Any lingering doubts Biden might have harbored about his father’s intentions were put to rest by Morgan’s obvious approval of the attentions Biden paid to Elizabeth—attentions which at some point in the evening resulted in the disappearance of his date, presumably by cab—and Morgan’s surprised delight that the attentions were reciprocated.
Biden himself was in a state of near continuous surprise the entire time he and Elizabeth dated—he would watch her read the paper while sipping a cappuccino or catch her pulling her long, lean body out of the pool at the club and would be amazed that she was his, a sentiment that his father all too often voiced himself. Biden was a handsome man but he had a social and personal awkwardness that ended up undermining most of his relationships. In an unguarded moment he had once asked Elizabeth why she stayed with him and she had said, “I want to be part of your life, Biden,” which, he later thought, was not quite the same as saying that she wanted Biden to be part of her life.
When they had been dating about a year, and when his tentative inquiries suggested that she might not reject him, Biden told his father that he was going to ask Elizabeth to marry him.
“Excellent idea, my boy,” said Morgan, slapping Biden heartily on the back—Morgan had never called Biden “my boy” before—“I know just the person for you to see.”
So one Sunday, Biden found himself seated in the private office at the back of a jewelry store on Sansom Street, the owner behind a desk with a selection of large diamond engagement rings laid out before him. The man picked up each ring, turning it to catch the light, and described the cut, color, clarity, carat, and setting of each before passing it to Biden for his inspection.
After having seen ... a dozen? two dozen? Biden shifted restlessly. “Do you have anything more ... unusual?” He didn’t want to get Elizabeth anything usual.
“Why yes, of course,” said the jeweler. “Was there something in particular you had in mind?”
“I don’t know, it’s just that these look like what everyone has.”
The jeweler considered as he replaced the rings in the display tray. “Have you considered something other than a diamond?”
“Aren’t engagement rings always diamonds?”
“Exactly!” said the jeweler. “It’s what everyone has these days, isn’t it? But it wasn’t always. It used to be that people considered a much wider range of gemstones for engagement rings. In many ways I regret we have become so narrow-minded on this subject. What is your fiancée’s coloring?”
“Dark hair—” replied Biden.
“Green eyes?” asked the jeweler.
“Yes.”
“Wait here for just a moment,” said the jeweler and, taking the display tray with him, he left the room.
He was back in several minutes with another tray, the contents of which were covered by a black velvet cloth. He placed the tray on the desk and said with obvious excitement, “Have you considered”—he whisked the cloth off—“emeralds?”
After the colorlessness of the diamonds these rings looked almost gaudy but as Biden picked up one after the other he understood why the jeweler had asked about Elizabeth’s coloring—looking at some of them was like looking right into her eyes.
The jeweler provided commentary as Biden examined each ring. “... Now that’s a very fine stone from the mid-1800s, original setting—classic. ... On that one you can see that the designer has used a gold setting to match the gold tones of the stone ...”
Emerald was definitely what Elizabeth should have, but as with the diamonds after a bit they began to jumble together in his mind, he couldn’t remember whether or not he had examined a particular ring. He asked the jeweler if he could have some water and shortly a young woman appeared with a bottle of Perrier that she used to fill two crystal glasses.
Biden sat back in his chair. “I’ll have to think about it ...”
“There’s one other I’d like to show you,” said the jeweler, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small white leather box, set it on the desk, and pushed a tiny silver latch—the box sprang open and lying in a bed of white satin was an unset emerald, far more brilliant than any of the stones in the display tray. The jeweler adjusted the light on the desk and green flashes bounced off the stone.
“This is the Llanfair Emerald. Are you familiar with the Llanfair family?”
“Yes,” said Biden. He wasn’t personally familiar with the family but he knew the name.
“Only the youngest son left—so sad—and he doesn’t have much use for the jewelry so he’s selling it off a bit at a time. I believe he’s using the proceeds to fund an interest in race cars. In any case, it’s very rare for a stone of such provenance to come on the market.” He picked the stone up with a pair of tweezers and tilted it to catch the light. “Flawless. And you can see how brilliant the color is.” He handed the tweezers to Biden who mimicked the jeweler’s movement of the stone under the light. “We have designers who could work with you to design a setting for it—with that color, it would look stunning set in platinum.”
A stone with a history, and a custom setting—that is what he wanted Elizabeth to have.
“How much for the stone?” said Biden, trying to act casual, and he flinched inwardly when the jeweler named the price.
“It may not be exactly what you’re looking for but I wanted to show you all the options,” said the jeweler.
“No, it’s what I’m looking for,” said Biden. “That’s the one I want.”
In his Rittenhouse Square garage, he dropped the engagement ring into the Ziploc bag with the rest of the jewelry then went to a seldom-used workbench opposite the garage doors and added a couple of heavy bolts to the bag, then zipped it shut. Next to the workbench was a cabinet containing paints and other flammable material. He opened the cabinet, removed a practically full can of paint of a color Elizabeth had rejected for their bedroom, pried the lid off, and dropped the bag in, then pressed the lid back on, gave it a few light taps with a rubber mallet he found hanging on the wall above the workbench, and returned the paint can to the cabinet. From a plastic tote under the workbench Biden pulled a combination lock that until recently he had used to secure his locker at the country club until they had installed electronic keypads; he snapped the lock onto the cabinet and spun the dial.
