Hide Yourself Away (3 page)

Still, Gordon knew that his was a dream job. To have the opportunity to open the eyes of others to all the cultural and historical splendor that surrounded them. To revel in his passion— and be paid for the privilege.

Of course, the pay could be better. That was why he always volunteered to teach during the summer session. He had no desire to leave Newport anyway, in this, the high season. If millionaires had chosen the historic City by the Sea as the place to build their “summer cottages,” it was certainly good enough for him. Why should he go away in the most gorgeous months? No,
he took his trips during the winter and spring breaks. In July and August he was content to stay right here.

Just like Charlotte Sloane.

Gordon hadn’t called ahead of time to see if it was all right to bring a group of students to Shepherd’s Point. He didn’t want to risk Agatha’s refusal to allow entry to the grounds of the rambling Victorian mansion built atop acres of rolling farmland at the tip of Newport.

“Go ahead,” he instructed as the driver slowed down at the gates. “Drive right through and over to the playhouse.” As the van rocked across the dirt road worn by the excavating equipment, Gordon continued his narration for his students.

“Shepherd’s Point figured prominently in the history of the African-American in Newport. The mansion was built on the site of a former shepherd’s pasture. A principled man, the shepherd lent his help to the desperate, hunted slaves fleeing their southern masters. A tunnel was built up from the ocean to the small shanty that led to freedom at Shepherd’s Point. Years later, when the grand home was built by the silver magnate Charles Wagstaff, Sr., the tiny farmhouse was shored up and used as a playhouse for the Wagstaff children. The Underground Railroad tunnel was left intact.”

Gordon led the way out of the van, wincing at the pain in
his knee. The students followed as he walked to the weathered playhouse, continuing his lecture as they moved along.

“Until now, there has been only one documented Underground Railroad tunnel open for public viewing. That one slopes toward the home of the noted abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher in Peekskill, New York. There have been rumors about the Shepherd’s Point tunnel, and Newporters have talked about its existence, some even sneaking onto the estate to catch a glimpse.

“Historians have been trying for years to persuade Agatha Wagstaff to allow access to the tunnel and permit essential preservation work. At one point, she had almost acquiesced, but the work was never started. Fourteen years ago, Ms. Wagstaff’s sister, her only sibling, Charlotte Wagstaff Sloane, disappeared. Agatha became a recluse, and the preservation project never happened. Shepherd’s Point, as you can see, sank into decrepitude.”

All eyes wandered across to the gray manor house looming at the top of the sweeping, weedy lawn.

“It was finally lack of money that persuaded Agatha to let the work begin just recently. City officials made a deal by which the back taxes on Shepherd’s Point would be forgiven in exchange for the right to open the tunnel to the public.”

The scholars reached the playhouse. Yellow police tape blocked the entrance, yet no one stood guard. The students watched as Gordon pulled back the tape and opened the door.

“Should we be doing this, Professor?” asked one.

“It’s all right. I’ll take full responsibility. I don’t know what the future of this tunnel will be now, in light of what has just
been discovered here, but I want you all to see this. We may be the last people to witness this historic, sacred place for a very long time.”

The group passed single file through the narrow doorway and huddled in the only room. If there had once been a cot for the shepherd to sleep on or a table and little chairs for the Wagstaff girls to hold tea parties, that furniture had long since been removed. The only sign of the life that had once pulsed inside the walls was the darkened fireplace, ashes still lying on the hearth.

With the pain in his knee always present, the professor knelt to lift a piece of the wooden floor, revealing a narrow wooden staircase. The students craned to look into the dark passage. Engrossed, none of them felt the presence behind them, blocking the doorway.

The shrill voice cut the musty air. “Out! All of you get out of here. Get off my property!”

Agatha Wagstaff, mistress of Shepherd’s Point, stood before them, her blue eyes bulging from her milk-white face, her red lipstick bleeding grotesquely through the lines around her mouth.

“Agatha, please,” Gordon pleaded. “I just want my students to see the tunnel. Just give us a few minutes.”

“No, Gordon. You and your students, get out of here this instant or I’ll call the police. Charlotte never wanted you here to begin with. She didn’t want our home to become a tourist attraction. She never wanted this tunnel opened.”

  CHAPTER  
3

After lunch, Grace gathered with the other interns in the
KTA
conference room as T-shirts were distributed. With pleasure, she inspected hers.
KEY NEWS—CALLAHAN
was imprinted in large black letters on the front of the white shirt. But the vain thrill was replaced by tension as the executive producer strode into the room and began to reel off what would be expected of them on the Newport remote.

“You are on call twenty-four-seven. You’ll all be assigned beepers, and when you are paged you are expected to answer. Promptly.” Linus Nazareth’s deep voice boomed. “That’s what’s expected if you want to work on this broadcast. Every single person on this staff knows that this is a fact of life. And if you are thinking of a career in television news, you better get used to it. If a story breaks, there are no excuses. No hot dates or family birthday parties get in the way of your responsibilities to
KEY to America.”

“That’s okay with me, Mr. Nazareth,” a young man piped up, in a soft drawl. “That’s the way I expect it to be. That’s what gets
me psyched about working in this business. The excitement and unpredictability of it.”

Nazareth looked at the lanky kid leaning against the wall and tried to take his measure. Could this saccharine enthusiasm be for real?

“Anyone might say that when they’re starting out,” Linus answered. “What’s your name again, son?”

“Sam. Sam Watkins.”

“Where do you go to school, Sam?”

“Northwestern.”

“Good school. But you’re not from Chicago, are you?” Linus made an educated guess, hearing the regional twang.

“No. I’m from Oklahoma. Hollis, Oklahoma, sir.”

