by Linda Hughes
“Oh, no, Herbert. Tell them I’m staying here. This is my home; this is where I live. I don’t want to go anywhere else. Tell them to go away and leave me alone.” She flipped her hand at the others in a gesture of good riddance.
Her husband cajoled for a long while, to no avail. Elizabeth would not move. When he suggested that she at least let the supervisor help her wash her face and hands, and find clean clothes to change into, she looked down at herself.
“Oh, this isn’t paint, is it? It’s blood. That horrible man’s blood. Okay, she can help me. I want him off me.”
The white-faced supervisor came in with a basin of warm water, a washrag, and a towel. With shaky hands the distraught woman washed her resident’s face and hands. Setting the basin aside, she went to the wardrobe and selected a plain blouse and skirt.
Elizabeth stood up and started unbuttoning her blouse.
“Why don’t we step in here to change your clothes,” the supervisor said, motioning toward the studio.
Elizabeth frowned, finding that unnecessary. But if that would help make everybody go away, so be it. She went into the studio where the supervisor helped her into fresh clothes.
Elizabeth came back into her main room, grinning. Herbert stood talking to the sheriff and other man who’d come with Herbert. She heard the sheriff call the other man Judge. Walking up to the three men, she spread her arms and said, “See? Just like new. Now, will you make them all go away?”
Two men were putting Dr. Charles Whitmore’s lifeless body onto a stretcher. They pulled a white sheet up his torso and over his face, only to watch the sheet turn red from blood that had congealed around the dead man’s head. When the men scuttled the stretcher out of the room, the pool of blood left behind on the floor looked like a luminous red pond.
“Somebody needs to clean that up,” Elizabeth demanded, pointing at the liquid life that had drained like a waterfall from the psychiatrist’s neck.
Everyone in the room gawked at her in disbelief.
“Sheriff,” Herbert said in a deep, dull drone she’d never heard before from her husband, “may I have a moment alone with my wife.” Phrased like a question, it had been a demand.
The sheriff nodded at the others and everyone left the room. The sheriff closed the door behind him.
Elizabeth and Herbert stood face-to-face next to the table. Hands loose at his side, back straight, and head high, in that sinister voice he said, “Elizabeth, did you kill Harry?”
Her eyes skittered to the side toward her studio. She wanted to go paint. But she realized that the only way to make him leave, too, was to answer his question.
She looked him squarely in the eyes, chin up. “Yes, I did.”
Not a muscle of his body moved, but somehow Herbert’s entire countenance changed. Paler, less handsome, and even shorter, he rasped, “Why?”
“Oh, Herbert.” She’d totally lost patience with the nincompoop. “He was going to grow up to be a man just like you, marrying some poor woman who didn’t so much as like him, and trying to poke at her all the time in the night. I wanted to spare him being hated like that. So, I sent him to God.” She pointed skyward and looked up.
Herbert’s mouth twitched. His hands balled into fists. His breathing heaved.
“Oh, please, Herbert,” she said disgustedly. “It isn’t like you didn’t know.”
Now tears welled in her husband’s eyes. Ah, he had known. But he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.
“May I please go into my studio now?”
“No, Elizabeth. You’ll never enter that studio again.”
He picked up his hat off the table, put it on, and turned away from her.
“What do you mean? What do you mean I’ll never go in there again!” she yelled hysterically as she headed toward the studio.
Herbert walked around the blood on the floor, went to the hallway door, and reached for the handle. Something stopped him. He turned to his wife and said, “Elizabeth, have you ever killed anyone else?”
Taken aback by the question, she slapped her hand to her chest and indignantly said, “Why, no! Of course not…. not yet.”
Herbert turned his back on her, opened the door, and walked out. She heard him tell the sheriff to do with her what they must.
The sheriff went to Elizabeth and put his hand under her elbow as if to lead her away. She whipped her elbow up out of his reach. “No! I told you I’m not going anywhere! Go away! All of you, get out of my room!” Her shrill scream echoed off the walls.
