your grandmother’s, I don’t think, but it may have something to do with one of your other ancestors.”
I felt like a dentist with pliers around a tough molar and remembered that Ms. Tosatti hadn’t been easy to wrestle information from when we stood face-to-face. “What have you got?”
“It’s very odd. No one seems to know exactly where the letter came from. Things got moved around a lot during the computerization—a lot more than necessary, if you ask me. Anyway, maybe this came from your boxes and maybe from somewhere completely different—a lot of people give old papers to the library, most of them not all that useful, and things do tend to get lost around here. Especially recently. Anyway, Mr. Sweeter, he’s one of the volunteers to the archivist, happened to come across this letter and thought it was interesting so he showed it to Mrs. Schaye—that’s the librarian I was telling you about. When I mentioned to her that you had been in asking about the Harden papers, she showed it to me.”
“You’ve got a letter from one of my ancestors?”
“To one of your ancestors.”
There must be hundreds of letters still in existence that had been written to any number of my ancestors, and I didn’t hold out much hope this one would shed any light on the man in the cellar. “Who’s it to?” I asked anyway.
“It’s addressed to a Miss Sarah Harden, dated June 1860.”
“Sarah Harden?” I repeated, not believing my luck. “Who’s it from?”
“It isn’t signed, but it appears to be from a Negro foundling home in Boston, responding to an inquiry from Maysville, Ohio.”
The date and the Ohio address matched what Gram had told me about Sarah. I held my breath.
“It’s very short,” Ms. Tosatti continued. “Just says there’s no record of a child named Levi placed with the home the previous summer.”
I exhaled loudly. Very few blacks were able to read or write in 1860—in the South, it was actually against the law to teach slaves to read—and Sarah must have been writing in some poor woman’s stead. This cryptic letter had most likely brought great sorrow to the grieving mother—and it wasn’t making me too happy either. “That’s all?”
“I’m afraid so,” Ms. Tosatti said crisply.
I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, so I swallowed my disappointment and asked, “Can I come down and take a look at it?”
The librarian sounded mollified by my request and assured me I could read the letter any time, although she reminded me it was the property of the library. Then she promised to “scout around” for the cartons, took down my number and said good-bye.
I slumped into the chair and tried to resign myself to the fact that I was not going to find the answers I sought. Although the charm bag was hidden in the closed drawer at my left ankle, not seeing it didn’t stop me from feeling its presence, from knowing it was there, from wondering who else might be also.
I knew I couldn’t go down that road, so I pulled myself up and dialed Dannow’s number. When he picked up his phone, he sounded pleased to hear from me, but rushed and preoccupied. “Right,” he said in a clipped, no-nonsense voice. “You’re Kiah’s friend. Talked to her this morning. Sounds like a mess. Want to tell me about it?”
I was surprised he wanted to jump right in. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I really need a lawyer—this was Kiah’s idea. If anyone needs a lawyer it’s my friend Trina, Trina Collins, and I thought maybe you might be willing to help her. But, as I don’t think there really was a crime, I don’t think it’s going to be necessary for you to help either of us.”
“Let’s hear the story before we decide who needs my help.”
I recounted the events of the past eleven days as succinctly as I could. Dannow interrupted me a few times with questions, but mostly he just listened.
When I finished, he asked, “You ever say anything to the detectives about the missing bracelet?”
“It didn’t seem important.”
“So you didn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“So even without the bracelet, you’re sure they’re more focused on your friend Trina? Sure they like her for it better than you?”
“Reading a detective’s mind isn’t my area of expertise, Mr. Dannow, but Trina’s a young, black, ex-drug addict with a manslaughter conviction who’s currently living in a residential drug treatment facility. What do you think?”
“I think what’s bad for her is good for you.”
It seemed unnecessary to comment on such an insensitive statement—even if it was true—and I didn’t know what to say anyway. I had no more experience with defense attorneys than I did with police detectives. “Does that mean you’re not interested in helping her?”
“Here’s what we do. I call my friend Steve Corr who’s the lieutenant detective over there in Lexington. You and Trina go about your business.”
“About our business?” I echoed.
“Corr’s a good friend,” he continued. “Skiing buddy. I’ll be in touch after I’ve talked to him.”
“But—”
“No point in going any farther ’til we know what the police’ve got. No point in wasting my time or your money. You’re right. It’ll most likely turn out neither of you’ll need me.”
“You really think so?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think, Ms. Seymour. Matter’s what the police think—and what they’ve got.”
“Lee.”
“Go to your office, Lee. See a movie with your husband. Work on that Underground Railroad project Kiah was telling me about. Look normal. Be normal. Assume everything
is normal.”
“But—”
“You going to be at this number all weekend?”
“Mostly.”
“I’ll call after I talk to Corr.”
“Thanks,” I said, but Dannow had already hung up.
I called SafeHaven to thank Kiah for hooking me up with Dannow and to make arrangements for Trina to come out to the house tomorrow. Without Trina, there was no way I’d be able to sort through Gram’s system of no system. There was a ton of work to do before the inspection, and working hard seemed a good way to start trying to be normal. But my conversation with Kiah didn’t go nearly as well as my conversation with Dannow. Trina had just been caught trying to pass Lionnel something through the kitchen window, and Kiah had put her on house restriction.
Trina wasn’t going anywhere for the next two weeks.
Trina couldn’t believe she hadn’t known better. But of course she had, she knew what was happening, what was going to happen, she just hadn’t wanted to admit it. Even to herself. Especially to herself.
All that whole time, while she was playing the game, mouthin’ the words, actin’ the act, pretendin’ it could all be real, she had known in her gut that there was no chance. Still, she went on makin’ believe like she was living in some little kids’ fairy tale. And that’s just what it turned out to be. The joke was on her.
So now she’d decided she wasn’t gonna throw down for it any more. She finally had a way to get herself off the man’s scope, and Lionnel was gonna help her get there. Even though Lionnel was no angel, he was smart, and she would be jetting out of here as soon as he got the sidewalks cleared.
First the cops said she killed Hendrika, then they liked her for Clara, and now with the bitch cop falling down the stairs and all the accusations flying, Trina was sure if she stuck around for long she’d be behind bars, that there was no way a sister could win at this game.
The Safe Room Page 19