The Dark House (18 page)

“You say, she was
murdered
?” Rollins hoped he struck the right note of incredulity.

Nicky assumed a sorrowful look. “That's what I've heard.”

“I knew she hadn't been seen for a while,” Rollins said quietly, still shocked by the name Jerry Sloane. “That's why, when I saw the lights, I wanted to stop in. I thought she might have returned.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Edie's husband, Ben, said.

Rollins turned to Nicky, who seemed to be the most reliable conversationalist. “Did you know her?”

“Oh yes. Not well, of course. No one knew her well, I don't think. I'm in the house down past Lizzie's old barn. You must have known Lizzie. Cornelia's
friend
.” Elizabeth Payzen—Lizzie—was the woman said to be Cornelia's lover.

“I thought you said she'd moved,” Edie interjected.

“Yes, a while ago.” She turned back to Rollins. “Perhaps you'd heard.”

Sloane—again? He couldn't put the thought out of his mind. “I—well, I've been out of touch, I'm sorry to say.” Several times, Rollins had driven by her converted barn about a half mile down the road, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but he never had.

Payzen had always been somewhat secretive. When he was doing his interviews for the
Beacon
story, Rollins had called her repeatedly and hooked up with her only when he'd driven by one evening unannounced and found her fixing dinner. She was slender, with short hair and a vaguely elfin demeanor that, at moments, had reminded Rollins of Cornelia. But, to Rollins' frustration, Lizzie was mostly unresponsive. She had turned most of Rollins' questions back on him, or answered with only a yes or a no.

“So funny to think of them down there fucking by the pond,” Nicky added.

“What?”
the bearded Alex fairly shrieked.

“That's the story from the UPS man,” Nicky said.

“Sunbathing, I'd heard,” the mousy woman said.

“Oh no, fucking. Or, well, as close to fucking as they can. They were on top of each other, apparently. But backward, you know.”

Edie looked away and dug into the cheese.

Rollins turned to her. “Excuse me, but I have to ask: You didn't buy the house from Cornelia, did you?” It was an extremely direct question, and a deep and somewhat frightening silence followed. Marj would have been proud.

“No. Not Cornelia,” Edie replied. “From what Nicky's saying, I don't know how we could.” She snapped off a bit of cracker. “But it was another Blanchard, now that you mention it.” She called over to her husband, now busy fixing a drink at a table at the far end of the room. “Darling, what was the first name of that nice man who sold us the house?”

“George, I think it was.”

“Oh yes, George.”

“George Blanchard? An older man?” Rollins asked.

“Mid-sixties, I'd guess.”

“That would be my uncle. Cornelia's father.” Rollins hadn't seen George in years. He had received a brief note from him after his story ran in the
Beacon
, quibbling with some of the family details, but thanking him, in the end, “for taking an interest.”

Edie smiled. “Well, there you are.”

Rollins sensed that this was his cue to be going, and that, despite the web of associations, he was markedly less welcome than he had been before. Still, he persisted: “But how could he sell you Cornelia's house? I mean, it wasn't his!”

That silenced the room again, and this time he could feel several sets of eyes boring into him. But Rollins remembered distinctly that Schecter had checked on the deed of the house at the registry in Nashua. He'd even made a photocopy of it. The house was in Cornelia's name.

Edie was positively chilly now. “It must have been, or he wouldn't have been able to sell it to us, now would he?”

“Rich parents often hold the title of houses they buy for their chil
dren,” Nicky piped up. She alone seemed to be enjoying the drama playing out over cocktails. “I heard that Cornelia's parents were quite wealthy.”

“But it wasn't his to sell,” Rollins repeated firmly.

“You suggesting there's some problem?” Ben Stanton asked.

Rollins looked about, but the only face that seemed to look upon him with any kindness was Nicky's. “Not at all. I'm…Never mind. Forgive me for intruding. I should be getting along now.” He stood up to go.

Edie set down her drink and rose also. “I'm sorry to hear it.” But she didn't try to dissuade him.

“It's terrible about Cornelia,” Nicky added solicitously from her perch by the cheese. “All this must be hard on the family.”

“Yes, well, thank you.” Rollins continued to the door.

“She was a lovely person,” Nicky called out after him.

