“Thank you so much for picking up Tess and Erny,” said Dawn. “I hate that drive to the airport.” Most people pronounced Erny’s name as if he were one of the Sesame Street puppets, but Tess noted that her mother, with her usual sensitivity, pronounced her son’s name as Air-knee, just as Tess did, and even tried to roll the R. Tess had once explained to Dawn that she wanted to pronounce it as Erny’s grandmother, Inez, had, and Dawn had instantly understood.
“Just as well you didn’t go,” said Julie. “It was a madhouse out there, between the reporters and the governor’s arrival…”
“Are you coming to the press conference tomorrow?” Tess asked.
“I’m working again. I’m sorry,” said Julie. “But I’ll see you afterwards.”
“Do you know if Jake is coming?” Tess asked.
Julie rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me, he wouldn’t miss it. I’m going to run. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Come inside, you two,” Dawn insisted, ushering them up the path behind the bounding Leo and through the front doorway of the inn. Inside, there was a wide vestibule that led to the main hallway. On the right of the hallway was a paneled library with a door for privacy, which usually stood open, a pair of wing chairs, and a leather sofa. On the left was a large sitting room with a fireplace. The interior of the inn was painted in subdued but lovely shades of slate blue and acanthus green, which complemented the hooked wool rugs, the comfortably upholstered furniture in Colonial-era floral patterns, and the many antique wooden tables that glowed with a waxed sheen. “I had to put you two in the same room,” Dawn apologized, fishing a large key out of the pocket of her skirt. “With all the journalists in town for the governor’s announcement, we are full.”
“Oh no, Mom,” said Tess. “Don’t tell me there are reporters staying here. We won’t have a minute’s peace.”
“No, no,” said Dawn. “I think I managed to weed out anybody from a news organization. But there are still a lot of leaf peepers in town, and everything else is full.”
“Okay, well, that’s fine, Mom. We don’t mind bunking together.”
Dawn held up the key. “It’s down the hall on the first floor. Erny, you want to take the bags to your room?”
Erny eagerly reached for the key.
“And open the kitchen door for Leo, would you?”
“Sure,” said Erny. He started down the hall, Leo in tow.
“Come in the sitting room and get warm.” A fire was already lit in the wide, age-blackened hearth. “Here, sit,” said Dawn.
Tess flopped down into the sofa and gazed at her mother, who was adding a log to the fire and adjusting it with a poker.
“Are you feeling all right, Mom?” she asked.
“Fine, dear,” Dawn said absently.
“You must be dreading this press conference tomorrow,” Tess said.
Dawn gazed into the fire. “Actually, I’m not…I’m not planning on going, Tess. I can’t face all that again. I think I’ll wait here. I’ll stay here with Erny.”
Tess was taken aback. She had assumed her mother would go. “Are you sure?”
Dawn looked at her daughter and shook her head. “I don’t think I can,” she said.
Tess got up and put her arms around her mother, who stood stiffly, her gaze vacant. Dawn seemed numb, as if she were encased in bubble wrap, looking out at the world with detachment. Even as she held her in her arms, Tess mourned for her feisty, exuberant mother, a woman who was just a memory. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Jake and I will do it. Leave it to us. We’ll represent the family. In a strange way,” she said grimly, “I’m looking forward to it.”
At the sound of the front door opening, Dawn pulled away from her daughter’s embrace. “Well, speak of the devil,” she said.
Tess turned and saw her brother, in a worn engineer’s jacket, his thick blond hair speckled with dried paint, entering the room His skin was weathered, his hair thinning, and there were lines around his mouth and eyes, but he still retained his rugged good looks.
“You just missed your wife,” said Dawn.
“No such luck,” said Jake. “I passed her coming up the road. She stopped long enough to tell me what a jerk I was. Hey, Tess.” Brother and sister embraced briefly and Jake sat down in a spindly-looking Windsor-style armchair by the fireplace. “How was the trip?” he asked.
“Not bad,” said Tess. “Erny’s putting our bags in the room. He’s excited to be here. He doesn’t really understand what this is all about.”
