The Mill River Recluse (7 page)

Daisy ladled some of the fragrant red liquid into a few other empty jelly jars and screwed the lids on tightly. She then put on a parka.

“Now Smudgie, you’ll be a good boy, won’t you?” Daisy said with mock sternness. She grabbed the filled jars on her counter and lowered them into the deep side pockets of the parka. “Mommy will be back in a little while,” she said as she disappeared out the front door.

Standing on his hind legs at the front window of the mobile home, Smudgie watched Daisy trudge up the street through the thick snow.

~~~

Claudia awoke slowly, keeping her eyes closed to the winter sunlight that shone through the blinds on her bedroom windows. She stretched under the covers and felt the stiffness of sleep in her legs and back. She would have loved to doze a while longer, but her mind had begun to race. It was no use now. Besides, it was time for the treadmill.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and began the daily argument with herself. It would be so tempting not to exercise. She could draw a hot bubble bath and soak for a while. Maybe treat herself to a nice chocolate milkshake in the tub. Wasn’t Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

Of course. But no exercise and a chocolate breakdown would be a boon to the cellulite that threatened to repucker her thighs. She had come too far to slack off now.

Claudia reluctantly pulled a sports bra, spandex shorts, and socks out of her dresser drawers. Only the fear of regaining the weight she had lost kept the million excuses from winning the argument. She put on the workout clothes and pulled her hair into a neat ponytail. Her running shoes waited for her on the treadmill in the spare room.

She stood next to the black machine for a moment, stretching her legs and back. Then she sighed and stepped onto the belt of the treadmill to program the speed at which she would run for the next thirty minutes. The motor hummed, straining to turn the belt. She began to walk. Even after the stretches, her legs were stiff.
No excuses
, she told herself. The belt turned faster, and she began to jog. Sometimes she listened to music while she ran, but many days, like today, she started exercising in silence and lost her thoughts in the treadmill’s whine and the rhythm of her breathing.

The first ten minutes were the worst. It took that long for her body to come to grips with the fact that it would have to work. She knew that after that period, her brain would release a surge of endorphins that would give her an “exercise high.” Running was much better after that. She felt the first beads of sweat pop out on her forehead. She hated the initial sweat. It made her feel damp and filthy.
Left, right, left right. Keep going. No excuses
.

Claudia glanced down at the digital timer on the treadmill. She had been running for ten minutes and forty-two seconds.
Left, right, left, right
. Not a moment too soon, she suddenly felt fully awake. Her legs were limber and strong, not the heavy deadweights she had swung over the edge of her bed. The sweat was beginning to pool in the indentation at the center of her collarbone, but now it felt good, almost purifying. A sense of well-being came over her. She punched up her speed two levels and easily adjusted as the treadmill belt rolled faster. Perhaps she
would
have chocolate today, skim milk with Hershey’s low-cal chocolate syrup. A healthy compromise. Claudia smiled, breathing heavily through her teeth.
Left, right, left, right
. And, she would
definitely
have the bubble bath.

~~~

Why was her alarm clock ringing on a Sunday?

Jean squinted at her nightstand, slapped the clock, slapped it again, then realized it was the phone ringing, not the clock.

“Mom!” Jimmy burst into her bedroom, holding a piece of toast in one hand and the cordless phone from the kitchen in the other. “Mom, wake up. It’s Margaret from work and she says it’s important.” He barely waited until she had grasped the phone before running out of the room.

“Your kid said you were still in bed,” barked a woman’s voice through the receiver. “Whatsa matter? You sick?”

“I had trouble sleeping last night. What time is it?” Jean croaked, sitting up in bed.

“After ten. Anyway, I’m on my way out for morning rounds, but I
had
to call and tell you.” The voice paused, and Jean could just picture Margaret gripping the phone, giddy with anticipation before spilling a juicy tidbit of information. “Mary McAllister died last night. Or early this morning, they’re not sure exactly when. Sue knows someone in the M.E.’s office, and they said she overdosed on her meds. So that’s one you won’t have to worry about anymore.” Margaret paused, waiting for her response. “Jeanie? You there?”

