The Drowning Tree

by Carol Goodman

  I take the flashlight out of my life vest pocket and shine it over the water toward the shore. The beam of light picks up a steep, rocky bank and catches particles of quartz glittering on the rock face. A dead end. Could we have overshot the creek?

  Just when I’m about to suggest we paddle upstream there’s a break in the rock wall and the light vanishes under an arched canopy of weeping willows dark as an underground tunnel. I hadn’t noticed during the day how overgrown the creek’s mouth was or how narrow a passage it makes through the steep hills and overhanging trees.

  “Don’t worry about paddling,” Neil says, steering the canoe into the narrow passageway, “just hold the light on the right side of the bank.”

  It’s darker under the trees than out on the river in the moonlight. The beam of my flashlight briefly spotlights patches of river grass and thick-stalked irises that sway with the rhythm of Neil’s paddle. I glimpse something black and oily slipping into the water and nearly drop the flashlight. Instead its beam pierces the dark water and glances off something white beneath the surface: a face looking up through the water with blind eyes.

  I’d forgotten about the other statues. We pass the one of the crouching boy—Narcissus—and I realize we must be close. Still I’m not prepared for the yet deeper darkness as we pass under the branches of the weeping beech.

  Neil backpaddles to keep us steady. “Is this it?” he whispers in a voice hushed with awe, as if we’d entered some medieval cathedral.

  “This is where I found her.” I shine the flashlight down into the water, sweeping the beam through the silty depths like a paddle. The illuminated water casts up rippling strips of light onto the branches above our head and for a moment the effect is so dazzling I forget why we’ve come. It’s as if we’re in an underwater cavern looking up through a streaming forest of phosphorescent seaweed.

  “I think I see it,” Neil says. “It looks like a statue that’s toppled over into the water.”

  I hold the light steady on the white marble hand that had been threaded through Christine’s hair when I found her.

  “It looks like there’s some kind of brass plaque attached to it,” Neil says.

  “There’s something about a plaque in Eugenie’s notebook,” I say. “That might tell us what we need to know.”

  I look toward the shore, trying to see past the curtain of leaves, wondering how long it’s been since we left the boathouse. As if reading my thoughts, Neil says, “We still have time. I’m going to try diving for it.”

  He takes off his life jacket and strips off his T-shirt, handing me the soft bundle of cloth.

  “Hold the light on it,” he tells me. He slips out of the boat and into the water as smoothly as that animal I saw on the shore a few minutes ago, but still the boat rocks and it takes me a moment to steady myself and aim the flashlight back on the statue. I can see Neil’s face pressed close up to the plaque, his cheeks distended with held breath so that he looks like a personification of the wind in some Renaissance painting. When he comes up I breathe in and realize I’d been holding my breath, too.

  “I can’t read it,” he gasps, “but it feels loose. I think the piece of statue it’s attached to isn’t that big. We could probably get it up if we did it together.”

  “Together?”

  “The water’s not cold at all,” he says, splashing a little of it onto my leg. “And I can tie the towline around one of these branches so the canoe won’t drift. But if you don’t want to—”

  “No, it’s all right. It’s not even that deep, right?”

  Neil smiles. “That’s my girl.”

  I take off my life jacket and stick the flashlight back in its pocket but don’t bother zipping it. Getting out of a floating canoe is no easy feat. I swing my legs around and dangle them into the water—which feels pretty damn cold to me—but when I try to push myself off, the whole boat tips and topples me ungracefully into the water along with the life jackets and flashlight.

  Neil dives and retrieves the flashlight and sticks it into the waistband of his jeans, lit end up. Thankfully, it’s an underwater model so it’s still working. The life jackets, though, have drifted too far downstream to reach. He ties the canoe to one of the branches of the beech tree that has snaked over the brick wall and into the water.

  “Okay?” Neil asks.

  I nod, trying to conserve my breath.

  “We’ll dive on three,” Neil says.

