The Evening Spider (15 page)

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

H
ow grateful I was, after my trip to New Haven, that you promised to come see me more frequently. And to supply me with the newspapers to satisfy my curiosity about the complexities of the trial and your related experiments.

The more I learned about the topic, the more, at times, I had difficulty keeping my mind on my household tasks.

I'd gaze upon the jars in my kitchen and wonder which would be large enough for my stomach, and which for my brain.

I would see a rope in the shed and think of Reverend Hayden's probable fate. How does the world look to a person about to hang, I would wonder. Is it brighter or more beautiful in those last moments of regret? Or cold and frozen with the fear of anticipated pain? And why should I care how a killer felt in his last moments? Did I sympathize with men of such dark impulses?

I worried about this question as I lay sleepless in the dark.

In the light of day, I preferred to consider it thusly: that a world that could allow such evil and such suffering did not
seem the right and true place for my Martha. But this new science had the potential to put me at ease. Science could prevail over evil. Martha would become a woman in a world with a different, more assured justice. Perhaps I believed all of the newspaper editorials that said this was a revolutionary case. Perhaps I thought this was the first courtroom case in which the truth would definitively and undeniably be revealed. That promise had such power.

I convinced myself—quite thoroughly—of the nobility of my motivations. And so I conspired, as you suggested, to return to New Haven as quickly as possible. I spoke to Matthew of Mother's loneliness and her physical complaints. Your letter—to the same effect—helped immensely. Oh, couldn't Matthew spare me and Martha for another visit soon? We all worried about Mother so. Matthew asked if Clara could not visit Mother instead—and wondered if having an infant around would increase Mother's burden rather than lessen it. I then begged Clara to accompany us to Mother's for a few days. She was perplexed by my urgency, but agreed. She was quite willing to be wherever Martha was.

And so I was stepping back into the world. I felt great exhilaration at the thought of being around so many people, in the heart of my home city, witnessing this great spectacle.

The first day I attended that trial was terribly exciting. I admit, I no longer remember the name of that talented young professor who kept an entire courtroom full of people enthralled for several days. I do remember, however, the excitement in the air—especially among your colleagues, with whom I had the privilege to sit.

I recall that the young professor crossed the Atlantic Ocean
to complete his experiments. Imagine—crossing a whole ocean to gain insights into something so tiny. A whole ocean for a few granules under a microscope.

Which brings us to the arsenic. I told you I would get to it, didn't I?

Harry, I will tell you that at that time—the time you so kindly escorted me to that courtroom on that glorious fall day—I was happier than I had been in many months.

I was not happy to be away from my daughter so much as to have my mind engaged in a different way—a way familiar to me, from my days as a girl with Father, walking in the woods and observing ants and tree bark and fungi. The world was so large in its number of small things to be discovered.

That scientist had crossed an ocean to learn about a granule—an octahedron?—and had done so successfully. And I was among the first to hear of it.

Yes, a girl had been murdered, and yet—

And yet, here was the world wide open with the wonderment of learning new things. Large and small, and for the betterment of all.

The darkness that had plagued me as a young wife—and in the earliest days of motherhood—receded. Perhaps shamefully so, as my happiness developed in the shadows of a young girl's murder. Perhaps it was my penance that when the darkness returned, it was more sinister than it had been before.

East Haven, Connecticut

December 12, 2014

S
tephanie? She's just finishing up a cut right now,” said the girl with the two-toned hair—red in the front and blond in the back. She threw the angular red bangs out of her eyes. “But I'm free. Is the cut for you or the little one?”

I looked down at Lucy, whom I was carrying at my hip. “Uh. Neither of us. I just wanted to talk to Stephanie for a minute.”

“Okay . . .” the girl said reluctantly. “Stephanie!”

A raven-haired but familiarly pink-looking woman looked up from the curly gray head she'd been pruning.

“Yeah?”

“This lady wants to see you when you're done.”

Stephanie nodded, unsurprised. After she'd cashed out her customer, she said, “I'm sorry, have we met before? You want to make an appointment?”

I stuck my hand out. “We spoke on the phone. My name is Abby Bernacki.”

Stephanie hesitated, then shook my hand. “I've been kind of swamped. Or I'd have called you back.”

