A Stillness of Chimes (18 page)

Maybe he’d imagined it, like Keith’s boys imagined ghosts and haunted houses. Then they talked themselves into believing their own fantasies.

“No,” Sean whispered. “I saw it.”

Keith pointed at Sean’s beer bottle. “How many of those did you polish off before you came over?”

“Zero. And I didn’t drink when I was twelve. I know what I saw.”

“I’m listening.”

On the verge of retreating, Sean asked himself if he really wanted to keep the secret any longer. He’d worried over it for more than half his life. He’d tried to make sense of it but he couldn’t. Maybe there was no sense. Keith might be able to help him see that, help him leave it behind. Or he too might imagine the worst.

Sean put the beer down. He wanted to start the story with virtually no alcohol in his system. Proof that he was in his right mind. Completely sober, anyway.

“Okay. First, all joking aside. Give me your word that you won’t tell Annie. I love her, man; she’s great, but this needs to stay between you and me.”

Keith hesitated. “Just this once, I won’t tell her.”

“All right, then. When you went into the service, I started spending a lot of time in the woods, just roaming around. Staying away from Dale because you weren’t around to watch my back.”

“I wouldn’t have enlisted if I’d—”

“No, you had your life to live. You didn’t have to stay and baby-sit your kid brother. That’s not what we need to talk about, anyway. This is what I saw. Listen up, because I won’t want to repeat myself.”

“Go ahead.” Keith leaned forward, making his chair creak.

“I saw something very strange, once. At the lake.”

“Hamlin Lake has seen its share of strange things.”

“This wasn’t at Hamlin. I’m talking about the little lake on old man Bennett’s property. Remember him?”

“The grumpy old dude who made a fortune selling all those lake lots?”

“That’s him.” Sean closed his eyes. “I was up there, in the brush above his lake. All of a sudden, there was this little brown car, blasting its way out of the woods on one of those skinny dirt tracks that led to the lake. It was heading straight for the water.”

He stopped, listening to the crickets and the peepers and the wind flexing its muscles in the trees. Keith stayed quiet.

“It slowed down some. The door popped open, and Elliott jumped out in the nick of time. The car flew out over the water and smacked into it—made this huge splash and a noise like a gun going off, almost—and then it rocked, back and forth, back and forth, sort of settling. And Elliott—he’d rolled a couple of times and stood up—he just watched it sink.” Sean stopped. “You still with me?”

“Yeah. Go on.”

“It didn’t take long to sink, but the lake kept rippling for a long time. Elliott stayed there. Absolutely still. Watching and waiting. Like he wanted to make sure the car was really … drowned.” Sean swallowed, remembering how he’d worried that the car would come boiling back out of the water, raised from the dead, because Elliott had seemed to expect just that.

“Is that all you saw?”

“Elliott hollered something. I couldn’t make it out, though. Then he fell
on his knees in the grass and cried. Rocked back and forth on his knees and cried like a baby.”

“Weird.”

“No kidding. A grown man, deliberately drowning a car and then crying his heart out. Like he’d changed his mind or something.”

“What did he do then?”

“He walked back the way he’d driven in.”

A noise behind Sean made him jump. The kitchen window was open. Annie wouldn’t eavesdrop, would she? Keith didn’t react though, so Sean decided he was imagining things.

“When was this?” Keith asked.

“I don’t remember exactly. You know how it is when you’re a kid. You don’t look at the calendar. You don’t keep track of the comings and goings of adults, either. So I’m not clear on the timing.”

“But it was on Bennett’s land? Whereabouts?”

“I don’t remember.” Sean picked up the beer again. “Even if I had a clue, I wouldn’t recognize the spot now. It’s been sold, subdivided, filled up with those fancy houses. No way could I show you where it happened.”

“I was just wondering if we could find the car.”

“It wouldn’t be easy. They say that little lake is deep. Even deeper than Hamlin. But why would you want to find it?”

“Why didn’t you call the cops?”

“Bennett had run me off a couple of times already. I was no-good Dale Halloran’s kid. Why would I call the cops and admit I’d been trespassing? So Dale could pick me up at the station and beat the living daylights out of me?”

Keith didn’t respond.

“Why would you want to find the car?” Sean repeated, dreading the answer.

“To see if there was anything—or anybody—in it.”

Exactly. There it was again. Plain as day to Keith too.

The brothers sat in silence for a long time. The beer wasn’t going to Sean’s head. He felt clear, almost too clear, as if sharing the memory had ripped a veil from his mind. The new view was stark. Disturbing.

“Might be nothing,” Keith said at last. “Might be nothing at all.”

“I hope you’re right.” Sean polished off the beer and got to his feet. “I’d better head home. Thanks for listening.”

“Hold on. You haven’t told Laura about this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, first, because I haven’t told
anybody
about it until right now. I didn’t want to face it myself. But the thing is, if Elliott’s dead anyway, why make Laura live the rest of her life believing he killed somebody?”

“What if he comes back?”

“Then we’ll have a whole new set of problems.”

“Think about telling her, though, Sean. Think hard. You might even try praying.”

“I have. I’ve prayed about it for years. I’ve looked for an explanation that doesn’t involve crime or insanity. Haven’t found it yet.”

“I’m not sure you ever will.”

