The Invited(107)

“Candace would be dead by now,” Helen explained. “She was around back in the early 1900s.”

“Oh,” the girl said. “You’re talking old-time Bishkoffs. That’s the cool thing about this family—they’ve been around here for-ev-er!”

Helen nodded. “Is anyone from the family around at the moment? Anyone who might know anything about Candace?”

“Sure, hang on a sec; let me get Marty for you. Marty knows everyone.”

“Oh, great! Thanks,” Helen said.

“No prob,” the girl chirped, going through a back door and calling, “Marty! MAR-TY!”

Soon, the girl was back, followed by a gray-haired man who shuffled in in worn overalls. He was thin and gangly and reminded Helen of a scarecrow who had come to life and just climbed down off his post. His face and neck were patchy with stubble, like he’d tried to shave but missed huge spots. His eyes were rheumy.

The girl took her seat behind the counter, stared down at her phone and started typing on it.

“Help you?” the old man grunted.

“I hope so. You’re Marty?”

He nodded.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Helen. I was looking for someone who might know something about a woman named Candace Bishkoff?”

He nodded. “She was my grandmother.”

“Did you…did you know her?” Helen pictured the woman from the photograph, young then, holding the necklace, smiling a victorious smile.

“She died when I was young, but I remember her some, yes. She taught me to play checkers. No one could beat that old lady. I mean no one.”

Helen believed that.

    “Lived to be ninety-nine years old,” he said. “Almost a century. Imagine that.”

“That’s wonderful,” Helen said. “This might sound odd, but I’m wondering about a piece of jewelry your grandmother might have owned. A necklace with a circle, triangle, and square.”

He nodded. “I know the one you mean.”

Helen’s heart jumped. She’d been right.

“Do you have it? Is it still in your family? I’d love to have a look at it.”

He shook his head. “We sold it. A little over a year ago. Lady came in here, just like you, asking all sorts of questions about it. She offered cash. Three hundred bucks. A lot of money to pay for an ugly old necklace, if you ask me,” he said.

“Three hundred bucks?” the girl behind the counter asked. “Really?”

The man nodded.

“Well, maybe it was really old and valuable, like a relic or something. Something that belongs in a museum,” the girl suggested. “Maybe it was really worth way more than that and that lady took you for a ride.”

“I don’t think so,” the man said. “And to be honest with you, Louise and I, we were happy to get rid of it. Louise used to say that necklace was cursed.”

“Why would she say that?” the girl asked.

“Because it once belonged to Hattie Breckenridge.”

“No kidding?” the girl said. “The witch? The one that got hung out by the bog?”

Marty nodded, ran a hand over one of the straps of his overalls.

Helen winced as she remembered the photograph: the smiling crowd gathered at the base of the tree while Hattie swung up above them. The witch was dead.

She looked at Marty, thought, Your grandmother did that. She was there. Her smile was the biggest, the most satisfied. Helen felt her own throat tighten, as if there were an invisible noose around her neck.

“Do you know the name of the woman you sold the necklace to?” Helen asked, forcing the words through the knot in her throat.

“Of course I do,” Marty said. “Small town like this, I knew just who she was. It was that Lori Kissner girl. The one who took off and left her husband and daughter.”

    “Oh, I know who you mean,” the girl said. “Her daughter’s a real freak. I feel bad for her, what with her mother running around with all different men and the whole town knowing it—but Olive’s a freak.”

“Olive?” Helen echoed, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“Yeah.” The girl shrugged her shoulders. “The kids at school all call her Odd Oliver.”





CHAPTER 38



Olive





SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

She couldn’t get the phrase “deep shit” out of her head, because that’s just what she was in.

Olive was trapped in Dicky’s old hotel.

She’d snuck into the hotel a little before six o’clock. She didn’t know what time the others were coming, but she wanted to make sure she was there in plenty of time. The front door was unlocked and she slipped inside, looking around the old lobby.

She had planned just what she’d say if Dicky caught her. She’d say she’d lost a bracelet, her very favorite one, one her mama who was gone now had given her, and the last time she remembered having it on was the day she visited Dicky. I’ve looked everywhere else and this is the only place it could be, she’d tell him. I’m so sorry for bothering you like this, but that bracelet is real important to me.

But, to her relief, she didn’t need to use her excuse. Not right away, anyway. There was no sign of life in or around the lobby. Just a single pillar candle burning in a holder on the front desk. It was a total fire hazard, surrounded by mountains of junk mail and papers.