The Mill River Recluse (22 page)

“That is the bank record for Patrick’s trust fund,” Conor said as he watched her. The first few pages were filled with numbers handwritten in ink. Most of the entries were annual notations of a bank account balance, although several large deposits were also recorded. Mary flipped to the last page on which the current balance was written and gasped.

“Should be about two hundred and four thousand dollars, if I remember correctly. I’ve had the trust fund transferred into your name. I’ve also arranged for you to receive a monthly stipend, which should be more than enough to cover what bills or other expenses you may have. It’ll be adjusted from time to time, to reflect increases in the cost of living. But as long as you don’t spend much more than the stipends, the balance in the trust fund should accrue more than enough interest to meet your needs.”

Mary tried to speak and couldn’t. Each of the dollar amounts she had just read was larger than any she had ever imagined having. She felt lightheaded and short of breath. She also felt tears threatening to pour down her cheeks, but willed herself to retain them lest Conor come to think that no visit to her would be complete without her having a good cry. When she finally managed to make a sound, it was a mere squeak, and the tears gushed through her self-control.

“Now, Mary, these had better be happy tears,” said Conor, coming to sit beside her on the davenport. He removed his handkerchief and offered it to her.

“Yes,” she mouthed, accepting the handkerchief. She dabbed around and under the patch over her left eye. It became uncomfortably cold and moist when she cried.

“I knew this would be a bit of a surprise for you. I have an important luncheon meeting in Rutland, so I’ll leave you to get used to the idea,” Conor said, standing up. “I told you I would take care of everything, and I meant it. You won’t have to worry, Mary, because you are a member of my family and will always be taken care of. No, no, don’t get up, I can see myself out.” His words only caused her to cry harder. She held out his handkerchief, thinking he would take it back, but he closed her hand around it.

“Keep it,” he told her. “I’ll get it the next time I come out, when we go riding.” He winked at her and let himself out through the back door.

~~~

Chapter 15

“Dad, was the lady who owned Sham a witch?”

It was Tuesday evening, and Kyle sat on the sofa in his living room, folding a clean load of laundry before his date with Claudia. Stacks of clothes were piled on the cushions around him. Now only the socks were left in the clothesbasket at his feet, and he began matching them. Rowen sat on the floor playing with Sham. She pulled a string across the carpet in front of the Siamese, whose blue eyes grew dark and round as he prepared to pounce.

“Of course not. You know there’s no such thing as witches. Why do you ask?”

“I told Jen and Stacy at school about Sham. They said that the lady who lived in the big white house was a mean old witch who never came outside. They said no one had seen her in years, and that she had an evil eye, and all she ever did was stay up in her house and watch everybody out the window. And they said that Sham was a witch’s cat.”

“Did Jen and Stacy ever see Mrs. McAllister? That was her name, you know--Mary McAllister.”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, I saw her, and she was a perfectly ordinary old woman. Whatever they say about an ‘evil eye’ is just a bunch of baloney. It’s true that she was
blind
in one of her eyes, though. Fitz told me that she was injured in an accident a long time ago. And,” he said, as Sham sprang across the carpet, trapping the end of the string beneath his front paws, “I think Sham looks and acts like a regular cat, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But why didn’t Mrs. McAllister ever come out of her house?”

Kyle thought about this a moment. “Well,” he began, pulling another handful of socks from the clothes basket, “I don’t know for sure. She’d been sick a very long time, too sick to leave her house. Before that, it could’ve been a lot of reasons. Sometimes, people are afraid to go out. It’s almost like a kind of disease in their minds. They’re afraid that something bad will happen if they go outside, even if there’s no reason at all to think that, and they stay in their houses all the time. I suppose Mrs. McAllister was one of those people.”

“Oh.”

“Now, kiddo, what are you going to tell Jen and Stacy if they start talking about this witch business again?”

“That Mrs. McAllister was just a sick old woman, and there’s no such thing as witches.” Rowen looked up at him and grinned.

“’Atta girl.” Kyle leaned over and rumpled her hair. “Now, let’s put these away so we have clean clothes tomorrow. I’ll take care of the shirts and pants. Can you take your stuff and put it away in your room?”

Rowen stood up and waited for him to gather up her clothes. Before he handed them to her, Kyle held up a pair of his own socks and shook his head.

“Man, Rowen, your feet sure are growing fast. I never saw such big feet on a nine-year-old. If they keep growing, I don’t know if we’ll have to order special ones to fit you. Maybe they don’t make them any bigger than this.”

“Gimmie a break, Dad. Those are yours,” she said, giggling. She pulled his socks out of his hand and threw them back at him.

Kyle laughed as Rowen disappeared into her bedroom. He quickly gathered up his own laundry. It was fifteen minutes before six o’clock, and he didn’t want to be late. “I’ve got to leave in a few minutes,” he called, stuffing his underwear into his chest of drawers. “Ruth should be here in a few minutes, but I’ll be home to tuck you in before I have to go back to work. Make sure you do your homework. I’ll check it when I get home, okay?”

“Okay,” Rowen called back from the living room. She had resumed her string-pulling. She looked up at him as he pulled on his boots. “I think it’s funny that you’re going out on a date with Miss Simon. Are you going to talk about me?”

“We might,” Kyle said, winking at her. “But I’m sure anything we say about you will be wonderful.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

A loud knock sounded at the front door, and Kyle opened it with one hand as he leaned against the wall tying his bootlaces. Ruth Fitzgerald bustled in, carrying a covered tray.

“Hello, hello!” she said. “I brought you some treats—cinnamon rolls! Have you had dinner yet, Rowen?”

“Yeah, Dad made pizza! There’s a lot left in the kitchen, if you want a piece.”

Ruth looked at Kyle and smiled. “Well, aren’t you a lucky girl! I just had supper myself, thank you. But I guess you’re too full for dessert, then?”

“No I’m not.” Rowen stood up and looked eagerly at the tray in Ruth’s hands.

“I’ve got to run, Ruth,” Kyle said. “I should be back around nine-thirty. You can reach me through the station–I’ll leave my radio on–in case anything happens.”

“Okey-dokey,” Ruth said. “Have a good time. C’mon, Rowen, let’s take these into the kitchen and heat them up so the frosting gets nice and gooey.”

Kyle watched Ruth hurry into the kitchen, followed by Rowen and Sham, as he pulled on his coat and left to pick up Claudia.