“Yes, she was.” Rollins pulled open the door and felt the darkness rush toward him. He tightened a little when he used the past tense.

“Your car in the driveway?” Edie asked from the foyer.

“No, back out on the road. I walked in.” He headed out toward the cars now, moving quickly.

“How'd you happen to find yourself way out here, anyway?” Edie's voice was raised a little, to carry.

By now, Rollins was far enough away that he didn't need to answer. “Good night,” he called out, as if he hadn't heard this last question. “Thanks for the drink.” He was halfway down the drive when, to his relief, he heard the front door shut tight behind him.

B
ack in the Nissan, Rollins continued on down the road for only about fifty yards and then pulled over by some overhanging maples. He left his high beams on, and he cast a long shadow up the road when he stepped around to the front of the car. Moths and tiny no-see-ums flitted about his headlights.

Years back, when Rollins was doing the
Beacon
story, he'd leaned a flat rock up against the stone wall along the road here to mark the spot where Cornelia had left a footprint in the mud sometime on the evening of September 17, 1993, the last day she was known to be alive. It was the closest thing Neely had to a gravestone, and Rollins always felt comforted to spend a few minutes by it, reminiscing, whenever he came around. One time, he'd recalled how Neely had played a new Rolling Stones record for him on the playroom stereo (although not too loud),
and then actually hop-danced with him in the new sixties way, barefoot on the rug, her blond hair flouncing wildly with each step. He'd moved a little from side to side, remembering. But the weeds had grown up over the summer, and this time Rollins had trouble finding the marker. He was bent over, sweeping aside some thick clumps of grass along the wall when a car slowed on the road behind him.

A voice called out, “Lose something?”

Rollins looked up. It was Nicky again, in the white Taurus he'd seen in Cornelia's driveway. She was leaning out the passenger-side window, half her pale face blazing in the headlights.

“Oh, hi,” he shouted, hoping that would be the end of it. “No, nothing like that,” he added to answer her question. Nicky continued to wait there, watching him, and Rollins tried to think of some other plausible reason why he might be combing through the weeds like this. Nothing came to mind. “Well, maybe,” he said finally.

“Well, maybe I can help you,” Nicky said. Before he could object, she'd pulled over a little ways ahead of Rollins' car and stepped out of her Taurus.

She was in a silk dress and white heels—not the most sensible outfit for hunting through high weeds—and she took only a couple of steps onto the roadside before she stopped, the grass licking at her calves.

“I'm not following you, if that's what you're thinking,” Nicky declared. “I've got dinner waiting for me in my oven just up the road.” Rollins returned to his search, and she must have been able to tell that she had not captured his complete attention. “I must say, you sure stirred up a hornet's nest back there,” she added, raising her voice a little. “Edie is ready to kill. And I bet Ben will call half the lawyers in New Hampshire tomorrow—and they'll call the other half, trying to cover their hides.” She paused. “So, what, did you lose your wallet or something?”

Rollins glanced back: She was peering out at him, her eyes shielded from his brights. It was pointless to lie. “Actually, I was trying to find the spot where Cornelia was last seen. It was right along here.”

Nicky's face, previously so confident, seemed to fall a little, and the
hand shielding her eyes dipped for a moment. “Right here? Really?” she asked.

“I set a stone up against the wall to mark the spot where the police found her footprint.” With his shoe, Rollins continued to push aside the weeds to check along the base of the stone wall. “It's somewhere around here.”

“How do you know?”

“The detective on the case took me out here and showed me.”

“Well, wasn't that nice of him.”

“He didn't do it because I was a relative. I was here as a journalist, doing a story about her for a paper down in Boston.”

“So you're some kind of reporter?” Nicky looked disturbed at the thought. “I thought you were Cornelia's cousin.”

“I'm both, actually. Or was. I'm out of journalism now, but I did a story about her disappearance for a Boston tabloid called the
Beacon
.”

“Oh, I read that one!” Nicky exclaimed. “You wrote that?” She looked at him quizzically. “I didn't think you were
related.
”

“I didn't want to play it up,” Rollins said.

“You should've.” Nicky's glasses glittered in the bright light. “It's interesting. Especially now that I know you.”

“That's what my editor said. But it didn't seem right somehow.”

