The Shape of Night

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Then I’ll ask someone who might know. The man who owns it, Arthur Sherbrooke.”

  * * *

  —

  Brodie’s Watch stands dark and silent in the fading twilight. I step out of my car and pause in the driveway, looking up at windows that stare back at me like glassy black eyes. I think of the first time I saw Brodie’s Watch and the chill I felt, as if the house was warning me away. I feel no such chill now. Instead I see my home, welcoming me back. I see the place that’s sheltered and comforted me these past weeks. I know I should be disturbed by what happened to those who lived here before me. The house of dead women, Maeve calls it, and she advises me to pack up and leave. That’s what Charlotte Nielson did, yet she ended up dead anyway, at the hands of a flesh-and-blood killer who squeezed the life from her and tossed her body into the sea.

  Maybe if she’d stayed in Brodie’s Watch, she’d still be alive.

  I step inside and breathe in the familiar scents of home. “Captain Brodie?” I call out. I don’t expect an answer, and I hear only silence, yet I feel his presence all around me, in the shadows, in the air I breathe. I think of the words he once whispered: Under my roof, no harm will come to you. Did he whisper those same words to Aurora Sherbrooke and Margaret Gordon, Violet Theriault and Eugenia Hollander?

  In the kitchen, I feed Hannibal and take a pot of leftover fish chowder out of the refrigerator. As the chowder heats on the stove, I sit down to check my email. Along with a note from Simon, who adores the latest three chapters of The Captain’s Table (hooray), there are emails from Amazon (new titles you may be interested in) and Williams Sonoma (get cooking with our latest new kitchenware). I scroll down and stop at an email that makes me go still.

  It’s from Lucy. I don’t open it, but I can’t avoid seeing what is written in the subject line: I miss you. Call me. Such innocuous words, but they are like a shout of accusation. I only have to close my eyes and once again I hear the pop of champagne corks. The shouts of Happy New Year! The screech of Nick’s car pulling away from the curb.

  And I remember the aftermath. The long days of sitting with Lucy in Nick’s hospital room, watching his comatose body shrivel and fold into itself like a fetus. I remember the appalling sense of relief I felt on the day he died. I am the only one alive with the secret now, a secret that I keep caged and hidden, but it is always there, feeding on me like a cancer.

  I close the laptop and shove it away. Just as I’ve pushed Lucy away, because I cannot bear to face her.

  And so I sit alone in this house on the hill. If I were to collapse tonight, the way Aurora Sherbrooke did, who would find me? I look down at Hannibal, who’s already cleaned his plate and is now licking his paws, and I wonder how long it would take before he’d start feasting on my flesh. Not that I would blame him. A cat’s gotta do what a cat’s gotta do, and eating is what Hannibal excels at.

  The seafood stew is bubbling on the stove, but I’ve lost my appetite. I turn off the burner and reach for a bottle of Zinfandel. Tonight I need liquid comfort, this bottle is already uncorked, and I crave the bite of tannins and alcohol on my tongue. I pour a generous serving into a glass, and as I lift it to my lips, I catch sight of the recycling bin in the corner.

  It is overflowing with empty wine bottles.

  I set down my glass. My craving is still as powerful, but those bottles tell a sad story of a woman who lives alone with her cat, who buys wine by the case and drinks herself into oblivion every night, just to fall asleep. I have been trying to drown my guilt, but booze is just a temporary fix that destroys your liver and poisons your brain. It’s made me question what is real and what is fantasy. Does my perfect lover really exist, or is he nothing more than a drunkard’s delusion?

  It’s time for me to learn the truth.

  I empty my wineglass into the sink and climb the stairs, fully sober, to bed.

  Twenty-Three

  By noon the next day I am in my car driving south toward Cape Elizabeth, where Arthur Sherbrooke lives. He is the late Aurora Sherbrooke’s only living relative and the one person who probably knew her best—if, indeed, anyone really knew her. How many people, after all, really know me? Even my own sister, the person I love most, the person I’m closest to, does not know who I am or what I’m capable of. We keep our darkest secrets to ourselves. We keep them, most of all, from those we love.

