The Evening Spider (20 page)

“Two evils?” I repeated, feeling my stomach turn as sour as Stephanie's breath. Her story perhaps explained her late aunt's words upon moving from her house. But it presented a much more troubling question in their place.

“Maybe that's putting it a little harshly. In the end, probably the thing I really couldn't handle was Shirley's sadness. Whatever else was in the house.” Lucy squealed again, and Stephanie shrugged. “You can see why I never told my brother the full story. Even my parents didn't know.”

“You don't really think that the house had something to do with . . . what happened?”

Stephanie folded her arms. “Look. This is what I know. I know that someone was there with me that night. And I know what happened by the next morning. And I knew that the less I was in the house, the less I had to think about it. And I never would have told anyone about it, except there you suddenly were with your little baby and your questions, so . . . I don't
usually tell things like this to strangers. I want you to know that.”

“Are you sure you don't want to come in for some tea or something? I really need to—”

“I'm sorry.” Stephanie shook her head and stared out the window. Patty was now outside in her yard, calling her cat. “I just don't want to go in that house.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay. I just—I need to tell you something, too. Your brother gave me a journal. Of someone who lived in the house in 1879. He thought it was a cookbook, but after the first few pages, it's like a diary. And it was written by someone who eventually went to a mental hospital.”

“Are you serious? My brother
found
it?”

“That's what he told me. In a trunk full of old law books.”

“So, Matthew Barnett's things. So, the crazy lady that Uncle Eddie would talk about.”

“Yeah. Gerard gave it to me for thirty bucks.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Thirty bucks? My brother's a moron.”

“Do you want it back?” I asked “I'd be happy to give it back. I felt weird taking it. He said you wouldn't want it, but I couldn't be sure unless I asked you myself.”

Stephanie was quiet for a moment. “Do I
want
to read it? Will it make me feel better about what happened up there that night?”

Lucy squealed, this time with greater urgency.

“No,” I admitted. “Probably the opposite.”

“Then I'm going to say no, for now. Maybe I'll feel different after I drive away. I have your number.”

I nodded.

“I have to meet someone soon,” Stephanie said. “Thanks for being willing to talk outside.”

Stephanie pulled away as soon as Lucy and I got out.

After Stephanie left, I plopped Lucy in her bouncer for a little while and went digging in the upstairs storage space. Chad had stored our Pack 'n Play crib up there before Lucy was born. Someone had given it to us as a hand-me-down, but since we hadn't yet traveled with Lucy, we hadn't had much use for it. Now I went poking around behind the wall, hunched over with a flashlight.

When I was a few feet in, I bumped into Florabelle. Off-white, split down her middle and across her waist, she guarded the oldest of our old boxes. A headless but formidable schoolmarm. Her posture indicated that she knew exactly what was in those boxes and quietly disapproved.

I flashed the light behind her, scanning over the piles of cardboard boxes. I'd remembered seeing Chad lug the broken-down Pack 'n Play into the space in its gray nylon storage bag. Then I looked along the opposite wall. The bag was propped there on top of a row of plastic tubs.

As I yanked it out of the storage space's miniature doorway, I heard Lucy start to fuss. Right on time. The sun was going down.

Luckily the Pack 'n Play was a quick assembly job. I set it up a few feet from our bed. I didn't know what to make of what had happened to Stephanie in Lucy's bedroom. But I was pretty sure I wanted Lucy to sleep with me tonight.

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

I
bundled Martha up right after breakfast and set out for Louise's. I didn't have to find a way around Louise's aunt Dorothy this time, as she was napping.

Louise seemed delighted to see Martha and gave her a little tin with an acorn in it.

“Julia's littlest enjoys this so much,” Louise explained. “The sound it makes when she shakes it.”

I was grateful she'd brought up Julia. I'd thought I might ask about her, and now Louise made it easy.

As the eldest of Louise's sisters, Julia was always fascinating to us, as she'd married when we were young girls. And now she had six children. The first to do everything. Even before our Clara.

“She's very well,” said Louise. “She's very proud of her Charlie. He's so clever, they've skipped him ahead in school.”

I did my best to ignore the ache that intensified in my stomach as I formed my next sentence.

“I was wondering about that time when she got sick. When we
were girls, about sixteen, I believe? Do you remember telling me about that? After Susan was born?”

Louise frowned. “It was after Sarah was born.”