“He’s better off,” said Jake.
“Apparently, this is going to be quite a scene tomorrow.”
“Asshole,” Jake muttered.
Jake was angry. Nothing unusual there, Tess thought. He had been angry for years. He always had a story about what was currently infuriating him, but Tess suspected that it all stemmed from that long-ago night when his decision to go to town, and leave his sisters alone, led to catastrophe. “Who’s an asshole?” Tess asked.
“Governor Putnam. This is all about politics. This is a career move for him. He thinks Lazarus Abbott is going to be exonerated and he’s gonna be on the national scene as the great hero of the anti–death-penalty set. I can’t wait until this backfires in his face. And that attorney that Edith Abbott hired. Ramsey.” Jake shook his head.
“It said in the paper that he’s a local guy,” said Tess.
“Well, he’s local, but he’s new,” said Dawn. “He just moved here a year or two ago. Didn’t he, Jake?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah. He was a big-shot Philadelphia lawyer and his place here was a vacation home. Then his wife died and he moved up here full-time. I guess he decided to chuck the rat race and come live among ‘the little people.’”
“Oh Jake, now, you don’t know that,” Dawn said.
“Anyway, he no sooner arrived than he got involved with that nut job, Edith Abbott. I guess he figures we’re such hicks that we must have convicted the wrong man. Why don’t people like that mind their own fucking business?”
“Jake,” Dawn admonished him. “Erny’s coming.”
They all glanced toward the door of the sitting room and saw Erny edging into the room. Jake’s face lit up. “Hey. How’s my guy? Come ’ere.”
Erny grinned and went over to his uncle, high-fiving him and giggling as Jake squeezed him in a bear hug. “Yeah, you and me will have a good time while you’re here. We’ll go honky-tonkin’. Get us a couple of tattoos. Whaddya say?”
Erny grinned, wide-eyed, at his mother. “Can I?” he asked.
“No,” said Tess, bemused.
“I’m going to the kitchen. I made these cookies…” said Dawn. “Erny, you want to help me?”
“Okay,” said Erny. He was a child with energy to spare and never minded having a job to do. It was one of many things that made Tess proud of her son.
Just then the front door opened again. “I’ll go see who it is,” Erny called out and ran for the front door before anyone could stop him.
Tess heard murmurs in the front hallway and Dawn went out to see if there was a prospective guest in the foyer. A minute later she returned to the parlor. “We have company,” said Dawn, her eyes widened in warning.
“Who?” asked Tess.
“It’s Nelson Abbott. Come in, Nelson.”
Tess looked at Jake. “Abbott?” she whispered.
“Lazarus’s stepfather,” said Jake in a low voice.
Tess looked up warily at the man who was following her mother through the door. He removed his John Deere cap and crushed it in a large grimy hand. He was a craggy-faced man in his sixties shaped rather like a hedgehog, with a small mouth, angry black eyes, and a gray, military-style haircut. He was wearing work boots caked with mud and a fleece vest.
“Hello, Nelson,” said Jake.
“This is my daughter, Tess,” said Dawn. “And you’ve met her son, Erny. Nelson, why don’t you have a seat? We were just going to get some cookies from the kitchen.”
Nel
son glanced from Tess to Erny, frowning with disapproval as he seemed to note the ethnic difference between them. Then he cleared his throat and shook his head. “I ain’t stayin’,” he said stiffly. “I just come over here to tell you all that I don’t want no part of this circus tomorrow. I won’t be there. My wife won’t listen to reason about her son. I can’t help that. But Lazarus was not right mentally. It’s a well-known fact. I did the best I could with him.” Nelson sighed.
Jake nodded. “Thanks, Nelson. It’s good of you to come by and say that.”
“Never wanted any part of this…crusade of hers.”
“I know,” said Jake.
“Can’t you sit down for a while? At least have something to drink?” Dawn asked.
“Nope. I’ve got to get back to work. Winter’s comin’, you know. I got rosebushes to wrap. And the leaves don’t rake themselves. I just wanted you to know my thinking.”
“Thank you,” said Tess. “We appreciate it.”
