Embers (10 page)

"She tries to force the letter on me, but all I can think to say is, 'Where did he try this?'

"'In the nursery, where else?' she says, as if the attacks were a regular thing.

‘What?'
says
I.
'With the
children
there?' It all seems so incredible to me. I don't know what to think, what to believe. And all the while I'm aware that the dollhouse is teetering, because she's leaning on it for support. I don't know what to do — save her, save the house, I don't know what.

"While I'm standing there like a fool, there's a loud banging on the door. I run to open it: it's Gordon Camplin. He looks grim but steadylike. He's looking for Margaret Atwells, he tells me. Then he spies her, hanging back by the dollhouse.

'Mrs. Atwells!' he cries. 'We've been looking all over for you! The household is packed up; everyone's ready to go. The last escape route off the island's been cut off by fire. We've been told to assemble in the Athletic Field. We may have to evacuate by boat. For God's sake, will you come? The children are hysterical without you.'

"Meanwhile,
I
don't know
who
to believe. I look at him: calm, concerned, acting reasonable, trying to keep his large household together. And I look at Margaret: crying, angry, near incoherent. She don't come forward, but hangs back like a cornered thing.

"I begin to — I think I'm going to — intervene. But Gordon speaks first. 'Whatever else has happened, they need you now,' he says quietly to her. 'You're imperiling us all when you delay. Please. Come.'

"He holds out his hand to her. She stands there, for a short lifetime. I can see that she's agonizing whether to believe him. Finally, she gives a long sigh
...
and comes out from behind the dollhouse
...
and goes away with him."

Tremblay stared into indeterminate space, his jaw a little slack, his eyes dull and unseeing. "It was the last time," he said at last, "I ever saw her."

****

This is her story?
Meg thought, crushed with disappointment. She glanced at Tom.
There is no more?
But of course there was. Tom, at least, knew it. And he was waiting for it.

And in the meantime Orel Tremblay was looking at Meg with a sad and considering gaze. "You're right," he said in a shaky, surprised voice. "You're not at all her spitting image."

"She was telling the truth, wasn't she," Meg whispered.

Tremblay dropped his gaze from her and nodded. "When she walked past me with her head so high, that's when I saw the marks, black-and-blue and crystal-clear: the imprints of four fingers on her arm. I don't know how I missed ‘em when she come in. Her cape must've covered them."

"And you let her go," Meg said. "You let
him
go."

"Something you must not do," Tremblay said with a penetrating look at Meg.

"But how was it possible?" asked Meg. "Everyone was evacuating. When would he — how could he —? No, I really don't see it," she said firmly, picturing the chaos of that night. "Besides, it would be a tremendous risk. My grandmother certainly would've reported him to you or the police or someone."

"No risk at all,"
Tremblay said with a black look.

"That's a very serious charge," Tom said quickly.

Meg, puzzled, stared at the two of them.

"Well, think about it," Tremblay retorted. "The big estates was fallin' like dominoes
...
everyone was half hysterical
...
  confusion all around
...
"

It dawned on Meg at last. "Excuse me, wait a minute.   You're not talking about rape anymore, are you? You're talking about
...
murder?
You're saying that Gordon Camplin raped my grandmother and then murdered her?" Meg asked, breathless with shock.

"Make him pay," Tremblay said grimly.

"But—but what
proof
do you have?" Meg wanted to know. Her hazel eyes were wide with emotion. "You weren't even there! You were
here,
with this
...
this
dollhouse,"
she said, regarding it with sudden loathing.

"That's right," Tremblay said, wincing, as if her words were a slap in the face. "I loaded the dollhouse onto the truck, threw a tarp over it and the furnishings, and left it as near as I could to the Field. Then I joined the rest of the town. By then there were a couple thousand people milling on the waterfront, waiting to be carried off by boat. In all the confusion I never did hook up with the Camplins and the others. Everyone'd got scattered."

Tremblay didn't have to recount that last, legendary scene, which had since passed into history. All the world, and certainly Meg and Allie, knew of it: knew of the huge line of fire that enveloped the townspeople to the north and to the west, and the wild, gale-driven sea that offered their only refuge, to the east. Knew of the bright, moonlit sky that hovered over the black, billowing smoke, and the thundering roar of the wind that drowned out their anxious, awestruck chatter.

Twenty-five hundred people survived a night of almost biblical terror. The devil had licked at their heels, and then — when the road to
Hull
's Cove suddenly opened — angels had led them to safety. The twenty-five hundred were members of a very exclusive club — but her grandmother was not.

Tremblay's strength was fading fast. "In the investigation," he said in a dry whisper, "Gordon Camplin told the police that the last he saw of Margaret was when they were on the way to the main house. Supposedly she changed her mind and decided to return to the carpenter's cottage, to evacuate with me."

He shook his head. "What could I say? It sounded plausible. Even
I
wanted to believe it."

Meg's mind was working clearly now. "How did they account for my grandmother's ending up in the main house?"

"Anybody's guess. The Camplin family had already gone on to the Field. Gordon's version is he made a quick pass alone through the house and left.
My
version is he saw the chance of a lifetime and took it."

"No witnesses," murmured Tom. "No crime scene
...
  nothing left at all. I take it you didn't offer your version of events to the police," he said to Tremblay in that dry tone Meg knew so well.

