In a Dark Season (18 page)

Chapter 20

Who Are Her People?

Friday, December 22, and Saturday, December 23

M
um, have you heard
anything
I just said?”

“What?” Elizabeth looked up from the book she was reading—rereading, if truth be told, for the umpteenth time—a tattered and loose-paged paperback of Dorothy L. Sayers’s
Gaudy Night.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, did you say something? I was just finishing a chapter while I drink my coffee and let lunch settle.”

Her thumb held the place
that wonderful scene in the punt
while her face attempted to give the impression of total attention to her daughter’s words. “Did you and Rosemary eat in town?”

“Yeah, we grabbed a wrap at the deli. Rosie stayed down at the workshop—she wants to make a wreath to take back to hang in her office.”

Laurel dropped onto the sofa and fixed her mother with an unrelenting eye. “What do you know about Amanda’s family?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Not much—they’re friends of your aunt Glory; they evidently have a lot of money—Ben says they have several vacation homes. But, Laur, didn’t you tell me your generation wasn’t into all that ‘who are her people?’ stuff—that you prefer to judge a person by what they themselves—”

“Okay, I know I said that,” Laurel waved off the question and pressed on, “and usually it’s true. But Rosie and I got to talking and—”

She stopped abruptly and looked toward the front door. “Someone’s out there. Is Phillip—”

With a barely concealed sigh, Elizabeth laid down her book, stood, and went to the door to let in Molly and Ursa. “Phillip went in to Weaverville. He needed to pick up his mail and take care of some other stuff at his house. And, as far as I know, Ben and Amanda are making a delivery. So we’re all alone.”

She watched the dogs curl up before the fire, then sat down by Laurel. “What’s bothering you, sweetie?” she asked, raising one hand to ruffle her tall daughter’s red curls.

Laurel pulled her feet in their thick orange-and-purple socks up on to the sofa and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her face was set in an expression of anxiety, so different from her usual carefree exuberance that Elizabeth felt a prickle of cold apprehension.

“Like I said, Mum, Rosie and I’ve been talking.”

Elizabeth waited but Laurel seemed unable to continue. As she wrestled to form a sentence, Laurel began to twist a lock of her hair in the old familiar sign that something was bothering her. Finally, with excruciating reluctance, she got it out.

“Mum, it’s Amanda—she doesn’t seem…Rosie and I, we both think she’s…well, too good to be true and we don’t want Ben to get hurt again. Did you know that Amanda’s dad is some kind of big-time developer? We Googled his name and found out he builds these monster resorts all over the country.”

Elizabeth leaned back into the cushions, eyeing her unfinished book. “Well, I know we’re all kind of sensitive about developers recently, but it isn’t actually
illegal.
Besides, according to Ben, Amanda’s not close to her family—she can’t help what her father does.”

Laurel’s anxious expression deepened. “It’s what
Amanda’s
doing that has us worried. She’s been spending lots of time at the library—”

“Laurel!
Sweetie!
Since when is
that
suspicious behavior?”

“And
she’s been at the Registrar of Deeds. She was there today. Rosie and I think she’s working for her dad. Don’t you see”—Laurel grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and squeezed, as if trying to force her mother to understand and share her concern—“if it gets out that a big developer is putting together something for a multimillion-dollar resort, land prices’ll go out of sight and owners will hold out for top dollar. But if people think she’s just another dreamer who wants a place in the mountains—”

“Whoa!” Elizabeth broke into Laurel’s increasingly impassioned outburst. “Do you really think Amanda’s been buying property? You do realize that land purchases are published—don’t you think folks like Sallie Kate would notice one person buying lots of adjoining properties?”

“Well, maybe she hasn’t made her move yet,” Laurel insisted. “Maybe she’s going to work with lots of different realtors and make all the purchases right at the same time. I don’t know what exactly it is, but she’s up to
something.”

Elizabeth was amused to see her daughter’s lower lip thrust out just as it had when Laurel was an obstreperous toddler, thwarted in some ambitious plan.

“And another thing, Mum, why does she have a box at the post office? I know she gets a lot of mail here, mixed in with yours and Ben’s—what does she need a post office box for—unless it’s for mail she doesn’t want you all to see?”

“The girls concocted this conspiracy theory all because they saw Amanda coming out of the Deeds Office. Apparently she didn’t see them, so after she was gone they went into the office themselves. One of Rosemary’s friends from high school works there, and she told Rosie that Amanda had been in quite often but she—the friend, I mean—didn’t know what Amanda had been looking for. And then later, the girls were passing the post office and through the window they saw Amanda unlocking one of the rented postal boxes.”