  I take in a large breath on “two” and dive down, following the beam of light coming from the flashlight. I can see Neil’s fingers working their way under the marble and I plunge my hands into the muck, trying not to think about what could be under there. We both pull up at the same time and, amazingly, the lump of marble comes free. We haul it up onto one of the submerged rocks from the stone wall and come up for air.

  “Okay, let’s try to stand on this rock and get it onto the bank,” Neil says.

  The rock is coated with algae and moss, making the footing treacherous. I slip the first time and stub my toe on the wall, but the second time we’re able to get the slab of marble and bronze up onto the bank. We stand there for a moment, waist-deep in the water, panting. Then Neil pulls himself up onto the wall and, turning, offers me a hand up.

  “The secret to eternal life better be inscribed on this plaque after all that trouble,” Neil says, pulling the flashlight out of the waistband of his jeans. “I think it gave me a hernia.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” a male voice says, “but I thank you for retrieving my property.”

  I look up to an opening in the tree. Gavin Penrose is holding the branches back with one hand. In the other hand he’s holding a gun aimed at us.

  OUT OF THE CORNER OF MY EYE I SEE NEIL REACHING AROUND TO HIS BACK POCKET where, I remember, he hid the carving knife. Gavin notices, too.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them, Buchwald,” he says, pointing the gun toward Neil. “I don’t want to have to use this, although I’d certainly be within my rights shooting two trespassers.”

  “I don’t think Detective Falco would see it that way,” I say, inching a little closer to Neil. “I think he would find it a little suspicious that three people have died on your property.”

  “Three?” Gavin looks behind us toward the water.

  “I mean Christine.”

  Gavin shrugs. “It’s not my fault she came out here in the middle of the night to look at some chunk of marble. Is that it?” He points the gun toward the fragment of statue lying on the grass between us. I feel a little easier with the gun pointed away from me, but still I don’t like the way he’s waving it around.

  He takes out a handkerchief and tosses it to me. “You’re the restorer, Juno, why don’t you have a go at cleaning off that plaque while your assistant here holds the flashlight for you and we’ll see what Christine wanted to see so badly that she got herself drowned.”

  “Didn’t she tell you what it was?” I ask, picking up the cloth and scrubbing at the mud-and-algae-covered plaque.

  Gavin shakes his head. “She told me some ridiculous story about my grandfather and grandmother—how Augustus was really in love with Eugenie’s sister all along, but he married Eugenie because she was the one with the money. As if that would be such a crime. She actually thought I’d care about her telling the world my grandfather married for money.”

  “But you argued with her about something before the lecture.”

  “She had some crazy ideas about my great-aunt Clare,” he says. “I couldn’t very well let her ravings get around. Haven’t you finished with that yet?” he asks, impatiently waving the gun toward the plaque. I feel Neil, crouched beside me, tense up when Gavin directs the gun to me and I’m afraid that he’ll try to rush Gavin and get himself killed. I vainly try to decipher the imprint of lettering engraved in the bronze, hoping now that it reveals nothing incriminating about Gavin’s family and that Gavin will let us go. He hasn’t, after all, confessed to killing Christine although every
thing he’s said so far seems to be leading to that. I rub at the plaque harder, hoping that we’ll be able to read it.

  “I think I can make out something,” I say, “a name.”

  Gavin steps closer and motions with his gun for Neil to aim the flashlight closer to the plaque.

  “For Clare,” I read. “It’s just a commemorative plaque,” I say, my voice shaking with relief. “Augustus only wanted to remember your great-aunt—”

  “There’s more,” Gavin says, “another line.”

  I rub away the mud and algae and read the single word on the line below Clare’s name. “Beloved.”

  I look up at Gavin, his face an ugly mask in the glow of the flashlight. “So she was right after all,” he says, “he did love her.”

  “I can’t see how it matters now,” I say, surprised at the tone of my voice. Who would have believed I’d end the night trying to comfort Gavin Penrose?

