Little Girls(12)

Laurie wended through these rooms, impressed by the cleanliness yet chilled by the emptiness of each of them. She grew uneasy when she noticed that the windows in each of these rooms had been nailed shut—large carpentry nails driven through the base of the windows and into the sill. She recalled Dora saying something about her father having grown paranoid near the end, and that he’d had the locks on the doors changed. Had he also come through these rooms wielding a hammer, frantically pounding nails into the framework like a mad carpenter?

On the way to her father’s study, she passed by the empty picture frame hanging on the parlor wall. Disturbed by it, she took it down and dropped it behind the liquor cabinet. Cracking open the stained teakwood door at the end of the hall, she poked her head in. It was a small room outfitted in empty bookshelves and a lush burgundy carpet. There was a handsome rolltop desk at the center of the room. A leather chair piped with brass tacks was tucked into the foot well of the desk. The chair faced a pair of arched windows shuttered in wooden blinds. Bands of fading sunlight issued through the slats. The furniture and carpeting held no memories for her—she couldn’t recall if they’d always been here (for they certainly looked old) or if her father had purchased them later in life, after Laurie and her mother had moved away.

She went to the windows, drew back the blinds, and saw that these windows had also been nailed shut. She took a step back. Daylight now streaming through the windows, she saw that crosses of varying sizes had been gouged into the wood-paneled walls. They were everywhere, hacked into the paneling by some blunt object, too many to count. This surpassed religious zealotry. This was madness.

There were a few cardboard boxes on the floor, stacked in front of the desk. Laurie pulled back the flap on the top box and peered inside. There was a cigar box and a few pipes, a silver letter opener that resembled a dagger, some unused white candles still in the cellophane wrapping, a set of keys on a keychain, and various writing implements. Something glittered and she reached in and took out a gold cuff link with a black onyx face. It was heavy. She dropped it back in the box next to its twin and didn’t bother going through the rest of the boxes that day.

Upstairs, the second-floor landing cut to the left at the top of the stairs. To the right was the closed door of the master bedroom and nothing else. She cracked open the door and peered in through the sliver at a gloomy room that smelled like the antibacterial cleaners used at hospitals. The window shades were halfway drawn, leaving the scarce few items in the room to suggest their shapes without giving up any details. She made out the poster bed and a nightstand, an armoire, and a set of folded linens on the cushioned seat below the shaded windows. The memories that trailed out of that room were multitudinous but vague in detail. They were more like slides shuttled quickly through a lighted projector—images glimpsed at random and out of logical sequence—than actual memories. Biting her lower lip, she shut the door and moved on.

There were two remaining bedrooms and a full bathroom up here along the length of the hallway, each of their doors closed. The door to the linen closet was closed, too. There was one final door among the others, this one narrower than the rest. Laurie knew it led up into the belvedere. Not only was this door closed just like all the others, but someone had drilled a metal plate into the frame and locked it with a padlock. She was reminded of a story she had read when she was just a girl in high school—something about a man having to choose between a lady and a tiger, each one hidden behind a similarly closed door. The story ended before you found out which door the man chose, thus leaving the reader to guess at the man’s fate. For whatever reason, the memory caused her to shudder. She reached out and gripped the doorknob. It turned freely but the padlock prevented the door from opening. She clutched the padlock, and tugged at it. It was certainly secure. Just above the metal plate, the woodwork of the frame was splintered and gouged, as if someone had tried to pry the lock off with a crowbar or screwdriver. Had that been how her father had gained access to the belvedere the night of his death? She thought that was plausible, but then recalled Dora telling her that the door hadn’t been locked that evening, so there would have been no need to pry at the lock. Had Dora been mistaken? Had she gotten incorrect information from someone? Moreover, despite how her father had managed to access the belvedere, why had the metal plate been replaced and the door relocked after his death?

“Hell,” she muttered to herself when she realized she didn’t have a key for the padlock. She walked down the hall toward the other closed doors and opened each one systematically, not surprised by her lack of sentiment in peering in and seeing the blank walls and sun-bleached carpets. Just like in the rest of the house, the furniture in these rooms was minimal and functional at best—another desk and chair, an armoire, a small bed in the room at the end of the hall. The windows here were all nailed shut, too. I had no idea he was this bad. Who did he think was going to break in through a second-story window? This last room had been hers when she had been a young girl. She assumed it was where the night caretaker, Ms. Larosche, had stayed during the night shift. Again, she was unsurprised by her lack of emotion in seeing it all.

A door slammed downstairs. Again, Laurie jumped. Was someone trying to drive her mad? She went back out onto the landing and was about to shout down over the railing when she heard Ted and Susan giggling together. Given the bare wooden floors and the overall emptiness of the large house, sound traveled with almost supernatural efficiency. A moment later, Susan’s high-pitched voice called out for her. Laurie heard the girl’s rapid footfalls racing along one of the hallways.