The Winslow Incident (11 page)

No wonder the place was deserted—not
because of stomach flu, but food poisoning. Hazel was glad she hadn’t eaten
whatever was causing it, and instantly realized that it couldn’t possibly be
related to bad beef. Rose hadn’t eaten beef since they found that first mad cow
in Canada several years back, but Hazel had eaten steak just two days ago and
felt fine.

“Does Owen have it too?” Hazel
asked.

Rose nodded once but then stopped
as if the motion worsened her nausea. “He’s so sick he took to bed right after
church this morning.”

“What do you think it’s from?”

“Don’t know . . . something at the
rodeo? Didn’t come from
my
kitchen. I know that much.” Confusion washed
over her face.

“What is it, Rose?”

“Did I eat one of Missy’s apples?”

“Missy? Missy who?”

Rose gazed at her a moment before
placing two clammy hands on Hazel’s face. “You’re like a daughter to Owen and
me.”

Uncomfortable with this sudden
intensity, Hazel tried to pull away but Rose held fast.

“Like the daughter we never had. I
hope you know that,” Rose said.

The toast popped up, startling
them both, after which Rose rushed back to the bathroom.

Hazel’s heart fluttered as she
buttered the toast. And when she took the plate into the dining room, James was
gone, the chair pushed back in as if he’d never been there at all.

She looked down at the toast,
picked up a slice and was about to take a bite when the sound coming from Rose in
the bathroom spoiled her appetite. She returned to the waitress station to toss
the toast and plate into a bus tray. As she did, she glimpsed Ben Mathers
pushing into the Crock. She scurried deeper into the waitress station, wishing that
if she hid there, he’d just go away.

No such luck. “I’ll take coffee!”
he shouted from the dining room.

Hazel scoffed—only Ben
Mathers would drink coffee during a heat wave. “I’ll have to brew some,” she
grumbled. After she got a pot going, she dragged her feet into the dining room
to where Patience’s grandfather sat at his usual table, looking anxious, as
always.

“Do you want something to eat?”
she asked, hoping he didn’t because Rose obviously wasn’t up for making
anything. That would mean Hazel—the worst cook around, as her father
would attest—would have to prepare his order, and Mathers complained even
when the food was good.

“Two eggs. Over easy. Side of
sausage.” His staccato manner suggested that she wasn’t worth the trouble of
complete sentences.

Without spending any more of her
own words on him, she left Mathers to stew in his impatience. In the kitchen,
she fried up eggs, buried them in salt, and nuked some sausage, all the while
curious about the old man’s blood pressure. Then she returned to the dining
room and set the plate in front of him with a clatter. “Enjoy,” she said in her
best monotone.

His bushy gray eyebrows shot
together at the bridge of his beakish nose. “Any day now, Miss Winslow.”

“Any day now
what
?” she
asked, her hackles raised by his threatening tone.

“Coffee,” he chided. “Remember?”

Grudgingly, she fetched the pot of
freshly brewed coffee and returned to his table. When she went to fill his cup,
he grabbed her by the left wrist. “Is that hot?” he asked.

“
Yes.
” She shook him off
and poured coffee to the very brim; he’d never get the cup to his lips without
spilling. That was the wrong wrist for him—or anybody else—to grab,
ever again, and her blood began to boil even hotter than the coffee.

“And I don’t want to see you with
my granddaughter anymore.” Mathers poked at the eggs with his fork. “How many
times must I repeat myself?”

“Don’t waste your breath,” she
said. He needn’t bother repeating himself, though he seemed to enjoy doing so.
Once was more than enough.

You Winslows are treacherous
, he had told her five years ago, right after his wife
Lottie died, when Hazel was just a terrified girl shaking on his doorstep, who
only missed her best friend and wanted to help her through the grief of losing
her grandmother. But he’d refused to allow Hazel to see Patience, yelling,
Stay
away from us, you devious girl!

