Little Girls(15)

“So what’s the deal with the locked door upstairs?” Ted asked after he’d finished eating, setting his fork down on his plate. “You got a deformed stepsister locked away up there or something?”

Susan’s mouth made an O.

“There’s a set of stairs behind it leading up into a little room above the second floor,” Laurie said. “My father called it the belvedere.”

“That tower-looking room on the roof?”

“The very same.”

“How come it’s locked?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What’s a . . . a belve—” Susan asked.

“It’s like a loft,” Ted explained. “A little room.”

“I’ll have to call Dora Lorton and see if she has a key for the lock,” Laurie said. Yet for some reason she couldn’t explain, the idea of speaking to Dora Lorton again made her uncomfortable.

After dinner and dessert were finished, they retired to the parlor. Susan’s cheerfulness was short-lived when she realized what not having a television in the house actually meant. Even Ted grumbled about this under his breath but didn’t make an actual show of it. Instead, Susan played the piano while Ted addressed the antique liquor cabinet with a hungry sort of curiosity. Laurie sat on the sofa and looked over the paperwork the lawyer David Cushing had FedEx’d to them back in Hartford. The meeting with Cushing was set for tomorrow afternoon. Back in Hartford, during the phone call with Cushing, Laurie had agreed to have her father’s body disposed of as expediently as possible. Myles Brashear was cremated, and that had been the end of him. There had been no funeral, since there were no family members alive who might be willing to attend—none that Laurie was aware of, anyway.

Laurie only hoped the meeting with Cushing wouldn’t be too strenuous. Cushing had already agreed to assist Laurie in organizing an estate sale . . . for a nominal fee, of course. She had no use for any of her father’s belongings, minimal as they were. As for the house itself, they would put it on the market and hopefully be rid of it as soon as possible. Once it was all over, she would never have to think about this place again.

“Will you look at this stuff?” Ted said as he peered into the liquor cabinet. “Harvey’s Bristol Cream, an unopened bottle of Hiram Walker triple sec that looks like it was pillaged off an old pirate ship. . . .” He whistled. “This stuff is ancient.”

“Was granddad a pirate?” Susan asked while seated at the piano. She was chugging through minor scales with a slow, unpracticed concentration. Now she stopped and turned sideways on the piano bench to look at her father.

“Do you see any parrots flying around?” Ted responded. “Do you see any eye patches or peg legs in the umbrella stand?”

Susan turned red faced with laughter. The whole thing made Laurie uncomfortable. She didn’t like hearing Susan refer to Myles Brashear as “granddad,” and the young girl’s laughter echoing hollowly through the house struck Laurie as offensive, though she didn’t understand exactly why. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for bed?”

“It’s still early!”

“It’s been a long day. No talkbacks, Susan.”

Susan whined to Ted, who shrugged his shoulders offhandedly. “Listen to your mother. No talkbacks.”

“Can I at least check on Torpedo? Please?”

It was the name she had given to the frog. Earlier, following the little creature’s escape, Ted had cornered it in the dining room and managed to trap it underneath a Tupperware container. “Speedy little torpedo,” he’d said, and Susan had liked the name, though Laurie did not think the girl understood its meaning. Laurie had retrieved the old cigar box from her father’s study, poked some holes in it, and had given it to Susan for her pet. Now, the cigar box sat on the front porch. Susan had filled it with twigs and grass and some small crickets she had chased around the yard so the frog would have something to eat.

“Okay,” Laurie relented, “but do it quickly. No dillydallying.”

Susan hopped off the piano bench and raced down the hall. Laurie heard the front door swing open.

“Are you feeling okay?” Ted asked. He was replacing the bottles back inside the liquor cabinet.

“I feel fine.” She set the legal paperwork down on the coffee table. “This paperwork is just making my head spin.”

“I’ll have a look for you.”

“It’s fine. The lawyer will tell us all we need to know tomorrow.”

“Is it something else?” He came up behind her and massaged her shoulders. “Is it about your dad?”

“No. Strangely, no.” She hadn’t been thinking of her father at all, in fact. She had been thinking of Dora Lorton. The way the woman had looked at the house as the Cadillac pulled out of the driveway . . .

Ted kissed the top of her head. “If you change your mind about staying here . . .”

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Wearily, she smiled up at him.

Susan appeared in the doorway. Her cheeks were slick with tears and her chin was a wrinkled knot—what Ted often called her “walnut chin” when she was upset, because that’s what it most closely resembled.

Laurie sat up stiffly. “What?” she said. “What is it?”