~~~

At five minutes before six, Claudia peered into the mirror for the umpteenth time.

Was she seeing things, or was her lipstick on crooked? Did one eye have more eyeshadow than the other? Maybe it was the light. Surely, that was it. Her shiny strawberry-blonde hair reflected that light, and, thanks to a little hairspray, seemed to be holding its shape. Claudia locked eyes with herself, pursed her lips, smoothed her hair away from her face over one ear.

She was wearing her favorite jeans and a black cashmere sweater. The jeans were her favorite because they were the first she had purchased in a size ten, the first jeans she had ever worn in which she felt slim and attractive. They would remind her of that feeling tonight, when she would be seated in front of a pizza for the first time in months.

Claudia took one last look at herself and stepped away from the mirror. She went out into the kitchen, glanced out the front window for any sign of a car in the driveway. She had removed her “fat” picture from the refrigerator, but she examined the front of the appliance again to reassure herself that the photo was not in sight. She was still having trouble convincing herself that she had a date with Kyle. She could not imagine having to reveal to him the identity of the woman in the photo.

Two bright headlights suddenly shone through the kitchen window. Claudia watched Kyle hop out of the driver’s seat of a blue pickup truck and walk toward her front door. He caught sight of her peering through the window and waved. She smiled back and opened the door before he rang the doorbell.

“Hi,” she said, as he stepped into the foyer. “Let me grab my coat.” She shut the door behind him and went down the hallway to the coat closet.

“Sure. You’d better bundle up. It’s pretty much a deep freeze out there. I left the truck running, but it hasn’t warmed up much. I heard on the radio on the way over here that the temperature was five degrees, and that’s without the wind chill.”

Claudia reappeared, wearing a long wool coat. “I grew up in upstate New York,” she said, fitting her oversized earmuffs over her ears. “I like the cold. You just have to know how to dress for it, that’s all.”

