Murder Scene

by Richard Montanari

  Ivy remembered the first time she had climbed the stairs onto the porch of Godwin Hall as a child, the way the cold air seemed to come from inside. It seemed like yesterday.

  ‘Are they going to reopen it?’ she asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Johnny said. ‘But if that’s the case, I hope they’ve got some deep pockets. Can’t imagine what it looks like inside now. Betcha the wiring is a bonfire in the brewing.’

  Ivy looked at her empty glass.

  Did you hear about Godwin Hall?

  She ordered a nightcap.

  The evening was warm, the sky clear and cloudless, the stars abundant.

  As Ivy crossed the Fairgrounds to the center of the field, to the area near the gazebo, her thoughts, as always, turned to Delia.

  Partially deaf since birth, Delia Holgrave had been thought to be developmentally challenged in her early school years. Because she could not hear what her teachers were saying, or the incidental conversations around her, Delia’s grades were consistently poor.

  When the problem was diagnosed at age ten, a lot of the psychological damage had already been done. Delia had acquired feelings of inadequacy and failure. Her mother scraped together the money to see specialists in both Akron and Cleveland, and had purchased her any number of hearing aids, which Delia could not wait to throw into the river, or stomp beneath her feet in a tantrum.

  When Delia was thirteen she picked up a cheap drum kit at a garage sale, purchased with her babysitting money, and began to practice out in the field behind the house. Many a spring, summer, or fall day would find Delia Holgrave banging away, her huge headphones in place, plugged into her Sony Walkman. Ivy recalled seeing her sister out there in a downpour, oblivious to the elements. More than one Walkman shorted out because of this practice.

  By the time she was fourteen Delia formed a rock band with three other area kids who were also hard of hearing. They called themselves Deaf Penalty, and gained quite a reputation in the area, mostly for playing their music bone-jarringly loud. It drove the neighbors crazy, but brought Delia Holgrave a cult status of sorts, at least as much as could be culled in a small town in a mostly rural county. The band played county and village fairs and even had one memorable gig at Newbury Junior High School, hosted by a DJ from Cleveland.

  Although it was supposed to be the other way around, it was Ivy who ended up looking up to her younger sister. Delia was everything Ivy wanted to be. Delia was bold. Delia had flair and a style that set her apart from the other kids her age, calling attention to, instead of trying to hide from, her disability.

  More than once Delia had stepped into the fray on Ivy’s behalf. Ivy was more than capable of taking care of herself when it came to schoolyard and town square bullies – education in the fistic arts come early to the daughters of a police officer – but it seemed that Delia saw it as a calling.

  With this new-found rock star celebrity came a change of attitude in Delia. She began to find ways to interact socially, and even gained a sense of responsibility, a sense of acceptance of her lot in life. She started to volunteer her time to work with deaf and hearing-impaired children, learning American Sign Language, and passing along her knowledge to the community.

  She also picked up part-time work as a housekeeper in order to keep herself in Marlboros and drum sticks. Three days a week she worked with the room attendants at Godwin Hall, which was in its last throes of life as a boarding house.

  One fall day Delia Holgrave finished her shift, walked out the back door of Godwin Hall, and was never seen again.

  Plenty of small town gossip had ultimately distilled into folklore, mostly told as cautionary bedtime stories by parents trying to scare their kids from both Godwin Hall and the forests of Holland County.

  Ivy June never recovered from her daughter going missing. She continued on the job as deputy for a few years after, sleeping three hours a night, spending much of her off-duty time driving every back road in the county, rousting all the fringe players – small time drug dealers, petty thieves, tomcats, tavern bullies, kiddie watchers – hoping for some sort of clue, or answer, or direction.

  She never found it. Two years after Delia disappeared came a mild stroke from the stress, and Ivy June turned in her deputy badge and uniform.

  Ivy’s last memory of her sister was from the day she went missing, standing in the middle of the Fairgrounds, striking a hip-shot, bad girl pose. They had talked about taking the picture to Dallas Lange and Town Frame and having it blown up to poster size. They never did.

  On this night, these twenty-five years later, with Paulette Graham’s violated body long in the ground, and another girl’s body in a cold room at the county morgue, Ivy found herself standing directly behind Godwin Hall.

  I heard someone bought it.

  Someone from out of town.

  Ivy wondered what the new owners knew of Godwin Hall’s prime, of its elegance and decadence, of its shadows and light. She wondered if they heard the rumors about what had taken place in the Fairgrounds behind the house, under the cover of clouds, under the shroud of ritual.

  Something drew Ivy’s gaze to the top floor of Godwin Hall. When she looked over she saw a light wink once from a window in the dormer, on the northernmost of its gables.

  Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

  Summer – Godwin Hall

  Being the True Diary and Journal of Eva Claire Larssen

  June 8, 1869

  For the past week I have felt sickly each morning. Yesterday, as we were preparing egg breads for the guests at Godwin Hall, I felt so dizzy I had to sit on the floor. In the afternoon Mrs Samuelsson took me to see the doctor in Chardon and he confirmed what I felt to be true.

