Her thick lips were almost in a frown, but not quite. Folks didn’t really smile for photos then. And really, what was there to smile about? The years of the Civil War and just after were hard on the whole country. Especially the South. Even though the Shenandoah Valley was spared compared to Richmond and farther south, they’d certainly seen their share of destruction and death.
The woman’s dress was plain and dark, just what you’d expect, with a bit of a poof or a hoop, not a huge one like that of the Southern belle of popular media. Full sleeves were gathered at her wrists, where a shiny fabric looked almost jewellike. One ribbon was tied at the neck.
Yes, the Civil War had been harsh on the families in the valley, but this woman looked like she had fared well. But then again, she was a McGlashen, of sturdy Scotch-Irish frontier stock.
She stood on a patterned carpet, next to a velvet settee.
“I bet this is a formal photo,” Beatrice said. “Like in a studio somewhere. But where?”
Jon shrugged. “There’s no marking. She is very uncomfortable looking.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“She looks unhappy. I don’t know. The dress, maybe, looks uncomfortable for her.”
“Yes, maybe you’re right.” She smiled. “But you know I don’t think I’ve ever seen an old photo where anybody is smiling.”
Just then, a knock sounded at her front door.
“Hello!”
Vera and Lizzie had arrived a little earlier than what they planned. Damn. Beatrice gathered the book, slid the photo back in it, and gingerly slipped it into a kitchen drawer. If Vera knew about it, she’d certainly make sure that Beatrice turned it over to the state immediately. Beatrice and Jon had talked about it and were not sure what they wanted to do with it. Although ultimately, they would probably donate it to the state, like the rest of the artifacts, for now it remained a delicious, mysterious secret that she and Jon shared.
Chapter 24
Another half day of school for the boys. Annie did not see the point in these half days of school. She waved to them as they rolled off in the school bus, and three hours later, she’d be back at the end of her driveway, waiting for the bus. She planned to proofread a section of what she had already written about the New Mountain Order. It would suffice for the day. Once the boys were home, all hell would break loose.
As she walked in the front door, her cell phone beeped.
“Hello,” she said into it.
“Hey, Annie. It’s Steve. How’s it going?” said her newspaper editor.
“Fine. What’s up?”
“I’m really curious about this Irish dancer that was killed.”
“Me too,” she said.
“Can you dig around and find out more about her? I mean, here she was, this famous Irish dancer, right? In Cumberland Creek. Gets herself killed . . . In the meantime, we find out she had this strange tattoo. Are you sure there’s no link to the NMO?”
Annie hesitated.
“I mean, it seems sort of clear-cut.”
“Too clear-cut, Steve. The murder didn’t have any of the hallmarks of an NMO murder. Plus, several of its members are in jail, awaiting their trial.”
“It’s just too weird. All the way around.”
“Yes, I’ve had similar thoughts. When I questioned Luther Vandergrift about Emily, he knew about her.”
“There has to be a link,” he said and coughed.
“My gut tells me no,” she said after a moment.
“Hmmm. I know all about you and your instincts, but could you be in denial?”
“About what?”
“You’re Jewish, Annie. I’m sure you don’t want to believe in the possibility of another hate crime.”
“Wait a minute. As far as I know, there have not been any hate crimes in this area. Sure, some vandalism and some threats. But none of the murders in recent years were hate crime related.”
“So, how do we know this one is not? I’d really like a little more information about this woman.”
“I’m a little uncomfortable with this. I’m the only Jewish woman in town. My kids have been picked on at school. I’m writing a book on the New Mountain Order. I’ve got conflicts of interest everywhere.”
“Okay, Annie. Say the word and I will put someone else on it.”
Her stomach sank. She and Mike could certainly use the money. They had just replaced the furnace in their 1958-built house, which placed them further into debt. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to write one more story, or series, about Emily McGlashen.
But then Mike might not be thrilled about it. He liked the money, but not the time she needed to spend away from him and the boys. Maybe she should talk to him first.
“Can I think about it?”
“Okay. I’m giving you a few days to think about it. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll give the story to someone else,” he said.
After she hung up the phone, Annie started cleaning up after breakfast. When the last dish was rinsed and placed in her dishwasher, she stood and looked around her pink kitchen. Very vintage. She loved every piece of it. It was so different from the kitchen she and Mike had when the lived in Bethesda, which was sleek and modern. She leaned up against the counter, and it creaked. She didn’t miss that kitchen. In fact, the only thing she missed was her closet where she kept all her shoes.
Annie’s cell phone blared.
“Annie? It’s Adam.”
“Yes?”
“The Greenbergs are trying to reach you. They couldn’t find your number.”
“Where are they?”
“At Emily’s apartment. Do you have that number?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. They gave it to me,” she said. “It’s odd they would contact me. I wonder what they want.”
“I wondered the same thing,” he said. “But they sounded upset.”
“Upset? Maybe I should just go over there. . . .”
After she was buzzed in by the Greenberg family, Annie hit the elevator button. Sixth floor. She made her way to the right door and rang the bell. A weary-looking Donald Greenberg answered and led her into the living room. He was wearing a long white cotton shirt with flowers embroidered around the collar.
