The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  I looked out the window and opened my mouth to scream.

  The two shadows lifted fingers to their lips, and I closed my mouth and rolled my eyes. Jeff and Ryan stood on the other side of the glass. Ryan, the larger shadow, held up a paper that read, “Be quiet. Mouth your words.” I felt a wave of relief, mostly, I realized, because I was glad Ryan was speaking to me again. Well, sort of.

  “Why am I here?” I mouthed.

  They must have been expecting that one because Ryan held up a piece of paper where he’d written, “You’re being held for the theft of the paintings found in the tunnel where you lost your glasses. The evidence against you is circumstantial and legally they can’t keep you here for long.”

  I mouthed, “Bail?”

  Jeff read my lips and repeated my question to Ryan. Ryan scribbled on a piece of paper, “No need.”

  “Artie and James?”

  Jeff shrugged first then Ryan. My heart quickened.

  “Nut allergies?”

  They shrugged again. Ryan wrote on the paper, “Helen ate peanuts.”

  Helen probably did die of natural causes.

  Ryan held up another piece of paper, one that he had undoubtedly written beforehand. “Going to look for Henderson. If you had stayed at home, none of this would have happened.”

  They nudged each other then disappeared into the darkness. I settled back into the corner of the sofa feeling sad, lonely, and defensive. How was I to know that Pastor Grayson would find my glasses and arrest me for Phil Henderson’s theft? The tabby jumped up to share my blanket, and I let him stay. At least I had one friend.

  I didn’t try to sleep. I lay on the sofa, the cat heavy against my thigh, and recounted all my sleepless nights on Lister Island. The first night I spent with Phil Henderson and James Dunsmuir. The next night had been quiet enough, although I could have spent it with Dean. And then the night on Otter’s Play Yard, followed by the morning on the cottage sofa. The first and probably only time I would sleep with Ryan. Refusing to continue this line of thought, I rolled over and the cat stood, stretched, and then settled back down.

  No known allergies. No murder. No danger. But the question of why a photographer would bring Brazil nut oil to a campsite remained.

  “For the same reason an artist would bring paints to an island and never paint,” my inner art critic scoffed. Fair enough. “You probably don’t even know where your paints are,” he sniffed. But I did know. I had last had them in the playhouse. It occurred to me that James had two campsites: one on the hillside and the other on Otter’s Play Yard. Why had he moved? And honestly, why would he choose to spend the night in a tent during a storm when he had a house to sleep in? His excuse to watch to see if Phil burgled the house didn’t make sense. James could have easily removed anything of value so Phil would have nothing to steal. He had to be watching the house for another reason. James had attacked me when I’d trespassed. He wasn’t only watching, he was lying in wait to pounce.

  I stood up. The cat gave me a hostile look and clawed at the blanket I’d left behind. I began to pace. As Helen’s only relative James would be Helen’s sole beneficiary, unless a will stated otherwise.

  I sat down when I thought about what I would do with Grammy Hailey’s inheritance. But the more important question was, what would I do without her? She’d told me that over her lifetime she’d already spent more than enough on Dad. I knew that her “enough” included more than monetary means. But I hadn’t had enough of Gram; I doubted I ever would. I couldn’t imagine a life without her quipped comments and droll observations. I looked out the window and watched the moon cast tree shadows on the dark lawn. An owl, a bird of death in Native American lore, flew over a distant cedar.

  I wondered if James loved his grandmother the way I loved mine. She couldn’t have been a part of his daily life, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t love her, and it didn’t mean that he would kill her. But it could mean that if she were gone, he wouldn’t miss her very much, because she no longer fit into his days. Maybe she’d become a guilty memory, a “have to” responsibility.

  At the funeral, Lucy had cried, but James had been stoic. That could have been a personality difference, nothing more. Phil had also come to the funeral. He’d snuck in late, as if wanting to be unnoticed. But maybe he was unable to stay away, because he loved her. He thought of her as family.

  Family doesn’t have to be flesh and blood.