“Oh. Of course.”

I should have remembered. It was between the two S babies—that time in Julia's life when Louise and I had discussed her so intimately, so frequently. That was the longest time between Julia's frequent babies. Two years. Sarah was born so quickly after Daniel that Julia's health had seemed to suffer terribly. She spent three months in bed, and Louise and her sisters had spent a great deal of time at her home, helping her. She did not become pregnant again—with Susan—until nearly a year after that. That long respite between babies probably saved her life.

“That was ages ago. Sarah is in school now. Did you know that?”

“Yes, I . . . well, I imagine.”

“She recovered quite well, didn't she?”

Louise bounced Martha on her knee.

“Do you like your little tin, my dear?” she asked, tapping the tin and then gripping Martha's hand to help her shake it. “Do you like the tin your Louise gave you?”

“Now, who was that kind doctor who treated her then?” I asked.

Martha shook the tin on her own.

“Oh, yes. Martha loves her little tin,” Louise continued.

“It wasn't Dr. Graham, was it?”

Louise gazed up at me and murmured, “No, Frances.”

“What was his name?”

Louise stood up with Martha and carried her to the window. “Funny to think of it, but you probably don't remember snow, do you, Martha? When we have our first snow of the season, it will
seem like magic to you. That something so soft and white could suddenly fall from the heavens.”

“Louise?” I struggled to say, hearing my voice break despite my effort to keep it from doing so.

“Price,” she said, without turning from the window.

“What?” I whispered.

“His name was Price. Dr. Thomas Price. I believe he was in New Haven. East Rock.”

“Price,” I repeated.

“It was a long time ago, remember.”

Louise's voice hardened as she said this—making it clear that she did not wish to say anything more about it.

She took Martha's hand in her own.

“I wish I could be there when it happens, Martha,” she said, “to see the delighted look on your dear little face.”

I almost argued with her. I almost told her that my sharp little Martha, born in January, surely remembered snow.

My mind was too busy, though—determined to hold on to that word.

Price.

Price.

Price.

Haverton, Connecticut

December 17, 2014

R
alph Greer folded his
Wall Street Journal
as Wallace and I approached him. He was bald and so extraordinarily obese that it felt like Wallace maybe should have mentioned it to me beforehand. He was wearing a colorful sweater vest and a brown-bag-colored blazer, boxy in the shoulders.

“Wallace!” he roared, apparently oblivious to the bearded reference librarian giving him the sink eye. “Right on time, as usual.”

Wallace moved two chairs from the computer area so we could sit across from Ralph, who sat on a long wooden bench that stood alongside the picture window near the periodicals—likely because he was too large for the reference room chairs.

“Ralph, this is Abby,” Wallace said, offering me a chair.

“You're the one who found the diary Wallace has been bubbling about?” Ralph asked. “Or—maybe not
bubbling.
Wallace doesn't bubble, of course. But occasionally you'll catch him simmering.”

I sat down, positioning Lucy to face Ralph. “Shirley Barnett's nephew found the journal and gave it to me. I live in Shirley's old house.”

“Oh. I don't remember all of the parties involved, I guess.” Ralph put his hand out for me to shake. “Welcome to Haverton.”

“I've lived here about three years,” I said.

“And she's becoming rather a Haverton history enthusiast,” Wallace added. “Abby teaches history.”

“Three years,” said Ralph. “That's not very long in Haverton years. It's like dog years in reverse. Where did you move from, hon?”

“Boston area. I was a teacher there but switched schools when my husband got a job in New Haven.”

“Aha.”

Lucy smiled conspiratorially at Ralph. Despite his size, Ralph had a sort of shapeless baby face. And a bald head.

“And you've got a cutie there.”

“Thank you.”

“Now Wallace here tells me he's got all of the secrets to my past.”

Wallace sighed. “I didn't say that, Ralph.”

“The journal,” Ralph said. “It mentions my great-grandmother, he says.”

“Tessa Cowan.” Wallace turned to me. “The maid.”

“Tessa Ripley at that time,” Ralph added.

Wallace handed Ralph his photocopy of the journal—now dog-eared and marked with several hot-pink Post-its.

“I identified the spots where she's mentioned.”

“Thanks, Wallace. Always so organized.” Ralph opened the journal for a moment, then looked up. “Hey. While I'm reading, you take a look at
this
.”

