The Mill River Recluse (17 page)

“Mrs. McAllister,” said Father O’Brien, still holding her hand, “don’t worry about the horses. I’ll call Conor, and we’ll see to them.” His words seemed to soothe her, for she nodded and closed her eye.

Father O’Brien stepped away from Mary’s bed, motioning for the doctor to follow him. “Do you think she remembers what happened?” he whispered once they had moved out of earshot.

“If she doesn’t already, she may remember in the next few days. But apparently, it is too stressful for her to handle right now, or she is more concerned about something else--the horses, I suppose.”

“It’s good that she woke up, though?”

“Oh yes, of course. Her speech and ability to move appear normal, which indicate that there may be no serious physical damage to her brain. But it will take longer for her to recover from the mental shock of the incident. And as for the eye, well, we know from the X-ray that her eye socket is fractured, but we won’t know the extent of any damage until the swelling goes down.”

Father O’Brien looked at his watch. It was just after eight. As Conor had left last night, he had promised to come by first thing in the morning. Maybe Conor would be willing to go with him out to the marble house. Maybe they would learn what had happened, and what Mary had been unable to tell them herself.

~~~

“Just be careful, now. I’ll have to ask you not to touch anything. We don’t want to disturb anything that could be evidence before we finish our investigation.” The young police officer who, with Father O’Brien, had discovered Mary the previous evening escorted Conor and Father O’Brien into Mary’s bedroom. “We really can’t stay too long, either. My boss said I’m just supposed to let you have a quick look around.”

“We won’t be long,” Conor said, “and we do appreciate your letting us see the place. Do you have any idea as to how long your investigation will take?”

“Not more than a few days, probably,” the officer replied. “I know two other officers are due out here this afternoon to gather up everything.”

Only in the bedroom were there signs of struggle. The remains of a lamp lay shattered on the floor. The closet door was open and several items of Patrick’s clothing were strewn across the bed. Conor and Father O’Brien stepped carefully around the room. It was Conor who finally noticed the small marble figurine on the floor.

“I wonder,” he said as he pointed to the miniature Ebony. “At the house last night, Elise was adamant that Patrick would never have hurt Mary. She’s convinced Mary’s injury was an accident, that Mary somehow hurt herself. She has never seen,
had
never seen the side of Patrick that I saw.” He paused, staring down at the black marble figurine. “I wonder if that was what he used....”

“Maybe,” Father O’Brien said. “It’s small enough to be grasped in one hand.”

Conor did not reply, but continued to stare downward. After a moment, the police officer cleared his throat.

“I don’t know what more we could see here,” Father O’Brien said, nodding at the officer. “Shall we have a look in the barn? Mary seemed very concerned about the horses.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Conor said. “But do me a favor, would you?” he asked the officer on their way out. “Make sure that marble figurine on the floor gets fingerprinted, and have it returned to me once you’re done with it.” The officer nodded.

If there had been any doubt in Father O’Brien’s mind as to Patrick’s true nature, it was erased once they saw the blood-bay horse in the barn. The whip marks and malnourishment were shocking. As Father O’Brien approached Monarch’s stall, the horse showed the whites of his eyes and bolted backwards, stumbling as he tried to avoid shifting weight to his infected hind foot.

“Dear Lord,” Father O’Brien muttered, “who could do this to an animal?”

~~~

Conor was at Mary’s bedside when she awoke again later that afternoon. Thanks to the injected tranquilizer, she was groggy but much calmer than she had been when she had first regained consciousness.

“Grandpop?” Mary said, looking up at him.

“Mary, dear, how are you feeling?” Conor replied, taking her hand.

“Sleepy. My face hurts. My eye.”

“I know it does, Mary. Your eye socket is broken, but you’re safe now.”

“Safe,” Mary said, and then suddenly, “the horses--”

“Are just fine,” Conor said. “Father O’Brien and I went out to the house this morning. The horses are fine. We called the veterinarian for the red one, and he’ll be taken care of, don’t you worry.”

“Oh, Grandpop, it was Patrick. He beat Monarch, starved him, and I had no idea. Promise me you’ll keep Patrick away from all of them, please, Grandpop.”

