The Sullivan Sisters

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  Documents.

  What were inside those boxes at 2270 Laramie? A whole wall stacked with them. Maybe they contained nothing important. Or maybe they held the definitive answer Eileen had craved for two long years.

  The trouble was keeping her sisters from finding out that answer. Claire seemed more interested in what the house was worth, and Murphy … well, who knew what the hell had brought her along. It might not be too difficult, keeping them off the scent. They couldn’t know. Couldn’t. The thought of them finding out the secret—they would never look at Eileen the same way. It was why she hadn’t told them in the first place.

  It was why she’d started drinking.

  Eileen wanted, more than anything, to take another swig. But doing that in front of Claire and Murphy was one gross step too far. Sure, maybe she’d drank and driven last night. Drinking in the open, though? For her sisters to see? Not that. Instead, Eileen dug into her other pocket, removed a piece of Dubble Bubble, and popped it in her mouth. She chewed into the hard, pink nugget, watching with sordid satisfaction as Claire occasionally wobbled and slid on the slick road, thanks to her tractionless shoes.

  Maybe Eileen was imagining things, but it seemed colder than it had been before—as though, against nature, the temperature was plummeting with sunrise. She pulled her jacket tighter and tugged her beanie till it nearly covered her eyes. No cars passed them as they walked down Shoreline. The street was quiet, house windows dark. The wind was damp, sticky with salt. The sound of breaking waves was ever-present.

  Only when they reached their first intersection did Eileen spy signs of human life: a brick post office and, beside it, a playground. Stop signs, storefronts, and then cars. A truck rumbled past them, followed by a sedan. They were in the land of the living, and Honey Street was ahead.

  “There it is,” said Claire, pointing, and sure enough, catty-corner to them was a squat restaurant with big windows and a light-up sign that read RAMSEY’S DINER.

  The building looked as though it hadn’t been renovated since 1950, and as the sisters crossed the street, the words “E. coli” and “hepatitis” came, unbidden, to Eileen’s mind. There were, at least, several cars in the parking lot. This early in the morning that had to mean the place was decently popular.

  “Or it’s the only restaurant in town,” Eileen muttered, as Claire opened the door and a jingling bell announced their presence.

  The diner was retro, with checkered tile and a glittery Formica countertop encircling the open kitchen. It was maybe a quarter full, with a few people sitting in booths, others at the counter. From the speakers, a familiar Christmas tune played, and Eileen had to laugh a little. It didn’t matter where in Oregon Eileen went, Mariah Carey would find her, and all that woman wanted for Christmas was her.

  Taking in more of the scene, Eileen noticed a figure to her right, dressed in a collared khaki button-up, a gold star affixed to the left breast pocket. Eileen inched forward to better make out the woman’s features: beige-skinned and plump, with dark eyes, and a black braid emerging from beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She was reading the paper over a cup of coffee.

  Claire had taken note of the woman too, and looked suddenly terrified; Eileen could practically see the tension fissuring her skin. What was there to be tense about, though? This was the town sheriff, not clairvoyant. This lady couldn’t possibly know that the three of them had trespassed. All they had to do was remain chill, and Eileen had perfected that art a while back. She was chill as fuck.

  “What can I do for you girls?”

  A waitress appeared at the counter behind the register. She was probably in her fifties, with a pair of glasses perched on her pale, beaklike nose. She wore an electric red uniform, and the name tag pinned at her shoulder read CATHY.

  “We came for breakfast,” Murphy announced, pushing ahead of Eileen and Claire. “And we mean to be satisfied.”

  Cathy raised a brow at Murphy. “Do you, indeed?” She glanced at the clock above the register. “Pretty early to be up. If it were my Christmas break, I tell you what, I’d be sleeping in till noon.”

  “We come from a long line of early risers,” Murphy said, conversationally.

  That got an amused snort out of Cathy. She scanned the sisters before directing a question at Claire. “Just the three of you, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Claire replied.

