The Drowning Tree

by Carol Goodman

  She landed on her side—if she hadn’t it might have been her back and not just her leg she broke—one arm cradled under her head as if she were pillowing her cheek for a nap. I’d seen her sleep like that a dozen times on train seats and couches in the library. If not for the unnatural angle of the leg bent beneath her I would have thought she was just napping, but then she raised her head and I saw the blood dripping from her right temple.

  The detective kneels and pulls out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. When he’s put the gloves on he touches a fingertip to the corpse’s chin and gently tilts her face to the left. The hair—now sodden and colorless—falls back from her face. Embedded in the swollen skin is a long scar above the right ear.

  “It’s Christine,” I manage to say clearly with only the slightest tremor audible in my voice. “Christine Frances Webb.” I look up and the ribbed vault of the beech tree spins like a kaleidoscope filled with bits of green and yellow glass. Then I lean into the trunk of the tree and throw up on its knotted roots.

  BEA ASKS ME THE NEXT DAY IF I WANT HER TO PUT OFF HER TRIP AND STAY WITH ME. As much as I’d like to keep her close to me after catching a glimpse of my worst nightmare (drowning in a boating accident) turned into horrifying flesh, I know how much the trip means to her. I tell her to go. I drive her to the Wal-Mart parking lot in Poughkeepsie, where she boards a bus with twenty-five happy teenagers. She shoulders her backpack and turns to wave to me from the steps of the bus. Only the smudges under her eyes hint at the sleepless night we both passed.

  She’ll sleep on the bus, I think as I wave to the rear end of the Greyhound until it has pulled onto Route 9. And I will not, I tell myself firmly, compare this leave-taking with saying good-bye to Christine last Sunday. Go home, sleep.

  When I park my car in front of the factory, though, I find the silver-haired detective—at some point yesterday I’d learned his name was Daniel Falco—standing in front of the main entrance. He’s dressed in gray slacks and suit jacket, a pale blue tie loosened at his throat—church clothes—and he’s standing with his hands on his hips, head back, looking up at the inscription carved in stone above the doorway. Ars longa, vita brevis. Art is long, life is brief. Not a particularly comforting sentiment after what we saw yesterday come out of the Wicomico.

  “Good morning,” I say, getting out the heavy ring of keys to unlock the door. “You’re up early.”

  “I could say the same for you. I thought you might be sleeping somewhere in there, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to rouse the lady of the manor.”

  “There’s a service entrance on the side for deliveries,” I explain, “and I don’t get many unexpected visitors. I took my daughter Beatrice to the bus for her camping trip. You did say yesterday that it was okay for her to go.”

  I’ve gotten the door unlocked but the detective remains a few feet from the doorway, still looking up. Ignoring my reference to Bea’s departure he jerks his chin at the stone carving above the door.

  “I asked my dad what that meant once and he told me it was the names of the guys who built the glassworks. Artie Long and Vito Brevis.”

  I laugh but I’m so hoarse from crying all night that the sound comes out more like a bark. “Your dad had a sense of humor.”

  “Nah, he just didn’t want to admit to his kid he didn’t know something.” He hooks a finger underneath the knot of his tie and pulls. The silk slithers under his collar, making a sound like running water.

  “Your father worked for the Rose Glass Works?” I’m surprised because I thought I knew everyone in this little town, especially anyone connected to the glassworks.

  The detective nods, folds his tie and stuffs it in his suit jacket. “My father and his father. If it hadn’t closed I’d probably have worked there, too, but when it closed down my family moved across the river to Kingston.”

  “Were they cutters or blowers?”

  “Blowers. Descended from Venetian glassworkers—at least that’s what my dad always told me.”

  “What did your father do after the works closed?”

  “Sat mostly. At home in a La-Z-Boy recliner in front of the TV or down at the Italian-American club, where he and the other descendants of the great Venetian glassblowers drank grappa all day and sometimes played a little boccie.”

