Revealing the Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Well, Abby, if this was easy, people would have figured it out a long time ago. Now it was time to go make dinner and figure out what the next step would be.

  She decided to distract herself with a complicated recipe, and was whisking a sauce in a sauté pan while keeping an eye on a different pan that threatened to boil over, when Ned walked it. “Need a third hand?” he asked.

  “Hey, if Julia Child could do it, I can. Dinner in thirty.”

  “Days or hours?”

  “Minutes, idiot. You going to watch and make snide comments?”

  “I’ll pass. I’m going to change clothes.”

  When he returned fifteen minutes later, Abby had managed to subdue the food rebellion and was collecting plates and cutlery. Ned sat down at the table—at a safe distance—to watch. “Are we celebrating something?”

  “Not exactly. Mostly I’m working out my frustrations.”

  “Do I dare ask, what frustrations?”

  “Wait till the food’s on the table and I’ll explain.”

  “I think I’ll pour us some wine,” Ned said thoughtfully.

  “You do that.”

  Food on the table, wineglass in hand, Abby began to feel calmer. When Ned quirked an eyebrow, she said, “It’s about the plumber.”

  “The one you talked to yesterday, who had an issue with the wrench? Which I notice is still sitting on the table here.”

  “Yes, it is, and for all I know it’s cursed. Jack—the dad—sent his son Bill over to apologize or try to explain or something. We had an interesting talk. It seems like whatever this thing is, it runs in the family. Great-Grampa, who founded the company, used to hear voices, or so he said. He was born in Ireland. Jack, his grandson, grew up hearing about Great-Grampa’s stories. Bill, Jack’s son, doesn’t think either one of them was exactly crazy, but he doesn’t know what to believe. By the way, he touched the wrench, and nothing happened. But when I put my hand on his, he got it.”

  “So now you’re a spare battery for psychic powers?”

  “Don’t laugh at me,” Abby said. “I just wanted to see what happened. It worked, but I think I scared Bill—he cleared out fast, leaving the wrench behind. I don’t know if he or his father will ever come back. But if you want me to take a wild guess, I think it’s possible that something happened to Mary Maguire when she was working here in this house, and it may have involved violence as well as the wrench, or else that charge or whatever it is wouldn’t have lingered this long.”

  Ned looked confused. “Wait—a Mary Maguire worked in this house?”

  “That’s what the 1930 census said. And given the circumstances, I’m willing to guess she was a relative. Maybe Great-Grampa’s sister or daughter.”

  “So you looked up who lived here.”

  “Of course I did. It was your idea, remember?”

  “So it was. I just figured that if you and I weren’t picking up anything here, it didn’t matter. It never occurred to me that a stranger would make a connection. What are you going to do now?”

  “See if there’s any more online information. I don’t feel right asking Bill or Jack, unless they volunteer. Look, let’s eat while this is still hot, okay?”

  “A good idea. And then I’ll need to digest—pun intended—what you’ve told me, as well as dinner.”

  Chapter 9

  Thursday

  Abby and Ned, by unspoken agreement, hadn’t discussed the Maguire situation any further the evening before. In a way, Abby was impatient: she wanted answers to what was going on, that thing that most people couldn’t see or feel. All she was getting was more questions. She knew that their research, if it could be called that, was still in its early stages. They were feeling their way along, trying to figure out what path to take, what information to seek out and collect.

  Oddly enough, now that she was attuned to it, Abby was finding more and more examples, purely be accident. But it was hard to make them fit together, at least so far. When it was only Ned and her—and Ned’s mother, and her own mother, to varying degrees, and of course Ellie— the whole thing had made a certain kind of sense. At least there had been a genetic link that could be traced.

  But since then she’d added Christine Pierson, who was not related at all. They’d met by accident at a psychic fair raising funds for a local charity, where Christine was a palm reader, and where Abby was simply trying out a variety of self-identified psychics to see what she could learn. When Christine had touched her hand, she’d dropped it as though it had bitten her, and Abby had identified that as a connection. Christine, a hospice nurse, had never taken her “gift” seriously, and had signed up as a volunteer at the fair only to help the charity. Learning that it could be real had been a shock. They had begun talking about it, on and off, and had become tentative friends. They’d yet to discover any family connection between them.

