The Book of Illumination

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  “See into the future?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can you communicate with people in … the afterlife? Heaven?”

  She certainly was direct. I shook my head and began my usual explanation. “You know when people have a near-death experience and afterward, they talk about seeing the white light?”

  “I’ve seen it.”

  “You have?” I said. This might not be as hard as I thought.

  “I was in a car accident when I was nineteen.” Josie pulled up her tank top to reveal a long, jagged scar across her torso. “I had a Jeep convertible and I flipped it, up near Plover’s Beach on the North Shore. When they got my heart started again, I didn’t want to come back. Wherever I was being drawn to, it was so beautiful and peaceful.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “It’s true. So I have a hard time imagining why anyone who felt what I felt wouldn’t just give in to it. It’s not that I wanted to die—I didn’t! I was nineteen years old! But when it happened, I wanted to be released by life. I just wasn’t strong enough to fight the forces pulling me back.”

  “Nor are they.”

  “The people you talk to? The ghosts?”

  “Yeah. It’s not always a doctor in an emergency room holding them here, though. Sometimes it’s a person or a place or even an object they love too much to leave.”

  Josie didn’t respond. She seemed to be staring at the pattern in her rug. Since I didn’t really want to get into a more personal conversation, it seemed smartest to change the subject to the ghost in question.

  “I don’t have the whole story, but from what I understand, Mr. and Mrs. Grady—”

  “John and Mairead.”

  “Yeah. I guess they must have saved enough money to buy a little cottage in Wales.”

  “Well, they didn’t have many living expenses,” Josie said. “They were basically part of the family, and I think my mother’s parents had set something up.”

  “He mentioned some arrangement.”

  “But why Wales?” Josie asked. “I don’t remember them ever going there. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember them ever taking any time off. I do know they took my mother to Wales when she was little, during the war.”

  “Your mother and Gwennie.”

  “Who’s Gwennie?”

  I hesitated. “Uh, their little girl.”

  Josie shook her head. “No, they never had any children.”

  “I think they did.”

  “No, no way. I’m absolutely sure about that.”

  I didn’t enjoy challenging Josie’s knowledge of the people she’d lived with all her life, but the strangeness of the situation called for some measure of honesty.

  “He told me,” I said gently, “that they’d had a daughter named Gwennie. He said that she and your mother were like sisters. I don’t know what happened, but I have a hunch she might have died while they were there.”

  Josie appeared to struggle for words. “In Wales?”

  I nodded.

  “But Mummy—they—never mentioned anything. A little girl? Oh, my God. How old would she have been?”

  “Five, maybe six. My guess is that the house is somehow connected in his mind with his daughter, and he doesn’t feel he can leave this world until—”

  “Until what?”

  Here, I was stumped. It’s not as though he was going to be going on any vacations. What use was a house to him?

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “I really have no idea. All I know is, this is why he’s still here.”

  Josie stood up, walked to the fireplace, and took a smooth black stone off the mantel. As though to calm herself, she rubbed it between her palms, breathing long, deep breaths. Before she could speak again, we heard the squeal of tires as a car took a nearby corner way too fast. Whoever was driving it roared up to the house, killed the engine, and slammed the car door.

  Josie walked to the window and peered out.

  “Shit,” she said.

  I didn’t have time to ask her what was wrong before the door flew open and revealed the presence of one enraged human being: Tad. Back, apparently, from London.

  “What are you doing here?” he immediately shouted, slamming the door behind himself and glaring at me.

  I glanced from Tad to Josie, but before I could speak, she stepped between us. “She’s my guest, Tad. And this is my house.”

  “The hell it is,” he said viciously. “It’s not yours until it’s paid for, and it won’t be paid for until I release the freeze I’ve ordered on all your accounts.”

  “You can’t do that!” she said.

  “I can’t? Watch me.”

  He walked over to the fridge, opened it, and pulled out a beer. He didn’t offer me one. I definitely would have accepted.

  “You’re damn lucky I don’t have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Josie shot back.

  I had to hand it to her. The girl didn’t back down.

  “Would you?” Tad said. “Would you really? Better be careful what you wish for.”

  “Daddy’s house is as much mine as it is yours,” she said.

  “That may be true in the long run,” Tad said, “but at the moment, it’s not. Right now, Esther and I are the only people authorized to have keys, as you’d be aware if you’d taken the time to read the letter I sent you!”

  I glanced around, looking for a back door.

  “Why should I read your ridiculous, condescending letter?” Josie sputtered. “Why should I give a shit about what you have to say?”

  “Because I happen to hold the purse strings right now. So unless you’ve recently won the lottery or maybe started to look for a job—for the first time in a very long time—you might want to think twice about destroying valuable private property.”

  Tad took a long draught of beer and glanced over at me. I sensed that he was about to turn his fury in my direction, but Josie jumped back in.

  “And what did you destroy, Tad? Answer me that! Did I ever express interest in a single thing of Mummy and Daddy’s?”

