Secrets of Hallstead House (9 page)

When I went downstairs for breakfast the next morning, Vali informed me that I would be alone in the dining room since Stephan and Will had left for New York an hour earlier. I hadn’t known they were leaving, but I was pleased that Alex might have some extra time now to spend on her exercises and rehabilitation. I went in to see her after I had washed my breakfast dishes, and she was indeed relaxing, enjoying a news magazine in her sitting room.

“No work this morning?” I asked.

“Oh, I always have work to do, but Stephan and Will left early today. They have a meeting to attend, and they’ll be back in a couple of days. Since they’re gone I thought I would catch up on some reading before going into my office.”

“Would you like to work on some exercises before you get dressed?” I suggested.

“That would be fine, Macy. Then I can shower and dress afterward.”

We worked on her exercises for less than an hour. I didn’t want her to tire, especially because she had been worn out earlier in the week and because she had taken a short break from the exercises. She did well, though, and didn’t seem too tired when we finished. I told her I thought she should go outdoors later for a walk around Summerplace. She agreed and I left her to her shower.

When I walked into the foyer, Leland was clumping out the front door. I didn’t want to bother him any more than necessary, but I felt I could not spend another night in that icebox of a room.

“Leland,” I called after him, “were you able to find glass to replace that broken door in my room?”

He didn’t turn around. “Nope. Gotta go all the way to Cape Cartier to buy glass to replace what broke. Don’t know when I’ll get to it.” And he left.

I was feeling frustrated. I had to do something about that door. I could think of only one person to ask for help, so I walked down to the boathouse to look for him.

I found Pete wiping paint from his hands with rags that reeked of turpentine. The odor mingled with the smell of diesel from the boat engines and the tangy and unmistakable scent of the river water, which I was learning to recognize. It was not unpleasant.

“Morning,” Pete said when he saw me.

“Good morning. It looks like another beautiful day!” I responded.

“Enjoy the nice days while you can, because once it starts to get cold, it doesn’t stop. There’ll be snow on these islands before you know it.”

“Pete, I was wondering if you could help me with something,” I said tentatively.

“Sure, if I can,” he replied. “What do you need?”

“Well, the glass in one of the doors in my bedroom is broken, and Leland doesn’t seem to have the time to fix it. I wouldn’t pester you, but it’s so cold in there at night and . . .”

“And you want me to replace the glass,” he finished.

“Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I think there’s some replacement glass in the storage rooms above the boathouse. Let’s go have a look, and if there’s some there, I can replace that for you this morning.”

I thanked him, relieved and hopeful that I might be sleeping in a warm room again tonight.

He led the way up the stairs inside the boathouse to the upper level, where his rooms and several storage rooms were located.

“Let me just run into the kitchen and wash this turpentine smell off my hands,” he said. He opened an old, thin wooden door and entered his apartment, waving me in behind him, and I stepped inside and found myself in a sparsely furnished, masculine apartment. The walls were all off-white, and an old, comfortable-looking sofa sat in the middle of the large open room. Pete had walked into the next room and he called to me from there, “Make yourself comfortable—I’ll just be a minute.”

I wandered over to the large windows, which gave the room a beautifully tranquil and ever-changing view of the water. After staring out the windows for a moment, I continued my self-guided tour around the room, walking over to have a look at some pictures I noticed grouped on one wall. They were all outdoor shots, and Pete was in most of them with other people whom I didn’t recognize: Pete with several men about the same age, each holding a fishing rod; a picture of a woman who looked to be in her sixties, probably Pete’s mother; a photo of a large group of people in graduation robes, Pete in the top row with a wide grin. There was also a picture of Pete with his arm around an attractive woman who appeared to be several years younger than him. The one photo without any people in it was a picture of one of the boats that was housed downstairs. I remembered that Pete had mentioned that he kept his own boat at Hallstead Island.