The sheriff nodded to two big men in white uniforms who came in from the hallway and grabbed Elizabeth by the arms. Each of them twisted one of her arms behind her and put their other hands under her knees to lift her right off her feet. They attempted to carry her toward the door, doing their best to avoid stepping in the pool of blood.
But Elizabeth wasn’t about to go willingly. Twisting and shouting, kicking her feet and flailing her arms with all her might, she flung herself at one of the men and bit his cheek. Blood gushed from the wound.
“Damn!” he yelped. “You bitch!” Dropping his side of her body, his hand went to his face. The cottage supervisor ran back in and whipped off her apron to use as a bandage.
In the meantime, Elizabeth managed to wrangle out of the hold of the other guy, and landed on her hands and knees smack dab in the middle of the big circle of blood on the floor. Trying to stand, she slipped and fell flat on her face. That’s when the sheriff grabbed her by the arm, yanked her up, and together with the one remaining uninjured white-coated man strong-armed her into position so they could carry her out of the room.
Her bellowing pierced the night to match the booms of thunder outside as they hauled her down the stairs, out of the building, and across the broad deluged lawn toward the main building, Building 50, where she would be put in a cell with a locked door and bars on the window.
Herbert stood in the hallway without moving, watching and listening to the whole debacle. Judge cautiously came to his side, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, “Let’s go home, Herbert.”
Herbert Ambrose Sullivan, Jr., left the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, knowing he would never come back.
32
Everyone left at the big house sat at the servants’ kitchen table. All pretenses aside, everyone was so worried about what might be going on at the asylum they had naturally congregated in one of the most inviting places in the house. Meg and Jed sat beside each other with Cook at Meg’s other side. The older woman looked exhausted, as this was way past her bedtime. Peggy appeared disheveled, as if she’d been ready for bed and quickly thrown on a dress to come downstairs. The other servants looked pretty much the same. Sam came in dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, the most casual clothes Meg had ever seen on the man. He looked stricken, explaining he felt guilty at having gone to bed instead of being ready in case Mr. Sullivan needed him.
“I should have driven him,” he lamented.
“Sam, he was in for the night. You had no way of knowing,” Hannah soothed. She sat at the head of the table, seeming like a cross between a matriarch and a mother to everyone here.
They’d already speculated about a dozen things that could be going on, until Jed suggested they should stop lest they drive themselves crazy. “Let’s just wait until they get home when we can find out the facts. Maybe it isn’t as bad as we’re imagining.”
Cook brought out the German chocolate cake and a few picked at theirs but only Peggy had the appetite to finish off a whole piece.
They drank tea, except for Sam who nipped from a flask in his pocket. For a few minutes, he went outside under the shelter of the back stoop to smoke a cigarette, as Cook wouldn’t allow that “rancid smell” in her kitchen, but he quickly finished it off and came back in.
Silent as a menagerie at a museum, no one spoke for a ponderous spell. The only sounds came from the mouth of nature with rain on the roof, wind howling outside, and thunder clapping in the sky. The only living being
inside the house to make a peep turned out to be Kitty, who meowed to get up onto Cook’s lap, which was, of course, allowed.
When they heard the car pull up outside, Hannah was the first at the front door. Flinging it open, she flew onto the porch to greet Herbert with open arms. Meg and Jed fled out right behind her with everyone else in tow.
Once inside, with hats put up and rainwater shucked off suits, Meg’s father looked around at everyone in the room and said, “I need to talk to all of you. However, I’d like to talk to my daughter and Hannah first. Please wait in the kitchen. Meg, Hannah, would you please join me in my study?”
Aghast and afraid, Meg turned to find Jed. His uncle had pulled him aside and seemed to be explaining something to him. Meg followed her father and Hannah into the study, thinking her father looked stricken, walking as straight-legged as a mummy. He closed the door and told them to sit. Wordlessly, they sat.