Christmas cards—Sandy and good old hairy-assed Don, one from that car dealership where I was pricing a four-wheel drive, bills, junk, more bills—
Phillip raised his eyes from the stack of letters he was sorting through to see Elizabeth studying him, waiting for a response.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He dropped the letters onto the kitchen table, gave her a lingering hug, and looked over her shoulder at the pots on the stove. “I don’t get it; the other night they were all having so much fun together—I was thinking how well Amanda fit in. I would have sworn your girls really liked her.”

“Me too.” Her lips brushed his cheek and she returned to her dinner preparations: assembling a salad, cracking the oven door to check on the heating bread, stirring the thick mass of spicy black beans, lifting the lid of the pot where rice was simmering.

Phillip sniffed the rich aromas greedily, hoping that dinner would be soon. “Can I do anything?”

Elizabeth turned a harried eye on him. “Make a suggestion. How can we find out what Amanda’s up to?”

“Oh.” He snagged a cherry tomato from the container on the counter and popped it into his mouth. “I meant do you want me to set the table or open some wine. But as for Amanda and her suspicious activities, why don’t they just ask her?”

“Laurel said she was going to. They’ve all gone in to Asheville to listen to music at some pub tonight. I expect before the evening’s over Laurel will find a way to work it into the conversation.”

Elizabeth was chopping a large red onion with careless speed, her face screwed up against the fumes. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Lizabeth, what do
you
think about Amanda? I sure wouldn’t figure her for some kind of corporate advance man—you just have to look at her and Ben together. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.”

The frenetic chatter of the knife on the cutting board slowed, then stopped. “That’s true. And that’s what makes even the
possibility
that she’s not here just because of Ben so disturbing. I don’t think he can survive another heartbreak.”

“She acted kind of funny, Mum.” Laurel poured a second cup of coffee and joined her mother and sister at the table. “We were at the pub, all sitting around with our beer, and when the band took a break I said, kind of joking-like, ‘So, Amanda, Rosemary and I saw you this morning coming out of the Deeds Office. We waved but you didn’t see us. Are you going to buy property in Marshall County?’”

Elizabeth pushed aside the pile of Nola Barrett’s papers that she had been studying. Her girls.
Almost like old times, both of them in their flannel pajamas, here at the breakfast table together.
Laurel’s uncompromisingly red hair was a tousled mop around her angular face, while Rosemary’s usual sleek, low ponytail had been replaced by two braids.
Just like she used to wear it when she was five. I swear, it’s hard to believe she’s…my god, she’ll be thirty-one next month! And Laurie just turned twenty-six. Amazing.

Tearing herself away from happy nostalgia, she addressed the present. “And what did Amanda say?”

Rosemary looked up from the book she’d been reading as she nibbled at a muffin. “She didn’t say anything for a moment, Mum. You know how unflappable she usually is? Well, it seemed to me that she was rattled by Laurie’s question. She had that deer-in-the-headlights expression for an instant and then she recovered, took a sip of beer, and said something about historical research and that she had a relative who she thought might have owned property in the Ransom area.”

“And then the fiddler started up again and that was the end of it.” Laurel yawned widely. “Ben and Amanda left not too long after that, and Rosie and I went down to my studio and ended up going to a Christmas party over at the Wedge.” She flashed a devilish grin at her sister. “I wish you could have seen Rosie boogeying down with Rafiq. She made such an impression on him that I think he’s in love again—”

“But what was really interesting to me, Mum,” Rosemary overrode her sister’s tale, ignoring it out of existence, “was the way Ben was acting—all protective of Amanda—as if she were a…” The professor of English struggled to find the perfect phrase, frowned, and resorted to the inevitable. “…a bird with a broken wing. But I still wonder…”

Rosemary heaved a sigh and craned her neck to look at the pile of papers in front of Elizabeth. “What’s all that? Are you writing a book, Mum?”

She reached for the top pages and began to peruse them. “Oh, this is what you were telling me about—the stuff that crazy old lady wrote.”

“Not that old, nor that crazy.” Elizabeth pulled the photocopy of the map from the folder at the bottom of the pile and pushed it across the table toward her daughters. “You’ll like this—it’s a copy of a map of the river from the mid-1800s.”

The two heads bent together as the sisters marveled over the spidery calligraphy and delicate delineations. “Look, there’s Sill’s Slough—and it shows a big house near the river there. And there’s that creepy old house at Gudger’s Stand. But there’s no bridge—”

“I’ve seen this map before…” Laurel’s head jerked up and she turned a puzzled face to Elizabeth. “It was…” Closing her eyes, she drummed her fingers on the table to aid her memory. “I know—it was in the Troll’s house. In a frame on the wall.”

Elizabeth shoved her chair back and jumped to her feet. “Wait a minute! Let me see that map.” Peering over her daughters’ shoulders, she jabbed a finger at the name on the foot of the map and the inscription
—Thos. W. Blake fecit ~ 1861.