“Are you sure you won’t stay?” said Dawn. “We have plenty.”
Nelson shook his head sharply. “Nope. I’ve said what I came to say.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” said Dawn.
Nelson nodded and turned away. Tess could hear their voices in the hallway and then the sound of the front door closing. She raised her eyebrows at her brother. “That was strange,” said Tess.
“I thought it was decent of him,” said Jake.
“I guess it was. It’s just…he’s not exactly a pleasant fellow.”
Jake shrugged. “He’s just been driven around the twist by that crazy wife of his. I swear, I would’ve strangled that woman by now.”
“Jake, please,” said Tess.
Jake frowned. “Oh, come on, Tess. It’s just a figure of speech. And besides, it happens to be true.” He shook his head. “Edith Abbott spent a fortune on attorneys trying to clear her precious Lazarus, and they don’t have a dime to spare. Nelson knows as well as we do that it was money down the drain.”
Tess shivered, despite the warmth of the fire. “God, I will be so glad when all of this is over tomorrow,” she said.
Jake nodded grimly. “Me, too. For once and for all,” he said.
CHAPTER 4
Feeling the chill, Tess fumbled for the quilt that had slipped off the bed during her restless night. She opened her eyes and instantly was jarred fully awake by the realization of what lay ahead of her today. It was not that she was worried about what the test results on the evidence would be—far from it. She had seen Lazarus Abbott take her sister. There was never a doubt in her mind. She was just a little concerned that she would not be able to maintain her composure in the face of all those newspeople’s questions about Phoebe’s murder. Tess could think about Phoebe now, after the passage of twenty years, with some equanimity, but there was a good chance that her voice would crack and her eyes would well up if she actually had to answer questions about her sister’s death.
Tess’s gaze traveled past the soothing flowers and vines on the gray-blue bedroom wallpaper and out the window to the bare trees’ branches. Beyond the trees the brown fields, bordered by rock walls and covered with the white lace of early frost, stretched out, spiked with evergreens, to the horizon and the granite peaks of the White Mountain National Park. The day was beautiful, the sky blue, the clouds puffy, just as it had been on the last day of her sister’s life. Deceptive, Tess thought, and for a moment she saw again, in her mind’s eye, Phoebe’s gentle face, forever thirteen in her memory.
With a sigh, Tess turned over in the narrow bed and looked across the room. The other bed was a tumult of sheets and blankets and Erny was already gone. Probably helping Dawn with breakfast. Tess smiled at the thought of him. He had needed her desperately when his grandmother had died and left him all alone in the world. But Tess had needed him, too. It had not been easy all these years to keep doubt and depression at bay. Her childhood had been severed in two by Phoebe’s murder. Before that time, all she could remember was happiness. And after, even the happiest days had a melancholy shadow. Sometimes she thought that she and Erny had been brought together by fate to save each other from those shadows.
Tess looked at the clock. She had to get up and get ready. For a moment more she lay there, avoiding the inevitable. She turned her gaze back to the window and was jolted by the sight of a gaunt man in a gray parka, standing on the nearby path that cut through the knee-deep brown grass of the field, staring in at her. Their eyes met and he held hers with his gaze until Tess averted her eyes.
For a moment Tess remained under the covers, her heart pounding, unnerved by the stranger’s intruding gaze. Then her anger flared. She jumped up and pulled down the shade with a snap. It was probably one of those goddamn reporters, she thought. Couldn’t they at least have the decency to stay out in front of the house? She made the bed, washed her face, and got dressed in a good pair of pants, a cashmere turtleneck, and her hacking jacket. When she pulled back the edge of the shade and peeked out, the man was gone.
She walked over to the bureau with its framed mirror, a vase of winter pansies, and her comb, brush, earrings, and makeup. She brushed her thick brunette hair back, considered putting it into a ponytail but decided against it. She put on some silver hoop earrings, some blush and lipstick. Last, she picked up the silver necklace on the linen bureau scarf. It had a rectangular pendant that read “Believe” on it and was the twin of the one that Phoebe had always worn. For some reason, it gave Tess comfort to wear it. It was a kind of promise, to always keep Phoebe’s memory alive. Tess fastened the clasp on the necklace and then tucked it inside her sweater as she normally did. She liked to wear it beneath her clothes, to keep it close to her heart.