  “It doesn’t,” he says, his voice hard again. “The rest of it is crazy. She came to me with this insane idea that not only had Augustus loved Clare in the beginning—when they first met in Kelmscott—but that he’d loved her all along. Even after she was locked away in Briarwood. That he visited her and took her here to Astolat and then—this is the craziest part—she had his child. Only the child was given away—”

  “To the Webbs,” I can’t help myself from finishing. “Who worked at Briarwood. The little boy whom Augustus and Clare took on their boat trips to a ‘palace on the river.’ It was Christine’s father.”

  “She was insane.” Gavin is practically screaming now. At first I think he’s still talking about Clare, but then I realize he’s talking about Christine. All his rage seems to be directed toward her, but it’s me he’s screaming at, waving the gun in my face. I can feel every muscle in Neil’s body tighten as he stares at the gun in Gavin’s hand.

  “She came to me with this story about missing babies and drowning statues and thought I’d open up my arms and welcome her into the family. Well, obviously I couldn’t allow her to go around saying those things—”

  I have no warning when Neil finally springs forward. One minute he’s by my side, the next he’s airborne, hurtling toward Gavin.

  I pick up the flashlight Neil dropped and aim it at the two men struggling in the dirt, trying to make out which one’s Neil and where the gun is, but then they roll under the heavy curtain of beech branches and out of my sight. As I get up to follow them I hear an explosion. The gun going off.

  I part the branches, terrified at what I’ll find on the other side, and breathe a sigh of relief. Gavin is crouched in the dirt and Neil’s standing over him holding the gun.

  “I should shoot the bastard,” Neil says as I edge around a frightened, but unharmed, Gavin, “for threatening you.”

  When I’m close enough I put my hand on Neil’s arm. “No, don’t hurt him, we’ll call the police.”

  “How? Neither of us has a phone.”

  Gavin moves his hand toward his jacket pocket and Neil lunges forward, pressing the gun into his temple. Even in the lurid glow of the flashlight I can tell that all the blood rushes out of Gavin’s face. “I was just going to offer you the use of my phone,” he says, his voice shaking.

  Neil uses the muzzle of the gun to push Gavin’s jacket open and nods when he sees the plastic cell phone sticking out of his shirt pocket. “Okay, give it to Juno,” he says.

  I take the phone from Gavin’s hand—which is shaking so badly he nearly drops it.

  “Call your friend Detective Falco,” Neil says to me.

  It’s only after I’ve made the call that I wonder how he knew I’d know the number.

  BY THE TIME NEIL AND I HAVE FINISHED GIVING OUR STATEMENTS AT THE POLICE station it’s after three in the morning. Falco assures Neil and me that he’s going to question Gavin further after we leave.

  “But aren’t you going to arrest him?” I ask. “He broke into the factory.”

  “Well, technically, since you’re leasing your studio space from him he’s legally within his rights to inspect the property if he thinks it’s in danger. He claims he smelled smoke coming from the furnaces.”

  “Right,” I say. “Then why was he coming into my studio? It’s in a whole different part of the building.”

  “He says he only wanted to talk to you about some ‘misapprehension’ you were laboring under.”

  “And that’s why he followed us to the estate?” Neil asks.

  “It’s his property,” Falco answers, dragging a hand over his face. He looks almost as tired as Neil.

  “He practically admitted to killing Christine,” I tell Falco.

  “Unfortunately it’s your word against his and he claims he was only protecting his property.”

  “Does protecting his property include holding us at gunpoint while forcing Juno to clean that statue?” Neil asks. “He was raving like a lunatic.” Neil smiles at me, a tired smile that barely creases his face. “And I should know what one sounds like. That gun could have gone off at any minute. I couldn’t take that chance.”

  Falco shakes his head and puts his hand on Neil’s shoulder. “No, you couldn’t. You did the right thing.” Neil shrugs but I can tell he’s actually pleased with the commendation and I find myself absurdly grateful that Falco has realized that this is what Neil needed. “I promise I’ll do all I can to get a confession out of him, but first I think I’d better get Juno home. She should get out of those damp clothes before she gets sick and you—” He bends down and looks closely into Neil’s face. “—you look like you are sick. Can I get someone to take you back to The Beeches? Get a doctor to examine you?”