  “Sounds like my dad—if you substitute Flannery’s and Jameson’s whiskey. Oh, and hurling, only not to play, just to watch a couple times a year down at Gaelic Park in Riverdale. He started McKay Glaziers but his heart was never really in it. Storefront windows and mirrored foyers are quite a comedown after you’ve trained to work with stained glass. I’ve always wondered what this town would be like now if the Works had never closed down.”

  Daniel Falco looks at me for the first time this morning and then quickly looks away, turning left, then right, to survey the deserted street in front of the factory. I don’t need to follow his glance to register the boarded storefronts and dilapidated houses—once grand Victorian houses now with sagging porches, peeling paint, and half a dozen mailboxes hanging crookedly from each porch for the tiny apartments that have been carved out of once-plush homes. Ironically, there are probably fewer people living in these houses now than when they were single-family homes. The projects just south of town have taken most of the welfare recipients and the neighborhood has too high a crime rate for anyone else. Still, beneath the cheap siding and bad paint jobs these houses could be beautiful—certainly as beautiful as the renovated houses in gentrified towns like Hudson and Cold Spring. It’s not impossible, I think for not the first time, it could happen to Rosedale. I see in the detective’s cool gray eyes, though, how improbable such a transformation would be.

  “Yeah, and if I had balls, said the queen … but I hear you’re at least putting the factory to some good again. It’s not my idea of a great neighborhood to live in, but hey … how about a tour?”

  “I’m happy to show you around, Detective Falco, but I can’t help but think you’ve got better things to do with your Sunday.”

  “Like find out what happened to your friend?”

  I nod.

  Detective Falco runs his hand over his mouth and jaw. In the morning light he looks older than I took him for yesterday—closer to fifty than forty. The creases along the sides of his mouth are deeper, the shadows under his eyes darker. I realize he was probably up half the night filing reports on Christine’s death but still he got up early to go to church. I imagine there’s some elderly relative who counts on him to take her to church—his mother? a maiden aunt? I’m about to apologize for my remark when he smiles. “Who says that’s not what I’m doing?”

  I SHOW HIM THE OLD LOADING DOCKS AND WAREHOUSE AND, BECAUSE OF HIS FAMILY background, the furnaces where the glass was blown. If this tour is just an excuse to question me about Christine he does a good job feigning interest in the history of the factory and its possible uses for the future.

  “You mean these arts organizations are really interested in using these old factories for museums? And the government hands out grants to do it?”

  “The Dia Art Foundation is converting the old Nabisco factory in Beacon to house its permanent collection. MASSMoCA did it with an old mill in North Adams, Massachusetts, and it also houses working studios on-site. The Rose Glass Works is perfect—close to the train station, clean of any industrial contaminants, and just look at this light! We’ve already got several artists working here and more would come with government funding. It would be great for the downtown area. An influx of artists can really turn an urban area around; look at DUMBO in Brooklyn. That stands for Down Under—”

  “The Manhattan Bridge Overpass. One of my classmates from John Jay works in that precinct.”

  When I let him into the McKay studio he immediately heads for the unlit light table where a section of the Lady window—stripped of its lead caming and cleaned—lies in pieces like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

  “How do you know how to put it all back together?” he asks, til
ting his head to get a better look at the lady’s darkened face.

  “We do a rubbing first—” I point to the drawing on white vellum lying on the table. “—and then place the glass pieces on top of the rubbing.”

  “It looks like some of the paint has come away here and there,” he says, laying a finger on the lady’s lips.

  “Yes, the enamel Penrose used wasn’t very stable.” I switch on the light box and the lady’s face comes to life as if waking after a long sleep. The scratches in her cheeks and lips become even more apparent.

  “So do you repaint those parts?”

  “No. The new paint could cause further deterioration of the old paint. We might do something called plating, where we paint in the missing details on another plate of glass and place it behind the original.” I pick up a piece that Ernesto has been experimenting with and slide it under the original glass. Instantly the lady’s cheeks and lips glow bright red.

