Walking the Labyrinth (25 page)

“Yes, I am,” Molly said. “I know you and Fentrice never got along. But she wouldn’t do something like this, wouldn’t spy, or—or murder. She’s innocent. If you had a phone I could call her right now and prove it to you.”

“But we do have a phone,” Callan said.

“You do? How come I’ve never seen it?”

“It’s not a secret. It’s in my study downstairs.”

“Great,” Molly said. “I’ll call her right now.”

They went downstairs. In the study Callan pulled out a phone from behind a stack of books. There were two wide eyes on the receiver, one at each end, and the rotary dial looked like a round, astonished mouth. Molly called her aunt.

The phone rang four times, five. Could she have been wrong? Could Fentrice be here, in California? Six rings. Someone picked up the phone. “Hello?” a trembling voice said.

“Aunt Fentrice?” Molly said. Static crackled through the line. To Molly it seemed almost as if the fiber-optic technology of the past years had never happened, as if her aunt were talking from somewhere in the midthirties.

“Molly. Hello, dear. Do you know what time it is here?”

“Oh God. It’s two hours later there, isn’t it? I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m always happy to hear from you. Is something wrong?”

“I just wanted to know how you were. You and Lila. Is she there?”

“Lila? Now that’s a funny thing. She went away on vacation. Forty years she’s worked for me, never asked for a day off, and then suddenly she says she has to visit her family. I didn’t know she had a family, did you?”

“No. Did she say where they live?”

“Out west somewhere.”

“How are you getting along without her?”

“Fine. Though I can’t say I won’t be relieved when she comes back. How are you, dear? I didn’t get a letter from you this week.”

There was no reproach in Fentrice’s voice, but Molly felt guilty just the same. “No, I—I’m sort of on vacation myself. I’m pretty isolated here—It’s hard getting letters out. I’ll call you, though. I’ll call you again a week from now and see how you’re getting along.”

“That would be wonderful. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“All right. Go back to sleep, Aunt Fentrice.”

“Good night, dear.”

“Good night.”

“There,” Molly said to Callan after she had hung up. “Lila’s out west—It’s Lila who keeps coming here and bothering us. Fentrice is in Illinois.”

“Is she?” Callan asked.

“Look,” Molly said, suddenly angry. Ever since John people had been making the most outrageous accusations about her aunt. She had even started to believe them, before she had learned the truth. “I know you don’t like her—you told me so yourself. You’ve told me your side of the story, but she never got a chance to tell me hers. I’m sorry, but everything tells me to believe her. She raised me, after all. I think I would know if she was some kind of criminal.”

“Would you?”

“Stop asking me questions, dammit!”

“How are you going to learn anything if you don’t ask questions? Only people who know all the answers don’t need to ask questions.”

“And I suppose you know all the answers? Are you sure? I’ve read your diary, you know. You weren’t this wise old man back then. Now you’re putting on this act, you’re trying to convince everyone you’ve found inner peace or something—”

“Inner peace? Anyone who says they’ve found inner peace is dead. Would you feel peaceful in the face of illness, of death?”

His daughter had died, Molly remembered. He had survived more sorrow than she could imagine. Still, his certainty angered her. “Maybe you’ve been wrong about Fentrice all these years, have you ever thought of that?” she asked. “Maybe she isn’t as bad as you thought. What have you learned tonight?”

Callan laughed, long and delighted. Molly left the study in disgust. What the hell was so funny, anyway?

A few days later she woke to loud noises: something being dragged down the hallway, two or three people laughing. She got up and looked outside her door. They were packing; the dragging sound had been made by a trunk like the one Fentrice had. She had nearly forgotten that the family was going on tour.

Arrangements went on all day. People slipped in and out of costumes, tuned and played musical instruments. Jeremy called a bird to his wrist and let it go, and then suddenly the room was filled with birds, their white wings beating. Flowers grew from Alex’s hands and then disappeared. Kate and her sister Elizabeth drew eggs from each other’s ears, noses, mouths, armpits, until a small mound of them stood at their feet. Matt cursed because he couldn’t fit into his tuxedo. Samuel’s wife Elizabeth took it from him and hurried to the sewing room.