  “Besides the money,” he said coolly.

  “Fuck you! You knew that The Wyndemere was only thing I cared about having, and you didn’t even have the courtesy to let me know what you were doing.”

  “I didn’t need your permission, Jo.” He paused for a moment, as though questioning the wisdom of taking things further, but he decided to go ahead.

  “I did what Father asked me to do.”

  This startled Josie into silence. She glared at her brother for a few moments, blinking rapidly, as though someone was shining a flashlight in her eyes, then she went over and sat down in a wooden rocker. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped herself into a gangly knot—a position that would be excruciating to any person who didn’t do yoga—and buried her face in her knees. She got the chair rocking.

  Tad got up, flipped through some mail and magazines on a table, and took off his jacket. He threw it on the couch.

  Josie whispered something.

  “What?” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t hear what you said, Josie,” he insisted.

  She looked up. “He asked you to?”

  Tad let out a sigh and threw a look in my direction. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

  Meaning, I guessed, in front of me.

  “That’s okay,” I said, sensing my opportunity and hopping up. “I have to get going.”

  “No!” he said firmly. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would really like an explanation.”

  His words were like a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “Of what?” I asked, stalling for time, sinking slowly back into my seat.

  “Of why you seem to be … right there, every time I turn around!”

  I glanced over at Josie, half hoping she was secretly revving up for the kind of tornado I knew she had in her, but she was in another world. I was on my
own with Tad.

  I took a deep breath. “You want the long version or the short?” I asked.

  “Short,” he said curtly.

  “Okay. This may sound a little strange, but I have the ability to see ghosts. And talk to them. I always could, from the time I was a little girl. When I was at your house that day, I was able to talk to the ghost of your family’s butler.”

  “John?” Tad asked.

  “He was in the upstairs hall when I went to use the—”

  The word toity popped into my mind. I don’t know where it came from, I hadn’t heard it used since my great-aunt Kathleen went to her heavenly reward, but I was able to catch myself.

  “Ladies’ room,” I went on.

  “Right,” he said, skepticism in his eyes.

  “Okay,” I responded. It was really fun to do what I was about to do. It just tickled me to be able to wipe the smirk off the face of an ignorant, obnoxious blowhard. I sallied forth.

  “Esther had an imaginary playmate named Millie, and you liked to read Hardy Boys books. You used to pretend you were Frank and make one of your sisters be Joe.”

  At this, Josie perked up. “You did!” she said.

  “You broke your ankle at sleepaway camp. They asked you what color cast you wanted, and you said red. You and Esther had chicken pox at the same time, but Josie never got them. You wanted to change your name when you were little; you asked everyone to start calling you Tom. And you loved skeleton keys. Mr. Grady gathered up a whole bunch of them and put them on a ring for you, and you took them everywhere you went.”

  I paused. Tad didn’t speak for a moment or two. I was gratified to notice that his mouth was hanging open, and tiny beads of perspiration were appearing on his temples.

  “But … how did you …?”he eventually managed to say.

  “I told you. I spent time with him.” I didn’t add that much of this time was spent after I had, shall we say, gained unlawful entry into his family’s former home. During the hour in which Johnny and I had sifted through the last of the family’s books, the ghost had kept up a running commentary filled with nuggets of family history triggered by the volumes I held in my hands.

  But it was a good thing Tad was coming around. I’d all but reached the limits of what I knew about his childhood.

  “Should I go on?” I asked.

  “No, no,” he said. “I’m not saying I believe you about Woolsie.”

  “Woolsie?” I asked.

  “That’s what we used to call him. On his days off, he always wore a sweater vest.”

  “And socks Maimie knit him,” Josie said.

  “Yes,” said Tad. “But I still don’t know why you’re here.”

  So I told him about The Butterfly’s Ball and the deed and the journey out to Esther’s and her phone call to Josie.

  “I remember this,” he said as I handed him the book. He silently flipped through it, pausing at various pages. He pulled the deed out of its envelope, and as he read the text on the yellowed page, I was suddenly overtaken by a fear that he might just fold it up, put it in his pocket, pick up his keys, and go. Then what would I do?

  But he didn’t. He put the deed back into its envelope, tucked the envelope into the book, and handed the book to me.

  “What do you plan to do with it?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Bring it over to him, I guess.”

  “And how were you planning to get into the house?” he asked.

  I answered honestly. “I didn’t have a plan.”

  Tad seemed to mull this over. “I can meet you there. I can let you in. But under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to be there when you give it to him.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Esther asked me, too.”

  “Me too,” said Josie. “Can I come?”

  “It’s your house. You can all come.”

  “Will I be able to see him?” Josie asked.

  I shook my head. “You can talk to him, though. And I can tell you what he says.”

  Tad let out a long, deep breath. “This is really, really strange.”

  I shrugged. I was a little unnerved at how he was staring at me. Finally he spoke.

