Ashes to Ashes (19 page)

“That was in 1901!” Rebecca exclaimed. “She must be… ”

“One hundred years old next month. We volunteers have a surprise party planned for her. You ought to come meet her— she’s a lot like you, she remembers the old days better than last week.”

“Occupational hazard,” Rebecca explained.

“And,” Jan continued, “she has lots of good gossip. She was the only one there when the baby was born, for one thing. Can you imagine having no one but a thirteen-year-old girl to help you give birth?”

Michael’s forefinger moved in midair, calculating. “But wasn’t James born in 1892?”

“Yes, he was. Louise was there for the other baby.”

“What?” Rebecca asked. Those tiny frilly clothes so tenderly tucked away— Elspeth had had another child?

“You didn’t know about the daughter?” Jan sighed heavily. “I’m not surprised. The poor little thing died. I guess she’s in the mausoleum. It was only a few days later, you see, that Elspeth threw herself out that window. Louise was in the house then, too, although not in the actual room.”

Michael whistled and shook his head. “I read the cuttin’s, but they didn’t say anything about a child. So that’s why she killed herself.”

“What a soap opera,” said Peter.

“What a tragedy,” Rebecca stated. Poor Elspeth. No wonder she haunted the house. If whatever entity moved there could be said to have a personality. “Louise’s name is O’Donnell, not Gemmell?”

“Now it is. Her maiden name was Ryan, I think. Her daughter married a Pruitt; he begat Phil, who married some shady Sadie and begat Steve.” Jan stood and started stacking the plates. “Aren’t small towns wonderful? You get genealogy along with your Cheerios.”

Laughing, Rebecca collected the salad bowls.

Michael cocked his head. “Gemmell?”

“That was the only name on the back of a photo of a girl in James’s diary.” Rebecca told him. “I thought for a minute there maybe I’d read ‘O’Donnell’ as ‘Gemmell’. But even if I had, the picture’s from the 1920s— Louise would have been too old and her daughter too young.”

Michael nodded. “And the Erskine letter wasn’t by any chance folded in the back of the frame?”

“No frame. Just another miniature mystery, like the scrap of a letter. When did I find that?” It seemed as if she were looking down the wrong end of a telescope. “Apparently someone had been making demands on James and he was telling them where they could go.”

“That’s interestin’, but not anything the museum would want.”

Jan said to Peter, “While the scholars here discuss their work would you check on the kids? I think they’ve turned on
Miami Vice
.” And to Michael, “I’ve made a pound cake; would you prefer coffee or tea? The coffee’s unleaded. Decaffeinated,” she added to Michael’s puzzled look.

“He’s a tea drinker,” said Rebecca.

“Coffee after dinner, thank you,” Michael said, smiling amiably.

Rebecca rolled her eyes upward and caromed off the kitchen door. Only her experience as a waitress kept her from dropping her clattering burden of dishes. “Careful,” said Jan. “Although I see how he might have that effect.”

“What?”

“Michael. He’s delightful.”

“Every now and then. He’s on his best behavior tonight.”

“I don’t have to work with him,” Jan conceded. “But, hey, that remark about your needing expert help was just male chest-thumping. Peter always gripes about the furniture; he’s upset because we can’t afford better. At least with Michael there you don’t have to catalog everything yourself. Or be alone with the ghosts.”

“Not funny,” Rebecca told her. But her thoughts fastened not on ghosts but on Peter, who wanted to buy new furniture for his wife. Motive and opportunity for prowling around Dun Iain?

No. If the man cared enough about his family not to move them all over the country chasing some mythical pot of gold, he cared enough not to get involved in monetary mischief. Unless he thought such mischief was evidence of his caring. The principle of the thing, justice, whatever.

The snug kitchen contracted as if pressed inward by the night. The delicious aroma of coffee acidified. The voices of the children, raucously singing the words to a McDonald’s commercial, smeared into meaningless noise. Jan rinsed the dishes, unaware that her best friend stood just behind her, figurative dagger poised to stab her in the back.

No. Not Peter. Never. And that, as far as Rebecca was concerned, simply had to be that.

Somewhere beyond the white noise in Rebecca’s ears the telephone rang. Jan lay down her dish towel to answer it. “Hello?” Then, with a sharp glance at Rebecca, “Oh, hi! Yes, she’s here.” She extended the receiver. “Speak of the devil. It’s Ray.”