  Eileen rolled her eyes. She knew what had happened. Cathy had been assessing them, figuring out who looked the oldest and most responsible. It didn’t matter that Eileen was the oldest or a head taller. Of course Cathy would choose Claire. Adults always liked Claire best. She dressed right and smiled and called people “ma’am.”

  Cathy grabbed menus and three sets of silverware and led them to a corner booth. Eileen scooted into a seat first, and Murphy joined her. That was something, at least. Adults might choose Claire, but Murphy chose Eileen.

  “Drinks?” Cathy asked, handing out the menus.

  “Do you have mochas?” Claire asked.

  Cathy studied Claire. “Beg your pardon?”

  “Mocha. The coffee drink. Like, peppermint flavor, or …” Claire trailed off as Cathy’s face went blank. “Never mind. A coffee, please. With skim milk.”

  Eileen watched this play out smugly before adding a coffee, black, to the order.

  “Me too,” said Murphy.

  “Don’t be silly,” Claire said.

  “Who’s being silly?” retorted Murphy.

  “No law about kids drinking caffeine,” Cathy observed. “Three coffees, right up.”

  As Cathy swept off, Murphy leaned across the table, telling Claire, “You always act like you’re way older than me.”

  “All I’m saying,” Claire replied primly, “is Mom didn’t let me have coffee when I was fourteen.”

  “Yeah, well, Mom doesn’t care what I do.”

  Murphy said this blithely enough, but Eileen saw the force with which she flicked a sugar packet across the table. She recognized that force. It pressed against a small, sore spot that had existed under her skin for years. In that spot resided the knowledge that Leslie Sullivan was to her daughters what the sun was to its planets: warm, but distant; bright, but slowly burning out before their eyes.

  Things had been warmer once. Eileen remembered mornings when they’d eaten Saturday breakfasts together, and Mom had asked about school and life, and they’d joked about TV shows. She remembered more distant and fuzzy days spent with Mom and Dad, her and Claire cuddled between them on the couch as they watched Wheel of Fortune. Dad had smelled of oranges. She remembered that clearly, even from thirteen years ago: the way the air turned citrusy when he was around.

  That had been then, though, and this was now. Eileen didn’t think Mom even suspected her eldest daughter drank. For one thing, Eileen was sneaky about it. She brought in the booze from Safeway in her backpack and kept it hidden beneath her bed. For another, Mom was barely around. When Eileen got drunk at home, Mom was either working a late shift at Walgreens or locked away in her room, dozing to the drone of the TV. And this holiday season? She was thousands of miles away, on the distant shores of paradise.

  Eileen really needed a drink, her sisters’ presence be damned. Maybe she could figure a way to slip the whiskey into her coffee. It would’ve been easier if she and Claire were sitting side by side. Not that she wanted Claire to—

  “Three coffees,” Cathy announced, back at the table. She set down the mugs and pulled out her order pad.

  “You guys have cheese curds?” Murphy asked.

  “Well now,” said Cathy, “not a popular breakfast order. Normally, Mike doesn’t start frying till eleven, or so. But I can see if he’s feeling generous.”

  “If he is,” Murphy said solemnly, “he’d make me the happiest human on earth.”

  “I’ll have the yogurt parfait,” Claire said.

  Eileen ordered a short-stack of pancakes, plus a side of bacon. Once the food arrived, she intended to stare Claire dead in the eye an
d say, “Yum, yum, gluten.”

  Because Claire could say whatever she wanted about her “sensitivity.” Eileen had grown up with her and seen Claire pack away pizza and bagels like nobody’s business. Sensitivity, Eileen’s ass.

  “You girls from around here?”

  With Cathy gone from the table, Eileen hadn’t planned on any further contact with strangers. She blinked uncomprehendingly at the two old ladies sitting across from them. They were watching the sisters as though they were six o’clock news.

  “Nope.” Murphy answered the white-haired lady who’d asked the question. “We’re from Emmet. Ow.”

  Eileen had actually heard Claire kick Murphy under the table, glitter shoe smacking bone.