  I am going to be a mother.

  June 16, 1869

  Willem has returned home from school for the summer and he is very attentive. More than once his mother, who has been very kind throughout, has broomed him from the kitchen. We do not sleep together – there is scandal enough in this village already, I can see it in the eyes of all the gossipy wives at the market each week – but he comes to me every night before I sleep and tells me of our future together.

  June 22, 1869

  This morning, before my chores, Dr van Laar told me he wanted to show me some things. He had dressed in his finest and I could see where he’d nicked himself while shaving. He smelled of lavender. He led me through the grand hallways on the upper floors at Veldhoeve, hallways I had never seen. On the third floor he showed me what looks to be an art gallery. In it there are fourteen drawings on the walls.

  Seven pictures of sin. Seven pictures of virtue.

  The drawings of vices are the things of nightmares. Dr van Laar whispers when he talks of these drawings. He says that I bear a strong resemblance to the girl in one of the virtue drawings, though I do not see it.

  June 30, 1869

  Tonight, long after I had snuffed the candles, I heard a beautiful song from just below the window. It was a mandolin. I stole from the bed, and went to the window to look and listen.

  But it was not Willem below my window.

  It was Dr van Laar.

  34

  With a lot of help, in just a few weeks, Will was able to make a serious dent in the task of getting Godwin Hall tidied up, aired out, and in some kind of presentable shape. During the first week Reuben and his brothers Lemuel and Samuel had gone through all the rooms and separated the usable from the unusable, a process Will had come to think of as Amish triage.

  The larger items of furniture were grouped into the center of the room that was once used as a ballroom: a pair of armoires, five or six accent tables, a roll-top desk, two love seats, a green velvet fainting couch.

  When all of these items, and many others, were gathered together, Reuben and his brothers did a silent assessment of their worth. Before long they decided on which items could be refinished, screwed, dowelled, glued, fitted, repurposed, leveled, and glazed. Will soon learned that if a group of Amish men could n
ot fix something, it was basically kindling. There was not much furniture in the entire house worth salvaging.

  If his relationship with Detta had not deteriorated, it had evened out into a routine of silence and tolerance. They ate most of their meals in their rooms at Red Oak; did much of their communicating, such as it was, by phone or text.

  As Will was getting ready to leave Godwin Hall for the day he saw that there was a flyer in the handle of the back door. Will removed it, unfolded the single page. It was a notice for a barn auction, including a list of the items that would be auctioned off. Among them were household goods such as dinnerware, flatware, glassware. There were three color photographs at the bottom. One of the photos showed a trio of bedroom sets; headboards, side rails, and footboards.

  But it was the tag line at the bottom, beneath the bedroom sets, that caught Will’s eye, typo and all.

  These special items were once part of the splender that was Godwin Hall.

  The auction started in an hour.

  Will made a shopping list, and was just about out the door when he heard a tone on his laptop, the ringing sound when he received a Skype call.

  Will answered. Within seconds, the Skype window opened and Will saw Trevor Butler. Trevor was at his desk in the den of his house.

  ‘Have you been working out?’ Will asked.

  Trevor sat a little straighter. ‘Do I look better?’

  In truth he looked exactly the same. Will would never tell him this.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Even for a shrink you’re a pretty good liar.’

  ‘It’s a blessing and a curse.’

  They caught up on their families. It sounded as if Trevor was finally coming to terms with his divorce. He told Will that he had spent the previous weekend with his girls, and that his oldest, fourteen-year-old Gemma, had casually (or so she thought) left hints about signing up for match.com on his cell phone.

  Will gave Trevor a quick rundown on Abbeville, its people, and the progress at Godwin Hall.

  ‘So, to what do I owe this rude intrusion?’ Will asked.

  ‘I can’t just call an old friend?’

  ‘Not in my experience, no.’

  ‘Okay. I ran across a couple of things. First off, we recovered Anthony Torres’s phone.’

  Will felt a sudden chill. He remembered handing the boy the phone as if it were yesterday. ‘Where was it?’

  ‘Turns out it was in the trunk of the car he stole. The owners of the car found it, turned it over to the administrator of the NSD home where Anthony was staying, and he called us.’

  ‘What did you find on the phone?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Trevor said. ‘It’s password protected, but we’re working on it.’

  Will was all but certain he didn’t really want to know what was on the phone.

  ‘You said a couple of things,’ Will said, anxious to move on.

  ‘Right. Well. I know you told me this before, but tell me again. How did you first run across Anthony Torres?’

  ‘I got an email from an associate.’

  ‘An associate from where? A colleague at NYU?’

  ‘No,’ Will said. ‘He was from NYBTA.’

  ‘And you knew this guy?’

  ‘No. But it was not all that unusual. It’s not that big of a club and all my contact information – everybody’s contact information – is in the registry.’

  ‘And he contacted you through your NYU account, or your personal email?’

  ‘I’m sure it was my NYU account.’

  ‘Did you print off the email?’

  ‘No,’ Will said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever done that, to be honest with you. Amanda would’ve killed me. Saving trees and all that.’

