Quiet Dell: A Novel (18 page)

Of course he’d taken Catherine to doctor after doctor, and these ventures, the travel, examinations, interviews, terrified her. He knew now that he should not have insisted, but he was desperate to restore her to herself, to him. Diagnoses varied: neurasthenia, anxious exhaustion, progressive nervous dementia. There was no treatment; the symptoms were psychological in expression but physical in nature. The condition would progress. She must have constant supervision. Institutionalization was indicated if she became violent toward herself or others, and was probably inevitable in any case. This he did not accept. He would hire the care she needed as her needs increased.

Her priest, Father Flynn, came to her every Sunday, to minister to her and hear her confession, and then he met with William, a scotch in the study, a Sunday evening ritual. He called William “Malone,” and William called him “Flynn.” He was William’s contemporary, the only one with whom he could discuss Catherine’s condition and welfare. For some years, Catherine had repeated only the preface to confession,
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned;
she no longer remembered her sins, or the rest of the ritual. Father Flynn sought only to comfort her, and repeated the absolution in Latin. He wished he could offer William some comfort. William, educated by Jesuits, was not Catholic. By now, they were friends. They had their glass of scotch and discussed St. Thomas Aquinas.

Catherine could not sin, and her needs were met.

What of his needs? He was healthy, he worked long hours; he read Saint Augustine and C. S. Lewis, Aristotle and Herodotus, Newman’s
Apologia;
he acquired profit; he rode, he discussed matters with his groomsman. He had never invested in stocks, for himself or others, and kept the bank solvent while other banks failed; he was quite occupied and knew to avoid solace not infrequently offered him: the veiled advances of bank customers or employees would only end in scandal. He did not dwell on his needs. He’d turned away from such thoughts, not to hope or be distracted.

It was changed. He needed to tell Emily Thornhill about the children, to say that certain images returned to him distinctly, like questions.

He saw just now, so clearly, Heinrich Eicher, that Sunday in the snowstorm, days before his death, leading the pony whose name William could not recall, despite their ritual of greeting one another with their horse’s names. The boy, Hart, looked miserable, slumped in his heavy clothes. William reined Traveller in, so as not to frighten the pony, and get past them. Then he rode hard, galloping full out, exhilarated, transported, into the wind and the driving fleecy snow. How glorious it was, riding in the deserted park as the snow fell more heavily!

But the child. He closed his eyes to stop the image.

Emily Thornhill’s résumé stated her birth date. She was thirty-five. He was thirty when he’d married, well established in his career, planning to start a family. How odd to think it was so long ago, and how disastrous, time’s disappearance, a disaster made all the more obvious by Emily’s focused concentration and discernment, the angle of her head, her lovely thick hair, barely suppressed with combs and pins, honey brown, glinting with shine, for sunlight
from the window fell upon her as she sat in the chair. A light had opened inside him without his realization or permission; he felt intensely his own deep regret, his powerlessness and mistakes in this matter of the children. His life these last years had required his acquiescence, his acceptance of conditions he could not control. He’d continued to behave deliberately in his profession, with every confidence, but cultivated an emotional distance between himself and others. He peered through that distance now as though through mist or cloud; he intuited one face and form distinctly.

Over an hour had passed.

Soon she would arrive to give him the key. He heard the bell at that moment, and rose to open the door.

Abernathy gave Emily the house key in the kitchen, and by way of farewell, Abernathy nodded at Duty in his pillowed basket. “You should take that basket; it’s the dog’s bed. I didn’t, only because I couldn’t manage in the cab, with my bag, and the dog in the carrier.”

“I will, Mrs. Abernathy, at your suggestion.” They walked to the hallway; Emily stepped carefully around the obstructive hat rack. “Bad enough that Duty has lost so much else.”

Abernathy didn’t dignify the remark. “And you’ll need the leash, and the carrier to restrain him.” She turned on the porch, her purse on her arm. “Good-bye, Miss Thornhill.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Abernathy, and thank you.” She shut the door behind the woman, and immediately heard the fast patter of the dog’s nails across the bare dining room floor, into the living room, and there Duty stood, looking at her.