  I grip the steering wheel and stare ahead at the road, eager to focus on something else, anything else, besides Lucy. The history of Brodie’s Watch has been a welcome distraction, a dive down a rabbit hole that keeps me digging ever deeper into the lives and deaths of people I have never met. Do their fates foreshadow my own? Like Eugenia and Violet, Margaret and Aurora, will I meet my death under Captain Brodie’s roof?

  I have visited Cape Elizabeth once before, when I spent the weekend at the home of a college classmate, and I remember handsome homes and manicured lawns sweeping to the sea, a neighborhood that made me think if I ever won the lottery, this was where I’d retire. A tree-lined road leads to a pair of stone pillars where Arthur Sherbrooke’s address is mounted on a brass plaque. There is no gate barring my way so I drive down a road that winds toward a salt marsh, where a coldly modern concrete and glass house stands overlooking the reeds. The house looks more like an art museum than a residence, with stone steps leading through a Japanese garden to the front door. There a wooden sculpture of a fierce Indonesian demon stands guard—not the friendliest face to greet a guest.

  I ring the bell.

  Through the window, I spy movement, and the pebbled glass makes the approaching figure look like a spindly alien. The door opens and the man who stands there is indeed tall and lanky, with chilly gray eyes. Although Arthur Sherbrooke is in his early seventies, he looks as fit as a long-distance runner, and his focus is laser-sharp.

  “Mr. Sherbrooke?”

  “Professor Sherbrooke.”

  “Oh, sorry. Professor Sherbrooke. I’m Ava Collette. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “So you’re writing a book about Brodie’s Watch,” he says as I step into the foyer.

  “Yes, and I have a ton of questions about the house.”

  “Do you want to buy it?” he cuts in.

  “I don’t think I can afford it.”

  “If you know anyone who can, I’d like to get rid of the place.” He pauses and adds, “But not at a loss.”

  I follow him down a black-tiled hallway to the living room, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the salt marsh. A telescope stands at the ready, and a pair of Leica binoculars sits on the coffee table. Through the window I spot a bald eagle soaring past, followed by three crows in hot pursuit.

  “Fearless buggers, those crows,” he says. “They’ll chase away anything that invades their airspace. I’ve been studying that particular corvid family for ten generations, and they seem to get more clever every year.”

  “Are you a professor of ornithology?”

  “No, I’m just a lifelong birdwatcher.” He waves at the sofa, a haughty command for me to sit down. Like everything else in the room, the sofa is coldly minimalist, upholstered in stark gray leather that looks more forbidding than inviting. I sit facing a glass coffee table which is uncluttered by even a single magazine. The entire focus of the room is the window and the view of the salt marsh beyond.

  He offers no coffee or tea but just drops down in an armchair and crosses his stork-like legs. “I taught economics, Bowdoin College,” he says. “Retired three years ago, and ironically enough find myself busier than ever. Traveling, writing articles.”

  “About economics?”

  “Corvids. Crows and ravens. My hobby’s turned into something of a second career for me.” He tilts his head, a movement that’s unsettlingly birdlike. “You said you had questions about the house?”

  “About its history, and the people who’ve lived in it over the years.”r />
  “I’ve done a bit of research on the subject, but I’m by no means an expert,” he says with a modest shrug. “I can tell you the house was built in 1861 by Captain Jeremiah T. Brodie. He was lost at sea over a decade later. Subsequent ownership passed through several families until it came to me thirty-some years ago.”

  “I understand you inherited the house from your aunt Aurora.”

  “Yes. Tell me again how these questions are relevant to this book you’re writing?”

  “My book is called The Captain’s Table. It’s about traditional foods of New England, and the meals that might have been served in the homes of seafaring families. My editor thinks Brodie’s Watch, and Captain Brodie himself, could serve as the focal point for the project. It would give the book an authentic sense of place and atmosphere.”

  Satisfied by my explanation, he settles more deeply into his chair. “Very well. Is there anything specific that you’d like to know?”