  #

  I woke to clicking knitting needles. My face felt puffy and my eyes gritty. I rolled my tongue over my teeth and wished for a toothbrush.

  “Good morning,” Miss LaRue chirped. She smiled at me through her bifocals. A floral scarf hid pink spongy hair curlers. She wore a magenta poncho and a black skirt embroidered with lime green thread. “How are you today?”

  I propped up on an elbow, holding my heavy head. The cat nestled behind my back.

  “I see you made friends with Simon,” Miss LaRue said. She nodded at the cat and a curler escaped from the scarf and rolled beneath her rocking chair. The tabby watched it, but Miss LaRue didn’t notice.

  “I think he made friends with me.”

  Miss LaRue cocked her head and smiled. “Well, then you can’t be all bad.”

  “Actually, I like to think I’m very rarely bad,” I said, pushing myself into sitting position and running my hand through my messy hair. Frowsy, Artie had called it. I thought about Artie and felt sick. Where was she? Was she safe with James? If he were willing to kill Helen Dunsmuir when she became inconvenient, would he also be willing kill Artie if she became a burden?

  I stopped myself. James didn’t kill his grandmother. Helen Dunsmuir wasn’t allergic to peanuts. I felt guilty and stupid for suspecting him. You should never judge a book by its cover, Grammy Hailey would say. And James had a lovely cover. I hoped Artie and James were sailing away to somewhere foreign and romantic.

  “I’d told Chester that it was ridiculous to suspect you of stealing a painting,” Miss LaRue went on. “Artists don’t need to steal—they can just paint their own.”

  “Not this artist,” I said, and then quickly closed my mouth, amazed that I could say something so stupid. Just because I couldn’t paint didn’t mean that I’d steal one of Henry’s dreadful paintings.

  Miss LaRue echoed my feelings. “And why anyone would want to steal any of Henry’s collection is a mystery!” She shuddered. “Except, of course, that picture you supposedly took. That’s a lovely picture.”

  I looked at her in surprise. Yesterday she’d pursed her lips and refused to talk of the case. “The picture I took?”

  “The one of Henry, of course.” Ms. LaRue set down her needles briefly. “It still rankles me. He commissioned a picture of himself and even one of their dog, but not of Helen!” She sniffed and then resumed knitting. “It reminds me of that old poem, “Whenever I tire of my single lot, I think of all the men whose wife I’m glad I’m not.” She sighed. “Of course, Tennyson wrote “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” but truth be told many people would be a lot happier if they kept their hearts behind their rib cages.”

  “You must have known Helen and Henry…did they seem happy together?”

  Ms. LaRue snorted. “They were married for more than fifty years! You can’t expect someone to be happy for fifty years.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not, sometimes you’re happy and sometimes you’re not. Fifty years is a long time, a lot can happen in fifty years.”

  “But in general, do you think they had a good marriage?” I couldn’t say why this seemed important me, but after looking at their pictures last night, their happy smiling faces, I wanted to be reassured that Henry could love Nelly and still make Helen happy.

  I thought back to a long ago English class and the assigned reading of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Archer, despite his love, or infatuation, with Ellen Olenska, married the gentle and genteel May. At the end of his life, whenever he thought
of Ellen, she was abstract, like a character in a book or a picture of a stranger. Ellen became symbolic of all he thought he’d missed. But he’d been a faithful husband, and when May died, he mourned her. Maybe that’s how it was for Henry, Helen, and Nelly.

  Ms. LaRue stopped knitting and placed her needles and yarn in the basket near her feet. “How can anyone know that?” she asked. “How can anyone know what goes on in someone else’s home, let alone their heads or beds? Why, I’ve known seemingly happy people who end up doing the strangest things.” She took off her headscarf and began unrolling her curlers. Her silver hair sprung into tight coils.

  She looked over my jeans and t-shirt with a scowl then looked at my bag that had been left by the door. “Did you bring your Sunday meeting clothes?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I must say, you can’t go to the Lord’s house in that getup. Services start at ten, so we got some time to get you spit and polished.”