“Can you talk for a minute?” I asked.

“Is it too cold outside for the kid?” Stephanie glanced at her coworker.

“Not at all.”

Stephanie called to the motley-headed girl that she was taking a smoke break. We walked a few paces away from the GreatCuts storefront until Stephanie stopped in front the drugstore next door.

“I'm sorry to surprise you at work,” I said as Stephanie lit a cigarette.

Stephanie was expressionless as she smoked. She was at least fifteen years older than me but had a youthful style that made me feel like a slob. Jeans and a nursing camisole—covered with an old-man cardigan—had become my autumn uniform. Stephanie was wearing tailored black trousers and a drapey beige blouse with a subtle braid of ribbons across the top of the chest. Her hair was inky-black, so stark against her pale pink skin that it had to be dyed. It was arranged in a wispy pixie cut that brought out her dark gray eyes and, less flatteringly, her bulbous pink nose.

After a few silent moments, Stephanie stepped away from me and waved her arms around.

“Geez. What am I thinking? Secondhand smoke.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn't even thought of that. While I didn't want carcinogens blowing in Lucy's face, I didn't think it appropriate to tell Stephanie not to smoke—given how polite she was being about me stalking her.

“Okay, so you live in Eddie and Shirley's old house.” Stephanie lowered her cigarette and flicked it. “That's where we left it on the phone, huh? And what was it you wanted to know?”

Since we probably didn't have a lot of time, I decided not to worry too much about looking like a weirdo.

“Your brother said you mentioned you had some kind of a creepy experience in the house,” I reminded her.

“Yeah.” Stephanie took a quick puff off her cigarette and then took another step away from Lucy and me. “But . . . It was a long time ago.”

“Can you tell me about it?” I asked.

Stephanie puckered her lips and swished them from one side to the other.

“Listen. It was so long ago, my memory is fuzzy and I'm not even sure it really happened anymore. My brother shouldn't have mentioned it to you, and I don't want to make you feel bad about your new house.”

“You won't.”

“I don't know . . .” Stephanie started to bring her cigarette to her mouth but glanced at Lucy and flicked it instead.

“I'm a history teacher,” I said.

“So?” Stephanie curled her lip at me skeptically. “What the hell does that have to do with it?”

Lucy perked up at Stephanie's change of expression and grinned.

“I know, right?” Stephanie said to her.

“What room did you stay in, when you stayed with your aunt and uncle?” I asked.

“The little one upstairs.” Stephanie glanced into the window of the drugstore, tidying her bangs. “The one that looks out to the street.”

I nodded. “Yeah . . . I thought so.”

Stephanie continued to stare at her reflection.

“All right, then,” she said softly. “Who's gonna go first, hon?”

My throat felt tight, but I tried to speak.

“There's . . .”

“What?” Stephanie turned to face me, her eyes either eager or impatient. I couldn't tell which. Either way, I could feel my heart pounding.

“There's a voice that goes
Shhhhh,”
I whispered.

Stephanie's cigarette fell out of her hand. Then she stepped on it—maybe to make it look like it wasn't an accident. All of the pink drained out of her face. She was silent for a couple of minutes.

“What's
your
story?” I asked softly.

“I was a teenager.” Stephanie finally allowed her gaze to meet mine. “I had a lot of issues. And I liked to dramatize things, I'm afraid.”

“But . . . the room—”

“I had something like that happen in that room, too. Yes. Once or twice. A feeling like someone was in there with me.”

“Did they . . . it . . . say anything?”

Stephanie looked toward the GreatCuts entrance. “No.”

“No . . .
shhhhh
?”

“Well . . . maybe once. But something so subtle, it's hard to know if it's your imagination. And when I was that age . . .” Stephanie trailed off and shook her head.

My hands prickled. “And did weird stuff happen with the doors?”

“The doors?” Stephanie repeated.

“Like, they made funny noises, and you couldn't open them very easily?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Okay. But you felt a presence in the room.”

“That's what I remember, yes.”

“What do you think it was?”

Stephanie glanced at her flattened cigarette on the pavement. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Stephanie sighed and shrugged. “All right, then. I think it's the crazy lady who used to live there.”

“Crazy lady.” My forearms went cold and then prickled with goose bumps. “Umm . . . Someone you knew?”

