The Invited(105)

“So do you think the painting could have been stolen?”

Mary Ann laughed. “Stolen? Oh dear, no. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to steal a painting of Hattie Breckenridge! Not when we have other, much more valuable things here—silver, old coins, jewelry even.”

“So what do you think happened to it?”

“Well, maybe it just got put away someplace unusual. Or someone might have borrowed it and not done the proper paperwork. Or we misplaced the paperwork. I can’t imagine, really. We have several volunteers. I think the first step will be checking in with each of them.”

She looked at the wooden cabinet, at the blank spot in the pulled-out drawer where Hattie’s painting had been.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you with the painting—what else are you looking for?” Mary Ann asked.

“When I was here with Riley, we found a couple of photographs of Hattie—an old school picture and a couple taken at a town picnic when she was a young woman. Do you know if there might be any others?”

Mary Ann nodded. “We have the final picture taken of Hattie,” she said.

“Final picture?”

    “Of the hanging,” Mary Ann said. “Surely Riley showed it to you.”

Jesus. A photograph of the hanging? It didn’t seem possible.

“Um, no. We missed that one somehow.”

“Ah,” Mary Ann said, standing, going over to a tall black file cabinet. “It’s in our special collection. Maybe Riley hasn’t seen it herself.” She opened a drawer, started looking through files. “Let’s just hope that hasn’t gone missing, too.” Mary Ann chortled a bit.

Helen secretly wished it had.

“Oh, here we are,” Mary Ann said, sounding almost giddy as she slipped a file folder out of the cabinet. She opened it up. Inside, it was lined with two sheets of paper. Between the sheets of paper, an old black-and-white photograph.

Helen cringed, had to force herself not to look away.

“Who would take a picture like this?” she asked.

“We’re not sure who the photographer was,” Mary Ann said.

Helen moved closer, studying the photograph. It was centered on a large old tree full of thick, heavy branches.

She looked at the picture, thought of how there was a piece of that very tree in her house.

Beneath the tree in the old photo, probably three dozen people were gathered, all turned toward the camera, posing. Some were smiling. Some looked down at the ground. It looked like it could have been a picture taken at a town dance or country fair—Hartsboro’s finest gathered in celebration. Some wore dusty work clothes and looked as though they’d come straight from plowing the fields or shoveling coal into a steam engine. Others were in suit and tie, the women in dresses with their hair neatly fastened.

And above them, their kill.

Hattie Breckenridge hung by a thick rope from a high branch. Helen could make out the noose around her neck. She wore a white dress that was dirty, stained. Her shoes were caked with mud. Her eyes were closed, her face placid. There was a woman right below her—a woman with light hair. She was smiling and holding something in her hands, something that seemed to glint in the light.

“What’s that woman got?” Helen asked, leaning in.

“I’m not sure,” Mary Ann said, squinting down. Helen saw a magnifying glass on the desk and reached for it. She studied the photograph through it and could see what it was: a necklace. Helen peered closer, and though it was hard to make out, she was sure it was the same necklace with a strange design Hattie had been wearing in the portrait: a circle, triangle, and square all tucked inside each other.

    “Who’s this woman?” Helen asked, pointing to the woman holding Hattie’s necklace like a trophy, a sickening smile on her face that seemed to say, The witch is dead.

“I believe that’s Candace Bishkoff. Her daughter, Lucy, had been killed in the fire. The story goes that she’s the one who led the townspeople to Hattie’s that afternoon.”

“Bishkoff? Are any of her relatives still around?”

“Why sure. There are plenty of them. They own the pig farm and smokehouse—Uncle Fred’s Smokehouse—you know it?”

She nodded. “I’ve driven by.”

Mary Ann carefully replaced the photo in its folder and rubbed her hands together excitedly. “Well! Enough of that! Let’s get started with that research! What exactly are you looking for?”

“I’m trying to trace Hattie’s family tree, to find any living descendants she may have.”

I’m trying to save one of them.

Helen continued. “I know she had a daughter, Jane…”

“No one knows what happened to Jane,” Mary Ann said sadly, shaking her head. “She disappeared soon after the hanging and was never heard from again.”

“Actually, I’m fairly certain she went up to Lewisburg and eventually married a man named Silas Whitcomb. They had two children, Ann and Mark. Jane was killed in a fire at the Donovan and Sons Mill when the children were young. Her daughter, Ann, later married a Samuel Gray—they lived over in Elsbury. Samuel and Ann had a son, Jason, and a daughter, Gloria. Samuel and Ann were killed…a murder-suicide, and the children went off to live with relatives.”