  “I can go?” My voice squeaked in surprise, and I had to clear my throat.

  “To church.” She leaned forward and whispered, as if she was sharing a secret. “The case has been dropped.”

  “Dropped?”

  Miss LaRue nodded. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Little Phil, our island’s perpetual bad boy confessed to taking the painting. Said he just wanted a picture of Henry. Isn’t that sweet?”

  I didn’t think sweet described Phil Henderson, but that was at that moment unimportant. “I can leave?”

  “Only if you accompany me to the Sunday meeting.”

  The words “you can’t make me go to church” almost flew out of my mouth, but I thought of all my unanswered questions and reconsidered. I looked down at my rumpled clothes. “I’d really like a spit and polish.”

  Miss LaRue ran her eyes over me and then nodded her approval. “I probably have something you could borrow.”

  “I’d rather find my own clothes,” I assured her. “Miss LaRue, did you happen to know Mrs. Henderson, Phil’s mother?”

  “Avilda?” Miss LaRue turned her head and snickered into shawl. “We used to call her Bisquick. Very naughty of us, I know.”

  “Bisquick? Why?”

  Miss LaRue twittered into her shawl. “Because she had a face like a pancake—white and flat.”

  #

  Nelly was a long cry from Avilda, and I had a hard time picturing Henry fantasying over a girl with a face like a pancake. I rounded a hill where someone had suspended a mirror over a tree limb to reflect a blind spot. That would have seemed odd to me a few days ago when I thought all Lister transportation was hiking boots, golf carts, and scooters, but that was before I learned about yaks.

  I peeked in the mirror, I looked like someone else. My hair was beyond frowsy. I still wore Ryan’s jacket over my T-shirt and jeans. My legs and feet were dusty and dirty. I wonder what unkind nickname Miss LaRue would pin on me.

  I passed the tree where the yak had cornered us. Had it really only been yesterday when I climbed on Ryan’s shoulders into the tree? It seemed ages had past. But right now, I needed to find my luggage, and I needed to find Ryan to see what our next step was.

  The dust felt like silt beneath my feet and between my toes. I stopped at the crest of the hill where the path broke into two: left to the Dunsmuir house, right to the cottage.

  I went to the cottage and tried all the doors and windows but everything was locked up tight. My key was in my luggage, but I remembered the key in the Dunsmuir’s mud room. It seemed improbable that the Dunsmuir house would be unlocked and the cottage locked, but I tramped toward the big house anyway, not knowing what else to do.

  I went through the French doors off the dining room. I only stopped for a moment in the kitchen. I stood in a patch of sunlight and watched a robin redbreast pull a fat worm from the garden and then fly to the cherry tree with her prize. She went to the nest to feed her chicks.

  Henry had built this house, this home, and now the all Dunsmuirs were gone, including James very shortly. And Dina Jenson would pull the house down to expand her shipyard. She didn’t need a large, stone house. I breathed deeply and then went into the mudroom. The cottage key was gone.

  I sat down on the bench, unsure of what to do next. Find my stray things and go home? Presumably Artie and James had already left, and I didn’t know where Ryan was. He had business with the Jensons but I didn’t know where or when. I might as well go to church with Miss LaRue until I could find someone who knew where my luggage was.

  I could have used the door in the mudroom, but I chose to walk through the living room. There, by the front door, stood my luggage. Relieved, I chose the lavender bathroom with the green vine wallpaper for my spitting and polishing. Brown water spurted from the spigot. I let it run until the rust faded and the water turned clear and hot. Steam rose from the tub like a genie.

  Rooting in my bag, I realized I’d left my toiletries in the cottage’s tiny bathroom. I felt a little guilty poking through Helen’s medicine cabinet looking for a bar of soap. I found aspirin, denture cream, and toothpaste. I ran my tongue over my gritty teeth as I poked my head out of the bathroom door. No one was there so no one would know. There are certainly worse crimes than stealing a smear of toothpaste. I squirted toothpaste on my finger and rubbed my teeth. I turned on the sink. Brown water again. I stood a few minutes in the bathroom, the steam billowing around me, my teeth and tongue stinging from the prolonged toothpaste contact, and I spit without rinsing. The water in the tub had turned an acceptable shade, so I plugged the tub before going into the bedroom in search of soap and towels.

