The Shape of Night(54)
“But I didn’t hire him. Arthur Sherbrooke did. He insisted Ned had to do the renovations.”
“Why Ned?”
“Because he knows the house better than anyone. Ned used to work for Mr. Sherbrooke’s aunt, when she was still living there.”
“That’s the other gossip I heard today. Is there some question about how the aunt died?”
“Aurora Sherbrooke? None at all. She was old.”
“These women seemed to think Ned had something to do with the aunt’s death.”
“Jesus. The goddamn gossip in this town never ends!” The starch suddenly seems to go out of Donna and she slumps back in her chair. “Ava, I’ve known Ned Haskell all my life. Yes, I’ve heard the rumors about him. I know there are people who simply refuse to hire him. But I never thought he was dangerous. And I still don’t believe he is.”
Neither do I, but as I leave Donna’s office, I wonder how close I came to being another Charlotte, another Laurel. I think of him swinging a hammer in my turret, his clothes powdery with wood dust. He is powerful enough to strangle a woman, but could such a killer have also created those sweetly whimsical birds? Perhaps I missed something darker about them, some disturbing clue to a monster lurking inside the artist. Are there not monsters inside each and every one of us? I am all too well-acquainted with my own.
I climb into my car and have just buckled the seatbelt when my cellphone rings.
It’s Maeve. “I need to see you,” she says.
“Can we meet next week?”
“This afternoon. I’m on my way to Tucker Cove now.”
“What is this all about?”
“It’s about Brodie’s Watch. You need to move out, Ava. As soon as possible.”
* * *
—
Maeve hesitates on my front porch, as if summoning the courage to enter the house. Nervously she scans the foyer behind me and finally steps inside, but as we walk into the sea room she keeps glancing around like a frightened doe, on the alert for attacking teeth and claws. Even after she settles into a wingback chair, she still looks uneasy, a visitor in hostile territory.
From her shoulder bag she pulls out a thick folder and sets it on the coffee table. “This is what I’ve been able to track down so far. But there may be more.”
“About Captain Brodie?”
“About the women who’ve lived in this house before you.”
I open the folder. The top page is an obituary, photocopied from a newspaper dated January 3, 1901. Miss Eugenia Hollander, age 58, dies at home after falling on stairs.
“She died here. In this house,” says Maeve.
“This article says it was an accident.”
“That would be the logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? It was a winter’s night, cold. Dark. And those turret steps were probably only dimly lit.”
That last detail makes me glance up. “It happened on the turret staircase?”
“Read the police report.”
I turn to the next page and find a handwritten report by Officer Edward K. Billings of the Tucker Cove Police. His handwriting is exquisite, thanks to an era when schools demanded perfect penmanship. Despite the poor-quality photocopy, his report is readable.
The deceased is a fifty-eight-year-old lady, never married, who lived alone. Prior to this incident she was in excellent health, according to her niece Mrs. Helen Colcord. Mrs. Colcord last saw her aunt alive yesterday evening, when Miss Hollander seemed in good spirits and had eaten a hearty supper.
At approximately seven-fifteen the next morning, the housemaid Miss Jane Steuben arrived and was puzzled that Miss Hollander was not downstairs, as was her habit. Upon climbing to the second floor, Miss Steuben discovered the door to the turret stairs open, and she found the body of Miss Hollander crumpled at the foot of the staircase.
I pause, remembering the nights Captain Brodie led me up those same stairs by flickering candlelight. I think of how steep and narrow that stairway is, and how easily a headlong tumble can snap a neck. On the night Eugenia Hollander died, what was she doing on those stairs?
Had something—someone—lured her to the turret, just as I have been lured?
I focus once again on Officer Billings’s precise handwriting. Of course, he would conclude her death was merely an accident. What else could it be? The deceased woman lived alone, nothing was stolen, and there were no signs of an intruder.
I look at Maeve. “There’s nothing suspicious about this death. That’s what the police believed. Why did you show me this?”
“I was looking for more information about the dead woman when I found a photo of her.”
I turn to the next page in the folder. It’s a black-and-white portrait of a pretty young woman with arching eyebrows and a cascade of dark hair.
“That photo was taken when she was nineteen years old. A beautiful girl, wasn’t she?” says Maeve.
“Yes.”
“Her name appears in a number of society columns published around then, in connection with a variety of eligible young men. At twenty-two years old, she became engaged to a wealthy merchant’s son. As a wedding gift, her father gave her Brodie’s Watch, where the young couple planned to live after their marriage. But that marriage never took place. The day before the wedding, Eugenia broke off the engagement. Instead she chose to remain a spinster, and she lived alone in this house. For the rest of her life.”