Rebecca stared numbly at the mouthpiece while the all-too-familiar voice percolated through her head. “I tried and tried to call you at the castle, but no one answered the phone. I was really worried.”

“Ray, where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I? Right here in Dover, where else?”

Where indeed? She slouched against a corner of the refrigerator like a boxer in his corner between rounds.

“I was really worried,” Ray went on, not to be detoured from his set statement. “After that card you sent I didn’t know what to think.”

“Card?”

Michael appeared in the doorway, helping Jan to carry the rest of the dishes. He cast an inquisitive glance toward Rebecca. Jan clued him in. His brows arched. Rebecca turned her back on him.

“The postcard,” Ray was saying. “About how vandals had broken in and smashed a bunch of stuff. I warned you about going there, out of state and all. We don’t know these people!”

And she’d once thought him profound simply because his IQ approached hers… . Someone had sent him a card. Not that his address was a state secret. But her room alone had been vandalized. If he were in Putnam picking up the local news, he could’ve made up the card. And yet Ray had always been as devious as a drink of water. He had his moments of possessiveness, but Rebecca simply couldn’t see him skulking around Putnam.

“Rebecca, are you there?”

“Ray, if you got a card today, I’d have to have sent it the day I got here, but nothing happened until last night, and nothing was smashed.”

“You’re in danger!”

“No, no. Just someone trying to be funny. We’ve changed the lock on the door, it won’t happen again. I’m not in danger.”

“Kitten, you really ought to stop this foolishness and come home.”

Her spine stiffened. “No, Ray, I have work to do. Important, interesting work. I sublet my apartment and stored my books and dishes, remember?”

“Then you’ll have to move in with me.”

Now he was having delusions of himself as father knows best. Enough was enough. This was it, D Day. Just like Ray to ambush her before she’d been able to script a graceful exit. “I appreciate your worrying about me,” Rebecca said. “But I’m all right. I’ve been working and I’ve been thinking, too. About us.”

“About us?”

“It’s time to call it quits, Ray. Lay the engagement to rest permanently. Break up.”

Silence.

She bit her lip, released it. “Ray?”

“Rebecca,” said the calm, reasonable, hurt voice. “What a thing to say. We’ve been together three years!”

“It’s been a good three years. It’s been… ” She groped for a word. “… very comforting. But we’ve grown apart, and it’s time to stop.”

“I haven’t grown anywhere,” he said plaintively.

“I’m the one who’s changed. I’m sorry.” This was like squeezing a pimple: painful, messy, and humiliating.

Apparently Jan and Peter were trying to herd Mandy and Brian to bed; screeches of outrage emanated from the living room. Michael scurried into the kitchen like a man escaping Devil’s Island, helped himself to the coffee, and opened the refrigerator door at Rebecca’s elbow. He found the milk and poured some into his cup. “So you’re goin’ to gie him the elbow?” he stage-whispered, and sneaked back into the dining room as the front rolled upstairs.

Rebecca shot a glare at his retreating back that missed by a mile.

“Let’s not rush into anything, okay?” said Ray. “I mean, we can go ahead and date other people, and when you get back here in January you’ll see things differently.” He was no doubt polishing his glasses. Stuffing the pipe was for contemplation, polishing the glasses was for agitation.

“I won’t be seeing things differently. Let’s just make a clean break. It’s easier that way.”

“Rebecca… . “No, he was too dignified to argue. “If that’s what you want, Kitten. You know where I am if you need me.”

“Take care, Ray.”

“No, no, you’re the one who needs to take care. All right?”

“All right, I will. Goodbye.”

“See you around, Rebecca.”

She stood looking at the phone after she’d hung up. If they were both teaching at Dover they would be seeing each other around. That would be awkward, but not as awkward as shoring up a relationship whose timbers had rotted out. Rebecca allowed herself a quick sniff. No, the three years hadn’t been wasted. Odd, though, that what she felt now wasn’t sorrow but relief.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and drank. Strong and smooth, dark and aromatic, like Eric… . She swallowed the wrong way, coughed, and for one quick moment wondered just what would’ve happened with Eric by the time January rolled around.

Judging by the distant sounds of water splashing and children being tortured, Jan and Peter were washing their offspring. Impressive how Peter waded in, too. And he must really be wading— Rebecca looked cautiously up at the ceiling. No spreading water spots. Fathers, she thought, had changed since she was a child.

