The Vanishing Stair

by Maureen Johnson

  Later, Dolores’s movements on that fatal day would be retraced. It is likely that she was in the dome in the sunken lake when the kidnappers came there to receive the ransom money. Dolores liked to hide herself away and read, and she had a well-known penchant for getting into out-of-the-way spaces. That day, she had taken a volume of Sherlock Holmes stories with her into the dome. It would be found on the floor.

  It is possible, even likely, that Dolores Epstein saw the face of the Ellingham kidnapper, and that is why she had to die.

  The coach rolled into Burlington. Burlington was a pleasant town—very college, touch of hippie, small-town America but with good coffee and snowshoes and yoga and crude profiles of Bernie Sanders spray-painted on walls. There were darker things too—signs of homelessness, some scenes around the courthouse that looked grim.

  The coach let everyone off on Church Street, which was the main shopping street. Stevie walked down toward the waterfront, taking in the houses and shops and the general scenery. Ellie could have snuck off to any one of these houses or lofts. She could be hiding away, looking down at Stevie now from a window.

  But was it so easy to stay concealed in a place like this? Ellie would have to go out eventually, and Burlington wasn’t so large. If she had come here, she’d probably gone on, maybe taken someone’s car. Maybe she had headed west, to the desert, or California. Maybe she went up into Canada. That would be a quick and easy way of getting away from the American police. Maybe she had gone to New York or Boston, where it would be easy to hide.

  But staying hidden forever was hard. Running was hard. You needed money. You needed ID and a phone. And it was hard to hide from cameras. They were everywhere. At traffic lights, at ATMs, on streets.

  So maybe she was still here somewhere, tucked up in one of these hippie studios.

  Stevie shook off her deliberations and continued down to the waterfront to the Skinny Pancake. There was a cold wind whipping off Lake Champlain that morning. It snapped in Stevie’s face, making her eyes tear up. The view was stunning, what she could see of it through the tears—a smeared expanse of beautiful water, glorious fall trees bordering the other side. This was where Albert Ellingham sailed away on his final day, from the local yacht club. His boat had blown up upriver a bit—a victim, it was thought, of anarchists who wanted to get revenge for the death of Anton Vorachek, the man arrested for the murder of his wife and the kidnapping of his daughter. The anarchists had come for Ellingham before; this time, they seemed to have gotten him. And it was just up the shoreline a bit, in a place called Rock Point, where Albert Ellingham and George Marsh had lowered the marked bills down to a boat.

  The Skinny Pancake was a large, very low-key place with a hippie vibe, a giant menu of coffees and crepes. Stevie was still in a big mood, money-wise, and ordered a large turmeric cappuccino. Might as well look fancy when you’re meeting a professor for the first time.

  “Hey, Fenton,” the guy behind the counter said. “Usual?”

  A woman of indeterminate age had entered the restaurant. She had a head of corkscrew curls, an equal mix of black and gray, which came to her shoulders. She wore glasses with thick, red frames. She was wearing a bulky purple sweater and a waterproof coat, brown corduroy, and clogs that made a clear, heavy thump on the wooden floor. She had a beat-as-all-hell leather satchel slung across her body.

  Stevie recognized her a bit from the author photo, although she had been maybe twenty years younger in it. There was something more . . . haphazard about the person in front of her.

  They looked at each other in a moment of mutual recognition.

  “Are you Stevie?” she called.

  Stevie nodded.

  “Put our coffees together,” she said to the person behind the counter. “She’s with me.” Then, to Stevie, “You mind if we sit outside?”

  Stevie wanted to point out that it was October. In Vermont. On a lake. Dr. Fenton plucked a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and waggled them.

  “Can’t smoke in here,” she said, pointing at the door.

  Stevie wound her scarf once more around her neck and followed. Dr. Fenton sat down at one of the tables by the door, seemingly unaffected by the wind chopping at them. She pulled a cigarette from the pack of Camels and cupped her hands over her mouth to light it. Stevie didn’t know anyone who smoked. Dr. Fenton seemed to pick up on this.