I sat down on the sofa to wait for him. He came out of the kitchen a moment later holding a cup of coffee. “Coffee?” he offered.

“Yes, thanks.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and then came to the doorway again. “Why don’t you come in here and get your own cream and sugar? I don’t know how you like it.”

I followed him into the small, neat kitchen. The walls were blue and everything else was white, from the appliances to the towels to the small table and chairs that stood in the middle of the room. I helped myself to the cream and sugar that he had placed on the table, and then he gestured toward my mug and said to me, “If you want to bring that along, we’ll go into one of the storerooms to look for that glass.”

I followed him out of the apartment and down a short, dimly lit hallway that ended in a huge room filled with all kinds of boating equipment and various unidentifiable pieces of small machinery, likely for use on boats or around the island. There were several smaller rooms off the big one, and I followed him into one that was filled with cans of paint, outdoor painting supplies, and cleaning equipment. “Not in here,” Pete mused aloud. He went into another small room, and there we found several pieces of glass leaning against one another in a metal contraption. Each pane of glass was buffered by a large chamois cloth. He went to a cupboard that hung on the wall and took down a sheet of paper. After scanning the paper for a few moments, he turned to me and said, “We’ve got one that’ll fit in your door. It’s right over here.” He quickly found the pane of glass we needed, and, very carefully, he eased it out from between two other panes. He slid the glass, still covered with its protective cloth, over to a bare wall and leaned it there. Then he said, “If you can carry my tools up to the house, I can put it in your door today. Otherwise, I can get Leland to do it.”

“I can help,” I said eagerly. I didn’t want this job left up to Leland or it might never get done. I put my coffee cup down and joined Pete. He disappeared for just a moment and came back with a pair of gloves.

He gingerly picked up the glass and headed downstairs. I followed with his toolbox. Once downstairs, we made our way carefully out of the boathouse and up through the trees to Summerplace. In my room, Pete set the glass against the wall, I handed him the toolbox, and he went to work. I stayed in case he needed any help.

As it turned out, he needed my help only to maneuver the glass into the correct position to install. I mostly watched him. He worked intently, stopping only now and then to stand back and look at his work. When he was satisfied, he put his tools away and said to me, “There you go. You ought to be a lot warmer in here tonight. Why did you stay in here last night?”

“I don’t think I even realized that it would get as cold as it did. And with the air seeping in around the cardboard, I wasn’t sure I could build a fire in the fireplace. Plus, I felt a little uncomfortable sleeping in the living room.”

“How did the glass break in the first place?” he asked.

I had been waiting for this question. “Someone threw a rock through the glass a couple of nights ago,” I explained lightly.

Pete looked shocked. “Who would have done that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you told Alex?”

“No,” I replied quickly. “I don’t want Alex to know. I don’t want to upset her.”

He was silent for a minute and I continued, “She’s been very busy, and earlier in the week she was under the weather, and I know she has a lot on her mind with her work. I don’t think this incident needs to be on her radar just now. After all, my job here is to make her life easier, not more complicated.” I smiled. “Besides, now that the glass is fixed, the whole thing is over.”
But not forgotten
, I thought.

“I hope so,” Pete agreed.

“Thank you for helping me,” I said. “Leland thought he had to go to Cape Cartier to get new glass, and he didn’t have the time to do that. He must not have known that there was glass stored above the boathouse.”

Pete looked grim. “He knew. He just didn’t want to do it. Remember I told you to expect some hassle from Vali and Leland? That’s exactly the sort of thing I was talking about.”

“Oh, I’ve experienced some of that,” I told him. “You were right; they don’t seem to want me here. But I’ve explained to Vali that I have a job to do and I intend to do it.”

“That’s the spirit.” Pete nodded approvingly. “As hard as it is to do, just try to ignore them.”

I laughed. “I’ve heard that before.”

Pete picked up his tools and looked around my room. “Anything else need fixing?”