She carried her coffee into the dining room and collapsed in her chair. Maybe she should abandon her idea of a dissertation on the Erskine letter and instead explore the varieties of tension headache.

Michael leaned on the table, cradling his cup. His expression was candid, maybe even sympathetic. “What was her name?” Rebecca asked.

“Who?”

“The Englishwoman to whom you gave the elbow.”

The blue eyes grew brittle. They looked through her, seeing someone else. For a moment she fully expected him to say, “None of your business,” even though he’d thrust that mouth of his into her business. But he sighed and said, “Sheila-bluidy-Fitzgerald, that was her name. I was tempted tae gie her the back o’ my hand, but that would’ve said more aboot me than aboot her.”

Rebecca’s eyes widened. At least she hadn’t ended up hating Ray. “What happened?”

“Ah, she thought I was just the most precious noble savage she’d ever had. And I do mean ‘had’. She was bletherin’ tae her friends aboot me, what does a Scotchman— she couldna even get that right— wear beneath his kilt? Proper little bitch, she was.”

“Ouch.” Rebecca winced. How on earth had he ever gotten into a relationship like that to begin with? Galloping male hormones, probably.

Michael dropped his eyes to his cup. Rebecca rubbed her aching temples.

Jan and Peter returned, damp and disheveled, escorting the children. Mandy and Brian shone as if they’d been polished in their little robes emblazoned with Big Bird and Cookie Monster. “The urchins thought we were sending them to bed without any cake,” Peter explained. “I think we have it all cleared up now.”

Jan swathed the children with dish towels and gave them their rewards, which they proceeded to mash onto their clean faces. She plumped down beside Rebecca. “Should I ask what that phone call was about?”

“He got a card, supposedly from me, about vandals at Dun Iain.”

“But the post isn’t fast enough.” Michael said.

“Spot on,” said Rebecca. “Our mysterious prowler has become our mysterious poison pen. And I think… . “She told them about Steve, Heather, and the extra earring. “Although how a kid like Steve could realize any money out of a decorative piece like the mazer I don’t know. That’s why I don’t think we need to rush to report the earring. The mazer’s probably gathering dust in his garage while he wonders what to do with it.”

Michael swore softly under his breath. “So now we know.”

Jan shook her head. “Not necessarily. Steve and Heather could’ve been up there making out. You said you found the earring caught in the bedspread.”

“Makin’ out?” asked Michael. And then, “Oh, snoggin’.”

“Snogging?” Peter queried.

“In my bed?” Rebecca felt slightly queasy.

Michael shrugged. “People have probably died in that bed. It’s 200 years old, at the least.”

Rebecca offered him a savage glare of her own. Jan smothered a laugh.

“Maybe,” said Peter, “I can see Steve and Heather committing vandalism, though theft is hard to swallow. And I’ll allow that it’s rather gilding the lily to assume two different sets of people were there that night. But I hate to jump to assumptions about those kids just because they look like extras in a horror movie. They’ve never been in trouble before.”

“And for Steve to write Ray,” Michael said, “doesn’t make sense.”

Jan steepled her fingers in her most Sherlockian pose. “Look at it from another angle. Who stands to gain from your not doing your job?”

“James’s will,” answered Rebecca, “leaves the estate to any relative who can be found before the January deadline, because he was mad about paying such high taxes. If we don’t get done sorting everything out then the relatives— or Ohio— get what’s left. But the state wouldn’t go in for such skulduggery. And if there are people who know they’re related, they would have stepped forward by now; if they didn’t know, how can they be plotting?”

Michael’s teeth showed in a humorless grin. “And how does Mr. Adler benefit from that wrinkle about the relatives?”

“The only way I can see him profiting,” Peter said, “is to charge for searching for the heirs. Hardly a scam. None of us work for free.”

Rebecca put down her fork. Jan’s pound cake was feeling like just that, a pound of flour paste in her stomach. Couldn’t get away from the public or the private melodramatics long enough for a friendly meal.

“I hate to say it, Rebecca,” said Jan, “but as long as you’re being singled out I do wonder if it isn’t Ray.”

“But plotting like that, picking locks, throwing things around— it just isn’t like him. He wouldn’t break the glass on his own picture!”