He reached into his sport coat and took out a folded-up piece of paper, handing it to Wallace.

“Ralph,” Wallace said. “You've shown this to me at least a dozen times.”

“I know that, Wallace, sir. But let
her
see it. What was your name again, hon? Sarah? Penny? Millicent?”

“Abby,” Wallace said, handing me the paper. “It's only a copy. Ralph believes this is the secret to his great-grandfather's fortune.”

“He kept it in a safe with his valuables,” Ralph said. “That's what my father and grandmother always told me. So it stands to reason. Don't you think?”

Lucy continued to stare at Ralph while I read his little piece of paper.

“Who wrote this?” I asked, eyeing the signed
F
. The handwriting was scrawling and clumsy—nothing like Frances's elegant script.

“We don't know,” Wallace intoned.

Ralph grunted and stroked his head without looking up from the journal pages.

“But Ralph is certain that it's the key to the whole land deal question,” Wallace explained.

“I've even compared it to most of the letters and things my great-grandfather and great-grandmother kept from those
days,” Ralph said. “To see if I could find a handwriting match. But they didn't keep
that
many things, so there's not much of a pool.”

We both watched Ralph read for a few moments. Lucy lost interest in Ralph, grabbed my hair, and tried to suck on the corner of my cardigan.

“I've got to admit it, Wallace,” Ralph said, looking up. “It's news to me. I didn't know my great-grandmother worked for Old Man Barnett when she was a young girl.”

“Not Old Man Barnett. His son. Matthew Barnett. The lawyer.”

“Oh, right. You said that on the phone.”

“So that might explain why Old Man Barnett wanted to be generous.”

“It might.” Ralph flipped to the next marked page and continued to read. “I'm still holding out for a filthy scandal, Wallace. But in any case.
Very
cool to see my great-grandmother mentioned here. I've got a lot of pictures and letters and things from after her marriage, after she and Edward came into more money. It's interesting to get a glimpse of what life was like for her before that.”

“Now, while we're talking about this, I thought it might be useful to our friend Abby here if you could answer a question for us.”

“Yeah?” Ralph looked up.

“In all of your knowledge of Haverton history, have you ever heard a story about a Barnett woman—the wife of Matthew Barnett, specifically—doing something so, so terrible and unspeakable that she had to be thrown into a state hospital for it? Does that ring a bell?”

“No, it doesn't. Where do you come up with these grotesque ideas?”

“Shirley Barnett's niece recently told Abby such a story.”

Ralph raised his eyebrows, the skin on his head wrinkling into a corrugated appearance. “Is that right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But what exactly was the unspeakable thing?” Ralph asked.

Wallace smiled thinly. “You see, we don't know.”

“She didn't know,” I offered. “Says her uncle Eddie—Eddie Barnett—didn't know, either.”

“Let me guess,” Ralph said. “Her uncle Eddie would tell her this story every Halloween, and the specifics became more unspeakable with each passing year.”

“You know, Abby,” Wallace interrupted. “I liked the theory you suggested in your e-mail yesterday. That it was in fact that silly clock-theft case that in fact drove Matthew Barnett away from criminal law. He was probably embarrassed that he was duped by the accused man's wife. It might've damaged his reputation pretty badly, and that's why he started practicing another type of law. His name only comes up in estate cases after that one. But it might have been easier for the family to blame the previous drama with Frances.”

“Frances?” Ralph repeated, raising a eyebrow at Matthew.

“The woman who wrote this journal. Matthew's wife. The handwriting's not at all a match with your little mystery note, you'll notice—if that's what you're getting at.”

“Oh.” Ralph nodded. “Okay. But I'm not really following you about Matthew Barnett.”

“It relates to an article I sent Abby yesterday. It's a long story. I'll send it to you as well.”

“I'd like that. But in the meantime, I suppose you've solved the mystery of the land deal. It's a little disappointing, I must admit. I'd always thought there was a little more scandal at its heart.”

“Scandal is overrated,” Wallace said, holding his hand out for the journal copy.

“And where does this leave me with this thing?” Ralph asked, waving the
Dear Edward
note.

“Nowhere, my friend. Put the original back in your safety-deposit box and show it to me again next year.”

At that, Lucy burped and Ralph laughed, returning the note to his blazer pocket.

TING!

A penny fell out of the bed as I got in.