  “Emmet.” The woman looked thoughtful. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”

  “It’s small,” said Murphy, who’d pulled out a length of knotted rope from her coat pocket and begun messing with it.

  She was such a weird kid.

  “Well! We know how small towns go,” laughed a man at the counter. He’d spun his barstool to join the conversation.

  What is this? Eileen thought. A town hall meeting?

  “What brings you ladies to Rockport?” asked the man. “Visiting relatives? More likely than not, I know who they are.”

  “That’s true enough, Orson,” said the inquisitive old lady. She smiled at the sisters, motioning to the man. “Orson’s our mayor.”

  It is a town hall meeting, Eileen confirmed. Sheriff, mayor … who would appear next? The president of the goddamn garden club?

  For a politician, Orson was underdressed. He wore a bulky suede jacket with a plaid-patterned collar and a U of O baseball cap. But as someone often dismissed for her own choice of clothes, Eileen was willing to withhold judgment. As to his question—Eileen decided it was better not to tell an outright lie. Orson probably did know everyone in town, and she wasn’t going to risk a bogus story about made-up grandparents. She was still thinking up the best approach, when Claire beat her to it.

  “We’re doing research,” she said, pointing to Eileen. “My friend and I, we’re in the same freshman course at OSU. It’s a journalism prereq, and we’re supposed to report on an aspect of small-town America. So we thought it’d be a good idea to do a podcast, you know? And our angle is old homes. See, my mom used to take us on home tours of Victorians. They have so much history. Anyway, I got mono in October—don’t worry, I’m better—but it really put me behind. So our professor was super understanding and gave us a grace period to finish the project. She said as long as we had something turned in by Christmas, she’d hold off on our final grade. Well, we’ve been reporting on a few local houses, but they just don’t have that … pizazz, you know? Then we saw your house on Laramie written up in an article in Victorian Times, and we decided we had to see it for ourselves. So we’ve come to report on it. And this is my little sister.” She pointed to Murphy. “My parents are letting her travel with us, for fun. We figure, we’ll get home Christmas Day in plenty of time to open presents and everything. But when you’re a journalism major, you’re never off the clock.”

  Eileen stared, speechless, at Claire. Never in her eighteen years had she heard someone tell a lie that butter-smooth. Podcast? Mono? Victorian Times? She’d hadn’t thought Claire had it in her: the imagination, the eloquence, the balls.

  “Smooth,” Murphy said under her breath.

  Claire was smiling cheerily, post verbal vomit. She hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  “A … what, now?” asked the lady at the booth. “Pod-what?”

  “Podcast,” Claire said, patiently. “It’s like a prerecorded radio show.”

  “Whoo,” said Orson, chuckling. “I can’t keep up with this technology. You millennials go too fast.”

  “Actually,” said Claire, “we’re not millennials. That’s a common misconception. We’re younger than that. Not that generation matters, of course. You’re never too old for podcasts. Plenty of older folks enjoy them too.”

  Orson kept chuckling. “It’s enough effort for me to maintain the Rockport website.”

  Cathy appeared at the counter, filling Orson’s mug with coffee. “What’s this I hear about Patrick’s house?”

  Orson pointed at Claire and Eileen. “These two, they’re doing a news report. A real Woodward and Bernstein in our midst.”

  Cathy looked sharply at the sisters. She wore an expression Eileen couldn’t read.

  “Reporters, huh?” she said. “Then you know about the murders, I expect.”

  Claire cleared her throat. “The, uh … murders?”

  Eileen dug her fingers into the booth.

  No, she thought. Not the secret.

  There was no stopping it, though.

  “Sure,” Cathy said. “The ones at 2270 Laramie.”

  FOURTEEN Claire

  We knew the Enrights were odd folks. But no one knew how odd till too late.”

  Cathy sat beside Claire, crow’s-feet enshrining her drama-bulged eyes. She was a natural storyteller, Claire thought. In another life, she could’ve been a Hollywood actress. The typecast world-worn woman, wizened by time and beautiful to behold. A real star, in the vein of Meryl Streep. Claire was riveted by the performance—so riveted, she’d abandoned the parfait in front of her.