Now Hazel marveled at Mathers’
ability to carry such a heavy grudge, for so long, without so much as stooping
beneath its weight. She was tempted to ask him how he managed when she heard
someone coming up behind her.

“Rose,” Mathers said, looking past
Hazel. “You need to teach your employee some manners.”

“That is it, Benjamin Mathers!”
Rose said in her best
I’m-not-messing-around-here
voice
.
“You’re
the one who needs to learn some manners. You, sir, are eighty-sixed.” She
pointed to the door. “Out!”

After the old man groused his way
outside, Rose closed up. What was the point? James and Mathers aside, they’d
had no customers in over two hours and Rose’s condition was only worsening.

When Hazel left the Crock it wasn’t
dark yet, making the empty sidewalk along Fortune Way all the more eerie. She
noticed that nobody was in the Buckhorn Tavern either except the bartender,
Marlene Spainhower, who sat on a stool behind the bar watching baseball on the
TV that hung in the corner. And Clemshaw Mercantile was shuttered up tight.
Unusual also since Tiny Clemshaw squeezed every dime possible out of the day
before closing up—never before nine o’clock in the summer.

Rounding the corner, Hazel suddenly
wondered,
Where’s Jinx?
She hadn’t seen him since that morning at The
Winslow. It wasn’t like the dog to make himself so scarce. She truly hoped he
didn’t have food poisoning too, courtesy of all the people food she allowed him
to snack on.

Things weren’t any livelier when
she turned onto Park Street. She passed Ben Mathers’ mansion first and could
see no activity there. Then she went past the Holloway and Foster homes. Nobody
lived in those anymore. That was the way it would be for Winslow . . . a slow
lingering death as the town emptied out one house at a time.

Upon reaching her own house at the
corner of Park and Ruby Road she considered continuing to The Winslow to check on
Sean. But then she noticed her dad heading down their front porch steps.

“What’s up, Dad?” she asked, surprised
when he got closer to see how sweaty he was. And the way his hand trembled when
he put on his hat disturbed her.

“Melanie Rhone reported a wolf
lurking about their property. Angling for their cat Boo, I suspect, but she’s
worried about her girls,” his voice sounded forced.

Like his throat hurts
, she thought. And his deep blue eyes were bloodshot. “Dad,
are you okay?” She placed her sore palm on his forearm, which felt cold. So why
was he sweating like that?

“I’m fine,” he said. “Go on in.”
Then he added, “Stay out of trouble. And lock the door.”

“Why?” They never locked their doors.

“Just do it, sweetheart.” He
started away from her, down the stepping stones.

“But you don’t have your gun!” Inexplicable
panic struck her. He looked vulnerable, and she was suddenly overcome with
worry. “Don’t go, Dad.”

“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Go
inside now.” Then he was gone down the sidewalk.

Hazel climbed the steps to the porch and stood
for a while—puzzling over the idea of a wolf in Winslow since she’d never
heard about any here before—until the hot dead quiet gave her the creeps.
She hustled inside the front door and locked the deadbolt.

S
he folded herself into her mother’s old
overstuffed rocker in the living room. The chair had brought Hazel comfort when
she was small and felt alone. So that now, even though its rose print fabric
was worn and torn, and its innards stole every opportunity to escape, she
wouldn’t let her dad get rid of it.

Dark out but still too warm to
sleep, she rocked back and forth, worrying about why it was taking her dad so
long to shoo a wolf away from the Rhone place, hoping it didn’t turn out to be the
Bigfoot she and Sean had heard in the woods that afternoon.

Urgent knocking started up from
the back of the house and then she heard the kitchen door whine open.
So
much for locking up.
She sat forward in her chair, heart thumping like mad.

A moment later Patience appeared
in the foyer. From the light in the hallway, Hazel made out the look of alarm
on her friend’s white face. “I need to see Sadie,” Patience said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hazel
rose from the rocker. Patience’s jittery eyes and the way she rubbed her arms
as if she were itchy and cold at the same time further unnerved Hazel.

“I need to see Sadie,” Patience
repeated. “I had the worst nightmare ever.”