I held my breath for a moment, glancing at Lucy's portable crib. The noise didn't wake her—but it made me feel Chad's absence more sharply.

I propped myself up with some pillows and picked up Dr. Graham's log. It was a plain black-bound book, on the large side, with two thick raised ribs across the binding. I felt devious, somehow, getting to touch it and open it in the privacy of my bedroom—out of Wallace's view. I wondered if he was sleepless tonight, worrying about it. He'd given it to me on our way out of the library—wrapped in brown paper and a Ziploc bag. I'd promised him I'd keep it only for a night—or two at the most.

Wallace had marked for me a note about the pregnancy of Frances Flinch Barnett. I decided to move backward from there to see if there was ever anything else mentioned about the Barnett
family, and about Frances in particular. I didn't have to go far back for the first mention:

19 April 1878. Margaret Barnett. Gave birth to daughter Harriet Plainer Barnett. Recovering well.

Matthew's sister or sister-in-law, probably. Likely not relevant, but I marked it anyway.

I flipped back pages and pages, scanning the names. Someone had a shattered knee after being kicked by a horse. Then there were some measles cases. Before I knew it, I was two years back.

If Frances Barnett had had any mental difficulties before she had her child, Dr. Graham either didn't know about it or didn't see fit to note it in his journal.

I flipped back to the entry about her pregnancy and started to read through the entries that followed it. It seemed Dr. Graham never visited the Barnett house until Frances's labor.

10 January 1879. Frances Barnett. Gave birth to Martha Elizabeth Barnett. Heavy bleeding after birth but now appears to be resting comfortably.

A few days later, Frances came up again.

17 January 1879. Frances Barnett. Still very weak. Bed-bound.

Certainly it wasn't unusual to be weak after a long and difficult birth. I wondered if it was customary for a doctor to make a postnatal visit or if Frances's case was more serious.

She must have recovered, as there was no mention of any Barnetts for a couple of months after that. Until:

20 March 1879. Matthew Barnett. Consultation regarding wife's nervous condition.

I sat up straight. Wallace had apparently missed this entry. It was early enough that there might possibly have been a
postpartum issue after all. So her institutionalization hadn't happened all at once in December, as it had previously appeared to us. It was a few months in the works.

16 June 1879. Martha Barnett. Emergency visit at my home. Stitches on left temple. Fell from bed.

This gave me pause. I was pretty sure Frances Barnett had never mentioned this in her journal. I picked up the photocopy Wallace had given me. Sure enough, June 16 fell into that long stretch of time in which Frances had written nothing.

I kept skimming until another
Barnett
caught my eye—many pages later.

15 December 1879. Martha Barnett. Vomiting and malaise. Recommend mild diet and prescribed digestive tonic.

I stared at the note. I stared at the date. Just a few weeks before Frances had been dragged away to Northampton.

“Jesus,” I whispered. Had Wallace seen this? Why hadn't he told me about it?

My stomach tightened as I turned to the final page of Frances's journal. I didn't want to read it again. And yet—I felt I had to.

Was Frances experimenting with her daughter? Putting trace amounts in her food, perhaps?

It wasn't just the content of this entry that disturbed me. It was the tone—which changed so drastically over the course of the journal. She started out so girlishly, in November of 1878—writing of cakes and pies and her husband's grumbling stomach. By October of 1879, it was all organs and arsenic—analytical and obsessive. And then by this entry—the little white gloves were definitely off. I stared at the word “Hayden
.”
It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what bothered me about it. In previous entries, she'd always given him a formal label—
Rev. Hayden. Mr. Hayden.
Even occasionally
Rev. Mr. Hayden.
She wasn't using complete sentences anymore either. All of the girlish formality was gone, as was the chirpy, deferential tone.

I turned back a couple of pages and read this:

Why was she being so cryptic about what she had seen in the courtroom, when up until then she had been so detailed?
Am I a strong wife and mother?
After all of the gory details and the scientific testimony, why was she asking
that
of all questions? And what
was
the “pertinent question”?

I took a deep breath and glanced around the bedroom. The monitor was off and silent since I had Lucy with me. The door
was closed. My jeans and sweater lay in a mound on the wood floor, as I'd already slipped into my yoga pants and T-shirt for bed. Everything in the room
looked
as it should, but my heart rate quickened and my ears seemed to prickle. They wanted, they needed, they
knew
they would eventually hear the sound:
shhhhh.