  “Used to be you could smoke anywhere,” she said. “You’re probably not used to it. They treat us like pariahs.”

  She took a long drag, followed by a longer exhale.

  “So. I understand that your interest at Ellingham is the Ellingham case. And that you had something to do with figuring out what happened to that kid, Mayes.”

  “Hayes,” Stevie said, tucking her arms inside her red coat to conserve warmth.

  “Hayes.” Dr. Fenton let out a long plume of smoke, most of which was blown back in her face. “Sorry. You’ve read my book?”

  “Of course,” Stevie said.

  “Of course!” Dr. Fenton laughed and coughed at the same time. “I like that. Of course. Also, call me Fenton. No ‘Doctor.’ Just Fenton. It’s how I like it. Let’s talk about the Ellingham case. Tell me what else you’ve read.”

  “What?” Stevie said. “All of it?”

  “All the books, what articles, give me a sense of what you know.”

  “I know . . . all of it?” Stevie said.

  “We’re here to talk,” she said. “Talk. Tell me about this case.”

  Asking someone to just talk about the Ellingham case was like asking someone to “just talk” about the past or “just talk” about science.

  “Starting when?” Stevie said. “Night of, or days leading up to, or . . .”

  “Night of,” Dr. Fenton said, the cigarette gripped between her lips.

  The guy from the counter came out with two coffees and set them down on the table, and Stevie went back to April 13, 1936, to Albert Ellingham pulling up the driveway. She went through all the known facts about the night—where everyone in the house was, the phone calls, George Marsh’s trip, the marked bills, the drop. Occasionally, Dr. Fenton would quiz her. Stevie rattled back the necessary information.

  “All right,” Dr. Fenton said, after about a half hour and three cigarettes. “That’s good groundwork. Tell me who you think kidnapped Iris and Alice Ellingham. Who is Truly Devious?”

  “I don’t know,” Stevie said.

  “Not Anton Vorachek?”

  “Of course not.”

  Dr. Fenton looked at Stevie for a long moment and sucked on her cigarette. Stevie could hear the paper burning.

  “This case is about money,” Dr. Fenton said. “It was always about the money. Anton Vorachek didn’t care about money. To solve the case, follow the money. Whoever kidnapped Iris and Alice knew how much money was in the safe in Ellingham’s office. How the hell would Anton Vorachek know that?”

  “Because the bank made regular deliveries,” Stevie said. “The work crew was paid in cash. Lots of people knew that money was there. At least, that’s what people said.”

  “Right. So everyone says. Except that those deliveries were done very carefully, and the amount of cash on hand varied. You would have to know when it went in and when it was going to go out.”

  Stevie said nothing, because she agreed. So did most people who looked at the case.

  “So,” Dr. Fenton went on, “then you have to look at who was in the house, and plenty of people were in the house. Full-time staff of twenty, plus, over a hundred people on the property every day of the week. The work crew, the staff of the school, and the students. Plus, guests. Leonard Holmes Nair and Flora Robinson were upstairs, and obviously by the time George Marsh arrived on the scene to help, Flora Robinson could not be found. Loads of people to choose from. But not Anton Vorachek. He was an anarchist, unpopular, the perfect patsy when someone had to go down for the crime. I mean, if you’re going to believe that, then you probably believe Oswald assassinated Kennedy all by h
imself.”

  Stevie blinked a little at this. It seemed early to be getting into conspiracy theories.

  “But this is ‘The Ellingham Affair 101.’ And I think you’re a little beyond that.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette on the table, which was kind of gross. The gray ash blew all around.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re hired. You have access to the attic in the big house, I hear.”

  Stevie nodded.

  “Good.” Fenton reached into her bag and pulled out a dog-eared legal pad. “There are some things I want cross-checked. Little details I need to get right. Some of them are architectural. I need to confirm where some things are, what they look like. Some other things you’ll probably find up in the attic. I think there are household records up there. I need checks on things like guest lists, schedules, stuff like that. That should be in the household books.”

  She slid the notepad over to Stevie.

  “All those things,” she said. “Check them out for me. Write down any details. This is your job. Go forth and prosper.”

