by A. L. Jambor
Constance knew that Mari had been involved in a terrible accident, but it didn't keep her from worrying about the books, which were out of print and original copies. With each passing day, her desire to retrieve the books grew, and she had asked Harry Miller's sister, a cold woman named Joyce, if Constance could retrieve them herself, but Joyce told her she wouldn't release the items from Mari's room to anyone but Mari.
"I'm not gonna have her sue me for giving her stuff away," Joyce said.
Perhaps if Constance had known why Mari hadn't retrieved the books from the B&B she might have been more forgiving, but since Mari went out of her way to avoid walking past the historical society's cottage, Constance never had a chance to find out. She had called Cassie asking her to remind Mari about the books, which she did, but neither Cassie nor Constance knew that Mari was afraid to go to the B&B due to the fear that she might see Harry's ghost, something she was loath to share with anyone. Mari could barely handle the memories of Harry -- if she actually saw him standing on the sidewalk, she was afraid her heart would stop beating.
As the spring brought later sunsets, Constance lingered at the cottage past closing time hoping to catch Mari walking by. She happened to be standing at the window when Mari passed on her way to the grocery store and Constance ran outside to catch her.
"Marigold Burnside."
Mari stopped, but she didn't turn around.
"Hi, Constance, how are you?"
"I've been waiting for you to walk by."
Mari turned, but kept her eyes lowered and smiled as Constance continued.
"I wanted to tell you I spoke to Harry Miller's sister. She has the books. She wouldn't allow me to take them, so you must go over there and she'll give them to you."
Mari cringed. "Oh, that's...wonderful."
"She's putting the place up for sale. She needs to clean it out and I don't want my books ending up in the trash."
"Of course not; I'll get them first thing tomorrow."
"I'd appreciate it if you would."
"I'm sorry it's been so long. I was in an accident..."
"Yes, I know. I'm glad you're feeling better."
"I am. I'm getting better every day."
"Will you still be filming here?"
Mari sighed. "I don't work for the network anymore so I don't know if they'll do the story or not."
"Oh, that's a pity. It would have been so good for the town."
They stood in silence for a few uncomfortable seconds, and then Mari looked behind her.
"Well, I have to go to the grocery store."
"Of course, I won't keep you."
"I'll get those books tomorrow. That's a promise."
Constance watched her limp away and felt the pain in her own hip. Mari was half her age and perhaps that is why she survived the accident, but seeing her left with such an obvious infirmity made Constance feel sad. The young woman had lost her job, and everything had changed for her. Constance wasn't sure how she would have fared if the shoe were on the other foot. Despite her annoyance over her precious books, Constance's admiration for Mari grew a bit, and she would try to remember to treat her more kindly when Mari brought back her books.
Constance had gathered some clippings regarding Charlotte Johnson's murder the day after Mari's first visit to the society. When she heard of the accident, Constance had put them in a folder, which was in the top drawer of her desk. Now, when she went inside to get her things to go home, Constance took the folder from the drawer and put it on the desk before leaving so she would remember to give them to Mari when she returned the books.
As she locked the cottage door, she noticed that people were out walking, and she felt like doing something other than heading home. She put her sweater in her car and walked to Morton's Inn.
The man behind the bar was Isabelle Morton's grandson. She'd heard that since taking over the Inn, he'd created a new menu and was trying to turn the place into a restaurant for fine dining. Harrison Morton was a tall man with a barrel chest. He resembled his great-grandfather, Carl Morton. His salt and pepper hair was cut short and he wore a button shirt. Harrison had inherited the place after Isabelle's son died. He planned to restore it to its gilded age glory, and one good summer should put him over the top and allow him to start renovations.
Constance was led to a table near the wall and sat so she could see the whole restaurant. After she read the menu, she looked at the other patrons and smiled at those she knew. The room was large with tall windows that faced the street. The bar ran along one wall, and behind it, a foyer and a staircase going to the second floor.
In the old days it was a true inn and the rooms upstairs had been rented out, but when Carl Morton ran it, he and his family occupied the second floor, and Celia, his mentally ill wife, would sit in the center window and watch people as they entered the inn. Constance had heard stories about Celia, who had been institutionalized following Charlotte Johnson's murder. Everyone believed Celia had committed the crime, but Constance wasn't so sure. Some of the articles she'd printed out for Mari indicated a cover up, and false evidence casting blame on Celia was brought into question, but it was too late for poor Celia, who took her own life the second year of her incarceration in an Oceanville asylum.
When the server arrived with her food, Constance admired the presentation of the cod braised in garlic and butter, and was delighted to find that it tasted good, too. She was almost finished when she saw an old, disheveled man hobble across the floor to a stool at the far end of the bar. He sat and Harrison brought him a mug before the man could order. Constance knew him as Cal Baker, an old man who had lived in Cape Alden all his life. He had worked at the inn as a boy, and now he spent his evenings there so he wouldn't feel alone following the death of his wife. That it had happened over ten years ago didn't matter. Cal still missed her.
Constance paid her bill, walked outside, and went across the street to look at the inn. The second floor windows were dark. The building had been designated historical, so Constance would keep a sharp eye on any renovations he planned to do.