Conor hesitated before saying anything else. Mary’s one visible eye pleaded with him. He wondered how much he should tell her, how much she was capable of handling in her fragile state of mind. To someone who did not know her, she would appear to be perfectly rational, if a little sluggish. But he could see right through her calm demeanor, and Father O’Brien had told him what had happened when she had first awakened that morning. Mary was fighting to hold onto her sanity as a child might struggle to keep hold of a kite on a blustery day. It would not take much more to rip it away from her.

“I promise, Mary,” Conor said. “And you mustn’t blame yourself about the red horse. You didn’t know. None of us knew.”

Mary was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was reduced to a whisper. “Grandpop, I’m afraid of him.”

“Of Patrick?”

“Yes.”

“Mary, I don’t want to upset you, but we need to know how you were hurt.”

She paused. “It was the miniature Ebony. He hit me with the miniature Ebony.”

Conor remembered seeing the small marble figurine on the floor of her bedroom. “Mary, do you mean the small horse statue in your bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“Patrick hit you in the face with the figurine?”

“Yes.” Slow tears slid from Mary’s right eye down over the curve of her cheek. “He was drunk, screaming at me, said I wasn’t a good wife.” Conor’s green eyes flashed. “I love him so much. I tried to be a good wife, but he wanted more. Always wanted more. Please, Grandpop, you won’t let him hurt me again, will you?”

Conor looked into Mary’s bandaged, tear-streaked face. Her expression was one of great love and greater fear, inextricably mixed. He decided in a wavering moment that he would tell her of Patrick’s death. Her knowing would provide at least some of the security for which she pleaded.

“Mary,” he began softly, taking her other hand, “there is something I need to tell you. Last night, after Patrick hurt you, he tried to leave town. There was an accident. He was already gone when the police found him.” Conor paused, watching as Mary’s expression shifted from fear to shock to disbelief. “They think it happened quickly. Mary, do you understand me?” Conor squeezed Mary’s hands between his own. “Patrick died last night, my dear. I’m so sorry. Mary?”

Mary only looked at him, her visible eye glazed and bloodshot, and was silent.

~~~

“For the life of me, Pop, I don’t know why you had to tell her about Patrick so soon,” Stephen said as he and Conor left Rutland County Hospital. “Twelve days without so much as a word to anybody. How much longer can she stay in that...that trance or whatever she’s in? A week? Two weeks? A month?” Conor did not reply as they got into the black Lincoln.

Stephen slammed the door and inserted the key into the ignition, but did not turn it. For a moment, the two sat silently in the plush leather seats. Stephen gripped the steering wheel, started to speak, and stopped himself. He seemed to be wrestling with his words but decided to plunge ahead.

“Pop, I think we should really consider sending her to Brattleboro--”

“Absolutely not. We’ve already had this discussion, and you know I have no intention of shipping her away to some asylum.”

“But, Pop--”

“She’s your daughter-in-law,” Conor snapped. “Your family. And mine. The doctors say the best thing for her right now is to be near her family and people she knows. If it were Sara or Emma in that hospital room, you’d never think of Brattleboro.”

“If I thought it would help--”

“Horseshit. You’d do nothing of the kind. And in Mary’s case, she’s so shy and fearful that moving her to a strange place would prevent her from ever recovering.”

“I wish you’d thought of her recovery twelve days ago, before you decided to tell her all of what happened.”

Conor sighed as Stephen finally started the engine. “Perhaps I made a mistake in telling her so soon, but at the time...she was terrified. I was only trying to calm her, to make her feel safe by letting her know Patrick couldn’t hurt her anymore.”

“We don’t even know for sure that things really happened as Mary said they did. Given her current state, she could have been confused. She might even be inventing the whole thing.” Stephen glanced sideways at his father and saw immediately that he had gone too far.

“What, then?” Conor roared. “Do you think she decided to crack her own skull? Decided she didn’t need sight in one of her eyes?”

“No, Pop, but--”

“She’s blind in that eye! Her eye socket will heal but the doctors can’t do anything to restore her sight.” A brilliant fuchsia crept over Conor’s face as he brandished his forefinger at his son. “No, I’ll tell you exactly where your line of thinking is coming from. I know Elise is having a hard time with this. We all are. But she won’t accept that Patrick did anything wrong. She’s blaming Mary for some horrific thing that Patrick did, that was his fault alone. And now, it sounds like she’s actually starting to convince you of that as well.”

Stephen cringed behind the steering wheel.

“I knew it!” Conor said. “And I’ll bet she’s also behind this renewed push to send Mary to Brattleboro! A simple way to get rid of the one reminder of what really happened. Of what Patrick did. Well, I’ll tell you, we’re the only family Mary has left. Her recovery and well-being are our responsibility. It’s bad enough that we had no idea of how he’d been treating her. We sure as hell aren’t going to abandon her now.”

Stephen turned the Lincoln into the driveway of the yellow Victorian mansion, and the father and son entered the house without another word. Stephen went immediately into the sitting room where Elise was waiting for him. Conor heard them speaking in hushed tones as he made his way down the hallway to his office. Once there, he switched on the light and closed the door.

As always, the pictures on the wall greeted him with a flood of memories. He remembered the evening when he had first discovered Mary here, staring at the old photo of himself and his father. He had worried about her even then, when she could have been any one of the many girls Patrick used to see. Now, he appeared to be the only one in his family who cared what happened to her. He would not fail her again.

Conor picked up the phone and dialed the number of Jack Gasaway, the attorney who handled the McAllister family’s legal affairs. He needed to make some changes, and soon.