Biden had thought about getting rid of the jewelry along with Elizabeth’s purse but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the emerald—and he figured that if any of the jewelry was going to be found in his possession, it didn’t much matter whether it was just the emerald or all of it.
He thought of the day, probably many years from now, when he would be at his dying father’s bedside and just as his father was taking his last, gasping breath, Biden would pull the engagement ring from his pocket and show it to his father and his father’s last thought would be that his son had killed his beloved daughter-in-law.
Then Biden went upstairs to submit a missing persons report for his wife.
Chapter 4
Ann and Mike Kinnear had grown up in a big, rambling old house in West Chester, Pennsylvania, that had a butler’s pantry and a servants’ staircase and wide window seats that were good for reading on rainy days. And a spirit.
The spirit appeared to Ann as a bright green, almost chartreuse, presence, sometimes accompanied by the scent of freshly cut grass; it was clear to Ann that the spirit was a girl about her own age—Ann was seven years old—and Ann named her Susan. Despite lacking any clear physical manifestation of Susan’s spirit, Ann still developed a very definite idea of what Susan looked like, based largely on the John R. Neill illustrations of Dorothy in her mother’s old Wizard of Oz books—wavy blonde hair held back with a huge bow and a blousy dress with knee-high white socks and black Mary Jane shoes. Ann talked to Susan and although Susan never responded in any auditory way, Ann received a responsive energy that she found just as satisfying.
Looking back, Ann couldn’t remember a time when she could not sense the sp
irit. She also couldn’t remember a time when the sensing of Susan’s spirit had brought on the nausea that she had often experienced as an adult. And, unlike most of her experiences with spirits as an adult, Ann sensed Susan in many places and many situations and many moods, not just in the circumstances of her death. Like any of Ann’s other acquaintances, Susan sometimes seemed playful and sometimes seemed bored, but only in the home’s two story foyer did Ann sense anything about Susan’s death. It must have been quick and painless because Ann never sensed any distress from Susan about her death, just surprise. Ann decided that Susan had died falling from the foyer’s second story balcony.
One chilly October afternoon when she was seven and Mike was six, the two of them, a neighbor named Melanie who was Ann’s age, and Ann’s mother were in the kitchen, Ann at the kitchen table drawing and the rest of them making brownies.
“What are you up to, sweetie?” said her mother, tying an apron around Melanie’s torso, right under her arms. Mike was wearing one of their father’s t-shirts over his clothes.
“Drawing,” said Ann, hunched over her picture.
“Why don’t you make brownies with us?” said her mother hopefully.
“I’m drawing,” said Ann, selecting a different colored pencil.
Her mother sighed and started getting measuring cups and bowls out of the cupboards.
After a moment, Ann said, “I know.”
“What’s that, sweetie?” said her mother.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” replied Ann.
“Who were you talking to?” asked her mother, immediately regretting the question.
“Susan.”
Melanie rolled her eyes. “She’s making things up,” she said.
“Is not,” said Mike.
Her mother put her fists on her hips, exasperated. “Ann, put down your drawing things and come make brownies with us.”
Ann sighed dramatically, left her drawing on the table, and allowed herself to be fitted with an apron.
When the brownies were in the oven and while Melanie, Mike, and Ann scooped the remaining brownie mix off the bowl and spoons with their fingers, Ann’s mother began gathering up Ann’s drawing supplies. When she picked up Ann’s drawing, she said, “Good heavens, Ann,” again immediately regretting her exclamation.
“What?” said Melanie. “Let’s see.” Melanie took the picture from her before she could think of a polite way to refuse.
The drawing depicted a young girl in old-fashioned clothing falling head first from a height marked by a broken railing, her curling hair and dress ballooning around her as she fell. Melanie examined the drawing. “Is that Susan?” she asked.
“Uh huh,” said Ann, licking the spoon.
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s about to die,” said Ann.
“Ann Kinnear, go to your room,” said her mother, removing the spoon from Ann’s hand and extracting her from the apron. “I’m sorry, Melanie, Ann shouldn’t be making up such gruesome stories.”
“That’s OK, it doesn’t scare me,” said Melanie, licking her spoon nonchalantly.
“That’s how it happened,” said Mike. “She fell off the stairs.”
“Michael,” said her mother sharply.
Ann managed to retrieve her drawing, only slightly smudged with raw brownie, from Melanie’s hand and scooped up her pencils. “I’m going to finish it,” she said, heading for her room.
Melanie put her spoon in the sink. “Thanks, Mrs. Kinnear. Can I stop back and get one when they’re done?”
“Certainly, Melanie,” said Ann’s mother, unwrapping Melanie from her apron. “Thank you for coming over.”
“You’re dumb not to believe her,” said Mike to Melanie.
“Michael!” said Mrs. Kinnear.
