The Ebony Swan

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Maybe she thought you’d stop her, Miss Theresa.”

  There was something about the way Gracie’s eyes seemed to avoid meeting Theresa’s that gave Susan a sudden misgiving. It was possible that Gracie might connive with anything Alex wanted.

  “How long ago did you find out she was missing?” Peter asked.

  Again Gracie and Theresa looked at each other—perhaps guiltily.

  “Maybe an hour or so, Mr. Peter,” Gracie said.

  “I don’t like her running around on that leg until it heals. How did she leave?”

  “She took her car,” Theresa said. “The garage is on the other side of the house, so we never heard it start. Perhaps she just let it roll down the drive, if she didn’t want us to see her.”

  “At least it’s her left leg, so driving won’t hurt too much. Though I don’t understand her going off without a word to anyone.”

  Gracie’s uneasiness was evident and she didn’t meet Peter’s eyes, either. He caught her evasiveness. “All right, Gracie—you’d better tell us what you know. No more covering up for Miss Alex, no matter what she told you.”

  10

  Alex wished that her beastly leg would hurt a little less. At least she could deal with physical pain. Fear that had its roots in the past was something else. Marilyn’s death was part of the present terrifying picture, and she’d grown sure that its source lay in events long past. Someone had been afraid of what Marilyn had unearthed in her research for Juan Gabriel’s biography. The problem was that Alex had no idea what this might be. She had gone over and over everything she’d told Marilyn—but the missing piece didn’t surface.

  What she was doing now might help to answer the questions that had haunted her for all these years. Fortunately, she could drive, and she’d told no one but Gracie where she was going, and whom she intended to meet.

  “Stall them as long as you can,” she’d directed. “I need to see Priscilla Bates and find out what she can tell me. But she will never talk if anyone else is present.”

  This was all too true. Priscilla had opened up to Peter a little, but not completely. Last night before she went to sleep, she’d determined to see Priscilla, even if she had to drive to Richmond to accomplish this. There’d been no need for that, however, since Priscilla had phoned her this morning, sounding a bit paranoic. She’d explained where she was staying temporarily, and had agreed to meet her and begged her to come alone.

  Alex’s “escape” had been easy enough. She had taken her car and followed the road south toward Windmill Point at the very tip of the Northern Neck, where Chesapeake waters lapped this western shore.

  She knew the area well. The rolling land around Kilmarnock had been replaced by flat, sandy ground, susceptible to flooding. Once all this had been scrubby growth, but in recent years these acres had been turned into a resort with a fine marina and a number of two-storied condominiums to house guests. A good beach was one of the main attractions.

  Alex parked beside the main building and got out of her car with some difficulty, using the cane she disdained. The hotel desk was at the end of a small lobby, and a young woman on duty recognized her.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Montoro. Miss Bates said to give you a key, in case she wasn’t in when you came.”

  Alex took the key and listened to the directions for finding Priscilla Bates’s room.

  The restaurant was open for breakfast, and she decided to eat something before the ordeal of meeting Priscilla.

  She refused a table in the inner room and was given one on the level that overlooked the marina. There she sat before long glass windows beside the slip where several big boats were anchored. A channel from the bay had been deepened to accommodate larger boats.

  As she ate breakfast and drank a cup of coffee, she could feel strength returning to her body. Even her leg felt better for a little food. When she returned to her car and drove along the sandy roads of the complex, she felt ready to hear whatever Priscilla might tell her. The room was on the ground floor, luckily, but no one answered her knock. When she went in and looked around, she wondered if Priscilla might already have left. No suitcases were in sight and the closet hangers were empty.

  This was a corner room, generous in size. It extended from the front gallery to a small porch that opened onto the beach. Alex went through sliding doors and stepped outside. Sunlight, filtered by the branches of a nearby pine tree, sprinkled her with light. There was little wind, and waves washing to the edge of the sand caught the dazzle of a sun path over the water. Across the bay, where a lighthouse would flash its warning at night, were the adjacent shores of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The three states came together to form the Delmar Peninsula, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia lay directly across the water from where she stood. Out there, a little to the north, floated the island of Tangier.

  In her mind’s eye she could see the island clearly, though it was invisible from here. It would lie low in the water. Its cluster of white buildings, which included two spired churches and a school, was located near the harbor. Homes were scattered sparsely a little farther afield. Now, after all her wavering and indecision, she knew that Susan must be taken to the island, no matter what it might cost her grandmother. She must do this by tomorrow, if she was able.

  No more excuses could be made because of her own reluctance to face John Gower. This morning’s efforts proved that she could move around well enough. It was only the young Alexandria who hated to have John see her old and crippled. But John would no longer be young either. After all, he was a few years older than she was, so time would have changed him as well. In any case, what did it matter? Emily had weathered badly from too much sun and the hard life of the island. Alex, at least, had escaped that.