  “Tell me about your aunt. About her experiences living there.”

  He sighs, as if this is one subject he’d rather avoid. “Aunt Aurora lived there for most of her life. In fact, she died in that house, which may be one of the reasons I can’t seem to get rid of it. Nothing kills a house’s resale value like a death. People and their stupid superstitions.”

  “You’ve been trying to sell it all these years?”

  “I was her only heir, so I got stuck with that white elephant. After she died, I put it on the market for a few years, but the offers were insulting. Everyone seemed to find something wrong with the place. Too old, too cold, bad karma. If only I could’ve torn down the heap. With that ocean view, it would make a spectacular building site.”

  “Why didn’t you just tear it down?”

  “It was a condition of her will. The house had to remain standing or the trust fund would go to…” He pauses and looks away.

  So there’s a trust fund. Of course there had to be family money. How else could a mere university professor afford this multimillion-dollar property in Cape Elizabeth? Aurora Sherbrooke had left her nephew a fortune as well as a burden when she’d bequeathed him Brodie’s Watch.

  “She had enough money to live anywhere,” he says. “Paris, London, New York. But no, she chose to spend most of her life in that house. Every summer, starting when I was seventeen, I’d dutifully drive up to visit her, if only to remind her that she had a blood relative, but she never seemed to welcome my visits. It was almost as if I were invading her privacy. An intruder, disrupting her life.”

  Their lives. Hers and the captain’s.

  “And I never liked that house.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “There’s always a chill inside. Don’t you feel it? Even on the hottest days in August, I could never get warm. I don’t think I ever took off my sweater. I could spend the day sweltering on the beach, but when I stepped back into the house, it was like walking into a freezer.”

  Because he didn’t want you there. I think of the first time I stepped into Brodie’s Watch, and the initial chill I felt, like walking into a wintry fog. And then, in an instant, the chill had vanished, as if the house had decided I belonged there.

  “I wanted to stop visiting her,” he continued. “I pleaded with my mother not to make me return. Especially after the incident.”

  “What incident?”

  “That damn house tried to kill me.” At my startled expression, he gives a sheepish laugh. “Well, that’s what it felt like at the time. You know the chandelier that’s now hanging over the foyer? It’s a replacement. The original chandelier was crystal, imported from France. If I’d been standing just two inches to my right, that thing would have crushed my skull.”

  I stare at him. “It fell?”

  “Just as I walked in the door, the fixture gave way. It was only a freak accident, of course, but I remember what my aunt said after it happened: ‘Maybe you shouldn’t come anymore. Just to be safe.’ What the hell did she mean by that?”

  I know exactly what she meant, but I don’t say a word.

  “After I almost got killed there, I wanted to stay away, but my mother insisted I keep returning.”

  “Why?”

  “To maintain family connections. My father was on the edge of bankruptcy. Aunt Aurora’s husband left her with more money than she could ever spend in a lifetime. My mother was hoping…” His voice trails off.

  So this is why the ghost didn’t approve of Arthur Sherbrooke. From the moment this man stepped through the door, the captain would have known his true motives. It wasn’t devotion to his aunt Aurora that brought Sherbrooke to Brodie’s Watch every summer; it was greed.

  “My aunt had no children of her own, and after her husband died, she never remarried. She certainly didn’t need to.”

  “For love, maybe?”

  “What I meant was, she didn’t need any man’s financial support. And there was always the danger that an opportunist would take advantage of her.”

  The way you tried to.

  “Even without her money, I’m sure more than a few men must have been interested in her,” I say. “Your aunt was a fine-looking woman.”

  “You’ve seen her photo?”

  “During my research into the previous occupants, I came across your aunt’s picture in a society column. Apparently she was quite the popular girl when she was young.”

  “Was she? I never thought of her as beautiful, but then I didn’t know her when she was young. I just remember her as my oddball aunt Aurora, wandering that house at all hours of the night.”

  “Wandering? Why?”