  And now Abby had added the extended Maguire family to her short list. Maybe. Okay, it was a very small pool from which to draw any conclusions, but if she’d learned anything about scientific research from Ned, it was that she needed to focus on one particular idea, not bounce from one to another.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table finishing her coffee when she heard knocking at the front door again. She headed down the hall to find both Jack and Bill Maguire waiting on the other side of the door, looking kind of sheepish. Well, at least she hadn’t driven them off. Or they really, really needed the plumbing job.

  She pulled the door open. “Come on in, guys. I’m glad you came back.”

  Jack and Bill exchanged a glance. Jack spoke first. “We talked about . . . this thing last night, and we figured we really ought to figure it out, once and for all. We’ve been ignoring it or making excuses for years, but I think we need to look at it from a different direction. If you’re willing, that is?”

  “Of course. I was afraid I’d scared you off for good. Coffee?”

  “Please,” Jack said, and he and Bill followed her to the kitchen.

  Once they were settled around the table, Abby said, “I’m really not sure where to start, and I’m afraid you’ll decide I’m crazy, but let me explain how I think we ended up here, now.” When neither man disagreed, Abby launched into the story about how she had met Ned, and how they had discovered their shared ability, and how they wanted to make sense of it and were looking for other people, purely for their own enlightenment. She left out Ellie, although she did mention that they thought there was a hereditary link for this thing, and the Maguires were a good example of that. When she finally wrapped up her account, half an hour later, she said, “Does all that make sense to you?”

  Jack took the lead. “It does, lookin’ at it from your side. The girls don’t seem to have it, at least in the last generations of the Maguires, but the men seem to be passing it along like you said. Bill’s told you a bit about my grandfather, but mostly we laughed off what he said—he was old, he drank too much, or he was losing his marbles. He was never a mean drunk, didn’t get angry when people laughed. Looking back, I think after a time he just stopped talking about the feelings, or whatever he saw. He’d go off into his own head. He’s gone now.”

  Jack took a swallow of coffee before going on. “So, me, like any kid, didn’t want to have anything to do with it. But again, looking back, I think I felt those things, like him, early on, but I tried to ignore them, and I sure didn’t talk about them. I never ran into anybody else who did either, at school or after. I thought maybe it was a crazy Irish thing. Until now. I come here and you find this thing hidden in the wall, and a lot of things kind of fell into place. There’s a story behind it that I need to tell you.”

  Abby nodded her encouragement. “Go on. Please.”

  Jack nodded, once. “My grandfather, he came to Boston from Ireland when he was sixteen. He had relatives in the city, and he apprenticed to a plumber and learned the trade. After a few years he set up his own shop and did fairly well—good enough to help bring his brothers and sisters over and give them a s
tart. He even sent money back to his parents. He married kind of late, and my dad was his first child, and then there was a daughter, Mary, and a couple more boys.”

  I was right! Abby thought, without letting her expression change. She didn’t want to interrupt Jack’s story.

  “He’s been gone close to twenty years now, and so’s my grandmother. I joined the business, and Dad and me, we worked side by side for quite a while before he passed. He wasn’t much of a talker, but now and then we’d go out for a drink together, and after the first glass he’d tell me stories about when he was young.”

  Abby stayed silent: she wanted to let Jack tell his story his own way.

  He went on, “Most of my aunts and uncles—most stayed around Boston, married, had kids. I was the only one to go into plumbing. But the one sister, Mary, never married. When she was first starting out, she worked for the family that lived in this house.”

  Abby tried to keep her expression steady, although inside she was congratulating herself for working out at least that much. “That’s interesting.”

  “It is,” Jack agreed, “but that’s not the part of the story you need to hear. She was just starting out, not yet twenty, fresh off the boat. The family who lived here then, they weren’t exactly rich, but the job came with room and board, and she was happy to have a job at all. And then there was some trouble, and nobody in the family would ever talk about it. She left the job, and lost touch with our family.”