  ‘Do you still have access to your NYU account?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I have the feeling that all of it’s been deleted. I can check.’

  ‘Can you check right now?’

  ‘I guess. If I do will you tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘I promise,’ Trevor said. ‘Just humor me, mate.’

  Will opened his mail application. He had deleted his NYU account folder not long after the fire in an inebriated rage. He’d regretted doing it a few times, but the feeling passed. He created a new folder, put in his username and password, and clicked on the get new mail icon.

  Account not found. He tried again. Same result.

  ‘No,’ Will said. ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘Okay. Last question for now. Do you remember the guy’s name? The guy who sent you the email?’

  ‘Not really. I think it was something like Kessel. Maybe Kessler.’

  ‘And you’re sure it came from someone at this organization?’

  ‘I was until this very second, buddy. This is freaking me out a little bit.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want to do. I’m casting a wide net here. I’m just doing it out loud.’

  ‘I understand.’ Will knew that his dear friend had all the best intentions.

  ‘Maybe, and there’s no rush on this, you could go into the registry on that organization and see if you could pin down who sent that email. If you can’t, no problem. If you do I’ll just put it in the file and probably leave it there forever.’

  ‘I’ll do it today,’ Will said.

  Twenty minutes later Will was looking at the NYBTA list.

  There was no one named Kessel or Kessler.

  35

  Will had never been to an auction. His only notions came from North by Northwest, where Cary Grant uses an odd bidding technique in an attempt to elude the clutches of James Mason and Martin Landau.

  He was hoping for less intrigue.

  The items were displayed in a huge semicircle, maybe thirty setups in all. Many of the pieces were on folding tables; some of the larger items were on the ground.

  There were cast iron pans, boxes of drapery, towels and sheets, hand tools of every type, bottles and collectible tins, bowls, dishes and flatware. There was one table devoted to old postcards and magazines, one table held box after box of 78 rpm records.

  Behind the tables, where the larger items were arrayed at the edge of the field, he found the items he was looking for, the three bedroom sets that were shown in the flyer; furniture that was originally in Godwin Hall.

  The largest of the three was a queen-size set, a headboard and footboard that, according to the description, was Carolina Drexel Heritage. Will knelt down to get a closer look. The finish looked to be in decent shape, with just a few nicks and dings. It was painted white, and Will could see the original finish beneath it, a light brown stain.

  ‘Nice furniture.’

  The voice came from behind him. He turned around.

  The woman was in her forties, wore a rust-colored barn coat and jeans, Ecco boots. Her white-blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, fixed with a leather butterfly clip. Her eyes were cerulean blue.

  She pointed at the printout in his hand.

  ‘Bidding today?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Will said. ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘I’m afraid a lot of these household good auctions are folks buying and selling the same things back and forth to each other.’

  ‘Really?’

  She pointed at a nearby table. On it was an older style Kitchen Aid with a pair of mixing bowls. ‘I sold that to Carrie Rigden six years ago. She sold it to Betty Gest. Now it’s here. Funny thing is, I could use one of those, but I’ll be damned if I’ll buy it back.’

  ‘Do you go to a lot of these?’

  ‘Some,’ she said. ‘When you’re older in these parts this is kind of a social thing.’ She nodded at the printout in his hand, the photographs of the bedroom sets. ‘How much were you thinking about spending?’

  Will had three hundred in cash. He was hoping to spend less.

  ‘Maybe two hundred?’

  She smiled. ‘Is that a question?’

  ‘Not a good strategy?’

  ‘No. You should al
ways have a set amount in mind. Like when you walk up to a blackjack table. This much, not a penny more.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You’re thinking about picking up all three sets?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She lowered her voice even more, stepped closer. ‘I think we can bring this home for a lot less than two hundred.’

  Will matched her volume. ‘How are we going to do that?’

  ‘I’m going to bid against you.’

  ‘How does that work again?’

  She explained it to him. It was good.

  ‘So, do you think you have it?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘When I do this, you bid one more time.’ She smoothed the right arm of her coat, put her left hand in her pocket. ‘No matter what the increase was on the previous bid, you bid only two dollars more.’

  ‘Two dollars.’

  ‘No more, no less. If the auctioneer pretends that he’s suddenly gone hard of hearing, and throws the bid out at five or ten dollars more, you set him straight.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘By not saying another word.’

  ‘And that will shut it down?’

  ‘It will.’

  Will could see that the auctioneer was getting ready to start. He glanced at the woman, who touched a finger to the side of her nose – a la The Sting – and stepped away, engrossed now in her own auction printout.

  The auctioneer was a man in his sixties, an unassuming local dressed in jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt. When he opened his mouth, auctioning the first table, it was like every auction Will had ever seen in the movies: a rapid fire, triple-speak that sounded like it was coming from a Mars probe.

  Some of the older Amish men seemed to be bidding without moving anything but their thumbs. One man was bidding with his pipe. Will watched him carefully. When the auctioneer looked to him for the next bid the man just let the bowl of his pipe drop a quarter-inch or so.