  She shoved the pad at Stevie, who glanced through it. Fenton had questions about things like menus, china patterns, who was at the house on certain dates, the color of the walls. Mundane stuff.

  “My book will change everything,” Fenton said. “I have information that will knock everything sideways.”

  Stevie looked up in interest.

  “Like what?”

  “That is for me to know, and maybe you to find out if you do your job.”

  This seemed like a big claim. But then again, Stevie had something in her bag at this very moment that could reframe the entire case. She brought it along because she refused to leave it behind when she was not on campus, and also because she’d had a fantasy of showing it to the professor, so they could immediately team up to bust the Ellingham Affair wide open. Dr. Fenton, or Fenton, had not inspired Stevie to open up. She was somehow . . . sadder than Stevie expected. Maybe it was the cigarettes. Maybe, though, it was something more. Something in her eyes and the way she sat. Something was not right with Fenton.

  A guy was walking up to them, about Stevie’s age. He was fair, with a spray of light gold freckles splashed out along his nose and cheekbones. He wore a well-fitted black hoodie with a blue wool jacket on top, and a ski hat. He used a single arm crutch on his left arm to walk, and had a canvas backpack covered in patches thrown over the other shoulder.

  “I got a parking space,” he said. “Hey.”

  That was to Stevie.

  “This is my nephew,” Fenton said. “Hunter. This is Stevie. Stevie is my new assistant on the book. You two talk. I gotta hit the restroom. Back in a second.”

  Fenton got up, grabbed the table as if unsteady, and then clomped her way inside.

  Hunter leaned his crutch against the wall of the café and sat down where his aunt had been. They had only a slight resemblance—they had the same large blue eyes. His were bordered by thick blond brows that were permanently set on “furrowed.”

  “You’re from Ellingham?” he said.

  “Yeah. How can you tell?”

  “Your name is Stevie. You’re working on this book. You were in the news about the death on campus.”

  “Oh,” Stevie said, feeling embarrassed by the obviousness of this. “Right.”

  “Have you been interested in the case long?”

  “A few years,” she said.

  He bit his lip and nodded.

  “I live with my aunt while I go to school here,” he said.

  Hunter was looking at his aunt’s coffee cup. He picked it up, as if in an idle gesture, but it was too casual to be really casual. Something flitted across his expression and he set it down.

  “What do you study?” she asked.

  “Ecology,” he replied. “Environmental studies. Going to try to save the world from global warming.”

  “Is that going to work?” she said.

  “We have to try.”

  She nodded. She got that. You have to try. Trying is the first step to whatever comes next.

  “I read about what you did,” he said. “It was cool. You actually solved a crime.”

  “I didn’t solve it,” she said. “I . . . figured some stuff out.”

  “That girl, she’s still missing, right?”

  “Ellie. Yeah.”

  “I don’t know where you go if you run from Ellingham,” he said. “It’s brutal up here. I’m from Florida. I never know how to cope with this place. . . .”

  He trailed off, as if embarrassed by speaking. Then he nodded at the legal pad.

  “What’s my aunt got you doing?”

  “Fact-checking some stuff,” she said. “I think.”

  “Looks like a lot.”

  Stevie could hear the clomp of Fenton’s clogs on the floor and she was back.

  “All right,” she said. “Get started on this. I’ll see you midweek.”

  “There’s no coach midweek,” Stevie said.

  “Then I’ll see you when?”

  “Saturday?” Stevie said.

  “I’ll see you Saturday. Come to my house. That’s where my office is. I live on campus. Here.”

  She scrawled down an address and passed it over.

  “Can I email you updates, or . . .”

  “Nothing electronic, ever,” she said. “Ever.”

  “Okay,” Stevie said. “Nothing electronic. Okay.”

  “Let’s get moving. Where’s the car?”

  “This way,” Hunter said. He reached over for his crutch. “I’ll see you around?”