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” Linus was constantly amazed at how willing these kids were to travel from all around the country to take a summer job that paid nothing and offered no room or board. He had heard one of them had come all the way from England this summer.

Sam nodded. “Yes, sir.”

If it mattered a tinker’s damn to Linus, he would have asked where the kid was staying while he worked in Manhattan, but it didn’t. The interns usually camped out on the sofas or in the guest rooms of apartments in the city or homes in the suburbs of relatives or family friends. Sometimes the students availed themselves of reasonably priced campus housing at one of New York’s universities. Linus wasn’t interested in the details.

“Well, Sam, as I was saying, at first most young journalists are
eager to drop what they’re doing when a story breaks, but that can get old, real fast.” Linus scanned the room. “I ain’t gonna sugarcoat it. It’s better if you know right up front the kind of life that’s ahead of you if you decide to make your living this way.”

As she listened to the executive producer rant on, Grace felt her stomach twisting. This was what she worried about when she woke up in the middle of the night. Grace knew she would hate herself if she ever had to miss her daughter’s birthday. Lucy was getting older, it was true, but she still needed her mother to be there for school shows, teachers’ meetings, doctors’ appointments, and the myriad other events that go with raising a child. And as Lucy approached adolescence, it was as important as ever that parental involvement be strong, especially when one of those parents had chosen to move away and leave her. Still, other women did it, didn’t they? Managed to be good mothers while making a living. There was a way to work things out. There had to be. As long as crucial support was available, it could all fall into place.

Please, God, let Dad stay well,
she prayed. Without her father’s help, Grace didn’t know what she would do.

  CHAPTER  
4

A half hour before quitting time, Grace was finishing her Internet search. She’d found several excellent articles on the arts of scrimshawing and tattooing. There was a common thread. Both required a steady hand: one, carving designs onto bone; the other, onto human skin.

She printed out the appropriate pages, marked them to B. J. D’Elia’s attention at the newsroom being set up in the Bellevue Ballroom at Newport’s Hotel Viking, and fed them into the fax machine. Ten minutes later, the voice on the newsroom intercom crackled. “Grace Callahan, line two.”

The only calls Grace had gotten in the few weeks she had been at KEY News had been from Lucy, making her wish she could be in two places at once, home with her daughter this summer and nailing this internship in the city.

“I’m just about to leave, sweetheart,” she answered as she picked up the phone. “I should be home just after six if the trains are running with me.”

The male laugh on the other end of the line startled her. “Okay, sweetheart, see you then.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was my daughter,” Grace stammered. “Who’s calling, please?”

“It’s B.J., Grace. I got the material you just faxed. It’s exactly what we need. Thanks.”

“Ah, you’re there already.”

“Yeah. It was no problem. Took the Metroliner right up to Kingston and a taxi from the station to the hotel. It’s a nice place; you’ll like it.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Grace said truthfully. She had not been away, without Lucy, since Frank took her along on a business trip to Boston four years ago, and those three days had been anything but fun.

“Grace, I know you’re trying to get out of there and go home, but I was wondering if you could do a little more research for me.”

“Sure. Shoot,” she replied, already trying to remember the times for the later commuter trains out of Penn Station.

“Great.” B.J. launched into his request. “The local newspaper is leading with a story of a human skeleton discovered in an old tunnel on an estate up here called Shepherd’s Point. There’s speculation that the bones might belong to an heiress named Charlotte Wagstaff Sloane, who disappeared fourteen years ago. Then again, they might not. The tunnel was once part of the Underground Railroad, and God knows who could have traveled
through there. But between the mystery of what happened to Mrs. Sloane and the old slave saga, I think this could be something interesting for
KTA
to pursue while we’re up here.”

“You’ve got me hooked,” Grace answered. “I’ll get right on it, and before I leave, I’ll fax you whatever I can find.”

“That’s terrific, Grace. I really appreciate it. And I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“Yep. I’ll be there.”

Grace pushed down the button on the phone to sever the connection and was about to release it again to call her father when Jocelyn stopped at Grace’s borrowed desk. “You’ve got to get home soon, don’t you?” Joss asked.

Grace had the uneasy feeling that the other intern was checking up on her, wanting to make sure that Grace wasn’t looking more devoted to the internship than Joss was. Grace didn’t want to play that game.

“I was about to leave, but B.J. just called and asked me to check something for him.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

What the heck? It’s not a secret.
“He wants some background information on an old missing-persons case up there, a woman named Charlotte Wagstaff Sloane. They found some remains on her family’s estate, and they think they might be hers.”

“At Shepherd’s Point?” A look of recognition lit up the younger intern’s face.

Grace nodded. “You know the place?”

“Yes, I know the family, too. In fact, Charlotte’s daughter,
Madeleine, and I have hung out together in Newport. She’s a good kid, but always just a little strange, as though she’s about to fade away, if you know what I mean. I guess losing her mother really freaked her out for good.”

Switching gears, Joss raised her hand in a farewell salute. “Well, good luck with that, and I’ll see you up there.”

Grace turned back to the phone and punched in the familiar numbers. Walter Wiley answered on the third ring. “Dad, it’s me. Everything going all right?”

“Fine, honey. Fine. Lucy’s upstairs in her room, groaning about doing her summer reading.”

“I’ll get on her when I get home, Dad. Don’t you get into it with her.”

It was nice to have someone else doing the nagging, but she didn’t want her father to aggravate himself. So far, his retirement from a career with the telephone company had been marked with a treatable prostate cancer diagnosis as well as the need to have a pacemaker implanted a few months ago. Although he claimed he felt “fit as a fiddle,” Grace suspected her father didn’t have the energy he’d once had. She’d already lost her mother. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing Dad as well.