“No.” Stephanie shook her head. “A hundred years ago. Well—let's see—way more than a hundred years ago now. I forget how very old I am sometimes.”

“What do you know about this crazy lady?” I demanded. “Do you know what her name was?”

“No. This is the family lore, anyway. There was this pretty well-known Barnett guy who was a lawyer.”

“Matthew Barnett,” I offered.

“Yeah.” Stephanie whipped her head up. “That's right. You've been doing research?”

“A little. Your brother mentioned it.”

“I'm surprised he even knew that, or remembered it.”

I was debating whether to mention the law books or Frances's journal—but Stephanie continued.

“Yeah, so he was a lawyer. Some up-and-coming lawyer when he was young. On his way to being famous. A real great career ahead of him, trying criminal cases. Real big, famous cases he was involved with. But unfortunately he had a very sick young wife. A real nut job, apparently. She did something so terrible, so unspeakable, that she had to be thrown into jail
herself. It broke his heart so bad that he wasn't ever able to practice criminal law again. He couldn't stomach it. He became an estates lawyer, or something like that. Lived the rest of his days as a bachelor.”

Lucy was starting to make hungry noises. I stuck my thumb in her mouth.

“But . . . What did she do?” I asked.

“I don't know. Uncle Eddie always said that his father—my grandfather—said it was ‘unspeakable.' I guess he meant it because Eddie always claimed he really, truly never found out.”

I considered this answer for a moment. “Did your uncle tell you this story before or after you had the weird experience in that room?”

Stephanie gazed at Lucy, then shook her head. “I actually never told my uncle that I thought I felt a ghost in that room. But I think it was before.”

“Your brother didn't tell me any of this,” I said.

Stephanie shrugged. “I wouldn't be surprised if my brother never knew it. My brother was never all that close to Uncle Eddie and Aunt Shirley. Not like I was. Not when we were younger anyway. And he's not—how shall I put this?—he's not, um, intellectually curious. That's what my dad used to say about him. He's not into . . . talking. Talking about the past. Talking about much besides the last Red Sox game and how rare he wants his meat cooked.”

“Mmmm,” Lucy said, as if commiserating.

Stephanie looked startled and studied Lucy for a moment. “Didn't you tell me the baby stays in that room? The little one right at the top of the stairs?”

“Yeah.”

Stephanie took out another cigarette and lit it. “How'd she get that bruise?”

I studied Lucy's bruise for perhaps the hundredth time. Its yellow part seemed to be growing more prominent, its spiral growing more defined within the circle of purple-brown.

“I wish I knew exactly,” I said.

I looked up at Stephanie, feeling my chin wobble. I could almost hear myself saying it to her.
She got it on the first night I heard the shushing.

“I'm thinking I don't want her sleeping in that room anymore,” I confessed.

Stephanie took a long drag on her cigarette. “Oh, Christ.”

“Christ . . . what?”

Stephanie shook her head. “What did you say your name was?”

“Abby.”

“Abby. You're not a Barnett. So I wouldn't worry about the house. I think it's all about us dysfunctional Barnetts. I did pot and LSD—and even worse, a few times—when I was kid, staying with my aunt and uncle. Did my brother tell you that?”

I sucked in a breath and tried to formulate an answer quickly—but wasn't quick enough.

“I see,” Stephanie said sharply. “So you ought to have the sense to forget this whole thing and enjoy your sweet little house.”

Lucy hiccupped in agreement, then squirmed in my arms. Stephanie drew on her cigarette one more time, then dropped it and mashed it with the pointy black toe of her boot.

“I believe you about what you felt in the house,” I hurried to say. “That's why I came here to talk to you about it.”

“Not sure why you'd believe me if I'm not sure
I
do,” Stephanie said, turning toward the GreatCuts door. “I'm sorry. But I have to get back to work.”

If Lucy had not been growing restless, I'd have gone after Stephanie. But I had already begun to doubt the wisdom of interrupting her work. Before she reached for the door to go back inside, I saw her pause, take a deep breath, and twist her nervous hands together. All the way home, I worried that the next person who popped into GreatCuts for a quick trim was likely to lose an earlobe. And it would probably be my fault.