  I opened the linen closet and selected a bleached white bath towel. I found a bottle of green apple shampoo but no soap. Then I remembered my friend Jenny’s mom’s household trick of using an open bar of soap for air freshener. Jenny’s mom had a slab of Dial in every closet and Jenny always smelled of deodoranty lemons. I pulled open Helen’s closet and inhaled a pungent smell. Cardigans in every shade of purple hung on a rack, an army of sturdy walking shoes and boots lined low shelves, and wool skirts in a variety of colorful plaids abounded. I pushed aside the clothes and discovered cedar lining, the cause of the pungent smell.

  With a whispered apology to Helen, I opened the lid to a basket, which was filled with silky lingerie. A baby pink teddy, a sheer white camisole, a pair of black fishnet stockings: it all seemed incongruent with the traditional dowdy wear on the shelves. With my arm up to my elbows in finery, I made contact with something small, hard, and soap shaped. I pulled out a black velvet bound book.

  Opening it, I instantly recognized Henry’s bold handwriting. The first poem was entitled “For Nelly.” I’d found a book of love poems handwritten by Henry for Nelly in Helen’s Dunsmuir’s closet. Then it finally hit: Helen was Nelly. Helen wore traditional wools and tweeds, Nelly wore black fishnet stockings, and they were the same person, the person that Henry loved. Henry who collected gruesome art also wrote poetry for his lover, his wife, in a little black velvet book. For Henry, there had only been Helen. He had met her on a starlit night and he’d never looked back, right, or left. He never had to, because Helen had been his wife, his lover, the mother of his child, a gardener, and a seamstress. Helen had lived a rich, full life, and Henry had been enveloped in all of that. He hadn’t needed anyone else.

  The running bath water began to make slurping noises as it reached the overflow drain. Still clutching the little book, I ran into the bathroom to shut off the water. I slipped a little on the steamy slick tiles and then righted myself. Even without soap, the water looked tempting. I set the book down on the pedestal sink, stripped off my clothes, and sank in. The water sloshed up over my chest and I splashed my face. I used the shampoo like soap, rubbing the sudsy gel over my body. I submerged again, disappearing beneath the surface.

  My skin tingled from the heat. I felt clean, new, and no longer sad for Helen and Henry. Instead I was grateful. They taught me a life lesson I had previously wanted to believe, but never really could until today
. Some people really do love forever.

  I’d never seen a sixty-year love. I’d read thousands of disgruntled and unhappy letters. Unfaithful spouses, victims of abuse, victims looking for abuse. Not that I had given up on love, I just hadn’t found one that appealed to me. In my own life my dad didn’t teach me about love. When he was around, he was always accompanied a variety of women. The women came in an assortment of sizes and shapes and colors, but other than that they were all about the same. I loved one once. She took me to the Woodland Park Zoo, we rode on teacups, and fed the bears, but then she left. One day my dad didn’t mention her anymore, and she disappeared with the others. My aunt called the women collection his pets, which is, of course, just an anagram for pests.

  I pulled a leg from the bath and began to towel it off, rubbing hard, enjoying the sensations of feeling clean and rejuvenated. I wrapped the towel around me and carried the book of poems to Helen’s dressing table.

  I picked up the little book and flipped it open to the first poem. I hesitated and decided not to invade on Helen and Henry’s privacy anymore, so I carefully returned the book to the closet. I thought about keeping it, because it seemed a shame for it to be bulldozed along with the house.

  “What are you doing in Miss Helen’s closet?” a voice behind me asked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I hitched up the towel, turned and faced Dina.

  She stepped into the room, her frame blocking the door, my only escape. Her voice sounded as silky as her aquamarine blouse that draped over her coat hanger thin shoulders. She wore a stiff black skirt that rustled when she walked, or rather, marched, toward me.