The Shape of Night(63)
“What do you think happened to her?”
“Some sort of stroke is my guess. Or a heart attack. The local doctor called it a natural death, that’s all I know. Climbing those turret steps might have been too much for her.”
“Why do you think she kept going up to the turret?”
“I have no idea. It was just an empty room with a leaky window.”
“And a hidden alcove.”
“Yes, I was quite surprised when Ned told me he’d found that alcove. I have no idea when it was walled up or why, but I’m sure my aunt didn’t do it. After all, she didn’t even bother keeping up the place. By the time I inherited, it was already in sorry shape. Then those kids broke in and really trashed the place.”
“That was Halloween? The night the girl fell?”
He nods. “But even before that girl died, the house already had a reputation as haunted. My aunt used to scare me with stories of Captain Brodie’s ghost. Probably to keep me from visiting so often.”
I understand perfectly why his aunt might want to keep him away. I can’t imagine a more irritating houseguest.
“Worst of all,” he said, “she let it be known all over town that her house was haunted. Told the gardener and the cleaner that the ghost was watching, and if they stole anything, he’d know. After that fool girl fell off the widow’s walk, the damn place became unsellable. The terms of my aunt’s will forbade me from tearing it down, so I could either let it slowly rot or I could fix it up as a rental.” He eyes me. “Are you sure you can’t afford to buy it? You seem like a happy enough tenant. Unlike the woman before you.”
It takes me a moment to register the significance of what he’s just said. “Are you talking about Charlotte Nielson? You’ve met her?”
“She came to see me, too. I thought maybe she wanted to buy the house but no, she asked about its history. Who lived there and what happened to them.”
Gooseflesh suddenly ripples across my arms. I think of Charlotte, a woman I’ve never met, sitting in this room, probably on this same sofa, having this same conversation with Professor Sherbrooke. Not only do I live in the same house she did, I am following so closely in her footsteps that I might be Charlotte’s ghost, reliving her last days on earth.
“She was unhappy living there?” I ask.
“She said the house made her uneasy. She felt like something was watching her, and she wanted to hang curtains in the bedroom. It’s hard to believe a woman that high-strung would ever qualify as a schoolteacher.”
“Something was watching her? That’s the word she used?”
“Probably because she’d heard about the so-called ghost, so of course every creaky floorboard had to be him. I wasn’t surprised when I heard she abruptly vacated.”
“As it turns out, she had every reason to be uneasy. I assume you know about her murder.”
He gives a maddeningly unconcerned shrug. “Yes. It was unfortunate.”
“And you’ve heard who the prime suspect is? The man you hired to work on the house.”
“I’ve known Ned for decades. Saw him every summer when I visited my aunt, and I never saw any reason not to trust him. That’s what I told Charlotte.”
“She had concerns about him?”
“About everything, not just Ned. The isolation. The lack of curtains. Even the town. She didn’t find it particularly open to strangers.”
I think about my own experiences in Tucker Cove. I remember the gossipy ladies in the grocery store and coolly businesslike Donna Branca. I think about Jessie Inman and how the circumstances of her death were suppressed by the local newspaper. And I think of Charlotte, whose disappearance never raised an eyebrow until I started asking questions. To the casual visitor, Tucker Cove seems quaint and picturesque, but it’s also a village that guards its secrets and protects its own.
“I hope none of this discourages you from staying,” he says. “You will be staying, won’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, for the rent you’re paying, you won’t be able to find anything like Brodie’s Watch. It’s a grand house, in a popular town.”
It is also a house with secrets, in a town with secrets. But we all have secrets. And mine are buried deepest of all.
Twenty-Four
The waiting room is empty when I arrive at Ben’s medical office late that afternoon. His receptionist, Viletta, smiles at me through the window and slides open the glass partition.
“Hello, Ava. How is your arm doing?” she asks.
“It’s completely healed, thanks to Dr. Gordon.”
“You know, cats carry a lot of diseases, which is why I stick with canaries.” She squints down at her appointment book. “Was Dr. Gordon expecting you today? Because I don’t see your name on the schedule.”
“I don’t have an appointment. I was hoping he’d have a spare minute to see me.”
The door opens and Ben pokes his head into the waiting room. “I thought I heard your voice! Come on back to my office. I’m done for the day, and I’m just signing off on some lab reports.”
I follow Ben down the hall, past the exam rooms and into his office. I’ve never been in his office before, and as he hangs up his white coat and sits down behind the oak desk, I survey the framed diplomas and the photos of his father and grandfather, the earlier generation of Dr. Gordons with their white coats and stethoscopes. One of Ben’s oil paintings hangs there as well, unframed, as though it’s only a temporary decoration being auditioned for the wall. I recognize the landscape, because I have seen that rocky jut of land in his other paintings.