“I completely agree,” he said, grinning at her. “I grew up in New England too, in Massachusetts.” He paused a moment, looking at her. “I’ve got to tell you, those are the biggest earmuffs I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh!” Claudia laughed. “They were a Christmas gift from my mom a few years back. That’s what she said when she gave them to me, and they’re really warm.” She patted her covered ears and smiled. Talking with Kyle was so easy that just for a moment, she had forgotten how nervous she was.

“Well, shall we brave the elements, then?” he asked, reaching for her front door. Once they were outside, he opened the door of the pickup for her.

“So, where did you go to college?” Kyle asked as he backed out of her driveway.

“Syracuse.”

“Ah! So you’re an Orangeman! Er, I mean, Orangewoman.”

“I guess I am,” Claudia said. “Where did you go to school?”

“Boston University.”

“Hmm. So that makes you...?”

“A Terrier.” Claudia thought she detected a hint of color in the tips of Kyle’s ears, but the darkness made it difficult to be sure. “BU’s a great school, but it’s got a pretty lame mascot.”

“What was your major?”

“Criminal justice and history, double major,” he said. “For a while, I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a police detective or a history teacher, so I took courses for both. It wasn’t too hard because a lot of the classes overlapped. Obviously, the police option won out in the end.”

“When you came to visit my class, you said you’d worked in Boston.”

“Yep. I got promoted to detective just a few years before I decided to move up here. It’s funny. Sometimes, what you think you want can change so quickly. After my wife died, I didn’t want the big detective job anymore. For Rowen’s sake, I didn’t even want to be in Boston because cops in the city are hurt or killed all the time. I couldn’t keep taking that risk.”

Claudia had heard that Kyle was a widower. Whether he was really ready for any type of new relationship, she didn’t know, but she chose to ignore Kyle’s mention of his dead wife. She gave him a warm smile as they pulled into the Pizza Hut parking lot. “Well, I think you made a good choice in coming to Mill River. Not that I’ve lived here all that long, either, but it seems like a great place to raise kids.”

Claudia opened her door and was engulfed by the frigid air. She drew a breath and gasped.

Kyle heard her and chuckled. “Makes you realize how cold it is out here, coming from inside a warm house or car. The first breath is always pretty bad--you can feel it all the way down your lungs.”

“Yes,” said Claudia, but she had not gasped because of the cold. Rather, it was the heavenly scent emanating from the restaurant that had taken her breath away. The warm, rich smell of fresh yeast dough, garlic, tomato sauce, pepperoni. Claudia couldn’t remember the last time she had even gone near a Pizza Hut. Her stomach growled and she began to salivate.

“There’s nothing like hot pizza on a cold night,” Kyle said, holding the restaurant door for her.

“That’s true,” she said, stepping inside.

They were seated quickly. The place was almost empty, which was to be expected on a Tuesday night. The waitress took their drink orders and left them alone.

Claudia opened her menu. The appetizer insert jumped out at her. She would have liked nothing more than to have a few buffalo wings, followed by some breaded mozzarella sticks and an order of jalapeño poppers. But all those things were deep-fried.

“I think I’m going to need some of these buffalo wings,” Kyle said. His comment made Claudia’s stomach growl again, but she summoned up her willpower. “I’ll just have a side-salad first,” she said. “And maybe we could split a small pizza with different toppings on each half?” She felt proud of herself for this suggestion, since what she really wanted was a large pepperoni pizza with a stuffed crust…all for herself.

After the waitress reappeared and took their order, Claudia began to feel nervous. She had been dreading this moment, after they had ordered and before the food arrived, when they would be left with nothing to do but try to engage in meaningful conversation. For a few seconds, her mind raced, attempting to come up with an appropriate topic, but Kyle saved her.

“So, how long have you been teaching?”

“Nine years, if you count this current school year. But it doesn’t seem like nearly that long.”

“Always fourth grade?”

“No. I’ve taught second and fifth, but I was teaching a fourth grade class before I accepted the position here. I think I like fourth grade best, though, because the kids are at an age where they’re still innocent, but their personalities are beginning to come out. And other things, too--sense of humor, more of an awareness of the world, better social interaction. You can really see them growing into individuals. I like that.”