  “Nah, now she looks tarty.”

  I laugh. “Yes, that’s the problem; we can’t have Eugenie Penrose looking like a streetwalker …”

  “Even if she’s not Eugenie Penrose, but her crazy sister, Clare?”

  I look up from the window to the detective’s face. He’s still studying the figure on the table and I suddenly realize that this is just how he stood above Christine’s body yesterday—and no doubt will stand above her body after it’s been autopsied.

  “Where did you hear that?” I switch off the light box—as if I could, by shielding the lady, make up for not being able to spare Christine’s poor body from the inspection of strangers.

  “From the college president, Gavin Penrose, and a few of the trustees I saw at St. Al’s this morning—” Ah, so he didn’t get up early solely out of filial duty, I think, “—and from Penrose’s secretary, Fay Morgan. Although shocked at the news of Christine Webb’s death they seemed equally shocked at the content of her lecture last week.”

  “It doesn’t take much to shock the trustees. They’re very protective of the college’s reputation; that’s what being a trustee is all about—they’re entrusted with the college’s welfare.”

  “Oh, is that what it means; I always wondered. Of course the one who seemed most put out with the lecture’s content was Penrose.”

  “Really? I thought Gavin looked pleased with the lecture.”

  “According to his secretary he and Miss Webb argued about the lecture’s content before she gave it.”

  “Fay’s not always the most reliable of witnesses.” I think about the strange conversation I had with Fay in the gym sauna and I’m about to tell the detective about it when he interrupts me. “She wasn’t the only one who heard the argument. It was at a brunch at the president’s house. Several of the trustees overheard President Penrose accusing Miss Webb of not having the college’s best interest at heart. I spoke to Penrose this morning and he said he was regretful about having argued with Miss Webb but that he’d been worried that some of the content of the lecture might distress the trustees. Apparently Miss Webb finally agreed to edit out some of the more objectionable parts.”

  I think of the moment Christine paused while flipping through her note cards. It was just when she’d mentioned the Victorians’ belief that madness was hereditary. I’d thought that she was cutting out something in consideration of my feelings—knowing how often I’ve dwelled over the years on the chances of Bea inheriting her father’s mental condition—but now I see that it’s more likely she was trying to appease Gavin Penrose. After all, Clare Barovier was his great-aunt. While I’ve been distracted with this thought Falco has wandered over to the spiral staircase.

  “Where do these stairs lead to?”

  “To my living area—” I’m about to make an excuse about unmade beds and messes caused by fifteen-year-olds packing for eight-week camping trips but he’s already halfway up the spiral stairs. He’s greeted at the top by two sleepy-looking greyhounds. The dogs spent half the night trailing Bea around, eyeing her suitcases with deep suspicion, and have only now roused themselves.

  “Che Bella,” the detective croons, scratching Francesca behind her ear. Francesca rubs her long muzzle against his leg while Paolo whimpers for attention.

  “They’re usually shyer around strangers,” I say, edging past the greyhound lovefest and opening the rooftop door. I’d like to get him outside before he can notice the chaos left behind in Bea’s wake. Not that I’m so proud about my housekeeping—it’s just that I have a sudden aversion to having my private life scrutinized by those coolly assessing gray eyes.

  It’s not my laundry and unwashed dishes, though, that he’s interested in. When we get out on the roof he immediately moves to the edge and points toward the boathouse.

  “You mentioned yesterday that you and Miss Webb stopped at the kayak rental before proceeding to the train station, right? And you spoke to a—” he takes a small spiral-bound notebook out of his pocket and looks at it, “—a Mr. Swanson.”

  “Kyle Swanson. Yes, he runs the kayaking center. My daughter and I have both taken lessons from him.”

  “Your daughter had been out kayaking with Mr. Swanson … How old is your daughter, again?”

