Annabelle double-checks for servants listed on the 1905 and 1910 censuses. There are none. What happened to the household staff over that decade?
She’d been under the impression that the Purcell family had always been well-to-do. Maybe they fell upon hard times. Or did George Purcell release the servants after he married so that the new mistress of the house could handle all the chores?
“That must be it. Poor Florence,” Annabelle murmurs, shaking her head.
She moves on, looking for more information on the other women in the family. Finding a death certificate for George’s mother dated July 29, 1878, the day he was born, she realizes that childbirth must have killed her. A death certificate for his older sister, Augusta Pauline, reveals that she died just shy of her eighteenth birthday in 1893.
So many tragedies back then. How did anyone bear it?
Annabelle turns her attention to the next Augusta on the list. Born to a different branch of the family in 1852, Augusta Elizabeth Purcell married a man named Isaiah Nelson and died in New York City on Christmas Day in 1909. Perhaps Augusta Amalthea Purcell, born just a month later, was named for her.
All right.
Now that that’s settled, who the heck was Z.D.P.?
Annabelle opens another search and uses the first and middle initials Z and D along with the last name Purcell. Too broad. The site recommends adding another factor, such as a known relative or a location. She types in Mundy’s Landing.
At a glance, she doesn’t see anything that fits. Then something catches her eye: a link to a Tribune obituary from February 1904 for a woman named Griselda Jane Purcell—“affectionately known as Zelda.”
Hmm. What if another Purcell baby was born on March 31 and named after the one who had just passed away?
She enters the name Griselda Purcell along with the birthdate 3/31/04 and Mundy’s Landing.
Nothing.
She removes Mundy’s Landing.
Still nothing.
When she takes away the date as well, she finds plenty of hits for Griselda “Zelda” Purcell, along with another Griselda who had lived earlier in the nineteenth century.
Definitely a family name.
She leans back in her chair, mulling it over as a rumble of thunder accentuates the steady rain.
If the dates on the stone angel are indeed initials, birth and death dates, then Z.D.P. was born in March 1904 and died twelve years later—Oliver’s age—on the very date a Sleeping Beauty turned up in this house.
That can’t be a coincidence, Annabelle thinks, her heart racing as she takes her cell phone from her pocket to call Trib.
His phone rings right into voice mail. She decides not to leave a message. He’s busy.
She texts instead: How’s your day going?
She doesn’t expect an immediate reply, and she doesn’t get one.
That’s okay.
She opens her e-mail account and looks for Lester Purcell’s address in the file of documents related to the closing. Hopefully she didn’t delete it.
No, there it is.
She starts typing.
Hi, Lester . . .
No. Too informal. He’s old, and pompous. She probably shouldn’t be reaching out to him at all, but she can’t help herself. She wants to know.
Dear Mr. Purcell,
I’m wondering if you have any information about the stone angel statue located beside the swimming pool in your aunt’s house. I noticed something interesting carved on it, and I thought it might have something to do with . . .
No. Thinking better of it, she deletes that last sentence. Better to see whether he responds first, and wait until then to reveal what she found.
Instead, she writes:
I have a feeling it might have an interesting history and I wondered about its origin.
Sincerely,
Annabelle Bingham
She scans it, and hits Send before she can change her mind.
Good.
There is one other person who will be interested to know that she might be on her way to unlocking the Sleeping Beauty case.
She logs off the computer, pushes back her chair, and goes in search of the umbrella she’d unearthed in the box of storm gear. It’s going to come in handy after all.
“Can you do it?” Indi asks Kathryn, and holds her breath for the answer.
There is none, but in the dark, she can hear Kathryn trying. Her breath comes quickly, punctuated by grunts and Juanita’s whispered prayers.
Indi, too, is praying, in her own way: PleaseGodplease, pleasepleasepleaseGodplease . . .
“I can’t,” Kathryn wails at last. “I’m sorry! It hurts.”
Juanita lets out a sob of despair; Indi a frustrated curse.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “It’ll only hurt for a few seconds. It’s the only way . . .”
“I can’t! Stop making me try.”
Indi bites her tongue to keep from lashing out in anger. Kathryn starts to weep, softly, and Juanita goes back to praying in Spanish.
Kathryn is their only hope. She was thin to begin with. Now her tiny frame is skeletal, hands and wrists almost withered enough to slip through the shackles. Almost.
Every time she gives up, Indi allows her to rest before coaxing her to try again. She knows it isn’t pleasant; knows Kathryn’s skin is rubbed raw from her attempts.
But if she can just free herself, she might be able to escape this dungeon and go for help, before—
Overhead, she hears a distant thumping noise.
Her breath catches in her throat.
The others fall silent; they heard it, too.
Sure enough, footsteps creak overhead.
He’s back.
From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary
June 15, 1916
Each day inflicts fresh trauma. I can no longer bear the sight of her. The situation has grown intolerable. Even the cat desperately tries to flee every time someone opens a door, spurred by the tension sizzling in the air like one of the newfangled electric pendant lights gone awry.