  “Dad, I’ll tell the rest,” Bill said. He turned to Abby. “I talked to Mary’s brothers, years later, because everybody had always been so hush-hush about what had happened. Near as I can figure, there was a son who was living here, who was maybe twenty, and he assaulted Mary. Nobody ever gave the details, but she was shattered. Her father noticed her state when it happened, and she told him enough that he got the general idea, and he came out to this house to have it out with the family. They tried to put the blame on Mary—she’d seduced their innocent son—and the son didn’t dispute their version. But Great-Grampa wasn’t having any of that, and he laid into the son until he had to confess, in front of his parents. And if I have it right, it was that wrench he used on the boy. Broke his arm, I think, and bloodied him up a bit.”

  “How awful!” Abby said. “Was he arrested?”

  “No. The parents might have called the cops, but after they’d heard their boy’s confession, they agreed to drop the whole thing. They even offered Great-Grampa money, but he turned it down. For him it wasn’t about the law or money, it was about the honor of the family. He knew Mary hadn’t lied.”

  “And the wrench stayed here,” Abby said softly.

  Bill nodded. “It did. Great-Grampa wanted nothing to do with it, after. I can picture him throwing it away from him, and nobody cared to look for it, after it slipped behind the wall. Nothing more was ever said about it. Have I about covered it, Dad?”

  “That you have, Bill, and I thank you. Abby, like he said, the family didn’t talk about any of this, so we kind of pieced it together over time. Nobody gave a thought to the wrench. Then it turns up here, and you saw what happened.”

  They all fell silent for a long minute, before Abby spoke. “It makes sense, you know—it fits with my own experience. It was a traumatic event, with a lot of anger on all sides, and maybe some fear. Jack, I’m going to guess that the strong emotions on your grandfather’s part—and maybe Mary’s as well if she witnessed the fight—left some sort of imprint on the tool. You, his grandson, were able to feel those, even though you weren’t expecting anything. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy, just that you’re tuned in to that frequency, because of your grandfather. I didn’t feel it, as you saw. With Bill, he didn’t at first, but I think I kind of boosted it when I added my hand. Look, I’m pretty new to all of this. I had a normal childhood, didn’t hear voices in my head or see ghosts lurking in corners. It was only when I stumbled over some of my own ancestors in Massachusetts that I realized there might be something else going on. I don’t have many answers about how it works, but it seems to be hereditary, and it takes some strong emotion to leave that imprint that other people can sense. For me it’s gotten easier over time, but I’m still learning.”

  “Will it last?” Jack asked. “For me, I mean. Or for Bill?”

  Did he want it to? “I can’t say,” Abby told him. “Now that you know it exists, you might notice it more. But if you don’t want to, you can ignore it, shut it out. I think a lot of people do that, even as children, so they don’t know or remember they have it. Look, I don’t want anything from you or your family, but if you want to keep in touch, I’ll update you if I learn anything new.”

  Jack and Bill exchanged another glance. Then Jack said, “What about the plumbing?”

  Abby had to stifle a laugh. “I’d be happy to hire you for that. We never even got around to looking at the laundry part.”

  “And maybe we could talk about this other thing, like on breaks? If we notice something new?”

  “Of course. I’m happy to share what I know. As long as you don’t decide to ride me out of town on a rail, like a witch.”

  Jack produced a small smile at that. “I can promise you I won’t do that. So, let’s take a look at the washer.” He stood up, as did Bill, who gave Abby a quick thumbs-up.

  To Abby it looked as though the laundry area at the back of the kitchen had started life as a lean-to or a small porch—probably for the servants, Abby thought ruefully. Like in the powder room, the appliances had been fitted roughly and the plumbing had clearly leaked. Jack and Bill muttered some comments that Abby didn’t understand.

  “So, can you find space for a powder room?” Abby asked somewhat anxiously.