The place was a mess, with boxes and trash bags scattered everywhere. It reeked of pot.
“Can we get you some herb tea, coffee, anything?” he said with a tired smile.
“No, thank you,” she said, smiling.
“Please sit down,” Rachel Greenberg told her. She patted the couch space next to her, so Annie sat down beside her. The woman had been crying. Her eyes were red and swollen. Or maybe she was stoned?
Rachel still didn’t have a bra on, and her shirt was revealing. Annie didn’t go around checking out other women’s breasts, but the woman was big breasted. It was hard not to stare.
“What’s wrong?” Annie asked in a hushed tone. They had lost their daughter. What else could set them off like his?
“My daughter and I . . . Well . . . sometimes I think I wasn’t a good mother to her—”
“Rachel—” Donald began.
“No, no, no.” Rachel placed her hand up. “But then I look into my heart, and I know I’ve done my best to teach her right from wrong. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough. People make mistakes.”
Annie tilted her head and leaned in toward her.
Donald held a journal. Was that Emily’s journal? Why hadn’t Bryant confiscated it?
“We just now found this. You can take it to the cops, if you want,” Donald said, as if her were reading her mind. Odd.
“Usually, we would keep this in our family. We’re ashamed. But we’d like to find some justice in our daughter’s death.” Rachel paused and took a deep breath. “Emily was having an affair.”
“I had no idea. I never saw her with anybody,” Annie said, almost to herself.
“There’s a reason for that,” Donald said, sitting down on the arm of the couch, surrounded by filled boxes and trash bags from cleaning his
dead daughter’s apartment. “She was seeing a married man.”
Chapter 25
“So,” Vera said after swallowing a chocolate-covered pretzel. “Once again, we have a married man cheating on his wife. I see a pattern here. Are any of them true to their wives?”
“Mine better be,” DeeAnn said, holding up her scissors. “Or snip, snip, snip.”
After the giggles died down, Annie cleared her throat. “But seriously,” she said. “Had any of you ever seen her with a man?”
“I tried not to pay attention to her,” Sheila said after a moment. “I really didn’t like her. But I can’t remember ever seeing her with anybody but dancers and other women,” she added and then paused. “I’m printing off these fabulous borders. This is one of the great things about hybrid scrapping. These borders are free. I am printing them and am going to use them in a traditional scrapbook.”
“It’s kind of strange that she was unattached, come to think of it,” Paige said after a moment. “Emily was young and pretty, in great shape, and didn’t have a boyfriend. I guess I never gave it much thought.”
“She wasn’t easy to ignore,” Vera said after cutting a photo into a heart shape, sitting back, and admiring her work. “Just perfect. Sometimes pictures just speak to you. This one needed to be a heart shape.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Sheila said, reaching for the pretzels. “And other times you just don’t know what to do with them.”
“I find myself taking photos that I think will look good on a scrapbook page, you know?” Vera said and laughed. “Sometimes those are the best pictures, too.”
“Here’s something you can do with washi tape,” DeeAnn said, holding up a photo that she had taped onto the page. The washi tape, which was acid free, came in many fun patterns and colors. This one was a black-and-white houndstooth pattern and framed the photo nicely against the red floral page, while at the same time providing an adhesive.
“Cool!” Sheila said. “Love washi!”
“So can’t the police find out who she was seeing? Cell phone records? Computer records? That kind of thing?” Paige asked Annie after a beat.
“Yes,” Annie responded. “It takes a lot longer to sort through all of that than what CSI shows on TV. Besides, the Cumberland Creek Police Department is seriously understaffed. The population has exploded, and the department hasn’t yet caught up. They have some new people starting next week, I think. I’m going over on Monday to help, if I can.”
“They are going to let you do that?” Vera said.
“Well, I’m covering the case, you know? And no, they usually don’t let reporters do this kind of thing, but I think they really need the help.”
“Oh, Annie, c’mon. You are kidding yourself,” Vera blurted. “Bryant just wants to get you alone.”
The room became silent. DeeAnn cleared her throat, Sheila looked up from her laptop, and Paige looked down steadily at her scrapbook page.
“Maybe,” Annie said, finally breaking the silence and the tension in the room. “But don’t worry, Vera. I can handle him.”
“I’d like to handle him,” DeeAnn muttered. “What a hunk.”
A few of the croppers laughed. But Annie didn’t. Neither did Vera, who had strong feelings about spouses cheating on one another. Vera was just sick to death of it. The older she became, the more she saw and she hated it. And there was her own ex-husband, the father of her child, living with a twenty-four-year-old in Charlottesville, while she struggled to make ends meet. She found it true that some men just couldn’t get their heads straight, simply thinking with their little one and not their big one.