  What was yogurt to murder?

  And not just any murder. One that had taken place in the house she’d inherited.

  Claire couldn’t think of eating.

  Nor, it seemed, could the other customers of Ramsey’s Diner. They were listening too. When Cathy had delivered the girls their food, she’d sat right down at their booth to tell the story she’d promised earlier.

  “Amelia!” she’d called into the kitchen. “Could you take over?” She’d turned to the sisters and added, “I’m using a smoke break on you, so listen up.”

  Since Cathy’s big announcement, Murphy had gone statuesque, her jaw dropped comically low. Eileen, on the other hand, hadn’t reacted a smidge. She was cutting her pancakes languidly, eyes heavy-lidded with dispassion. As though murder was no big deal. How? Claire wondered. Had Mr. Knutsen already told her about this? If so, how many other secrets was Eileen keeping from Claire?

  Claire had lied through her teeth about it, sure, but she honest-to-God felt like a journalist. She wanted the scoop. Every last detail.

  As Cathy spoke, her voice booming for all to hear, Claire scanned the diner. Everyone was watching Cathy, drawn in, same as Claire. The place had grown quiet. Even the Christmas music was reverent, a pensive piano version of “O Holy Night.”

  They must know the story, Claire thought. I wonder how many times they’ve heard it, in how many ways.

  This was murder, after all, in a small town. Claire remembered when Marcie Hoffman, a senior at Emmet High, had been shot in the arm by her stepfather. Marcie had lived, and the stepfather had gone to jail. No murders, no death, and even then, that was the only thing people could talk about for weeks. It still came up five years later, in hushed cafeteria conversations.

  That memory brought on an ugly thought: Marcie got shot and still went to college. What’s your excuse, Claire?

  She shook out the question and refocused on Cathy.

  “The father was a bigwig in Silicon Valley back in the day. Made bank down there. What was the company, Orson? Intel?”

  “Hell if I know,” said Orson.

  “Well,” said Cathy, “coming north was the mother’s idea. Wanted to find a nice plot of land for cheap. God knows why they chose Rockport.”

  “Wasn’t Intel,” piped a bearded man sitting three booths down. “Boeing, that’s what it was. In the plane business.”

  “That so, Wyatt?” Cathy scrunched her nose. “Boeing.”

  Wyatt nodded politely and sipped his orange juice.

  “That’d be Seattle, then,” said Orson. “Not California.”

  Cathy waved her hand. “One of the two. Point is, these Enrights were rich. They rolled into town around, oh, late e
ighties. People could tell from the first they were standoffish. City blood, you know. Doesn’t mix well in Rockport. The wife was a pretty thing, though.” Cathy frowned. “What was the maiden name? VanderVeer?”

  “Eschenburg,” supplied the talkative old lady. “German stock, I remember. Sophia Eschenburg, that was the name.”

  Orson chuckled from the counter and said, “Really, folks. This diner could turn into a genealogical society. Put a new sign out front!”

  “It’s important to get these details right, Orson,” Cathy said, chidingly. She pointed at Claire. “These girls are journalists. They need the facts.”

  Claire smiled weakly, trying to think of something to say, like, “That’s right! Just the facts, ma’am.” The truth was, she wasn’t sure how many of these details were facts. Seattle was a long drive from Silicon Valley. VanderVeer had a different ring—and origin—than Eschenburg. Claire considered the possibility that though Cathy was a good storyteller, maybe she wasn’t the most trustworthy one.

  Cathy carried on: “Rich as Croesus, these Enrights. Determined to buy that old house on the bluff, do it up nice. He was always away on business, but he hung around Sophia long enough to get three sons out of her. Wyatt, you grew up with ’em, didn’t you?”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Little after my time. John, he was three years behind me. The rest were younger, of course.”

  “Patrick was in my class,” came a new voice, from a woman sitting at the counter.

  The sheriff.

  Instantly, Claire grew stiff.

  If you act like there’s nothing to hide, she told herself, then she’s got nothing to suspect.