“No, thanks. Just the door. I’ll definitely sleep better tonight,” I said gratefully.

“You get a great view from this room,” Pete noted, looking out the French doors. He certainly was more talkative, even friendly, today.

“It’s beautiful,” I agreed warmly. “Looking out over those trees is calming and energizing at the same time.”

Pete seemed to know exactly what I meant. “The water has the same effect on me,” he said.

Our conversation stalled then, and he headed toward the bedroom door. I was walking over to the door to open it for him when something on the small table in front of the fireplace caught my eye. I gave an involuntary exclamation.

“My album!”

“What album?”

I went over to the album and leafed through it quickly. All the pictures were there and intact. “It’s a photo album that I brought with me when I came here,” I explained. “After my first day here, it disappeared. I looked everywhere for it, but I couldn’t find it. I was beginning to doubt I’d ever see it again.”

“I’m glad it turned up,” Pete said. “I wonder where it’s been.” He cocked his eyebrows and looked at me intently.

“I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that someone took it out of idle curiosity and gave it back when their curiosity was satisfied.”

“And you’re sure it was really missing?”

“Of course I’m sure!” I exclaimed in exasperation. “Why would I say it had been missing if it’s been on that table the whole time? I’m not crazy!”

“I didn’t imply that you’re crazy,” Pete answered softly. “I was merely wondering if it’s possible that you misplaced it temporarily.”

“It is not possible,” I replied shortly.

“Okay, okay. May I see it?” he asked.

Reluctantly, I handed him the album. He set down his tools and looked at the pictures slowly, occasionally pausing to ask a question.

“Are these your parents?” he asked, pointing to a shot that had been taken earlier in the summer at a restaurant in Connecticut.

“Yes,” I answered quietly.

“Where do they live?”

“They lived in Connecticut, but they were both killed in a car accident almost two months ago,” I answered, staring at the photo with tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Pete replied. “I had no idea.”

“That’s okay.”

He continued looking through the album. “I recognize a lot of famous New York City places in these pictures,” he noted. “You must miss the big city.”

“New York is exciting, but I wouldn’t say I miss it that much,” I said.

“Well, I’d better get back to work,” Pete said. “See you later.”

I opened the door for him and thanked him again for helping me, then turned back to my room and sat down in front of the fireplace. Picking up my album again, I turned to the page Pete had asked about. My mother and father smiled at me from a photo taken just a few months ago. The tears started falling onto the protective covering of the photo before I even realized I was crying. Mom and Dad had been visiting me the night they died. I wished I had kept them in New York City for just a few more minutes that August night. Then they would have missed that drunk driver and they would still be alive.

I suddenly found that I couldn’t stop crying. I put the album down, bowed my head, and let the tears come. I had been resisting this moment for weeks, and now that I was alone in this room on this island, I could mourn the two people who had been so important to me. I wept for a long time, and it felt good.

After a while, as sometimes happens, I was all cried out. I found that I was hungry for lunch, and I needed to look in on Alex. I checked my reflection in the bathroom mirror; my eyes and nose were predictably puffy and red, so I ran some cold water and splashed my face several times, then applied some concealer under my eyes. The effect was certainly not glamorous, but it was passable.

Rather than going downstairs right away, I stepped out onto the balcony for a few deep breaths of fresh air. I stood with my hands on the railing, thinking about my conversation with Pete. These trees were indeed calming, and their flowing movements and soft sounds soothed me.

But the calm didn’t last for long. As I stood looking into the distance at nothing in particular, a sound interrupted the peace. I looked quickly in the direction the noise had come from and saw Vali standing at the corner where the balcony disappeared around the turret wall. I said nothing while I waited for her to speak, and finally she walked up to me.

“Miss Hallstead is asking for you,” she said simply.

“Thank you. I’ll go see her right now,” I answered. I didn’t want to be up on this balcony with Vali for long, so I started walking away from her. But she wasn’t finished speaking.