  Jack pulled out a measuring tape and muttered some more. “Yeah, that could work. There’s room for the existing washer and dryer side by side, if you want to keep them for now, although it’ll be tight. We’ll have to redo the pipes, like I told you. Then we can fit in a toilet and sink on the right side there, do all the plumbing at once, and wall that space off. Oh, and insulate the whole space—that kind of got ignored last time.”

  “Sounds good to me. Oh, and can we use fixtures that kind of match the house? They don’t have to be antique, but they should look old.”

  “No problem. We’ll look around.”

  “Great. Can you work up an estimate for me, and a time line? I don’t have anything planned right now, and we’re having Thanksgiving dinner somewhere else. I just want to get it on my calendar.”

  “Sure,” Jack said promptly. “We’ll drop something off over the weekend, if that’s okay.”

  “Fine. So we’re good?” Abby wondered if she meant with the Maguire wrench and its story or the renovation of the plumbing, but either would do.

  “Yup, we are,” Jack said. “Uh, thanks for explaining that other stuff. Now that I know about it, I’ll have to look at some things differently. But I’d rather know than think I’m losing my mind.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” Once again Abby led them back to the front of the house and waved as they climbed into the van and pulled away.

  How bizarre had that been? Jack gets a jolt from a rusty old wrench, and two days later spills the whole story about a scandal covered up and lives changed a century earlier. Poor Mary. At least she’d had her father to stand up for her, but the whole fight could have had a very different outcome. Did she want to know more about the Maguire family? She decided she could save that for later, after she knew if Jack or Bill came up with any additional information—and if they were really interested.

  She checked her watch. Close to lunchtime, and she was supposed to pick up Ellie at school in a few hours. Not enough time to start something new, so she went back to wandering around the house, imagining different wallpapers, curtains, furniture, and art on the walls. It still felt like “Ned’s house” to her, not that he was throwing his weight around or vetoing any of her ideas. But would he be happy if she put her own stamp on the place? Maybe she coul
d stop at the nearest wallpaper supplier and bring home a book of samples to run by him. Or maybe there were patches of the original wallpaper lurking under later layers, and she could think about replicating those—unless they were hideously ugly. And then she could look at how many rods and brackets had originally held curtains, draperies, swags and whatever—although she’d draw the line at two layers, one sheet for light, one thicker for show.

  Her fantasies kept her entertained until it was time to leave for Ellie’s school.

  Chapter 10

  Thursday

  Abby wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry about the Maguire plumbing family. The story about Mary Maguire was definitely sad, although taking advantage of a servant was probably common enough in that era. But on the flip side, how unlikely it was that she’d gone looking for a plumber and ended up with a family of probable psychics. Still, for all she knew, everybody possessed or had once possessed the ability to communicate mentally, either with the dead or the living, but it had atrophied and fallen out of use. Why? she wondered. Did hearing the thoughts of both the living and the dead create so much mental static that people had to shut it down just to maintain their sanity?

  Abby flashed back on Halloween night, when she and Ned, as well as Ellie, had seen shadowy dead roaming near the house—which did have a cemetery behind it, so maybe they hadn’t strayed far. To the best of her recollection, they’d been silent. But in her first, unexpected encounter with her own deceased family members, she’d definitely heard them speaking to one another, although not to her.

  So many questions, so few answers!

  She glanced at her watch. Where had the day gone? She didn’t want to be late picking up Ellie—she didn’t want any reason for Leslie to cut off her access to the child. Had Leslie softened at all, since school had started? Abby wasn’t sure. Leslie had had time to get used to the idea of Abby and Ellie spending time together on a regular basis, but they had a kind of agreement that Abby would not talk about their psychic abilities. But in fact it was Ellie who brought it up most often. She was curious and she had questions, and so she should. But she also knew not to talk about it with her mother. There wasn’t much that Leslie could do: she had a full-time job, and a younger child at home, and while Abby was sure Leslie loved her daughter, she might not have a lot of time to think about her and her rather unusual talents. So Abby treaded softly, although she was happy to answer any questions that Ellie had. She wasn’t going to lie to her.