All the Dark Places(32)
“Molly! Dad said you’d be back today, but I wasn’t sure . . .” Her voice trails off as it so often does. She’s wearing a purple sweater with layered handmade beaded necklaces around her neck. Her long hair hangs behind her shoulders, and I detect a trace of pink shadow on her lids. She leans over and pets Sadie. “She’s perfect, Molly. Just the dog I pictured you getting.”
“She’s really sweet,” I say. “She hasn’t left my side since I got her.”
Hayes walks up behind Alice and puts his hands on her shoulders. “You sure you’re up to coming back?” He reaches around and pats Sadie.
I nod. “The house was starting to close in on me. I needed to get out.” I force a smile. “And I can’t think of a better place to be than here.”
“We’re glad you’re back.” Hayes wraps me in a quick hug.
Two elderly women walk into the store, and we move out of the way. They head to the romance section after a quick greeting.
“I’m ready to get busy,” I say, breaking our little spell.
“Great,” Hayes says.
“What’s been going on?” I ask, as my eyes take in the familiar stacks and displays.
“We’ve been a little slow. Post-holiday letdown.”
“Excuse me?” one of the women calls. “I need help finding the latest Nora Roberts.”
“Be right there, Mrs. Curtis.” Hayes turns and heads in her direction.
“I’m starting a new social studies unit, Molly,” Alice says. Hayes homeschools her, and she goes to work with him every day. She’s often on the computer in the kids’ section, doing her homework, or if it’s busy, she retreats to the office, where she sits at Hayes’s big antique desk.
“What’s it about?”
“Colonial America. I’m doing a paper on the Salem witch trials.”
“Wow. That should be interesting, and you’re right here where it all happened.”
“Well, close by anyway. No one in Graybridge was accused.”
“Right.” Alice is precocious. Hayes has raised her alone since his wife died when Alice was five years old.
Hayes walks back to where we stand. “There’s a box of books that need to be shelved upstairs if you want to tackle that,” he says.
“Will do.” Sadie and I climb the wooden stairs that spiral up from the first floor. They creak delightfully, and we emerge in the children’s section, which takes up half the second-floor space. The back wall is painted with fanciful murals: Beatrix Potter, Winnie-the-Pooh, Tenniel drawings from Alice in Wonderland, the story that Hayes’s daughter was named for. In the center of the wall, in pride of place, is a portrait of Amelia Mitchell, author of middle-grade fantasy novels. Her characters, fairies and other exotic creatures, are painted around her as if frolicking in delight. Ms. Mitchell has been painted in dreamy watercolor; her fair pixie haircut frames her face, her elfin-like features making her seem like one of her own creations. Her eyes are large and gray and just Alice’s color, which is no surprise since Amelia Mitchell was her mother. She’d gained a modicum of success, publishing four books in a series before her untimely death at the age of thirty-four.
I stand still for a moment and admire our lovely children’s section, where I myself had spent so many hours long ago, before Hayes returned from boarding school and his wife and daughter were still years in the future.
I pull books from the box and inhale their crisp newness. The store smells of paper and lemongrass diffused from a dispenser on the upstairs counter. There’s just a tinge of mold beneath it all. It’s an old building. But I feel comfort here among the books. It was my hiding place, is my hiding place, after all that happened before.
CHAPTER 21
Rita
SATURDAY MORNING IS COLD AS A WITCH’S TEAT, AS MY GRANDMOTHER used to say. Chase and I are in our Sunday best as we file into St. Mary’s church. We stand along the back, and our eyes go over the crowd as people pass and find their seats. Redolent with incense, the church is old, with soaring stained-glass and blazing candles. I find myself examining the saints depicted in the colorful windows. It’s cloudy outside, but occasionally a stray sunbeam sets a halo or red robe ablaze. It takes me back to my childhood in a not unpleasant way. When Grandma would come down from Maine for a visit, Ma would be on pins and needles, hoping for a good showing, especially at church.
Like most of the other families in our Boston neighborhood, Sunday mass was a tradition in the McMahon household. It took two hours of fighting over the one bathroom to get us all presentable. By the time we were squished into a pew in the back, my sisters were angry, my older brothers annoyed, and I was pouting, sitting between Danny and Jimmy. During the most sacred part of the mass, when the priest elevated the host, they would poke me in the ribs to try to make me laugh until Dad would smack them in the back of the head. Despite the monumental task of keeping nine kids quiet, we went to church like clockwork. Ma didn’t intend to raise heathens.
Chase clears his throat, brings me back to the task at hand. We’re here to pay our respects and to observe, based on the age-old cop tenet that a murderer often likes to take part in the aftermath of his deed. The trip out to see Tyler White didn’t yield anything helpful except to confirm the fact that Dr. Bradley had started interviews for his book, and if what Tyler told us was true, he didn’t get very far. I glance over the congregation. Maybe there’s a killer in this church somewhere.