Nicky looked at him again, as if she saw something new in his features. Rollins wondered what it could be. Some sign of his mindless dedication, was it? Or was it possible that Nicky could pick up on the love (if he dared use that word) he still felt for his vanished cousin after all these years?

“I have to say, I was wondering about you back there,” Nicky said, nodding toward Cornelia's old house.

“Me?” Rollins brought a hand to his chest.

“Yeah. You didn't seem exactly blown away by the idea that your cousin had been murdered. It wasn't until you heard the name of that realtor—”

“Sloane?”

“As if you don't know,” Nicky teased. “My God, you went white as a sheet. I thought you were going to keel over!”

“I wasn't feeling—”

“Right, the allergies. That's a good one.” She looked very mischievous, just then. “So you think Sloane's in on the disappearance? Is that the deal?”

“Let's just say his name's come up.”

“I've seen him around here a lot, you know. Always checking into things.”

“Like?”

Nicky turned evasive. “Oh, I don't know. A little of this, a little of that.” She reached down and plucked a wildflower from among the weeds at her feet, and brought it to her nose to smell. “Goldenrod. Want a smell?” She tipped a shoot toward Rollins, who obliged her. Anything to change the subject. The flower had a vague, sugary scent.

“I heard Cornelia was going to Lizzie's house,” Nicky continued. “That night, I mean.”

“But Elizabeth herself—Lizzie—said she wasn't expecting her.”

“So you spoke to her.”

“Briefly. She made it sound like she hardly knew Cornelia.”

“That sounds like Lizzie. She could be a little remote.”

He flicked away a mosquito that had landed on his left wrist, just past the hem of his blazer. “Anyway, police figured someone picked her up along the road here.” He glanced along the narrow road, the trees bending over, their trunks hung with ivy. Now, with night upon them, the insects rising, it seemed like a terribly lonesome place. “Whoever it was could have taken her just about anywhere.”

“It's all so dreadful,” Nicky said. She clutched her arms to her sides against the cooling air.

“Police figured it was someone she knew,” Rollins went on. “There was no evidence of a struggle. No blood, no scuff marks, no dropped sunglasses or anything like that. And no one heard any screams.”

Nicky looked startled. “It's so awful to think that she might have screamed. I mean, to have been that scared. Especially someone like Cornelia, who always seemed so fearless.”

“I know.” Rollins turned back to the wall and resumed his search.

Behind him, he could hear Nicky walk back toward her car. But the
sound died out when she reached the pavement and picked up the conversation again. “I always wondered about Lizzie.” When Rollins expressed curiosity, Nicky explained that her husband had died a few years ago, and after his death Lizzie would have her over sometimes for coffee or a drink. She never said very much—that's how Lizzie was—but it was apparent by the few things that Lizzie did say that things weren't entirely right between her and Cornelia. Nicky attributed the trouble to the way the relationship started, with Lizzie being Cornelia's gardener. “I really don't know if Lizzie could ever be sure she was a lover, and not just a hired hand, pardon the pun. Especially since Cornelia herself was always so free—taking on other lovers and all. You knew about that, I assume.”

Rollins had heard rumors.

“Well, I think that drove Lizzie wild. Oh, she'd try to be cool about it, but you could see it hurt. A lot of the time, she just looked so terribly sad.”

“It's a long way from there to murder, if that's what you're suggesting.”

“Maybe, but why was it that Lizzie didn't come home that night till three in the morning?” Nicky leaned back against the side of her car. “I know, because my bedroom window faces her driveway. Ever since my husband died, I've slept with the shades up, or tried to. I don't sleep much anymore, I don't mind telling you. I saw the headlights, and I heard her car.”

“Maybe she went out.”

“That would have been quite unusual for her. She kept regular hours. The lights in her place are normally out by eleven at the latest. She's a gardener, for goodness' sake. She gets up with the sun. No one knows why she was out so late that night, or where she went. The cops never even talked to her, so far as I know. I asked her one time myself, and she got this very cold look on her face. She looked like she wanted to kill
me
. I don't think we ever had another conversation beyond ‘hello' again.” She paused as a new thought struck her. “She was quite chummy with Jerry Sloane, by the way. He's selling her house for her, too. But I think their relationship went beyond that.”