  How she wished she could run across the sandy ground at her feet—run through clumps of beach grass and feel the hard sand at the water’s edge under her shoes. She moved away from the cement enclosure, using her cane for balance, but she was unable to go very far, thanks to her injured leg. What a mockery it would be, even if she reached the water! She could no longer run on the sand with her hair streaming behind her and John Gower running after her, his long stride purposeful. Yet they had not touched while Juan Gabriel sat watching them, and he could not hear their laughter from where he waited. Their words had been innocuous enough—then.

  Ostensibly Juan Gabriel had sat in his folding chair making notes for his novel, and nothing in his manner had betrayed any knowledge of what was happening to his wife. Yet it must have hurt him to see them running together, just as her own inability to run hurt her now. At the time she hadn’t cared—wanting only to run along the beach with John.

  There had been a nobility about Juan Gabriel. If he had hated growing older, while his wife was still young, he had never given any indication. When he had carved her face in ebony, she had been shocked and fearful of what he might know. But he had seen her hurt and made her understand that this was his means of releasing the last traces of his jealousy of Rudy Folkes. As the years went by there had never been any lessening of his love, and she could thank God that he had never dreamed of the painful longing that existed in his wife.

  Now, whether she liked to admit it or not, a trip to Tangier would serve a double purpose. It would allow John Gower to meet his granddaughter, even if Susan were never told of the relationship. But also it might answer a question that had haunted her over the years.

  Why had John given her up so easily? Tangiermen were notably possessive of their women in those days. Why had he accepted her decision and never pursued her? If he had come after her, who could tell what changed course their lives might have taken? It had not been in character for John to give up, and perhaps some wayward part of her had expected him not to. When he had let her go so easily she began to doubt the genuineness of his love, and she couldn’t bear to think of that.

  Her years with Juan Gabriel had
brought her a deeper peace than she could ever have known with John. Perhaps even a more lasting love. In the end, Juan Gabriel had not been betrayed. All the years of their life together must weigh for more than that brief passionate episode of loving John. Yet her guilt remained. She had been bred to the standards of an earlier day.

  She turned her back on the beach and the golden glaze of sun on the water, returning to the safety of smooth cement. In the shadow of the porch something moved and her heart leapt.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Priscilla Bates said from her corner chair. “You seemed deep in thought and I didn’t want to interrupt your reverie. Thank you for coming, Mrs. Montoro.” She stood up and held out her hand—a woman even taller than Alex.

  Accepting the greeting, Alex spoke curtly. “Shall we go inside, and you can tell me why you wanted to see me in such a secretive way.” She would say nothing yet of her own wish to talk with Priscilla Bates.

  “Of course.” Priscilla led the way into the room, and they sat in chairs on opposite sides of a round table, Alex alert and very much on guard. She sensed that something was about to be asked of her—something she might choose to reject—and she studied the face of the woman who had brought her here. It seemed a good face, for all the evidence of inner tension.

  Priscilla began, one hand fingering the clasp of the large bag she had not released from her shoulder. “Perhaps Peter told you that I have his wife’s notes for the conclusion of your husband’s biography. I know that Marilyn wasn’t ready to show them to you at the time of her death. I felt undecided about what to do with them, since the rest of the manuscript had disappeared. Now that it has turned up, you should see them. Marilyn’s book ought to be finished.”

  “That is for me to decide,” Alex told her. “I would like to take her notes home with me so that I can study them. Though I don’t understand why we had to meet in this extraordinary manner for them to be delivered. You could have brought them to my house.”

  “I didn’t want anyone else to know I had them. Marilyn was murdered—perhaps because of something she knew—something in these notes? I don’t want that to happen to me. Of course you may object to the revelation she intended to make about what happened before you left Peru—that your husband had killed a man and was wanted for murder.”

  “At this late date that could hardly matter. Though I wanted to give my own view of those events.”

  Priscilla opened her shoulder bag and took out a folder, which she placed on the table between them.

  “When you read what’s here, there’s something you should think about, Mrs. Montoro. During one of the interviews you gave Marilyn, you described an attempt your husband made to tell you something just before he died.”

  Aware of the sudden thumping of her heart, Alex listened intently.

  “Marilyn told me that Mr. Montoro had been in a coma for several months after his daughter’s death. I understand that before he died, he recovered the power of speech to some extent and tried desperately to tell you something. She said you wrote down the words you understood. They are here in these notes. Perhaps their existence has frightened someone.”

  Those four words Juan Gabriel had spoken were something Alex would never forget, though she could not explain their meaning. She had told Marilyn what they were, but she hadn’t told her of Juan Gabriel’s last desperate gesture. He had become terribly agitated, struggling with some word he couldn’t manage. A bowl of fruit had stood on a low stand by his bed, and he’d reached toward it, knocking it over and dislodging an orange, so that it rolled across the floor. He had reached a trembling hand toward the piece of fruit as if pointing. There had been nothing more.

  She was glad afterward that she hadn’t pleaded with him to explain. She had simply held his hand and told him over and over how much she loved him and always would. She still believed that he’d understood, and she had felt a faint pressure of his fingers on her own.