He poured himself a drink, understandably forgot to offer them one, and then chugged it down before telling them the story of what had happened in Elizabeth’s room at the asylum that night. He ended with, “The sheriff has ordered that she be put in a locked room with bars on the windows until he decides what to do. He fears she could still be a danger to others and maybe even to herself. Until this all gets sorted out she’ll stay there. He told me he’ll probably charge her with self-defense but she’s still clearly too mentally unstable to mingle with the general population of the asylum. That’s quite a statement, isn’t it?”
He spared them the private conversation he’d had with his wife.
Hannah couldn’t keep her seat, going to Herbert’s side and wrapping her arms around him. He set down his empty glass and returned the embrace. Meg stood, hesitating as to what to do. Hannah looked over at her.
“Meg, come here!” she insisted, stretching out her arm in an invitation to join them.
Meg rushed over and the three of them found solace in the warmth of each other’s grasp.
After a few moments, her father pulled away, took out his pocket handkerchief, and wiped at moisture under his eyes.
“You need to tell the others, don’t you?” Hannah asked.
“Yes. It’ll be the gossip of the town by tomorrow morning, what with so many people from town working at the asylum. They need to know.”
Hannah nodded and patted his chest. “Let’s go.”
They left the study. Meg found Jed and his uncle sitting stiff-backed on a couple of equally stiff-backed chairs in the vestibule. Jed came to her and slowly entwined her in his arms. He kept his arm around her waist as they followed the others into the kitchen.
There her father stood at the head of the table; everyone else took a seat. Her father looked down at them and their expressions told him they already understood that this would be ominous news. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,” he started, and then he told the crux of the story again. “I wanted you to know so that you won’t be caught off guard or embarrassed. It’ll be the gossip of the town by morning. If any of you are uncomfortable working here, I understand, although I hope you’ll all stay.”
Numerous sets of wide eyes stared at him.
“Are you daft, Mr. Sullivan? And you being an Irishman to boot,” Peggy piped up. “Now why would we want to be leavin’ somebody as good to us as you?”
That broke the depressing spell and everyone smiled, nodding agreement. Sam said, “Here, here!” and raised his flask.
Blushing, Meg’s father said, “I’m honored by your loyalty.”
Then, as if there hadn’t been enough trauma for one night, the most unexpected thing happened. Abby burst through the backdoor.
Everyone jumped in surprise but Hannah almost knocked over her chair, being first to get to her feet. “Abby! Look at you. You’re drenched! Come, stand by the fire. Let’s get you a dry shawl.”
Without being asked, Peggy left the room in search of a warm shawl.
Abby looked at Hannah but her dark glazed eyes didn’t seem to see. It was as if she looked through the woman, not recognizing what stood before her. The fortune teller raised the lantern she carried as her gaze scuttled around the room, landing on Herbert Sullivan.
“Come,” she said so quietly yet so firmly that he didn’t question the command. They seemed to share an unspoken secret that only they could understand. Abby ran back out the door into the festering storm and he followed.
“Abby! Herbert!” Hannah hollered. “At least take umbrellas!” But they were already gone, having vanished into the sodden, black night.
33
Abby tore through the dunes, up one hill, over the gazebo, and down the other side. Wind and rain clawed at her face. Thunder roared in her ears and lightning struck the path ahead, warning her to stay away. She would not be deterred.
Tired of being afraid, tired of living a lie, she carried on with Herbert Sullivan in her wake. He already knew, her spirit guides told her, what would come but he needed to see it in order to overcome the lie himself. He needed closure and healing.
When she reached the cottage, she flung the door open, went straight to the open trapdoor, and descended the ladder. Herbert lagged just far enough behind, having found it difficult to keep up with her pace in the storm, that when he entered the utterly dark cottage he was confused. Where had she gone?
A thick bolt of ravaging lightning struck the bay, casting enough illumination into the room that he could see a faint glimmer of Abby’s lantern down a hole in the floor. He followed as a deafening clamor of thunder reverberated throughout the sky and water and earth, bidding him to be aware of what lay beneath the ground.