  “Beatrice is fifteen. Kyle Swanson also coaches the girls’ crew team at Rosedale High. We’ve known him for over a year … is there something wrong with that? Something I should know about Kyle?”

  Detective Falco, ignoring my question, asks, “Did Mr. Swanson mention to you that there were two kayaks missing from the boathouse?”

  I nod. “Yes, he did, but wait a minute … if there were something I should know about Kyle Swanson—a reason why I wouldn’t want my daughter to be alone with him, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give out that kind of information, Miss McKay. I would advise not allowing a minor to be alone with any adult you don’t know very well. If we can return to the issue of the kayaks for a moment … we found the second one beached on this side of the river, which suggests to me that someone went with her and came back.”

  “But if someone was with her why wouldn’t he or she help her when she tipped over?”

  “Maybe Christine Webb tipped over, hit her head on the stone wall, and drowned before whoever she was with could save her. Maybe the other kayaker panicked and didn’t want to be implicated in a drowning accident.”

  Falco pauses but continues looking at me. I can’t see his expression because his eyes are still shaded by his hand, but I can sense the force of his attention and that he’s waiting for something. It takes me only a moment to realize that he’s giving me a chance to admit that I was the one with Christine that night.

  I shake my head. “You obviously don’t know me very well,” I tell him. “I’d never go out on the river at night. Not even for my best friend.”

  “So you think it would have to be someone more confident in their boating skills?”

  “You mean like Kyle Swanson? I can’t imagine Christine asking him to go with her—or that he would agree.”

  I remember, suddenly, the questions Christine asked me about Kyle while we were walking to the train station. I’d thought she was just teasing me about my involvement with him but what if she were feeling out the situation because she was interested in him? It wouldn’t be the first time we were both attracted to the same man.

  “So you think Christine got off the train to take a moonlit kayak trip with a man she’d just met half an hour before?” I ask.

  “I hadn’t actually thought that Mr. Swanson was the main attraction. Your daughter said that she mentioned to Miss Webb that the Wicomico Creek afforded access to the Penrose estate—private property, by the way, but I’m sure you’ve spoken to her about trespassing—oh no, wait, I guess not, because you went back onto the Penrose property yesterday.”

  “Back?” I ask. “I’ve never been to the estate before.”

  “But you do know it’s private property?”

  “Are you planning to arrest me for tre
spassing, Detective Falco? Because if you are maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you without a lawyer.…”

  Falco raises a hand and then gestures toward the two lawn chairs where Christine and I sat last week. “No, no, not at all, Miss McKay. Please, I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can we sit down? I just want to figure out what happened to your friend. I imagine that’s what you want as well.”

  “Of course I do,” I say, swatting the soot off one of the chairs. Detective Falco has already sat down in the other one as seemingly unconcerned about the fate of his Sunday suit pants as Christine had been about her dress last week. “I’m just not sure how much I can help you. I know that Christine was interested in Penrose’s water gardens but I can’t imagine what she would have wanted to see so badly that she would paddle across the river in the middle of the night.”

  “You mean she wasn’t the type to get that wrapped up in her research?”

  Something in the way he phrases the question makes me pretty sure that the detective has already spoken to Nathan Bell and has heard about Christine’s obsessive nature. Feeling like I’m being led into a trap I try to swerve in another direction. “Christine wasn’t a ‘type’ at all, Detective Falco, she was unique. She cared passionately about the subjects she pursued and was rigorous in her scholarship. But she’d already delivered her lecture on the Penrose window. She’d uncovered some very interesting facts about Eugenie Penrose’s younger sister, Clare Barovier,” I say, sounding, I know, a little as if I’m a lecturer myself. “I thought she made a very convincing case for identifying the iconography of the window with the Lady of Shalott legend and connecting it to the story of Clare Barovier’s mental collapse and confinement in a mental hospital. You see, the lady in the story is confined to a tower and forbidden to look directly at the world—”