Seeking reprieve, I visit the newly opened Electric Pleasure Park west of town.
The sight of its midway, complete with a towering Ferris wheel, brings to mind my journey to the World’s Fair in Chicago. Who would imagine that less than a quarter century later, such an extravaganza of modern attractions would exist so close to home? Already, the park draws crowds from throughout the Hudson Valley and well beyond.
Many arrive by horse-drawn carriage or bicycle and a few via motorcar. Most, however, come via steamboat or train. They disembark the New York Central Railroad in Hudson to the north or Rhinecliff to the south, where they’re met by a free shuttle service sponsored by enterprising local business owners. Crowds are dispatched on the Village Common in the hope that they’ll shop and spend before boarding the streetcar for the short ride out to the park.
There, they stroll the boardwalk, sun themselves along the riverbanks, and cool off in the water. They indulge in root beer and ice cream on the concession pier, ride the carousel and Ferris wheel, and try their luck at arcade games. In the gloaming, they take in vaudeville acts or visit the dance hall, where the new foxtrot is all the rage. A pianist plays jaunty ragtime or an orchestra serenades with Tin Pan Alley favorites.
Tonight, strains of “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” float on the river breeze as the kaleidoscopic midway is illuminated by nearly three hundred thousand electric bulbs. The glare obliterates not just the moon but the thousands of stars and planets visible with the naked eye, yet no one seems to mind or note the irony.
Blind fools.
It is late. I’ve grown as weary of this day as I am of my predicament.
I must do something.
I must.
Soon. Not now.
My search for bedtime reading to pry my mind from my troubles yields these lines from last June’s issue of Poetry Magazine—a piece called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” written by an immensely
talented newcomer named T. S. Eliot:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
Chapter 10
“But I thought we were going to go swimming,” Oliver grumbles as Annabelle, holding an umbrella high over their heads, takes him by the hand to lead him across Fulton Avenue.
Yes, he’s twelve years old, and yes, there’s a four-way stop sign, but some of these tourists drive like maniacs. As they were preparing to leave the house, she heard sirens, an unnervingly commonplace sound in The Heights this week.
When they got outside, they saw that a police officer had pulled over a car with out-of-state plates. Maybe it had blown the stop sign; maybe it was speeding. One thing is sure: the Mundy’s Landing Police are on high alert right now.
“We can’t go swimming in the rain,” she tells Oliver. “If it stops, we’ll go to the pool. Right now, we’re going to the historical society.”
“But why?”
“I told you—I have to ask Ms. Abrams about something. It won’t take long. Afterward, we can go get lunch.”
“Where?”
She hesitates. Their choices are limited to the town proper, since they’re on foot. She’s barely ventured away from the house these past couple of days, but Trib told her that the town is so overrun that it’s impossible to even buy a sandwich at the deli.
“We’ll get pizza,” she says, hoping the lunch crowd will have dispersed at Marrana’s Trattoria by the time they get there.
Even in the rain, there are plenty of people out on the streets of The Heights, some wearing raincoats or carrying umbrellas, others heedless of the downpour. Many are carrying what appear to be folded yellow fliers, cross-referencing them against street signs and house numbers.
“What are those papers they have, Mom?”
“I’m not sure I even want to know,” she says, shaking her head.
A teenage boy in an orange rain slicker is directing cars trying to maneuver the small parking lot alongside the stately Dapplebrook Inn. Lunch is being served in the dining room at this hour, and the wide veranda is crowded with patrons dining al fresco or waiting for tables.
A few doors down, a small crowd has also gathered on the sidewalk along the low stone wall in front of 65 Prospect Street. The Yamazakis, a married couple, share the home with their college-aged kids. Beyond the tall wrought-iron gate, there’s a Cadillac and an SUV parked in the driveway. The house, like most in the historic neighborhood, lacks a garage.
She wonders how the family feels about this lineup of strangers staring at their home like zoo spectators at the polar bear cage.
Noting that they all have matching stickers on their jackets, Annabelle realizes it’s an organized tour group led by an older man, whom she doesn’t recognize. As he talks about the house, voice raised over the sound of a dog barking inside, people snap cell phone photos. Several are selfies: broad grins with the Murder House in the background. One man has a camera set up on a tripod and is training an enormous telephoto lens on the house.
“Look!” someone is saying. “I think I just saw a curtain move up there!”
“Where?”
“Which window?”
“I think someone just looked out! Do you think that’s the room?”
An untended child reaches through the bars of the driveway gate to pluck a blooming peony from the Yamazakis’ carefully tended flowerbed.
There’s a similar clump on the Binghams’ property. Leaving home, Annabelle paused to admire the flowers, telling Oliver they’re like “pretty maids all in a row.”
Now she watches as the wayward kid tosses aside the delicate bloom and promptly picks another, and then another, apparently intent on deadheading them all. She wants to reprimand him, but the conflict would upset Oliver.
Knowing it’s only a matter of time before the group finds its way to 46 Bridge Street, she clenches her jaw and propels her son on toward the historical society, looming at the corner of Prospect and Fulton.