Dangerously close to losing it, Sean stood up. “You’re probably right. Thanks for listening.” Making his body language loose and relaxed, he strolled down the steps and climbed into his truck where he wouldn’t have to pretend he wasn’t crying.

Nearly midnight. The wind chimes tinkled against a backdrop of coyotes yipping in the hills. Laura needed sleep, but she knew she would only lie awake and listen while a headache throbbed behind her eyelids.

The kitchen table looked naked now, bereft of the plants. One-legged Katie the doll lay there, literally naked while she waited for her dress to dry. Most of the stains had come out of the fabric, but the grime on her face was there to stay, the result of countless hours of outdoor play with Cassie.

Laura picked up the doll and wondered if she could create a new leg out of fabric and stuffing. Someday, maybe, if she hung on to the doll.

Restless, she put it down and moved into the den. There was a gap where the cedar chest had stood for years. She missed it already.

The past was slipping away in fragments. Even if Sean’s descendants kept the chest long after he was gone, they could never know everything it represented.

Property, possessions, even memories would be gone someday. A family could record its history somehow, in journals or scrapbooks or even online, but nothing was safe forever. Websites and computers could crash, and even the most interesting family records could succumb to mildew or fire. Or some great-grandchild might throw precious old papers and photos in the trash, saying, “You can’t hang on to everything.”

In the long run, you couldn’t hang on to
anything
.

The piano’s rack still held one of her father’s songbooks. Laura trailed her finger across the cover, a faded blue. He’d loved to sing the old ballads with Sean, their unschooled voices a perfect blend. Sometimes Sean had given her a subtle wink to accompany the corniest lines about true love.

She found one of the earliest journals and curled up in the double rocking chair her dad had built of sturdy oak and upholstered in a tapestry-like fabric. Wide enough to seat two, it had been a favorite spot for her and Sean when they were teenagers.

But she had to stop thinking about him.

She checked the date of the journal’s first entry and realized it coincided with the approximate time of her conception.
We stopped at the perennial farm in D’ville again
, her mother had written.
He bought me a daylily plant. He’s so sweet
.

Laura smiled sadly at the idea of the young lovebirds buying perennials in the late fall. The daylilies must have been in bloom by the following August when she was born.

Out there in the night, the daylilies still swelled with color and life. Her mother had loved them, not because they were anything special, but because they’d been a gift from her husband.

She’d never stopped loving the lilies. She’d never stopped loving her husband either. Still, Laura couldn’t forget the body language in the snapshot she’d taken of her parents and Gibby in front of the dogwood. If someone had taken scissors to the picture, cutting her dad out of it, her mom and Gibby would have looked like a happy couple. Just the two of them.

The wronged husband might have cut himself out of the picture, so to speak, even if he’d only imagined that he’d been wronged.

“I hope that’s all it was,” she said softly.

Mikey seemed to think she was talking to him. He jumped up beside her, blinked, and curled up in a ball against her thigh.

Laura scratched the top of his head. “Do you remember my mom? Do you remember how much she loved you? She loved me and my dad too. I know she did.”

A young cat twelve years ago, Mikey might have been snoozing on a kitchen chair when her folks launched into an ugly confrontation. While Laura fled to Cassie’s house, Mikey might have dived under the hutch and heard the rest of it.

If only cats could talk.

The nickel tour of the Halloran Building started with the elevator ride to the third floor. Even the slow-moving elevator was posh, lined with dark, rich woods. Cassie leaned against the brass railing and smiled at her dad.

“Very nice,” she said. “Nicer than I remembered.”

“Most people will never see the third floor. Ground floor? Ordinary. Second floor? Very, very nice. Third floor?” He grinned. “Opulence, baby.”

“Where do you find tenants who can afford opulence?”

“Oh, they’re around. People who’ve moved here from other parts, mostly. I’ve already had a few nibbles on the vacancy.”

“Is it true that Sean’s great-greats built the place on their profits from bootleg liquor?”

“It’s partly true,” he said. “They had money before Prohibition. They were the bigwigs of Prospect. Civic leaders and all that. But they didn’t mind sliding over to the wrong side of the law now and then to make a buck.”

“However they made their money, it’s sad that Dale lost it all. Keith and Sean never got a cent.”

“Don’t worry about the Halloran boys. They’ve done all right, both of them.”

The sluggish elevator came to a gentle halt. The door opened on a
spacious corridor with plush carpeting and more of that luxurious wood. He led her to the first door on the right, unlocked it, and flung it open with a flourish. As if she’d never seen it before.

It was worth seeing again, though. An ornate ceiling soared high above her head. Simple but elegant woodwork trimmed the tall windows, and a massive fireplace stood empty, its mantel sleek and graceful.

“It’s as awesome as I remember,” she said, stepping inside.

“Check out the view, honey.”

She walked to the window. The town lay before her, surprisingly large. Beyond it, the mountains rolled off to a smoky horizon. “What a beautiful little town.”

“Think you and Drew might consider moving home someday? The cost of living is so much lower here. Why keep chasing that California dream if you can’t quite afford it?”

Cassie kept quiet. She hadn’t known the California dream would cost her the dream of starting a family. Now Drew was completely committed to living there. He’d invested his heart and soul, not to mention his savings, in his business. And she was the loyal and supportive wife who would stand by him as the years ticked away.

She put on a cheerful face. “There’s nothing wrong with chasing dreams,” she said. “Like you chased your dream of being a land baron.”