~~~

If Mary knew he was in the room, she didn’t show it.

Three weeks after her injury, Mary remained at Rutland County Hospital, staring blankly, speaking to no one, and displaying no emotion except for an occasional sigh. She recoiled when anyone approached her, but offered no significant resistance to the nurses who tended to her. An intravenous line kept her nourished and hydrated, although the nurses regularly brought her food in hopes of coaxing her out of her stupor. Her glazed expression hadn’t changed at all as Dr. Mason removed the bandages from her eye and examined it.

Dr. Mason felt with some certainty that her left eye would never be the same. The swelling had gone down, revealing a slightly misshapen browbone that had started to heal. But the blunt force of Patrick’s blow had been so great that the retina of her left eye was almost completely detached. That damage was permanent.

Father O’Brien visited Mary every few days. He felt that he was obligated to do this as part of the promise he had made to Conor. He also visited because it provided him some measure of relief. With Rutland County boys being drafted into the war, he often found himself visiting the soldiers’ families, feeling helpless, as if his words of comfort were incapable of penetrating their worry. Seeing Mary was a silent reprieve from those more unpleasant visits.

As usual, he sat at her bedside, making polite conversation with no one but himself, attempting to elicit a response from her. He was persistent and patient. It didn’t seem to matter.

He had just finished describing to her the beautiful roses that were blooming on the hospital grounds. He mentioned that he had been out to her home in Mill River, that Conor had made sure it was being kept up, and that her horses were doing well. At the mention of the horses, Father O’Brien thought that he might have detected a faint upturn of the corners of her mouth, but he could have been mistaken.

It was almost noon when Nurse Clarke came into the room with a tray of food for Mary. Father O’Brien looked at it with some interest, but not because of the watery soup and glass of juice.

“Hi, Mrs. McAllister. Are you hungry? I brought you some lunch,” she said with a bright smile, setting the tray on a wheeled stand by her bed. Mary did not respond.

“And how are you today, Father?” the nurse said, turning to him. She seemed happy to speak to someone who responded.

“I’m very well, thanks. I was just telling Mary here about those lovely roses outside. The most beautiful I’ve seen in quite some time.”

“They are gorgeous,” Nurse Clarke said. “Mrs. McAllister, the doctor will be in to see you soon. If you would eat some of your lunch, I think he would be very pleased.” She bent forward, hoping for a reply. Mary stared at the wall.

“Well. I’ll be in to check on you in a bit. See you later, Father.” Nurse Clarke smiled and shut the door lightly behind her.