Sloane again. Rollins sensed a tide rising all around him. Not of
water, but something murkier and more dangerous. He needed to retreat to higher, safer ground. “So Lizzie's moved?”

“Oh yes, a year or two ago. Health problems, I heard. But as I say, she'd stopped speaking to me.” She waited, watching him. “Well, aren't you going to ask?”

Rollins was genuinely puzzled.

“About the relationship? With Jerry? Jeez, no wonder you quit journalism. I don't think it was sexual. Lizzie didn't do men. Cornelia did, here and there. That was part of the problem between them. But Lizzie didn't, at least not so far as I know.”

“So what was it between Lizzie and Jerry Sloane?”

“I was hoping you'd find out, because I'm dying to know. I think it's the key to what happened here.” A car went by, and Nicky suddenly looked past Rollins to the stone wall, perhaps ten yards up. “Is that your rock over there?” She pointed. “I just noticed something shining.”

Rollins went over and pushed aside a thick clump of black-eyed Susans. “Yes, of course. Here it is.” With a heave, he tipped the stone toward the glow of the headlights. Some moss had grown over the face of it, almost obscuring the initials
CB
, and the numbers 9/17/93, that he had scratched in pen five years before.

Nicky picked her way through the overgrowth toward him. “And you put that there?” She stood beside him, looking at it.

“I thought it would be sort of a memorial,” Rollins said. “Not much, I guess. The actual footprint was over there.” He pointed to a spot by the edge of the asphalt. “Police figured it was the sole of a boot about Neely's size.”

They both fell silent.

“Would you mind if I said something, now that we've found it?” Nicky asked, taking up a position beside him.

“If you like,” he said politely. It made him uncomfortable to have this slim stranger so close to him in the cool night air. It seemed unfair to Cornelia, somehow. She who was now, in all probability, so alone, so permanently alone. He'd much rather have been by himself there by the stone.

Nicky bowed her head and clasped her hands in front of her. “Well,
I'd just like to say that I miss you, Cornelia. Things haven't been the same since you left. And, wherever you are, I hope you're all right.”

Nicky spoke softly, but somehow her words hung all around them, dressing the roadside in sadness. Rollins sniffled quietly to clear his nose. “Yes,” he said. “Quite.” He got down and carefully pushed the stone back into place again, so that it would be upright and respectable, and the two of them made their way back up to the road.

“I live just down the street past Lizzie's old place,” Nicky said. “Drop in if you ever come back this way.” She extended a hand, and Rollins shook it. To his surprise, she held on to his hand for an extra moment. “Please, let me know if you find out anything. Especially about our friend Mr. Sloane.” Rollins nodded assent. She finally withdrew her hand and headed back to her car. “It's the damnedest thing, this whole business,” she called out to him. “It's driven me half crazy trying to figure it all out.”

 

Elizabeth Payzen's converted barn was three driveways down on the left. All the windows were dark, and they reminded Rollins of Cornelia's place before it was sold. Another dark house. Rollins turned in to the driveway, his headlights glinting off the small windows on either side of the front door, then backed around. As he doubled back, he passed Nicky's car just before it turned in to a driveway marked Barton. Rollins had lowered the window to let in the evening air, and he reached out a hand to wave good-bye, and Nicky tooted her horn in response. He continued back up Pelbourne Road and then switched onto Wilbraham and returned to the pay phone by the pizzeria on 102. He snapped the folding door shut, pulled out his telephone credit card, and called Maine again.

“Where the hell have you been?” Al Schecter asked when he came on the line.

“At Cornelia's.”

“Wait—she's back?”

Rollins cleared that up, then delivered the real bombshell: The house had been sold. “The new owners let me in,” Rollins said. “But get this—they bought it from Cornelia's
father
. My uncle George.”

“But the deed was in her name. I checked that, remember?”

“I
know
. That's why I mentioned it.”

“So Daddy pulled a switcheroo.” Schecter chuckled.

“It looks like it.”

Rollins wanted to tell him about Sloane, but that would have required explaining how he had come to meet Sloane in the first place. And that would have entailed revealing his secret driving habits, which would have brought Rollins nothing but grief. So he kept the news about Sloane to himself. But it burned inside him like something ulcerative.