She knew that Annie was attracted to Bryant and that she was struggling. What she needed to do was stop covering the case, back away from Bryant, and concentrate on her husband and family. She could see that so clearly, but Annie was her friend and she wanted to support her. And she was usually so smart. How could it be that she was confused about this? She wasn’t sure what she should say or do to support Annie. Vera tried not to be too judgmental or harsh. But Vera saw things very simply: If you are married, you are married. That is that. If you don’t love your spouse anymore, get out of it. For God’s sakes, don’t drag another person into it before you are finished with your marriage.
“Things are rarely as black and white as they seem,” Annie muttered, then finished her beer.
“Sometimes they are exactly as they seem,” Vera said, closing the scrapbook she was working on. “I’m exhausted. I need to collect my daughter and get home.”
“Why isn’t she staying with Bea?” Paige asked.
Vera shrugged. “She is getting funny about the bedtime thing and wanted to come home tonight. She said she wanted her own bed. So Mama is looking for one just like it to put in her room there. Until then . . .”
Vera was surprised to see Elizabeth wide wake. She’d hoped that her daughter’s bedtime struggles would give way to sleepiness. No such luck. Lizzie talked all the way home in the car. The child was a fount of energy.
By the time she finally got Lizzie down, Vera was too exhausted to take a bath or to go downstairs and take one of her pills. She climbed into bed with her clothes on and slipped off her shoes. Ahh, bed.
She woke up what seemed like fifteen minutes later, her clothes clinging to her in the most uncomfortable manner. And so she peeled them off and reached for her nightgown at the bottom of the bed.
After what seemed like another fifteen minutes of sleep, Vera awoke. Lizzie cried. Vera lay there in the dark and listened. Was Lizzie crying, or was she dreaming? She rolled over as quietly as she could manage in the old creaky bed, which her mom had dug out of the attic for her.
Oh, she loved the quiet and the dark. The child didn’t cry again, and she dozed off into a warm sleep.
Her feet were cold. The floor was drafty. A cry. A wail. “Mama!”
Suddenly, she was holding Elizabeth. How had she gotten there? Lizzie looked up at her with a red and contorted face wet with tears, as if she had been sobbing for quite some time. “Mama?”
Vera sat down in the rocking chair and wrapped her arms around Lizzie. “Shh, baby. It’s okay. . . .”
But Vera wasn’t sure that it was.
She glanced out the window, saw the shadows of the old fire escape there. She really wanted to have that thing removed. Why was the window open? Had she forgotten to close it? Or had she just opened it?
She peered out at the indigo blue sky; the full orange moon was still there. The wall glowed with the dusky blue light. The princess clock in the corner said it was 4:00 a.m.
How had she gotten into this room and not remembered it? How long had she been here? And what was going on with her daughter?
She brushed Lizzie’s hair off her forehead. Lizzie was calmer now, and her sobs quieted, but the child burned with fever. She didn’t look right, not at all, and Vera was certain it wasn’t just because she had been crying.
Chapter 26
Beatrice and Jon had just finished an early breakfast and cleaned up. Oh, it was so easy and quick to clean the kitchen when there were two of you. Beatrice kissed Jon on the cheek.
He smiled. “What was that for?”
“I just love you,” she said, feeling her old, somewhat bitter heart cracking open just a little more this morning. It was going to be a wonderful Sunday. She and Jon were going to look over the memory book this morning, and then she would get ready for a big Sunday dinner. The new couple in town was joining them again, and Beatrice planned to share her old music with the professor. Not too many people were around that appreciated it any more. A shock of excitement moved through her.
“Let’s get the book out,” Jon said, his dark eyebrows lifting and his hands rubbing together.
They had been entirely too busy to look over their treasured book. It was delicate and fragile, and they certainly didn’t want Elizabeth to get ahold of it. And they weren’t ready to share it with anybody yet.
Beatrice sat the book d
own gingerly on her dining room table. They used this room only on Sundays. Even though she had stopped going to church years ago, she still liked to maintain some of the Sunday traditions she held dear, like big Sunday dinners.
Jon wrinkled his nose as she cracked the book open to the picture. “Musty,” he said. “Willa.”
Beatrice smiled. Lawd, this man loved intrigue almost as much as she did. The old book looked splendidly shabby against her lacy red crocheted tablecloth. Oh, that Mrs. Lokomski was a talented woman with the crochet hook.
She turned the page to find what were probably pressed flowers, too crumpled and old for identification. The next page held nothing but a lock of the brightest red hair she’d ever seen, including her own from when she was a child. A weird sense of foreboding came over her: The last time she’d seen a clipping of red hair like this was in Cookie Crandall’s scrapbook of shadows, as she called it. And the young women who were murdered last year each had beautiful red hair.
She had never understood the Victorian fascination with things like clipping hair and fingernails and saving them, for she was not much of a sentimental person. But this lock of hair sent senseless ripples of fear through her, but then a feeling of awe came over her, as well. This hair belonged either to Willa or to someone she loved. It was tied with a lacy ribbon. A girl. Sometimes the passage of time, or the acknowledgment of it, sent Beatrice’s head spinning. Was it the old lady in her? Or the quantum physicist? She felt her eyes stinging.
Her moment was interrupted by a phone call. Jon jumped to answer it.
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