“You are safe now, Duty. She’s gone.” Emily leaned down, and the dog jumped into her arms. It was a comfort to hold him, and he smelled very clean. Had Abernathy bathed him? Emily looked up the carpeted staircase. “We won’t go back up there,” she said, and felt suddenly tearful, as though the dog communicated grief, but could not cry. Fantastical thought. She respected animals precisely because they were not prone to human emotions, while human beings must earn her respect. She stood at a journalist’s distance, even in the few love affairs she’d allowed herself. She did not know what to make of William Malone.

Duty. What a name. She supposed it was like naming a child Constance, or Faith.

Animals did sustain loss, in the moment. Of course they did. They understood the ravaged or stillborn young near their bodies, but they did not understand disappearance. A dog like this would continue to search.

She walked back through the hallway to the kitchen. The dog nosed beside the icebox, knocking a small glass bowl forward. “Is that your water bowl?” Emily washed it at the sink and filled it. “There. Then we will take a walk around the back.” She would buy lean meat and bones from the butcher. And she would pay the doorman to walk Duty—Reynolds liked her, and liked dogs, she was certain. She saw the door to the pantry, a heavy door with a brass push plate. Odd that a dog that size could push it open, even in protective frenzy.

“You finished?” she asked.

Emily unlocked the back door and they crossed through. The lush grass was high and overgrown. There were outbuildings, a large barn in back, very run-down, and at least an acre of ground. Show me everything, she thought, and the dog set off.

He trotted first to the small playhouse, and Emily opened the door. All of the buildings had been painted to match the house, dark green doors, pale yellow wooden siding, muted, dark red trim. The playhouse might have been a storage shed except for the big square window in front. The loose glass was pocked and
broken. Emily stood inside amongst the toys and dolls’ clothes, cut-up Sears catalogs, broken tennis rackets. A captivating mural, floor-to-ceiling paintings affixed on three panels, adorned half the interior. The colors were faded, but weathering made them more interesting. They were a whimsical mix of geographies: Chinese coolie hats, Japanese kimonos and mountains, South Seas grass-roofed houses and palm trees, a golden road, winding down from distant snowy peaks. To go to such trouble for a playhouse, and then neglect it utterly.

She felt compelled to open the window and swing it wide. Carefully, she turned the latch, imagining upon it a smaller hand. That would be Annabel, the youngest girl, who would have loved this place and not cared that it was run-down, for she would not have remembered days of plenty. Her drawings, projects, the scissors and cut-up papers, implied an air of busyness, little-girl confidence. The fairies. Was she religious? Emily thought she remembered halos or glows around the figures’ heads. The family was Lutheran, like most of the neighbors—and the church was just down the block. But Emily hadn’t time. She looked up at the house.

Duty jumped past her, out the open window. He’d something in his mouth, a rag or paper. “Duty!” Emily called. He dropped his find and ran to the pond, a fishpond, it must have been at one time. Emily shut the window, latched it securely. Someone should rescue that mural. She set off, quickly, for the barn, which must be the workshop space William Malone had mentioned. William Malone, waiting for her at the bank.

The barn had a haymow window to one side of the peaked roof, and an old winch. Farm to workshop to abandoned building, breaking down naturally as a felled tree. Emily let herself in. It was five years or so deserted, but the light was lovely. Long workbenches on either side, constructed in the space, were solid, monolithic, and the beams of the barn roof were massive. Constructed space registered human intent and endeavor, Emily thought, far beyond the time allotted human lives.

She heard Duty outside, barking his chuffing sound. “Yes,” she
called, and went out, pulling the door firmly shut. “Let’s go, Duty. We must make one stop. Then I’ll introduce you to Reynolds, who will become your good friend. I know dogs don’t like uniforms, but you must not judge him by his very professional appearance.” She paused at a clump of high weeds, for the rag Duty had carried was there on the grass. She saw then the piled rocks and the cardboard sign, still legible, bent upon its stick:
Graveyard for Animals.

She grasped the rag, for it was rag watercolor paper, rolled into a scroll, tied with a dirty ribbon. It was one of Annabel’s drawings, a fairy figure, dressed like the others, in pastel leaves and petals, with legs that dwindled off to nothing, like a wasp in flight. The figure, drawn in ink and delicately painted, then washed with pale blue and yellow, hovered between two clouds. One glowed yellow above; the other, below, darker, streamed slants of rain on an unseen land, but the rain was tinged the palest flush of pink. The wand was there, and yes, the faint glow or halo, here extended wholly around the figure.