  Neil does look horrible. The energy that sustained him through the night has evaporated, leaving a frail shell. His skin, under the station’s fluorescent lights, looks positively yellow.

  “I think he’d better come back with me,” I tell Falco, “if he wants to, that is.”

  Neil nods and smiles—a weak smile that fades into a grimace. Falco looks away.

  “All right, then, I’ll give you both a lift back.”

  I thank Falco and then ask him one more favor. “The canoe we took from the boathouse was Kyle’s favorite and we left it tied up on the creek beneath the beech tree. Do you think you could return it to him?”

  WHEN WE GET BACK TO THE FACTORY THE FIRST THING I DO IS LET THE DOGS OUT OF the courtyard. I notice that as they head up the spiral stairs Francesca is limping and holding her front left paw up.

  “That bastard Penrose, I bet he kicked her. I’ll have to take her to the vet in the morning—” I stop when I notice that Neil has slumped into a chair and is shivering. “Why don’t I draw you a hot bath,” I say, realizing that I’ve got more to worry about than a hurt greyhound. Besides, the dogs have curled up together on the couch and Paolo is licking Francesca’s paw. They look like they’re taking care of each other.

  When Neil gets into the tub I start to leave to put a kettle on for some hot tea, but he grabs hold of my hand and pulls me toward him.

  “Don’t go,” he says. “You look like you could use a good soaking yourself.”

  He’s right. I smell like mud and river water. I take off my dress and climb in. It’s a big tub. I bought it from an old hotel up in Saratoga that was going out of business, which I suspected had once been a brothel. Neil moves over to one side so I can stretch out next to him. I dip my head back in the water and then rest my cheek on his shoulder. When the water starts to cool, I adjust the hot water faucet to a trickle and let the overflow drain pull out the excess water. I close my eyes and, lulled by the gurgle of the water and the warmth of Neil’s skin, nearly fall asleep. Just as I’m drifting off, though, I feel water lapping against my face and it startles me awake. We could both drown in here, I realize, an ironic end to our adventures tonight.

  I can’t help but wonder what it was like for Christine in the end. Did she know that Gavin had given her an overdose of drugs? Was she frightened? How could she have gone wit
h him when the things she had found out—about the illegal sale of the painting and the affair between Augustus and Clare—would be damaging to him if they got out?

  “Why would she trust Gavin to take her across the river?” I say aloud to Neil.

  He doesn’t answer for a moment and I think he’s asleep, but then he says, with his eyes still closed, “She thought she had found her real family. She thought Gavin would be as excited as she was to find out they were related.”

  “Do you think they were?” I ask. “I mean, do you really think Clare had a baby in the asylum that was adopted by the Webbs and it was Christine’s father?”

  “I don’t know, but now I understand why she wanted to see Clare’s file so badly.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah, she told me she’d found a way to get to Clare’s file …” Neil half opens his eyes, uncovering a narrow slit of blue iris and yellowed whites. “She told me the last time we met …” His voice fades out and his eyes flutter closed. I sit upright so quickly that water sloshes over the rim of the tub and onto the floor.

  “Neil? Are you okay?”

  Again he takes a long time to answer and when he does his voice sounds as if it’s coming from under the water. “Fine … just need to rest …”

  Despite the infusion of hot water the tub has grown chilly. “I think we’d better get out,” I tell him.

  I get out first, put on a robe, and then help him, handing him a towel and leading him straight to the bed. He keeps his eyes closed until he’s lying down and then his lids briefly flutter upward. The whites of his eyes are as yellow as the silver stain used in medieval windows. I have a sudden image of my mother toward the end of her life when the cancer had moved into her liver. Her skin and eyes had taken on the same yellow hue.

  “Neil,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm, “those blood tests you get every day. Do they test for liver damage?”

  “Sure … and for ‘medication compliance’ … you know, to check that we’re not tonguing the tablets.”