Herbert didn’t flinch at the oddity of a cave underneath the cottage. He had only one objective in mind. Ahead at a bend in the cave, Abby stood with her back to him, head bent, shoulders stooped, and lantern held forlornly at her side. When she heard Herbert’s footfall behind her she stepped aside without looking up, her weeping focus on what lay on the ground. Herbert Sullivan stepped over the rubble of rock strewn in all directions and peered into a stone cubby in the cave wall.
His strong, masculine legs gave way as he fell helplessly to his knees and began to wail. Gently touching first one bone and then another and another of the child’s skeleton before them, he cried, “Harry. My Harry. Oh, Harry, what did she do to you?”
Abby stood mute for time immemorial before coming to consciousness and stooping to her knees beside him. “Herbert,” she said, “let’s pray.”
Herbert Sullivan grabbed her hand and nodded, hanging on with the grip of a drowning man. Abby held on tight and said the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven…”
They said “Amen” in unison and then one-by-one they gathered the bones, he taking off his jacket to use as a sack and she gathering up the hem of her skirt to do the same. They also took the few remaining pieces of decayed cloth from little Harry’s blue suit, his cracked black patent leather shoes, and a lock of black hair. Herbert reverently picked up the skull last and cradled it to his chest.
Solemnly, they left the cave, climbing the ladder up into the cottage.
Meg, Jed, and Hannah, looking dazed and confused, had just come through the door that had been left open to the elements. Hannah closed the door behind them and they frantically closed their umbrellas and shook off rainwater. Jed carried a lantern that flickered poor light. Some moments passed before they saw Herbert and Abby standing by the fireplace.
“There you are!” Meg said. “We went to Abby’s cabin looking for you but when you weren’t there we…” She stopped.
Her father ignored them, instead walking over to the chaise lounge and gently spilling his share of the bones onto it. Abby placed hers beside them. They put down the cloth, shoes, and lock of hair. Herbert opened his coat to reveal the small skull he held there, positioning it beside the rest of the skeleton. Two small, black eye sockets set against stark white bone stared up at them.
Hannah gasped, her hand to her mouth. Meg dissolved into s
obs. Jed stared in disbelief as his eyes brimmed with tears.
No one needed to say it. Elizabeth Sullivan had murdered her child. They could only pray she’d done so mercifully but knew they would never know. It wouldn’t make any difference to know how it had been done.
The child had been dead for fifteen long years.
The storm outside mellowed, with onyx clouds tumbling off into the horizon. Lightening hit miles inland, sending only a murmur of thunder to rumble harmlessly across the bay.
The state of shock induced by the discovery of his child’s skeleton ebbed and Herbert eventually spoke. “I want no one else to ever know about this. We’ll say the bones were found on our property, which is true. No one needs to know the full extent of my wife’s madness. We’ve suffered enough.”
They all stood transfixed as the father gathered his son’s remains into his coat with gentleness worthy of handling a sleeping baby.
Hannah hugged him. Jed drew Meg to him in a warm embrace. When Meg saw Abby standing alone staring out the window, her face harrowed with grief, Meg went to her and said, “Abby. Come.” Enfolding the Indian woman in her arms, Meg whispered in her ear, “I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life for finding my little brother.” Abby squeezed her eyes shut and stroked Meg’s hair as they clung to each other.
So, this was what it felt like to love a child.
34
Elizabeth thought she might go mad.
“Where in hell is that son-of-a-bitch husband of mine?” she screamed for the hundredth time. At first her jailers, who called themselves nurses, had tried to calm her down, talking to her in low tones. Now, after three days, they ignored her.
The cell those horrible men had thrown her into was tiny, only six by nine feet. Oh, they called it a “room,” a misnomer as far as she was concerned. The one window had bars and couldn’t even be opened. The heavy wooden door remained locked. There was a small bed but they only brought clean white sheets, a pillow, and a blanket at night, and they took them away in the morning. They wouldn’t even let her go to a water closet outside the cell; they gave her a stinking chamber pot instead, emptied by a worker three times a day. Twice a day a worker brought a fresh basin of water, a cloth, and a towel for washing but then took them away as soon as she finished. Someone brought her three meals a day, the same food she’d always had, but she refused to eat.