Again Tremblay shook his head. "Who woulda believed me? Gordon was one of the heroes of the evening. He was all places at once, helping the early ones onto the boats and then later, after the road opened back up, helping the firefighters make a stand at Eden and West Streets, even though his own Eagle's Nest was gone by then."

"No, I'm sorry, I can't accept this, Mr. Tremblay," said Meg. "It's too crazy."

"Don't
call me crazy!" the old man said in a croaking roar. Tom silenced Meg with a single look and said, "What you've told us needs to be thought over very carefully, Mr. Tremblay. It's a very serious charge."

"Make him pay," Tremblay repeated doggedly. And then, with sudden, unarguable fatigue, he said, "I'm done."

****

On the other side of Tremblay's front door Tom gave Meg a sharp look and said, "Are you okay?"

Meg took a deep draught of fresh air and let it out in a rush that left her weaving. "I
...
don't know. I'm pretty overwhelmed."

"You're white as a sheet," Tom said, alarmed. He slipped his arm around Meg to steady her. "Let's get you home," he said.

He led her to the car and they drove in silence for a few minutes until Meg's light-headedness passed.

"Well?" she asked in a voice still faint. "What do you think?"

"I think your Mr. Tremblay makes a convincing witness," Tom said carefully.

"Do you believe him?" she asked, rejecting Tom's evasive answer.

"I haven't decided."

"You don't
decide
about believing someone. You either believe or you don't."

"Okay; I believe I haven't decided."

"Damn
it, Tom! Why are you being this way?"

"I'm just your ride, remember? That's all."

"It's not all. You came in. You heard him. You can't just pretend —" She sighed and started over. "Let's just
assume
that a witness came to you who you thought was reliable. Wouldn't you have an obligation to investigate his story?"

Tom said,
"If
I believed Tremblay's story, the only obligation I'd have would be to pass it on to the proper authorities, in this case, Chief Dobney."

"Chief Dobney! Oh, but you can't do that! Not yet!" Meg said, aghast. "This is still a family affair!"

"Look, Meg, this isn't
The
Rockford
Files.
I'm not a private eye — ah, there's Allie," Tom said, obviously relieved.

****

Allie was sitting dejectedly on the bottom step of the front porch, her chin resting on one fist, her other fist clutching the forgotten white bakery bag.

Wyler parked the car on the street, wondering how he'd let himself get sucked into this latest turn of events. God. If it wasn't one sister, it was the other.

He slipped from the front seat to get Meg's door. No question about it, Tremblay's story had grabbed them both by the throats. But Wyler had managed to shake off the old man's grip. Meg, he could see, was having a harder time of it. She was still sitting in the front seat, upset and completely caught up in the tale.

As for Wyler, he'd told Meg the truth: he didn't know whether to believe the old man or not. But even if he
had
believed Tremblay's story, he wouldn't have admitted it to Meg. He knew instinctively that she was the kind of woman who'd want him to investigate immediately and solve the crime in a day or two, just like on TV.

He had his own unsolved mysteries, a drawerful of them:

They were bloody, they were recent, and there was nothing speculative about them. He wanted to explain that to Meg — although he had no idea why it mattered — but right now Allie made that impossible. She'd taken one look at her sister's face and, dropping the abandoned-waif routine, had come running.

"What's happened? Where
were
you?" she demanded to know.

"Tremblay's," said Meg. "I'll tell you all about it." She turned to Wyler, her eyes bright and hard. "Thanks for the
ride,
Lieutenant," she said, clearly dismissing him.

"Wait, Tom; you're not leaving?" cried Allie.

Wyler turned from Allie's violet, don't-go gaze to Meg's get-the-hell-out-of-here look. One sister seemed to cancel out the other.

"Will I see you later tonight?" Allie asked, breaking the deadlock.

Wyler glanced at Meg. It seemed like a good time to make her understand that his interest in the Atwells family was social and not professional. "Love to," he said. "How about seven?"

As he walked away, he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Whether it was from Allie's smoldering look, or Meg's, he wasn't too sure.

After he left, Meg sat down on the bottom step with Allie and told her all she'd learned from Tremblay.

When she finished, Allie, agape, said, "He must
be senile."

"I don't think so, Allie. If what he's saying is true —"

"You're crazy, Meg! Camplin comes back here every summer; everyone knows that. Even divorce hasn't stopped him. And it's not like the guy has turned into a guilty recluse or anything. He's just as active in society as his ex-wife. Why would he come back to the scene of the crime year after year?"

"What scene?" Meg asked. "There
is
no scene, not after the fire." She plucked a dandelion that was growing in a crack in the sidewalk. "If there really was a crime, we're going to have to tread carefully. I want you to promise me —
promise
me — that you won't breathe a word of this morning's visit with Mr. Tremblay to anyone. I need time to think."

"Fine with me," Allie said, shaking her head skeptically. "I think the whole thing's a fantasy, anyway." 

D
usk, and the mosquitoes, had come and gone, and Meg was on the porch swing, alone. No one came out to sit with her, and she couldn
'
t blame them. She
'
d been scary to be around ever since the day Orel Tremblay had first summoned her. Jumpy, irritable, all her senses heightened
—
she
'
d never felt such edginess, as if something momentous or horrible or shocking or joyful
—
or all of the above, for all she knew
—
was about to happen. She thought of animals in the field, jittery before a storm: that was how she felt.

She pulled her shawl more closely around her and gave the worn gray floor of the porch a shove with her foot, sending the wooden seat swinging and squeaking on its chains.