That evening after dinner they gathered in the living room. It was not exactly a rehearsal, Molly saw, more a reaffirmation of who they were and what they did. Someone had dragged out an old rickety piano from somewhere; Elizabeth played and everyone sang. Callan touched the candles around the room and they blossomed into orange flames.

“I didn’t know you still performed until Alex told me,” Molly said to Callan. “Emily said something about investments in her journal.”

Objects around the room began to rise to the ceiling, books and pillows and even candles. The piano shuddered and lifted slowly off the floor. “Corrig!” Elizabeth said, still playing. “Stop that!” The piano thumped back down.

Callan threw back his head and laughed. “Investments!” he said. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Outside the room rain hit the windowpanes and wind shook in the trees. Inside it was warm, a fire burning in the grate. Elizabeth started on another song. Someone pressed sheet music into Molly’s hand and she sang along with the rest of them.

“Got a dog, got a cat, got a car, got a flat.…” Corrig played a clarinet, Callan passed around champagne. They all applauded themselves when they finished.

“Listen,” Callan said. “Listen up, everyone.” The family quieted, looking up at him. “We won’t all go touring this year. I’ve decided—I’m staying home. So are Corrig and Alex and Matt. The rest of you—good-bye. And have fun.”

“What do you mean?” Matt said. He looked a little hurt. “Why can’t I go? I’ve already got my tuxedo and everything.”

“Things are going to happen here,” Callan said. “How about you, Alex? Do you mind staying on?”

“Oh, no,” Alex said. “I like surprises.”

Callan grinned. “Good,” he said.

“What about me?” Molly asked.

“Oh, you’ll be here with us, Molly,” Callan said. A great relief flooded her; she would not have to go back just yet. “Nothing’s going to happen without you.”

Vans came to take the family to the train station early the next morning. It was raining hard. The family packed up in silence, exhausted from the celebration of the night before. Molly, Alex, and Matt waved out the front windows, and then the family was gone.

The woman in the blue shawl never came back. And when Molly called Fentrice a few days later her aunt told her that Lila had returned from her vacation. Molly was more certain than ever that the woman had been Lila.

Now that she knew where the phone was she tried calling Peter’s hotel several times, but he was never in. She gave the phone number and elaborate directions to Callan’s house to a bored-sounding receptionist, who assured her in a languid voice that he would pass them on. And she continued writing her letter to John, which had turned into a kind of diary.

“Why would Lila come all the way out here just for a book?” she wrote. “Maybe Fentrice told her something about the Allalie family and she became intrigued, wanted the kind of power she thought that they had, that we have.

“I don’t know. In just a few weeks I’ve met relatives I never knew I had, I’ve learned that my family is far larger than just two people. I’ve had to stretch my brain to accommodate that, and then I’ve had to entertain the idea Aunt Fentrice might be a murderer, and then, just as I was beginning to despair, I realized she was innocent after all. If Callan asks me what I’ve learned I can answer, truthfully, that I’ve learned a hell of a lot, but I don’t see where any of it gets me. I still don’t know what happened to Thorne, for example.

“Lila said Thorne is still alive. How does she know? Could Fentrice have let something slip? Or what if—oh, my God—what if Lila
is
Thorne? Both sisters were good at disguises, Callan’s diary says so. Should I tell Fentrice? Is Fentrice in danger from her?”

ELEVEN

Visits and Letters

M
olly lay in bed late the next morning, looking up at the leaves of the trees and wondering if she should go to Callan with her suspicions. But what would Callan do? He didn’t even seem to like Fentrice very much. Would he come to her defense?

What a family,
she thought. You couldn’t blame Fentrice for running away.

She heard someone knock on the door downstairs, and then footsteps going to answer it. “Molly!” Alex called. “You have a visitor!”

Oh, shit,
Molly thought.
It’s that woman in the blue shawl again. She’s back.
She dressed quickly and went down the stairs. Peter stood at the door.

For a moment she was speechless. They she reached out and held him tightly. He put his arms around her, tentatively, as if unsure of his welcome.

“You got my directions!” she said.

“And about time, too,” he said. He pulled away and grinned, the old easy smile that made her melt. “I thought you’d disappeared off the face of the earth. What are you doing here? Did you find out anything more about the Allalies?”