Patience rushed over to the
photograph taken at the 1889 Prospector’s Day picnic that hung on the wall at
the foot of the staircase, and pointed to the dark-haired girl that looked a
lot like her—her great-great aunt. Patience turned back to Hazel, eyes
panicky. “Sadie keeps telling me to come into the pond even though I told her I
can’t swim.”

“You wouldn’t have nightmares like
that if you’d just let me teach you how,” Hazel said. “I swear, Patience
Mathers, you’re going to learn to at least dog paddle this summer even if it
kills you.”

Coming up beside Patience, Hazel
peered at the black and white image, at Sadie center stage in Prospect Park.
“The Fairest of the Fair,” Hazel said softly. As evidenced by the bouquet in
her hands, Sadie Mathers had just been crowned. And she had that spooky
pale-eyed stare resulting from the long exposure required to take the
photograph.

“The Fairest of the Fair,”
Patience repeated in a voice so strange that Hazel turned to look at her.

Patience’s features suddenly
shifted, as though she’d just remembered something crucial. Then she whipped
around toward Hazel, her frantic face just inches away. “It’s happening,”
Patience said.

“What is?” Hazel asked.

“It’s happening again, Hazel. And
it’s our fault again.”

“No, Patience.” Hazel felt her stomach fill with
lead. “That was just a stupid game.”

F
ive summers ago, when Hazel and Patience were
twelve years old, Hazel’s grandparents threw a dinner party in the formal
dining room of The Winslow. Having no interest in that dull event, Hazel and
Patience had rushed through plates of macaroni and cheese in the kitchen nook,
anxious to get started on what the musty old book that Hazel had discovered
promised to be a more thrilling venture.

After heaping their plates in the
sink, the girls climbed the winding servants’ staircase, on tiptoe at first to
minimize the volume of each creaking, bare wood step, then abandoning all
restraint and racing up to the fourth floor of the hotel’s tower.

At the top, Hazel stopped on the
staircase landing and whipped around, sloshing water out of the large glass she
held tight with both hands. “Do you have the egg?”

One step behind her, Patience
nodded, a sly grin animating her doll-like features.

“Good.” Hazel continued into the
circular room, well aware that The Winslow’s ghosts resided there. But she
wasn’t afraid of the ghosts then. Back then, she had no reason to be.

Right away Hazel determined that
the spookiest spot was in front of the floor-to-ceiling stained glass window
and she headed for it, Patience on her heels. They positioned themselves
cross-legged on the hardwood floor, each facing the other. Ceremoniously, Hazel
placed her grandmother’s crystal glass in between them, then she lit three
candles to set the atmosphere and ensure the full effect, all the while feeling
sneaky, feeling as if they were about to do something they really shouldn’t.

Patience placed the egg against
the rim of the glass, poised to crack. “Here goes.”

“Hold on!” Hazel grabbed her by
the arm. “Remember—just the white.”

“Okay, okay.” Patience carefully
cracked open the egg and held it above the glass, transferring the contents
back and forth between half shells until the yolk separated and the white
slipped into the water. She glanced up at Hazel through strands of dark hair.
“Are we supposed to chant or anything?”

“The book didn’t say to.” Hazel
shrugged. “But go ahead if you want.” She gathered up her own long hair before
leaning forward to watch the egg white mingle with the water.

“How long till it tells our
fortunes?” Patience whispered.

Hazel scratched her nose, staring
into their homemade crystal ball. “Guess we’ll know when we see the future.
Like the girls in Salem did.” She heard a commotion in the dining room three
floors below. Her grandfather must have told a really good joke.

The egg white sank to the bottom
of the glass and Patience leaned closer, face screwed up in concentration.
“Should we ask it a question?”

“Oh, great and wise crystal
ball—” Hazel started.

“Wait!” Patience splayed her fingers
as if to say,
Hold on everybody.
“That sort of looks like . . . no . . .”
Suddenly she jumped to her feet as though something had bitten her on the behind.