Galveston (66 page)

“But you are positive my father died there, on the beach?”

“Yes. The authorities told us he'd twisted his neck some way in the fall. I know he must have, because I've seen people jump further distances than that before, and survive. It was the way he landed, perhaps trying to avoid those projections from the building.

“I was out of my head for a couple of days, suffering mostly from shock and inhalation of too much smoke. When I finally awoke, in my bed at Claire's, Helga Reinschmidt was holding my hand. It was she who'd carried me from the burning building after I'd fainted. She'd cut her trip short after a stay in Houston, and come back that morning. Her suspicions that my cousin was up to something had finally got the best of her.”

“Did you discuss this with her later?”

“To a degree, though I was sworn to secrecy about most of the matter. I'll explain about that in a moment. Helga had returned from Union Depot just as we took off in Claire's rig toward the beach. She didn't realize then where we were going. She took her bags into the house and looked around, then found the door to Charles's office ajar—Claire always kept it locked—and the desk drawer where his gun was kept, empty. She took out on foot in the direction we'd gone, but we were far away by that time, and she could only guess we were somewhere along the beach. Then, of course, she approached and saw the flames.

“About a week later, Serena's friend Marybeth Fischer returned from abroad. Very smartly dressed she was, a svelte, attractive girl with dark hair and eyes. I'd made up my mind no one was going to find out about Serena and Roman, that the least I could do was to save her good name, so I remained tight-lipped during my visit with Marybeth.

“She'd read between the lines of Serena's letters that summer, and right off she said, ‘Serena ran away, didn't she?' But I denied it, reminded her how much she liked the water, and said just because … her body … didn't wash ashore was no sign she hadn't drowned. She stared at me for a long moment, then said finally, ‘All right. I can see it's no use questioning you. You're a loyal little thing, aren't you? That's good. So few people are.'

“… And that was the substance of our conversation.”

“Did you make that up all by yourself?”

“No. It was Father Garret's idea. I think he put two and two together, and figured out what had happened in the tower room with Claire. I've always had a feeling he might even have known what went on all summer between Serena and Roman, but then that's pure speculation. He could never have stood for that sort of thing openly, of course. Yet I've always wondered if he guessed the truth, and pretended—perhaps even to himself—not to know.

“Shortly after the fire that afternoon, a storm broke, a rough one—not anything to resemble the one in 1900, of course—but a bad one. Since it was Serena's habit to swim every day, and as far as everyone knew she'd gone to the beach that morning as usual, it was easy enough to pretend for everyone's sake that she'd drowned.

“I'll never forget Father Garret as he looked, leaning against the fireplace in Claire's parlor on the first day I was able to get up. He was rugged, good-looking, tall. He spread his great hands out over the mantel and looked away from me as he talked.

“‘I've spoken with Helga,' he said. ‘She's told me Charles's handgun is gone from his desk.'

“‘Yes, sir.'

“‘If I just speculate on some things, would you tell me whether or not I'm right? I give you my word, it would be just between the two of us. And believe me, at this point it doesn't matter what I know. You needn't cover up anything.'

“‘All right, sir.'

“‘What did Claire say up there in the Seaside Pavilion?'

“‘She told us she'd found this letter from my mother to Charles. I still have it, sir, and you can read it if you want to.'

“‘No, that won't be necessary, I don't believe. Did your mother mention Serena in her letter?'

“‘Yes, sir. She spoke of Serena as ‘their' daughter—hers and Charles's.'

“‘All right, then. I can figure out the rest. Just tell me one thing, and please tell me the truth. Did my daughter die in the fire?'

“‘Yes, sir. I tried to get help. Her shoe was caught in the stair rung—it was horrible, I—'

“‘It's all right. I just wanted to know whether she died at Claire's hand.'

“‘Not directly. Claire didn't shoot Serena, if that's what you mean.'

“‘That's what I mean. You can understand, I had to know.'

“‘Yes, sir.'

“‘You haven't talked with anyone, told anything yet?'

“‘No, sir. I've only just gotten out of bed this morning.'

“‘Good. All right. I want you to do something for me. I want you to say Serena was killed in the sea as she bathed that morning. No one need know she was near the place.'

“‘Yes, sir, if you want me to, sir.'

“‘I'm only trying to protect her memory. You see, I loved her more than anything in the world, and I don't want any vicious gossip about her final days here on earth. You can understand …'

“‘Of course.'

“Then he turned to me for the first time, and said, ‘You're one of the finest young men I have ever met. I'm so grateful she had your friendship this summer. It must have meant the world to her.'

“‘She meant the world to me, sir. But I failed her, in the end.'

“‘No, it wasn't you who failed her at all. It was me. If anyone's to blame, I am. But we've got to keep it in our heads that it's all over now. The least we can do is protect her memory, for it will be defenseless now. Should talk get started, there would be no one around to stop it.'

“‘Yes, sir,' I told him, puzzled by his phrasing it that way. Of course I doubt he knew she was carrying you, unless he guessed that too. He did not know, as we both know now, that she risked running off by herself rather than staying in Galveston to face him or anyone else with the truth.”

“… Or to hurt him.”

“Yes. That's why I can't feature her ever letting go of you. I believe she'd have gone through hell to keep you …

“Anyway, the bizarre events of the whole episode were not yet over. Late that night, Father Garret climbed the stairs and went into his wife Janet's room for the final time. There he took a gun and shot her, through the heart, then turned the gun to his right temple and pulled the trigger again.”

Chapter 12

James turned around in his chair and looked out the window again.

“You'd think it would've started long ago, wouldn't you?”

“What?”