“I know, I know,” said Mike in a long-suffering manner, and headed for his room.
Fifteen minutes later when their mother went upstairs to check on them, she found a large, shapeless lump composed of stuffed animals under Michael’s bedspread. Ann was in her room, still working on the depiction of Susan’s death, having added some bright red splotches under the falling body, evidently in anticipation of the fatal impact.
Ann’s mother took the drawing and pencil out of Ann’s hands and put them on the bedside table. “Honey, it’s not healthy for a seven-year-old girl to be so obsessed with ...” she hesitated, weighing alternative approaches. “... a dead person.”
“She’s dead but she’s not gone,” replied Ann.
“She is gone to most of us,” said her mother.
“I can’t help that,” said Ann.
Ann’s mother sighed. She had hoped that Ann would hit it off with Melanie. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “You can go out now.” Ann reached for her drawing. “But leave that for now.”
Ann shrugged and picked up a book—of ghost stories, her mother noted dejectedly—and went downstairs.
Ann’s mother sat on her daughter’s bed for a moment, looking around the room, noting how many drawings of Susan decorated the walls. “Michael?”
There was no response.
“Michael, I know you’re in here. There’s a bunch of stuffed animals in your bed.”
Still no response.
Ann’s mother stood up and smoothed her slacks. “I’m going to go downstairs for a minute and then I’m going to come back up and I expect you to be in your room.”
She went downstairs, leaving Ann’s bedroom door open, and when she returned to Mike’s room found him jumbled in with the stuffed animals under his bedspread. She informed him he still had half an hour before he could come downstairs.
*****
Mike had never doubted Susan’s existence. At first he had figured his parents didn’t believe in Susan because they were old, but then he had realized that the other kids at school didn’t believe in Susan either.
The Monday after the brownie-making visit, Melanie told some other second graders about Ann’s drawing of Susan and at recess Mike came upon a group of them standing around Ann and calling her crazy for seeing ghosts. Ann had her head up but was crying.
Mike picked the kid who seemed to be leading the taunts, walked up behind him, and punched him in the back. The boy let out a squawk and landed a punch on Mike’s cheek as the rest of the group fell back. Mike wrapped his arms around the boy’s body, which made it hard for the boy to throw any more punches, and the two of them fell to the ground and rolled around for a bit before Mr. Guyer, the gym teacher who was supervising recess that day, noticed the melee and hauled them apart. Mike got sent to the principal’s office with a bag of ice for his eye and Ann spent the rest of the day trying to ignore the glances and whispers.
That night, Mike appeared at Ann’s bedroom door.
“Maybe you shouldn’t talk about Susan in front of the other kids for a while,” said Mike, sporting a black eye.
“I won’t,” said Ann.
“But someday they’ll be sorry they didn’t believe you.” Mike nodded his head emphatically and closed the door behind him as he returned to his room.
Ann gazed toward the end of her bed, toward the pale green glow of Susan asleep.
Chapter 5
Ann’s ability might have remained unknown to the public if it hadn’t been for Beth Barboza who lived down the street from the Kinnears and was a year older than Ann. Mike and Beth’s younger brother, Rob, hung out together occasionally, and Beth would wave to Ann when she rode by on her bike. Beth was a pretty girl with a ready smile who seemed to be on every one of her school’s sports teams and earned some local fame and a college scholarship based on her softball skills.
The summer after Beth’s freshman year in college she came home to West Chester to work in her father’s law office and indulge her latest interest, spelunking. On the weekends she would go with her friends to the caves of central and western Pennsylvania to explore their underground mysteries; the Daily Local News even ran a brief feature about her hobby—“Barboz
a Discovers a New Sport.”
The drives to the caves could be long and Beth’s parents got used to the fact that she would often not come home until the early morning hours so they were initially unconcerned when they went to bed one Saturday night with Beth still out. When they woke up in the morning, however, and she still wasn’t home they became worried and began calling her friends to see if anyone knew Beth’s whereabouts; none did. Beth’s parents called the police and early Monday morning her car was found parked off the road in an area near State College known for its caves.
A search was launched, with police and volunteers checking all the known caves in the area, but there was no sign of Beth. Friends of Beth and the Barboza family began congregating in the area to help and Mike got permission from his parents for him and Ann to join the search. “Maybe you can find her,” said Mike, packing sleeping bags and a cooler of food into their parents’ Volvo station wagon.
They left early on Wednesday and reached the search area by mid-morning, parking in a field with the other searchers, including Beth’s parents and brother, as well as a news van from one of the Philadelphia stations. The police were periodically turning on the siren on one of the police cars for a few seconds to give the searchers a homing device.
“Now what?” said Ann.
“Walk around, maybe you’ll sense something,” said Mike, hoisting a backpack onto his shoulder and handing a backpack to Ann.
*****
They walked through the woods, always keeping within earshot of the siren. After an hour or so, Ann sat down on a log. “I’m not getting anything. This is stupid.”
The Sense of Death: An Ann Kinnear Suspense Novel (The Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels Book 1) Page 4