  “Who knows? I’d be in bed and I’d hear her creeping up the turret steps. I have no idea what would bring her upstairs because there was nothing up there, just an empty room. The widow’s walk was already starting to rot and one of the windows leaked. Ned Haskell used to work as her handyman, fixing up the place, but she let all the help go. She didn’t want anyone in her house.” He pauses. “Which is why her body went undiscovered for days after she died.”

  “I heard you were the one who found her body.”

  He nods. “I drove up to Tucker Cove for my annual visit. Tried calling her before the trip but she didn’t answer the phone. As soon as I stepped into the house, I could smell it. It was summertime, and the flies were…” He stops. “Sorry. It’s a rather unpleasant memory.”

  “What do you think happened to her?”

  “Some sort of stroke is my guess. Or a heart attack. The local doctor called it a natural death, that’s all I know. Climbing those turret steps might have been too much for her.”

  “Why do you think she kept going up to the turret?”

  “I have no idea. It was just an empty room with a leaky window.”

  “And a hidden alcove.”

  “Yes, I was quite surprised when Ned told me he’d found that alcove. I have no idea when it was walled up or why, but I’m sure my aunt didn’t do it. After all, she didn’t even bother keeping up the place. By the time I inherited, it was already in sorry shape. Then those kids broke in and really trashed the place.”

  “That was Halloween? The night the girl fell?”

  He nods. “But even before that girl died, the house already had a reputation as haunted. My aunt used to scare me with stories of Captain Brodie’s ghost. Probably to keep me from visiting so often.”

  I understand perfectly why his aunt might want to keep him away. I can’t imagine a more irritating houseguest.

  “Worst of all,” he said, “she let it be known all over town that her house was haunted. Told the gardener and the cleaner that the ghost was watching, and if they stole anything, he’d know. After that fool girl fell off the widow’s walk, the damn place became unsellable. The terms of my aunt’s will forbade me from tearing it down, so I could either let it slowly rot or I could fix
it up as a rental.” He eyes me. “Are you sure you can’t afford to buy it? You seem like a happy enough tenant. Unlike the woman before you.”

  It takes me a moment to register the significance of what he’s just said. “Are you talking about Charlotte Nielson? You’ve met her?”

  “She came to see me, too. I thought maybe she wanted to buy the house but no, she asked about its history. Who lived there and what happened to them.”

  Gooseflesh suddenly ripples across my arms. I think of Charlotte, a woman I’ve never met, sitting in this room, probably on this same sofa, having this same conversation with Professor Sherbrooke. Not only do I live in the same house she did, I am following so closely in her footsteps that I might be Charlotte’s ghost, reliving her last days on earth.

  “She was unhappy living there?” I ask.

  “She said the house made her uneasy. She felt like something was watching her, and she wanted to hang curtains in the bedroom. It’s hard to believe a woman that high-strung would ever qualify as a schoolteacher.”

  “Something was watching her? That’s the word she used?”

  “Probably because she’d heard about the so-called ghost, so of course every creaky floorboard had to be him. I wasn’t surprised when I heard she abruptly vacated.”

  “As it turns out, she had every reason to be uneasy. I assume you know about her murder.”

  He gives a maddeningly unconcerned shrug. “Yes. It was unfortunate.”

  “And you’ve heard who the prime suspect is? The man you hired to work on the house.”

  “I’ve known Ned for decades. Saw him every summer when I visited my aunt, and I never saw any reason not to trust him. That’s what I told Charlotte.”

  “She had concerns about him?”

  “About everything, not just Ned. The isolation. The lack of curtains. Even the town. She didn’t find it particularly open to strangers.”

  I think about my own experiences in Tucker Cove. I remember the gossipy ladies in the grocery store and coolly businesslike Donna Branca. I think about Jessie Inman and how the circumstances of her death were suppressed by the local newspaper. And I think of Charlotte, whose disappearance never raised an eyebrow until I started asking questions. To the casual visitor, Tucker Cove seems quaint and picturesque, but it’s also a village that guards its secrets and protects its own.