The door to the room burst open and Erny stood there grinning. “Good. You’re up. Dawn says you have to come on. Uncle Jake is already here. We’re all eating pancakes.”
“Did you help make ’em?” Tess asked him with a smile.
“Yup,” he said. “Blueberry.”
“Cool,” Tess said, although she had little appetite. “I’d like to try those.”
“Okay, hurry up,” said Erny.
“Hey, just a minute. How about this bed, buddy?”
“Dawn said I didn’t have to make it,” he assured her.
“I said you do.”
“Aw Ma,” he complained.
“Now,” Tess said. “Chop, chop.”
Erny went to his bed and shook the sheets into some semblance of order. Then he jerked up the bedspread, smoothed it out, and tossed the pillow on it while Tess gathered up her satchel and checked its contents.
“How come the shade’s down?” he asked.
Tess thought of the man in the field outside her window. “I don’t need the whole world watching while I get dressed,” she said.
“There’s nobody around,” said Erny.
“There are a lot of reporters,” she said. “They’re here for this press conference.”
“Can I go with you to the press conference?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, honey,” said Tess. “This is…grown-up stuff.”
“Why are there so many reporters?” he asked.
Tess sat down on the edge of her bed, wondering how exactly to explain. She had promised herself that she would explain everything if he asked. But up until this moment, he had shown little curiosity about the reason for their trip.
“Well,” said Tess. “You know that my sister was killed a long time ago,” she said. From time to time he had been with her when she visited the grave and she had always answered his questions, minus the grim details, about Phoebe’s death.
Erny nodded. “I know. Phoebe.”
“Right,” said Tess. “Well, a man named Lazarus Abbott was caught and convicted of the crime, but some people still think the wrong person was blamed for it. So they decided to retest the old evidence from the case. And we came here this time to hear about the results.”
Erny had seen crime shows like CSI.
He had a vague idea of what she was talking about. “So if the evidence doesn’t match, they’ll let the guy go,” he said eagerly.
Tess blanched. “No…Lazarus Abbott got the death penalty for killing my sister.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes,” said Tess.
“Then why are they doing this now?”
Tess shook her head. “His mother hired an attorney. She refuses to accept that her son committed this horrible crime,” she said. “Mothers can be…stubborn that way.”
“But he did do it, right?”
“Yes,” said Tess firmly. “He did it. Now, come on, let’s go get those pancakes.”
“After breakfast I’m going out on Sean’s bike,” Erny announced. Half the reason Erny loved coming to Stone Hill, besides constant access to Leo the dog, was the freedom he had here to come and go on his own. In the city, he was more confined. “Dawn said I could.”
Tess pressed her lips together. “It would be a big help to me if you would stay here with Dawn till I get back. I think it would be a big help to her, too.”
“Why?” he asked.
Tess thought about her mother, having to relive her family’s tragedy yet again. “She’s…thinking about my sister a lot today. It makes her sad. You can help keep her mind off it.”
Erny shrugged. “Okay.”
Tess went over to him and kissed him on the top of the head. “Thanks. It’s just till I get back.”
When Tess entered the dining room, she saw Jake seated at a corner table with Dawn, shoveling down the last of his pancakes. He was dressed in work clothes, a buffalo-check shirt over a chamois shirt and jeans, but at least his clothes weren’t spattered with paint. Tess sat down with them and Dawn asked Erny to go out to the kitchen to get Tess a plate.
“Did you sleep?” Dawn asked.
“Not bad. Considering,” said Tess. She noted the dark circles under her mother’s eyes and didn’t need to ask her the same question.
Jake wiped his mouth with the napkin and drained his coffee cup. “I slept like a baby,” he declared.
“The first thing this morning, when I woke up, I saw some guy out in the field,” Tess said. “It gave me a start.”
Stolen in the Night Page 4