When she went home, Constance was greeted by the silence of an empty home. Her daughters were all living up north. They came during the summer and stayed with her, so Constance would have to start preparing their rooms. She thought again of Mari, and how she was around the same age as her girls, and felt sad for her. But no matter how sad she might feel, that girl had better bring her those books as she promised, or risk unleashing the wrath of Constance Penny.
Mari
Mari wandered up and down the aisles of the small grocery store on Main Street. Out-of-towners frequented the place for its convenience, and the owners took advantage by charging more for items available for less at the supermarket two miles away. Mari knew this, but she could walk to the store in under fifteen minutes, so this is where she shopped.
After leaving Constance Penny, her hip began to throb and her limp grew worse. The owner of the grocery, Max, would see her limp and take pity on her, giving her a quart of milk and half a dozen eggs for free. She would thank him profusely, and hobble out the door carrying her purchases in a plastic bag. Now as she entered the grocery store she looked for Max, but today, his wife was standing behind the register. She was less compassionate and was fixated on reusable bags. She delighted in reminding Mari that she should always carry one with her.
"We take ten cents off when you use your own bag," she said every time Mari checked out.
Mari disliked her so much that she deliberately forgot the woman's name. She took a basket from the stack next to the door and went to the refrigerators at the back.
Mari looked into the large round mirror over the dairy case that allowed Max's wife to watch customers and saw that Max's wife was watching her. Mari put milk, eggs, and cheese into the basket, and then grabbed a few more items before going to the checkout and cringed when the woman rang them up. It was always more than Mari expected.
"You should really buy a reusable bag," Max's wife
said. "You get ten cents off when you do."
The woman grated on her, which is why she refused to buy a reusable bag. She also liked to use the plastic bags for her trash. Still, when she looked at the rack of bags with the nice, strong handles, she knew it would be easier to carry one, and she wouldn't have to worry about the handles breaking before she got her stuff home. Max's wife wore a smug expression when she saw Mari eyeing the glorious reusable bags.
No. She wasn't going to buy one just to appease this prickly woman.
The bell on the door rang and a tall man came in. Mari had seen him in town before, but he always avoided looking at her eyes. She watched him walk to the back of the store while Max's wife bagged her items.
"$30.54," she said.
Mari paid her, picked up her bags, and glanced at the back of the store before leaving. Why did that guy always look the other way when he saw her?
She stood outside and waited for a minute, hoping he would come out, but her hip hurt too much. If she didn't keep moving, it would stiffen up, and she'd be unable to walk all the way home, so she'd have to wait until she saw him again.
It was twilight when she reached Cassie's house and all Mari's spectral friends were out to greet her. As she approached the driveway, however, another one appeared, one she hadn't seen before. The woman wasn't tall and her hair was pulled back into a bun, which made her look older. The dark rings around her eyes enhanced the aura of sadness surrounding her, but it was what she wore around her neck that made Mari shiver -- a man's belt.
Mari stopped at the foot of the driveway and stared at her as flashes of memory came to Mari of the accident, a figure in the road, and then the lights coming toward her. Mari shuddered.
"It was you."
The woman faded away. Mari waited as her heartbeat slowed down. The woman had been in the road that night. Cassie said the man hit the brakes. Had he seen her, too? Is that why he hit the brakes?
She walked down the driveway and was just about up the stairs when the bottom of one of the bags ripped and her milk fell out. As she picked it up, she could hear Cassie say, "Swallow your pride and buy a damn bag!"
She got inside and put the items away, but one box of cookies was too long to fit in the cabinet. She pushed it, mushing the end of the box, and smashed the cabinet door against it.
Shit, she thought. Was I always like this when things didn't go my way?
She remembered her childhood and incidents when she would fight with others for what she believed was right. She had ended up in the principal's office more than once for fighting with another student, but when provoked, she would react, and as hard as she tried not to, in the end, she had to give in to her natural inclinations.
When she grew up, that same dogged determination led her to seek out the truth, It made her a great researcher but a bad friend. Her relationships were shallow, built on little more than a need for information, and the longest one she'd had was with her roommate, whom she rarely saw. She never spent time meditating on her character. Take her or leave her, it was all the same to Mari.
Her closest relationship had been with her mother, and when she died, Mari had mourned her in the only way she knew how; she threw herself into her work. She loved finding some tidbit that had been overlooked by investigators forty years ago, and her ego thrived on making them look foolish. If she had been lonely, she'd never stopped to feel it, and now that she had nothing but time, all those buried feelings were coming out to play.
She sat on the loveseat and cried. She never knew when her feelings would send her into a crying jag and always kept a pack of tissues in her pocket. She was comfortable crying in front of Cassie now, but hated it when some stranger saw her weeping in the drug store aisle if she couldn't decide which shampoo to buy.
She turned on the TV and watched an old movie for a while, but then she remembered the police report in her kitchen drawer. She retrieved it and read it from cover to cover. She was right -- the man, Philip Curry, had seen someone standing in the road. He swerved to avoid her, and hit Mari's car. Her. The lady with the dark eyes.