  “So answer me something: what’s in this for you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” he said, “what do you get out of this?”

  “I don’t get anything.”

  “Oh, cut the crap,” he said. “You expect me to believe that you’re not working some kind of angle on this thing?”

  I scrutinized his features. Finny had been right not to trust him with the manuscript. Tad was an operator, through and through.

  “I’m not,” I said. “I have gotten paid before, plenty of times, but I’m not getting paid for this. I’m just … trying to help.”

  The look on his face said he didn’t really believe me, but he wasn’t going to say any more.

  I glanced at my watch. Henry would be standing on the steps of the school. The rest of the kids would be gone by now, and one of the teachers would be waiting there with him, annoyed by the fact that yet again, a preoccupied parent had lost track of the time.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I really have to go.”

  As I gathered up my things, Tad asked, “So when are we going to do this?”

  “Any time,” I said.

  “Don’t you work?” he asked.

  I felt like asking him the same question. “Yes,” I said pointedly, “but I have a flexible schedule. Why don’t you find out when Esther can come and then call me.”

  Tad fished a BlackBerry out of his coat pocket.

  “Let’s make a tentative plan,” he said, fooling around with the device. “How about this Friday?”

  “Friday night could work,” I said. “I drop my son off at his dad’s at suppertime.”

  “All right. I’ll call Esther and get back to you. What’s your phone number?”

  I recited it for him while I pulled on my coat. Though it was clear that I needed to leave, and soon, he seemed reluctant to end our conversation.

  “So he’s in the house,” Tad said. “Woolsie is. Right now.”

  “Correct.”

  “Where does he—”

  “Hang out? He can go anywhere he wants, but I met him in the upstairs hall.”

  “Could he hear me if I called out to him?”

  “He could.”

  “Can he read my mind?”

  “No.”

  “But he could hear me,” Tad said, “if I talked to him.”

  “He could hear you,” I answered quietly, “if you talked to him.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DECLAN CALLED AT about ten. I knew it was Dec because no one else ever calls me at that hour. I also know that some people get anxious with late-night phone calls, assuming the caller will have terrible news, but neither Dad nor Nona believes in delivering bad tidings at night. The phone ringing at seven in the morning is what gets my heart thumping.

  “You still up?” he asked.

  “Barely,” I answered. I’d been flipping TV channels, but nothing had drawn me in. I’d been trying to decide between making cinnamon toast, conducting a thorough search for my favorite silver earring, which was lost, but was definitely in the house someplace, or getting all the recycling and trash outside so I wouldn’t have to deal with it in the morning.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “How are you?” he said. “Helluva weekend, huh?”

  “Yeah. I felt bad for the kids.”

  “Oh, they loved the drama. Nell couldn’t stop talking about Max and the campfire and the pumpkins and all the play clothes up in the attic.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, I’m glad. I know they were disappointed about the Children’s Museum.”

  “It’s not going anywhere,” Dec said. “So listen, we’ve got something unfolding here.”

  “What?” I sat up.

&n
bsp; “Might turn out to be good luck for us after all that Scully was sprung. He can do more for us on the street than he could from a cell.”

  “Yeah, if he still feels like cooperating,” I said.

  “Oh, he’s on the case, you bet your life he is. Before he left, I put the fear of God into him—I’d dug up some old parole violations and spoken to a guy up in Hamilton, a retired cop in his seventies who just can’t seem to leave a couple of old cases behind. And a new one, come to that.”

  “What kind of cases?”

  “What kind do you think?”

  “Paintings?”

  “You got it. Guy’s name’s Mullen, and he hasn’t a doubt in the world that Scully had a hand in a theft from the Biggs Gallery, up there at Danforth Academy.”

  “When was this?”

  “Six or eight months ago. They’ve shut the place down for a big renovation, moved a lot of stuff into storage, and somehow, during the move, one of the crates went missing.”

  I wasn’t really following. “How does that help us?”

  “Well, Scully may be a luckless bastard, but he’s no fool—he knows he’s got some things coming at him, down the pike. Especially if Mullen ties him to this Andover heist; with everything else Scully’s already on the hook for, poor sod’ll be collecting Social Security by the time he gets out. So he went to work for us over the weekend.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. He called half a dozen people from here down to Florida, people he knew had dealings with Van Vleck. Sure enough, Van Vleck’s on his way to Nantucket.”

  “Does he have the book?”

  “He does.”

  “Oh my God! Why’s he going to Nantucket?”

  “To meet whoever commissioned the theft. They’ve got the use of somebody’s vacation house for the weekend.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Serious as hell, darlin’.”

  “So how do we find him?”

  “We?”

  “You, me—I don’t know! I’d like to help.”

  Dec laughed. “I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”

  “Well, when you do know. Please?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Dec!”

  “We’ll see! These guys play for keeps, sweetheart. I’m not putting you or anyone else in harm’s way.”