Last to Know: A Novel(3)
You might expect a writer of evil books to look evil, or at least a bit mad. Wally Osborne looked neither. He was tall, lean, and handsome with permanently tousled blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a light summer tan which, Harry knew, must send the local women into raptures. He thought Rose Osborne probably had a hard time keeping tabs on a husband like that. But that was none of his business.
Anyway, he was at Evening Lake, it was three in the morning, and he was climbing into the sweatpants he wore to the gym and a soft dark blue sweater, a present from his ex, thrusting his feet into sneakers, grumbling as he laced them up, glancing at the dog, still expectantly waiting.
“So, okay, let’s see what’s up, Squeeze,” he said resignedly. He wasn’t sure what it might be but the dog surely knew something, and since he was still a cop, even though he was thinking about quitting, Harry needed to investigate.
2
The Osborne house nearby Harry’s sat squarely on the edge of Evening Lake. “Sat” rather than “perched” because this was a solid house, built to last, ninety years before by a generation that respected solid workmanship and the art of a true craftsman.
It still sat, rather than perched, all these much-lived-in generations later, a white clapboard structure, raised on stilts at the waterfront with a veranda, or “porch” as it was always to be called, running the length of it lakeside, and a jetty where variations of small boats were moored. Omar Osborne was one of the first settlers and certainly one who voted for the irrevocable rule that no motorboats be allowed. Evening Lake would remain unpolluted, he hoped, for his descendants.
New houses now edged the lake, some of them Gatsbyish in their size, but local laws kept them to “simple” splendor, and many of the first old shacks were still there, the brown wood faded to a silvery gray, a reminder of times past though still lived in and enjoyed.
The house was traditional. A row of French doors opened onto the porch, fronting a spacious light-flooded room with oversized “lived-in” sofas covered in nut-brown heavy linen, and comfy chairs with rarely plumped-up cushions, covered in cream brocade, obviously brought from some other house to join the mix-and-match melée, because this house had never felt the hands of a “decorator.”
“It all simply came together, the way it should,” was what Rose Osborne told her visitors, apologizing for the trek up the wide creaking wooden staircase—she never knew when asked whether it was oak or chestnut, and was always surprised by the question because she was too worried about guests having to march up three floors to their rooms.
The main guest room was on the second floor and had gables jutting like eyebrows over the short windows. Rose’s favorite color was turquoise, and she’d had the gables painted that cheerful color, though now because they weren’t too keen on having the upset caused by repainting every three years they had faded to what Rose called her “passionate blue.”
“Why ‘passionate’?” guests would ask and be rewarded with a smile and Rose’s answer that many people had asked her that, but it was her secret. Hers and her husband, Wally’s. She had never even told her three children what it meant. Which, in fact, was that it was exactly the color of the pure silk nightgown her husband had surprised her with on their honeymoon, bought in some outrageously expensive boutique and which they certainly could not afford, but that he’d said he’d just known would look wonderful on her and that he wanted to make love to her wearing it.
So he had. They had. And the nightgown was still there, wrapped in special tissue to preserve the silk, in the second left-hand drawer of her vanity, under lock and key. A memory preserved. Occasionally, dreaming of the past, Rose would unlock the drawer, take out the package, carefully unwrap the tissue, and look at the most beautiful garment she had ever owned. Its pale champagne lace trim was as delicate as ever, its blue as turquoise as the Mediterranean on a summer evening when that coast turned luminous in the fading light.
In back of the house a forest of birch mounted the hill, silver at dawn and evening, blank and peeling in the full light of day. Atop the hill, brambles tangled at a walker’s feet, thorns scratched childish hands seeking blackberries, and old wells, dry now but once the area’s only source of fresh water, crumbled, away from the main paths with warnings posted to “take care.”
The small town of Evening Lake, only a village really, lay two miles down the sandy road that led behind the house, which had a sharp gravelly turnoff that you had to watch out for or you would miss it. There was a lean-to on the left where cars could park, and a would-be vegetable garden struggled on the right where tender Boston lettuces pushed through the sandy earth and radishes grew to giant size and where, if left un-netted, birds or animals ate all the tiny sweet tomatoes that here were more true to their fruity origin than mere salad fixings.
Two chimneys sat atop the Osborne house and in winter smoke plumed straight up. The builder had done a good job on those flues, as he had on everything else.
There was a “mud room” to the left of the front door. It was called the “front” door because it faced onto the road, though no one ever used it, they always walked directly into the kitchen by the side door, now painted Rose’s turquoise blue. Fishing tackle and wellington boots, tennis rackets, dog leads and raincoats, a vacuum cleaner, buckets and a whiskery old broom were stored in there.