  Priscilla went on gently, seeming to understand her moment of remembered grief. “Marilyn believed that those words had to do with your daughter’s death and that they indicated someone’s guilt. It’s possible that Marilyn talked to others about this, and someone was afraid of what her manuscript might reveal. Whoever removed the manuscript from her office at the time of her death didn’t realize that her notes for the last chapters were with me. The only people to whom I’ve mentioned these notes are Peter Macklin and your granddaughter when I met them yesterday at The Mulberry Tree. Eric Townsend was hovering around a bit officiously, but I don’t know that he was listening.”

  The Townsends again! Eric would eavesdrop if he possibly could, and he might have told his father and Hallie whatever he’d heard. Or even Theresa, for that matter. But where could that lead? There was no proof of anyone’s involvement.

  “I hope you will complete Marilyn’s book, Mrs. Montoro. Both for your husband’s sake and for Marilyn’s. I have an appointment soon, but please feel free to rest here as long as you’d like.” Priscilla stood up and held out her hand.

  When she had gone, Alex picked up the folder from the table. However reluctant she felt, she knew she must read what Marilyn had written and come to some decision. She might as well read this now before she went home. Despite her intention, however, she sat for a little while without opening the folder, and when a knock sounded at the door of the room, she felt a certain relief. She knew who it would be and for now she could postpone this painful task. Peter and Susan had come for her, she was sure. At least Gracie had given her a good head start. She had no intention of explaining to anyone why she was here. Until she’d read these notes, she would consult no one.

  When she opened the door she knew by Susan’s face that something had happened between these two—something sad and disturbing. Peter’s grave look told her nothing, but Susan was close to tears.

  “You’re an impossible woman,” Peter told her. “Lie down on that bed and let me see what damage you’ve done to yourself.”

  She stretched out on the bed obediently, watching Susan as she went to look out at the bay through wide glass doors. Perhaps to hide her tears?

  Peter took Alex’s blood pressure and her temperature, and examined her leg. “You’ve come through a lot better than you deserve. You gave us all a scare—but thanks to Gracie—”

  “That’s why I told Gracie. I knew you’d break her down eventually. But you needn’t ask questions, because I don’t feel like answering them. Not yet. Perhaps Susan can drive me home now.”

  Susan turned around at once, clearly relieved to be given an assignment that would remove her from Peter’s company. For the moment Alex wanted to think only of her granddaughter. If there’d been a breaking off of whatever tentative beginnings might have existed between these two, it was likely that Susan would want to leave Virginia soon. And that meant that Tangier Island and all it stood for must be faced at once. There had been too much vacillation—she would now do what must be done.

  On the ride home, with Susan at the wheel, Alex leaned back in the front seat and closed her eyes, forestalling conversation. Neither she nor Susan wanted to talk.

  As they approached the driveway of the Montoro house, Alex saw that a car blocked their way. Susan pulled over to the curb in front of the house and Peter pulled in behind them. Two people stood on the porch—Theresa and Gilbert Townsend—and they were locked in some furious argument, oblivious to anything else.

  “This looks like trouble,” Susan said, and beeped the horn, leaning out the car window. “Can you pull into the turnaround in front of the garage, please?” she called to Gilbert. “I need to bring my grandmother close to the steps.”

  Gilbert threw her a spiteful look and turned back to Theresa. “I will not condone a marriage between you and my son. That’s my final word. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

  Theresa answered him more quietly. “I think there is. I don’t lik
e threats.”

  Gilbert came abruptly down the steps, got into his car, and drove recklessly to the turnaround, recognizing Alex with a mere nod. There he waited impatiently for a chance to get away.

  Alex watched absently. None of this touched her. Her only concern now was that Susan must at least be given a chance to know the truth before she went away.

  When Susan pulled the car up to the front steps, Theresa came down to help Alex out, scolding all the while because she’d “run away.” Probably she was only venting her irritation with Gilbert, who had never liked her, and whom Theresa detested.

  Peter, who had followed them up the driveway on foot, shook his head at Theresa. “I think that’s enough. Alex is not a prisoner in this house. She’s perfectly fine—even though I don’t approve of her running around on that leg. But she must make her own decisions.”

  Theresa scowled, but halted her outburst as she and Peter helped Alex up the steps. Alex was glad for strong arms to support her and for Peter’s bracing words.

  Susan came after them listlessly. “Do you mind if I go up to my room for a while?” she asked her grandmother. “I don’t want any lunch.”

  So it was that bad? “Of course, my dear,” Alex said. “We can talk later. And, Susan—everything will be better. It always is.”

  But she saw the brief look Susan exchanged with Peter, saw Peter turn away, and wondered if her words were true.

  On her way to the foot of the stairs, Susan looked back at her grandmother. “There’s something you should know. The carving of the ebony swan was missing from my room last night, when I went up to bed. When Peter took me to the Townsends’ awhile ago I saw it on the mantel in their parlor. Theresa gave it to Hallie. But shouldn’t it stay in this house with my grandfather’s other carvings?”