When she was a little girl, she always thought the Conroy-Fitch mansion was a castle. It doesn’t have a drawbridge and a moat, but it does have turrets and is made of stone.
Back then, Rudolph Conroy, a concert pianist, lived there. On still summer nights, lilting music spilled from the open windows. Annabelle could hear it from her bedroom windows, mingling with her parents’ voices as they sat companionably on the porch.
After Dad died, her mother never sat out there anymore. If the sound of Mr. Conroy’s piano seeped in through the screens, she shut the windows. Music reminded her of Dad. Everything reminded her of Dad.
The historical society grounds are, not surprisingly, teeming with strangers. An easel placard lists the day’s workshops and discussions, all of which are taking place in the annex building behind the museum and required preregistration. Attendees are requested to pick up their wristbands each morning and wear them when they return within the designated time slot.
The line that runs from the front door to the sidewalk, protected from the rain by a striped awning, awaits general admission to the museum exhibits.
As Annabelle and Oliver shoulder their way past, someone calls, “Hey, lady, the tour line starts back there.”
She bristles. “I’m not here for a tour.”
“Yeah, right,” he mutters.
“Don’t worry,” someone else says, “they’ll set her straight inside and she’ll be back out here in the rain with the rest of us.”
To Annabelle’s relief—and delight—she finds a familiar face manning the door.
Rowan Mundy, a childhood friend, gives her a big hug, and then hugs Oliver. She was his fourth-grade teacher a few years ago and is well aware of his anxiety issues, as is her daughter, Katie, which is why Annabelle has always trusted her to babysit.
“What are you doing here?” Annabelle asks, after complimenting Rowan on her hair, back to her natural red after she went blond for a while. Now she looks much more like her old self—a relief, considering the ordeal she and her family endured back in December. Annabelle thinks of asking her how everyone is faring, but doesn’t want to bring it up in front of Oliver, much less the eavesdropping strangers.
“Ora talked me into volunteering,” Rowan tells her. “I thought I’d be dusting display cases or something, but basically, I’m a bouncer.”
“What’s a bouncer, Mrs. Mundy?” Oliver asks.
“Oh, you know . . . a bouncy person,” she says with a grin. “Actually, I’m giving a workshop tomorrow about daily life in pre–World War I Mundy’s Landing. But Ora had a visit from the police first thing this morning when they saw how many people were out there waiting to get in. She asked if I’d come over to count heads so we don’t violate the fire laws.”
“Fire?” Oliver asks and darts a nervous look at the house, and then at the crowd snaking behind them. “Is there—”
“No, no, kiddo,” Rowan cuts in, resting a hand on his shoulder. “No fire. That’s why I’m here. I make them all listen to me and follow the rules. I’m really good at that, right, Oliver?”
He cracks a smile. “Right.”
“Katie’s really excited about babysitting for you tomorrow night, Oliver.”
Like a light on a dimmer, the smile fades. “That’s tomorrow night?”
“I told you, remember?” Annabelle initially brought it up over the weekend, and has been reminding him ever since of all the fun he and Katie will have.
Oliver’s brows furrow above the rim of his glasses.
“Katie can’t wait to see you again,” Rowan tells him. “She
missed you while she was away at Cornell.”
Yeah, Annabelle thinks wryly, sure she did. College kids always pine away for anxiety-ridden neighborhood kids they leave behind.
“Maybe if Katie’s around later, she’d like to stop by to say hello,” she suggests to Rowan. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen her.”
“I’m sure she’d love to if she’s up for it. She’s been a little under the weather the last couple of days. She was still in bed when I called home just now. But I’m sure she’ll be much better by tomorrow,” she adds, seeing the expression on Annabelle’s face.
“What if she’s not? Then you can’t go, right, Mom?” Oliver asks.
“She’ll definitely be better,” Rowan assures Annabelle. “You know kids that age. They’re up all night, and they want to sleep all day. So what brings you out in this deluge? Are you here for the exhibit? Or did you want to catch a glimpse of the famous time capsule before it’s opened tomorrow night? It’s on display in the front parlor.”
“I just wanted to talk to Ora for a minute, but I’m guessing she’s busy.”
“No, you caught her at a good time. She was exhausted, so I made her sit down with a cup of tea, and my son Mick is on his way here with some minestrone soup from Marrana’s.”
“Is he still working there?”
“He is, but his shift doesn’t start until four.”
“We’re going there for pizza after this,” Oliver tells her.
“Hmm. Mick says it’s crazy there,” Rowan tells Annabelle. “It’ll take you forever to get a table. I’ll text him to pick up some pizza for you while he’s getting the soup.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t be silly.” Rowan pulls her cell phone from her pocket. “What do you want on it?”
“I’ll take a couple of slices with pepperoni,” the big-mouthed guy in the tour line calls.
“He called my mom ‘lady,’” Oliver tells Rowan in a low voice. “I don’t like him.”
Blue Moon: Mundy's Landing Book Two Page 15