*****
The following morning, Mari woke up determined to keep her promise to Constance Penny, especially now that she suspected a ghost was trying to tell her something. Was the dark-eyed lady a major player in the death of Charlotte Johnson?
Mari left her apartment at noon and walked toward Main Street. As she walked, she gathered her courage. She didn't know what Harry's sister was like, or how she would feel about Mari showing up unannounced, so she practiced what she would say when the woman came to the door.
As she approached it, she thought the B&B looked sad, but she was thankful not to see Harry's ghost lingering on the sidewalk. The rocking chairs had been taken off the porch and the period-appropriate drapes replaced with mini-blinds. A car with out-of-state tags was parked in the driveway, its back seat full of boxes, and Mari peeked inside before going to the front door.
She stood on the porch a moment gathering her courage. As she raised her hand to knock, she heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Harry's sister was cleaning the upstairs bedrooms. Thinking of those bedrooms made her think of Harry. They had used her bedroom. She swallowed hard and breathed deeply as she tried to keep herself from crying.
She waited until the vacuum stopped and then knocked. After she did, the urge to run overwhelmed her, but she forced herself to stay put. When Harry's sister opened the door, Mari gasped. She looked a lot like her brother, though her dark hair was streaked with gray. Her eyes were the same color, and since she didn't smile, it was hard to tell if she had a dimple in her left cheek. Her pallor was gray, and she stiffened when she saw Mari.
"Hi," Mari said. "I'm Marigold Burnside."
"Joyce Sears. I guess you want your box."
Mari followed Joyce into the foyer. More memories of her time with Harry washed over her. The foyer had been decorated for Christmas then, and he was sitting behind the reception desk when she came in. His smile made her heart leap. She looked at the light fixture above her head and remembered kissing him under the mistletoe. They had built a snowman, and Harry made hot chocolate for her.
Now, the desk was covered in magazines and books. Cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall behind it and the computer was gone. More boxes littered the living room. She tried to avoid looking at the fireplace where they had split a bottle of wine as she told him her life story. The pain was ripping her heart out, and she kept swallowing as she tried not to cry.
Joyce grabbed a small box from the floor and held it out to her. Mari blushed.
"I wanted to tell you...I'm so sorry."
Joyce's face darkened. "The police told me it wasn't your fault. Let's leave it at that."
Mari took the box from Joyce's hands.
"Thanks for taking care of this," Mari said.
"I had to. That old lady at the historical society was busting my ass."
Good for her, Mari thought as she suppressed a smile.
Mari
Mari looked inside the box as she walked away from the B&B. When she looked up, she saw the dark-eyed woman standing on the corner. Mari smiled, and the woman faded away.
"Shit," Mari said. Why do they do that? "If you want something, just ask me."
A gift -- that's what people called it when someone was able to do something extraordinary, but it didn't feel like a gift. It was frightening and confusing, and in her present state of mind, almost debilitating. This visitation in particular felt disturbing because it was obvious the dark-eyed woman wanted something, which meant she could reason, and when Mari understood that, it really scared her. The ghost had tried to get her attention by almost killing her. There was no way to keep her from trying it again if the ghost was determined to get Mari's attention. Usually she liked walking, but now she was looking around furtively for any wandering spirits who wanted to share something, hoping they would all play nice.
At that moment, Mari wished she was in a car surrounded by m
etal and insulated from the outside world with the radio blasting, but since the accident, she'd been unable to get behind the wheel of a car. Cassie kept telling her to just go and sit in her car, just drive up and down the driveway, but Mari would shudder at the thought. Her car had been totaled, and the insurance company had paid for it. That money sat in the bank until she found a new car, but if she didn't get over her fear, it might be used to extend her vacation from the real world.
She took a deep breath and kept moving. The rest of her walk home was uneventful. The spring air was clean and salty. She had always loved being outside, especially in the city where you could go anywhere anonymously, but it had never smelled like this. As the scents washed over her, the fear melted away, and she was able to focus on the sights surrounding her.
Main Street ran down the center of town. Harry's B&B was at the farthest end. At the beginning, there was the old vintage hardware store on the left, and next to that a five and dime that had been in business since 1912. Morton's Inn and the café were on the right side of the street along with the Historical Society. As she passed it, she thought of dropping off the books, but she hadn't looked at them yet, so she rushed past it and went straight home.
*****
Mari put the box on her bed, took off her shoes, and sat with her back resting on the pillows. She took the books out of the box to see what other researchers had discovered about the infamous Charlotte Johnson murder. The books had been written in the late forties after the war and were bound in cloth and cardboard. The seams were in place and they were well-kept as if they hadn't been read, but merely preserved as part of a collection. Constance was an excellent guardian. No wonder she worried about them.
Mari opened A Murder in Cape Alden and began to flip through the pages. There were lots of photographs -- sepia-toned reminders of Cape Alden in its heyday, when women dressed to walk the boardwalk, and all men wore hats.
During the Depression, they had revived the tradition of horse-drawn carriages as a way of getting tourists to come to the beach, which, at the time, didn't have a road coming from Route 34. It was on Ocean Avenue, so if people went to Oceanville, they might be lured farther south to enjoy the "experience" of Victorian Cape Alden.