“It just means Thomas W. Blake made this map in 1861, Mum.” Rosemary’s tone was professorial.
“Fecit
is Latin for—”

“I know that much Latin, sweetie. Four interminable years in high school. But I didn’t make the connection till now.” Elizabeth stared at the words, thinking hard. “Girls, I think we need to take the Troll a little neighborly Christmas cheer—maybe some of that pumpkin bread I made yesterday. It’s time to talk with Mr. Thomas W. Blake—the Fifth.”

Chapter 21

Echoes in an Empty Room

Saturday, December 23

I
t was a room full of echoes. Look at these nice flowers Lavinia has brought you. Lavinia has brought you. Nice flowers Lavinia has…and how could one know which of the echoes was the first utterance and which were merely the repetitions, the bounced shadow-sounds? And if you repeated yourself, as they said that you did, did you repeat yourself? Then who was to say what was repetition and what was not?

Did Cousin Randall come to them as he came to you, angry and shaking his cane, sputtering and choking as he tried to speak? Choking as you are choking now. Take it away, away.

Who stands at my bed foot, whispering in a terrible voice, Let justice be done? Oh, wake Duncan with thy knocking! Wake! Wake!

“Wake up, Nola. You’re having a nightmare, I do believe.”

The fingers grasped her shoulders, shaking her, breaking her, waking her. Nola Barrett moaned and struck out with all her feeble strength.

They flitted in and out, changing, always changing. One offered her juice,
too sweet, too sweet, Kool-Aid, aidez moi, no, NO, not the pill, willy nilly, the pill will make me nil, will I, nil I, I will be nil.

“Do you hear me, Nola? Open your mouth. I want you to swallow this down right now and stop this nonsense.”

Non sense, I am making non sense. No, I will not gulp, gullible gull though I seem. No pill, no pill, the pill will make me nil.

Fingers pried at her lips, held her nose, pulled at her chin, forcing her mouth open.
No, not again, I say no, not again.

“Goddammit, you
bit
me, you fucking bitch!”

The savage pinch on her inner arm stung and throbbed, but the brutal hands released her jaw.

“Is Nola actin’ ornery agin?” Another voice in the room, and a blob of pink and orange appeared in Nola’s limited field of vision. It was accompanied by the acrid whiff of cigarette smoke that had become all too familiar.

“She’s a little agitated, but I think she’ll quiet down pretty quick now. I’m just going to wash my hands and then I’ve got to get out of here.”

Water running, gurgling in the sink, water splashing. Rubber-soled shoes squeaking over the linoleum and out the door. The fat pink-and-orange blob sank into the chair by the bed. There was a
click
and the rush of canned laughter.

“Let’s watch us some TV, Nola sweetie. You want the rest of your nice juice? No? Well, I’ll just finish it up then.”

Summoning all her strength, Nola Barrett turned in her bed to face the wall, opened her mouth, and silently spat the white tablet from her mouth. Her trembling hand scrabbled its way unsteadily over the pillow till her fingers touched the sticky object. Concentrating all her will on the disobedient fingers that seemed to belong to someone else, Nola began to push the pill slowly, inexorably toward the edge of the mattress.

Phillip’s eyes narrowed. The thin figure climbing into the truck parked below the old stand was familiar. As was the purple jacket and the dark red hair.
And the big fella at the wheel must be the boyfriend Lizabeth mentioned, Rocky or some such name. Wonder what they’re up to?

The truck was parked near the foot of the road leading up to the old house and almost in front of the brick building inhabited by the man the Goodweather girls had called the Troll. Phillip brought his car to a stop on the shoulder of the road at a discreet distance and pulled a map from the pocket on the door, unfolding it almost to its full extent and holding it up to cover most of his face.

I’m just another lost tourist. A little out of season but those two aren’t paying me any mind. Looks kinda like they’re having an argument.

The driver was facing straight ahead, shoulders hunched, both hands gripping the steering wheel of the idling truck, while the thin young woman was turned in her seat to face him. Her hands darted and gesticulated. The driver sat unmoving as the silent tirade grew to a climax. At last the young woman’s hands dropped out of sight and Phillip saw her abruptly turn away. For a moment the occupants of the truck were frozen in their respective poses, then the driver stirred, exhaust poured from the rear of the truck, and it pulled out into the empty road, made a slow U-turn, and chugged away toward Dewell Hill.

From over the top of his map, Phillip could see that Nola Barrett’s niece was still staring out her window, her pale features set in an angry scowl. On the rear window of the truck cab a white decal showed a plump kneeling cherub and the words
Our Angel—Little Ricky—2004–2006.

The truck had just labored round the hairpin curve above the old stand and out of sight when Blaine’s cruiser appeared. Hastily Phillip refolded the map into an approximation of its previous size. He started his car and slowly followed the sheriff up the road to the old house.