She found herself hesitating. She couldn’t tell him the suspicions she’d had about Fentrice; he might not believe in Fentrice’s innocence. “I found out I have a lot more relatives than I thought. My grandfather Callan lives here, and some cousins and second cousins … What about you? What are you working on?”

“Nothing. All my book proposals were bounced. I’m broke—living off my savings. I need monnney,” he said. Then he laughed. “You going to ask me in?”

Once again she hesitated. “Let’s get some breakfast,” she said.

They took Peter’s rental car up the highway to the small town Molly had seen, Pacifica. Peter drove to a café by the beach. When they had been seated and ordered breakfast Peter asked, “What did you mean about your relatives? How many of them are there?”

In answer Molly took out her genealogy. “Good God,” Peter said. “Look at all these people. Not bad for someone who thought she only had a great-aunt. Who was that guy who answered the door?”

“Alex.”

“What was he smiling about?”

“Oh, he always looks like that. It’s his mustache—you can never tell what he’s thinking.”

“Alex Allalie?”

“Why are you asking all these questions?”

“I’m curious. It’s an interesting story, you and your relatives.”

Their breakfast came and they ate in silence for a while. Peter reached for the genealogy and turned it over. “‘Magicians Dazzle at the Paramount,’” he read. “What’s this?”

“It’s the article that got me wondering about my family,” Molly said. “John Stow gave it to me.”

“Mmmm,” Peter said. He studied it a moment.

After breakfast they walked down to the beach. Fishermen stood or sat by the water, the ends of their poles buried in the sand beside them. Surfers rode the waves, bobbing black dots. Fog lay on the ocean farther out, and in the valleys between the hills by the shore. Peter picked up a rock and flicked it underhanded into the water, but the ocean was too choppy for it to skip. A gull cawed overhead.

“Are you going to invite me back to the house?” Peter asked.

She felt uneasy. Somehow Peter and her newfound family did not seem to mix; it reminded her of the times Fentrice came to her school on parents’ night, and how strange it always was to see her there. Still, she’d missed him.

“Sure,” she said.

After his visit Peter headed north, driving through San Francisco and continuing across the Bay Bridge. In Oakland he parked in front of the downtown library and went inside, climbing the stairs to the periodicals room.

The Oakland
Tribune,
he thought, standing in front of the filing cabinets of microfiche spools. April 9, 1935.

He found the spool he wanted quickly. He threaded it onto the machine and read it through and then, as Molly had done, he went to the telephone directories and looked up Andrew Dodd.

Unlike Molly, though, he decided to visit Dodd without calling first. Dodd lived close to the library; Peter put more money in his parking meter and then walked to the address in the phone book.

The receptionist at the apartment building made him wait while she called Dodd. “You can go up now,” she said when she got off the phone.
Amazing,
Peter thought,
the way people will see total strangers. What if I were a burglar?

He took the elevator to the third floor and rang the bell. Nothing happened for a long time. He rang again and then a third time, holding his finger on the buzzer.
Come on,
Peter thought.
The old boy’s got to be home.
He tried the doorknob, and it opened.

He went inside. Now he could hear sounds coming from the bathroom, a toilet flushing and then running water. A sheet of paper lay upside-down on the desk in front of him and he moved toward it. He did not need to turn it around; he had learned to read very nearly anything from very nearly any angle.

“Dearest Bess,” someone had written in shaky penmanship. “I have been very unhappy since you died. We went through so much together, we knew each other so well, that it sometimes seemed as if I knew what you were thinking. Now I can’t imagine what you might be thinking, or even if you’re thinking at all. You’ve changed utterly, you’ve gone on without me. I feel angry a lot of the time. I can’t help but wonder why you’ve abandoned me.

“When the hospital called to tell me you’d died all I could say was ‘What?’ I’d heard them, of course, nothing wrong with my hearing, but I wanted to give them the chance to say something else. What they said was somehow wrong, obscene, was something that shouldn’t have been said. But they just repeated, ‘She died during the night. There was nothing we could do.’ And I felt as if I fell through a hole, and as if there was a hole after that, pit upon pit, falling and falling. ‘Mr. Dodd?’ they said. ‘Are you still there?’