  Did she imagine a lilt of hope in his voice? Stevie was not the kind of person who imagined that people wanted to flock to her side. She felt she looked good in her red vinyl coat, her short blond hair squashed under a black knit hat, plain black jeans. She was wearing lip balm, so that was something, and an eyebrow goo that Janelle had lent her and said would work well. Janelle knew makeup and was always trying to get Stevie interested in a color palette or a highlighter. Mostly, Stevie forgot she had a body, and when someone else noticed her body, it made her look down and go, huh. Would you look at that. How long has that been there?

  There had only been David for her, like that.

  She had probably imagined it anyway. Hunter got his crutch and watched as his aunt gathered her things. As they said their good-byes and went off, she noticed two things. One, Fenton was not so old as to need assistance, and yet it certainly looked like Hunter had come to pick her up and escort her.

  The second was that he turned and looked over his shoulder at Stevie, and he smiled.

  10

  WHO BECOMES A MURDERER?

  Stevie considered this word as the coach headed back to Ellingham that afternoon. Her reading and viewing and studying had taught her several things.

  There’s the horror-movie version: a shadow with a knife, the one who escaped from the hospital on the hill during that storm. It’s the person living in the walls.

  In mystery novels, it might be the smiling stranger, the one with the passing knowledge of poisons. It’s the relative left out of the will, or the one recently added to it. It’s the jealous colleague at the museum who wants to be the first to announce the new archeological discovery. It’s the overly helpful person who follows the detective around.

  On the all-murder, true-crime channel, it’s the new neighbor with the boat, the one in his midforties to midfifties with the tan who has no past and who recently purchased a human-sized cooler. It’s the person who lives in the shack in the woods. It’s the unseen figure on the corner of the street.

  On all crime shows, it’s usually the third person the cops interview. It’s the one you sort of think it is.

  In life, the murderer is anyone. The reasons, the methods, the circumstances—the paths to becoming a murderer are as numerous as the stars. Understanding this is the first step to finding a murderer. You have to shut down the voices in your mind that say, “It has to be this person.” Murderers
aren’t a type. They’re anyone.

  Stevie put her head against the cool of the window and watched the moose sign go by.

  “No moose,” she whispered.

  Element Walker. Stevie could see her now, almost physically. Artist. Try-too-hard. Friendly. The girl with the bruises on her shins from climbing, with the holes in the toes of her cheap satin slipper shoes. The girl with the baby socks tied in her hair and the old cheerleader skirt. Ellie, who had a saxophone as a best friend even though she couldn’t play. The girl with the bottle of warm champagne she brought from France that she shared with two people she had just met.

  Ellie, did you kill someone?

  Did you mean to do it?

  Stevie tried to propel her thoughts into the mountain air, as if texting Ellie with her mind. Tell me. I can help you. I’m sorry.

  Why was she sorry? She had made the right conclusion. She hadn’t actually called security—Nate did that. All she did was ask a question.

  The day had gone gray and the rock walls of the road menaced on either side. This was a hard, beautiful place. It had many nooks, but it was cold and high. Ellie was a creature of color, of people. Stevie saw her as she was on the first day of school, dressing as a messy punk cheerleader with her matted hair bound up in little socks. And then, later that day, dying her clothes pink in the bath as she drank champagne with Stevie and Janelle and held court. Ellie liked to perform, not hide out away from society.

  No. The facts were the facts. She lined them up, measured them. Ellie had written the script and stolen the computer. That was all she said, and it was true. It was true. She could not be blamed for what was true.

  A couple of days before Hayes’s death, someone took Janelle’s pass when they were at yoga in the art barn. It could have been anyone. The bag was just sitting out in the hall. But it was someone who knew Janelle had access to the maintenance shed. Someone went into the maintenance shed using Janelle’s pass and unloaded a massive amount of dry ice from the storage container. It weighed hundreds of pounds. It would have had to have been moved using a hand truck, or a golf cart, something large. From there, it was probably taken down the hatch entrance to the tunnel in the woods. Those blocks would have had to have been carried down the steps, down the tunnel, one by one. Then the room was closed up. To do what? Presumably create fog. But that’s not what dry ice does when you leave that much of it in a space for that long.