Only a litter of twigs and small branches remained of the tree that had blocked the road on the day of Nola Barrett’s suicide attempt. The two vehicles jolted over the ruts and pulled to a stop at the side of the forbidding building. Phillip cut his ignition and, seeing that his friend was pulling on heavy gloves, tugged his watch cap down around his ears before he climbed out of his car.

“I’d be interested to know who sawed up that tree,” Mackenzie Blaine said, emerging from his car.

“Probably someone looking for firewood, don’t you reckon?” Phillip shivered and looked up at the old house, trying to imagine its towering chimneys plumed with smoke. In its usual fickle fashion, the weather had moderated. The recent snow had vanished and the temperatures were moderate forties and fifties. Still, it was chilly, up on this hill above the river.

“Could be. They certainly hauled it all away.” The sheriff pointed to a confusion of heavy-treaded tracks. “But there’d be no need to come all the way up to the house if what they wanted was just the firewood.”

“Well, hell, Mac, maybe they were just curious about this old place. Lizabeth says there’re all kind of stories about it—not just Nola jumping or the old man getting murdered, but going way back—”

Blaine waved a dismissive hand. “I know, I know, the drovers’ gold, the Union gold, the Confederate gold—why is it that people always want to believe in buried treasure? C’mon, Hawk, let’s take a little tour of this gracious home.”

At the padlocked back door, Blaine yanked off one glove and reached into his pocket to produce a key, from which dangled a yellowed tag. “Miss Barrett had the place locked up after old Revis’s death. She had a key and the sheriff’s office got one—in case of emergencies.

“Of course,” he said, removing the padlock and pushing open the back door, stepping carefully on the rotting steps as he did so, “this key was accessible to anyone in the office at one time or another—there could be copies all over the place.”

The pale light of the bleak winter day struggled through the filthy windowpanes to produce a wintry twilight. A rusting gas range and an open-doored, empty refrigerator, both heavily coated in dust, made clear the nature of the room.

“Through here’s what used to be the barroom—back when Revis was running this place like a kind of private club for anyone willing to pay a couple of bucks to join for a night.”

The big space boasted a motley collection of chairs and tables, many overturned, a battered pool table, and a crudely constructed counter on which sat a lone shot glass beside two empty beer bottles. A magnificent fieldstone fireplace dominated the end wall, its wide opening boarded over. On the stone hearth squatted a malevolent-looking wood heater made from an oil drum.

“The other end of the house is the same—another big fireplace. That was where the old man mostly lived. It was the family quarters even back when this was a real inn. This would have been where the customers ate—and likely the cooking was done in the fireplace. The kitchen we came through would have been a later addition.”

“This is an amazing building, Mac.” Phillip looked from the wide-planked floor to the massive logs that formed the walls. “Why the hell hasn’t someone—”

“Miss Nola refused to talk about this place after the old man died. Locked it up and, far as anyone knows, never set foot in it again…until she came back here to try to kill herself.”

The sheriff moved to a door on the inner wall. “Back here’s a kind of hall with stairs to the second floor. Of course, there’s the outside stairs too. And on the other side of the hall is Revis’s living quarters. We’ll have a look at it later. You can see from the inside how it was put together—what they call a dogtrot plan. Basically, it’s two log rectangles with an open area between them covered over by one roof. Then at some point the open area got closed in.”

The central hallway was thick with shadows and Mackenzie switched on a high-beam flashlight he pulled from his jacket pocket. “Watch your head going up those stairs. Low clearance.”

At the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a narrow hallway running the length of the house. As Mackenzie shone the flashlight down the hall, Phillip could see doors on either side and, at the end, another boarded-up fireplace. The sheriff swung his light around to reveal an identical scene on the other side of where they stood.

“Six rooms on this side and six on the other—so this is where the paying customers slept.” Phillip pushed open the nearest door, which squealed in protest.

A stained and sagging mattress on a metal frame, a straight-back chair, and a table with a chipped and rusting white enamel basin crammed the tiny space. Any storage needs were met by a row of nails along the unpainted wood of the inner walls. A kerosene lamp, its oil long ago evaporated to an amber stain on the glass reservoir, stood on the broad windowsill, completing the bare necessities offered by the cheerless room.

“Not strong on amenities but I guess the drovers didn’t mind—this would have—”

“Drovers? Hawk, back when this was a drovers’ inn, this upstairs was nothing but two big open rooms. The drovers rolled up in their blankets and slept as close to the fireplaces as they could get.”

Phillip could see a smile playing about his friend’s face as he continued.

“These partitions came a good bit later. And this wasn’t any tourist court, good buddy.” Mackenzie snorted. “Probably another reason Miss Nola didn’t like to talk about it. For years and years this place was pretty much a whorehouse.”