“The snow. It will, you know. We'll have three- and four-foot drifts of it, at least by Christmas Day.” He was talking more to himself than to me. “Winter is so silent … have you ever noticed? No matter how much noise people make in winter, there is still that unalterable degree of quiet all around …”

“James, do you think my mother tried to reach you, to let you know she was all right?”

“I don't know. Such would have been highly risky. Had she written to me in Galveston right away, anyone might have wound up with the letter. If she wrote me later here in Grady, I never received it. That's why I'm convinced—”

“You don't believe there's a chance, then?”

“No, I'm afraid not.”

“I'm sorry for putting you through it all again, truly I am, yet you must be able to guess what it's like, not knowing my background, what kind of person I am or where—”

“Not at all. I'm only so thankful you came.”

“What happened, then, after Father Garret committed the murder-suicide? How gruesome!”

“Yes, indeed. None of us heard the shot. Poor Mrs. McCambridge discovered his big body hunched over Janet's when she came round the next morning to stay. She kept her own house key, you see, and getting no answer to her knock, charged in and up the stairs. After she found them, she came running out of the house, screaming like a banshee. She just stood in the front yard screaming, until Helga and I ran to see what was amiss. She vowed she would never set foot on Avenue L again, and I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't stick to her word …

“Of course, with deaths in two families next to each other on Avenue L, the newspapers had a regular field day after that, whereas before, the fire itself had made the headlines, with only mention of my name and Claire's, and Roman's. You see, the story given them and the police was that I'd been near the Pavilion playing when the storm threatened, and my cousin had come to fetch me. Something had happened with the electrical wiring while we were in there—you know, wiring in those days left something to be desired—the fire started, and so on. I told the police I'd gone into the hall, afraid of the weather brewing, and had no idea Roman Cruz was in the tower room at the same time. It was rather limp, I'll admit, but they were willing to accept it, apparently. They still didn't connect this with Serena's death because she, supposedly, was doing her swimming down at the Fischer place, some distance further. Therefore, they failed to connect any of this with the murder-suicide.”

“Poor man …”

“Yes. You can see how utterly hopeless his situation was. He'd pinned all prayers for a tolerable existence on Serena, and when she was gone he had nothing. I imagine somewhere along the way he must have lost his faith in God … perhaps partly out of guilt for what he, Mother, and Janet and Charles had pulled off on Claire. Then from what Claire said, there must have been something between Rubin and her at one time, though I don't know how far it went. The weight of his sins hung heavily on his shoulders, I guess, and everything else on top of that …

“It wasn't long before Helga and I left Galveston and went our separate ways. I first headed for Grady so the people ‘in charge' of me could decide where I would be sent. Helga started again for San Antonio, and this time she made it.

“Claire left the house and most of her estate to Helga, you know. Before she discovered the letter to Charles from Mother, I'd been named beneficiary. Apparently she'd taken care of that right after she returned from my parents' funeral, before I got to Galveston. So then, she had to spend time through the summer having it changed again without arousing suspicion. What passed to me, after her death, was my own father's estate, then later his father's estate, both left in trust. The money off them wasn't a lifetime source, but at least it saw me through my education.”

“But Helga had no wish to stick around Galveston among the ruins.”

“Yes, good way of putting it. She lived until only a few years ago, remaining in San Antonio, and I never once heard from her. Then, upon her death, I received a letter from her brother Carl in San Antonio. He asked me to come down because she'd left the remainder of Claire's estate to me in her will—she'd touched almost none of it before leaving, then of course the house and all its furnishings were destroyed in the storm of 1900.

“When I went to San Antonio, Carl gave me a stack of letters she'd saved over the years, those written to her by Claire during the time she was not in service with the Beckers. There was a short letter written by Helga, addressed to me, which asked that Claire's letters be destroyed once I had read them. It was her way, I guess, of letting me know at last what information she had about what had happened—what caused—events that summer. And she also wanted to explain her loyalty to a woman who wound up so vengeful, I think. She told me in the letter that she believed herself responsible for Claire's ‘bleeding spells,' as she called them, which eventually led to Claire's hysterectomy. She said she did not know how, but she must have made some mistake during the delivery of Claire's child … she was the midwife, you see.

“She realized Charles blamed her for hurting Claire, and she wasn't surprised that he sent her for a prolonged visit with her brother Carl at the time the Beckers moved from Grady in early 1877. Guess she didn't like being around Charles any more than he enjoyed her company. She never returned to the Beckers' until right after his death, at which time Claire wasted no time urging her to come. The source of trouble between Helga and her brother—I finally learned from him after she died—was that he resented her being in domestic service. Their family had come over from Germany some years earlier and accumulated a fair amount of wealth from business enterprises in this country. They lived in a section of San Antonio where just about all wealthy Germans lived—on King William Street in Sauerkraut Bend, on the River. There was no need for Helga to go out and work. Yet, independent almost to a fault, she insisted upon it.

“When she went back to Claire's again—after Charles's death—there must have been a nasty row between her and Carl, and Claire knew of this. That was why she was so suspicious of Claire insisting she visit there in 1899.”

“But what happened with the house after Claire's death? Did they leave it vacant? Is there any way of checking whether anything in it was salvaged before the storm, papers or anything?”

“My, you do have an inquisitive nose, Willa,” he said, laughing. “No, Helga left some things up in the attic, and rented the house and furnishings through an agency. Apparently two or three families lived there at one time or another between that summer and the next—the fatal 1900.”

“Do you hate Claire for what she did?”

“Hate her? Why no, not any more, though I did for a time. But I have mentioned the years I've had to think, and the years sometimes have a kind of mellowing effect on hatred. She was quite mad at the end, you see. It was so obvious, yet none of us knew. She spent most of that summer I stayed with her reliving the past, longing for Damon Becker. I think her mind shut out all the things she couldn't tolerate in herself.