This child, Annabel, was not yet ten years old. Emily did not know many children; in fact, she rather avoided them out of some self-protective instinct. She could not judge the art itself except by its intent and effect, but of one thing she was certain: the child was extraordinary. She wondered if anyone had known, and decided she would not speak of it. It was immaterial and would not be understood.

•   •   •

She drove the several blocks to downtown, found the entrance to the lot behind the bank, and parked, rolling the windows a third down. “Now you’ll wait here for me, Duty. I won’t be long.” She put the drawing in her bag.
Sad,
she remembered telling William Malone, and locked the car, determined the word would not apply to them. Walking quickly, she took the Eichers’ house key from her bag.

She rang the bell and the door opened. The room seemed dim after the bright sunlight through which she’d entered; she felt the door shut behind her and turned to him, the key in her hand. He took her in his arms so naturally and held her, his hand cradling the
back of her head. Instantly, she felt the dark weight within her lift. Abernathy and her deathly look, the half-empty, violated house, the journey before her, all released her, and she turned with him, holding him, or perhaps the room was turning. She closed her eyes and sought his mouth, his full, beautiful mouth that tasted so deeply of him, and felt his hair in her fingers, for she had reached up to pull him closer, and he’d lifted her off her feet.

“Emily, Emily,” he said.

“Yes, I know. It will be all right.” She felt effortless tears fill her eyes and saw tears in his.

They sat opposite one another at the round table where she’d taken notes, holding hands tightly, intensely silent. He touched her hand to his face and mouth; the simple gesture was as stirring and intimate as his caress.

“The house,” she said quietly, “have you been inside?”

“Never.”

“And the playhouse, in the yard, painted to match the house—”

“There’s a playhouse?”

“Run-down, with a lovely mural inside. Annabel’s redoubt, I think. What do you know about her?”

He touched a fingertip to Emily’s forehead. “Brows, naturally perfect and distinct, like yours, amazingly so. Personable child, very lively. A bit stocky, still, with lovely cheekbones, long lashes. Brown hair. Resolute, I thought. ‘Fanciful’ her mother called her.”

“Where’s my bag?” Emily reached for it, on the floor. “This is one of her drawings.” She pulled off the dirty ribbon and unrolled the paper. “I didn’t take this, William, the dog found it in the playhouse, in the mess.” She’d nearly forgotten: Duty. “Oh, William, I have the dog, in the car. Abernathy’s had the Eicher dog, all this time. And gave him to me.”

“To you.”

“I had to take him. No one else would. Small dog, a Boston terrier. I think Pierson kicked it hard enough to kill it. The dog knows him, of course. It may rattle him, if I can get the dog close to him. William, you must go there, to the house. He’s already rolled up
the downstairs carpets, taken things from the walls.” She took William’s hand, across the table. “Soon there’ll be no way to sense them in the rooms.”

He enclosed her hand in his. “I knew them, Emily. I can’t fill my mind with them all the more. It’s difficult enough, and now you are leaving to look for them.” He took a business card from his pocket. “Phone me at this number, here at the bank, and at the number on the back, after hours. No one else will answer. You must phone me as soon as you’ve arrived. Have you booked a room?”

“No.” She looked at her watch. She had to get to the apartment, drop off the dog, go to the newsroom, phone O’Boyle. She would show him the drawing; perhaps he would remember it.

“I hope you don’t mind. In the interest of time, and your safety, I booked you rooms at the Gore Hotel, in Clarksburg. The address and phone are on the card.”

“Thank you. I must go.” She held his hand in hers. “I live alone, William, and now, with a small dog. My doorman is eminently discreet. I don’t know what is in the way, but I do not require a picket fence.” She leaned toward him, and nearly whispered, “I want you, just you.”

“And I want you,” he said.

•   •   •

She arrived at the
Tribune
office at 4:00
P.M
., having settled Duty at her apartment, dog bed by the stove, butcher bones wrapped in the icebox, leash and carrier by the front door; Reynolds was scheduled to walk him at seven, and proffer the bones. A note at her desk informed her that Eric Lindstrom would also be embarking for West Virginia. She supposed she might have expected as much, now that Pierson’s arrest was likely. A story like this could preoccupy the
Tribune
for months; typically, a team was assigned to such cases.