“Yeah. I thought she was close when I saw her yesterday. At least she isn’t suffering anymore.”

“I wonder who’ll get all her stuff,” Margaret said. “She’s probably got a couple million in her bank account, don’t you think?”

“Probably.”

“And she doesn’t have any kids, and her husband’s dead, right?”

“I think so.”

“Well, there’s got to be somebody. Hell, Jeanie, you took care of the old broad for months. Maybe she left it all to you.”

Jean snorted into the phone. “That’s impossible, Marge, and you know it. She hardly ever said a word to me, even before she went downhill. When she wasn’t asleep, she kept to herself, like she was afraid to look at me. Besides, I’m sure she could afford to have someone do her will. Even if she doesn’t have any family, I’m sure her estate’s already spoken for.”

“Well, whoever gets it is damned lucky. What I wouldn’t give for a fortune to drop into my lap. I’m coming, just a sec,” Margaret said to somebody, and then back into the phone, “Jeanie, I gotta go. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Jean said, and clicked the reset button on the cordless phone. After finding her glasses, she spied her purse sitting on the chest of drawers and felt a pang of shame. At the bottom of a little zippered pocket inside that purse was a stunning diamond ring.
Mrs. McAllister’s diamond ring.

She had carried the ring with her for only a few days, feeling secretly glamorous at having possession of it, telling herself each day that she would return it the next. She had never intended to keep it. But now, the old widow was dead. If she didn’t return it, she really would be stealing, and the thought of taking anything from a dead woman disturbed her. Jean resolved to return the ring to the marble mansion after her shift on Monday.

From the kitchen, the sound of breaking glass seized her attention.

“Mom! Jimmy busted a glass!”

“Liar! It was Johnny, Mom! He knocked it off the counter and now he’s blaming me!”

Jean sighed and again reminded herself how wonderful her boys were, how lucky she was to have them.

Chapter 6

Mary stood in front of her dresser mirror, staring at herself. The long blue dress she wore just matched the color of her eyes. She had curled her hair as best she could manage. Her beige stockings were tight and itchy and only encouraged the unease she felt every time she looked in the mirror. It was almost five o’clock, and Patrick would soon arrive to take her to dinner with his family.

She couldn’t believe she had agreed to the date. Her father had been ecstatic when she told him of Patrick’s invitation and her acceptance. In fact, he had driven to Rutland to buy the blue dress and shoes as a surprise for her. She knew that her father wanted so much for her to be able to interact with people.
If only she could spend the evening with Patrick alone
, she thought, knowing that her deepening feelings for Patrick would do nothing to prevent her anxiety from surfacing.

Mary looked out the window toward the driveway. A black Lincoln had just pulled up beside the barn. Patrick would be at the door in a few minutes. Mary swallowed hard as a great swelling rose up into her throat. Feeling faint, she sat down on the bed.

She felt the familiar knot in her stomach, the fear that began to spread upward, raking her insides. It surged down her arms to her fingertips until her hands were ice cold and trembling. Fighting a strong current of nausea, Mary lay down and closed her eyes. Since her first bout with severe anxiety three years ago, it had been the same every time. In its grip, she was powerless.

Taking deep breaths, Mary tried to calm herself. She remembered well that day late in her junior year of high school when this torment had taken hold of her. There had been a new English teacher, an older man who had immediately focused his attention on her. He’d called on her often. He developed a seating chart and assigned her a desk at the front of the classroom. Mary had often felt him staring at her, even though she dared not look up at him. She began to dread English class.

Mr. Snee had preyed on her increasing discomfort. He asked to speak to her after classes ended one Thursday afternoon, waited for her in his classroom. He’d smiled as she entered, closed the door behind them, locked it. Told her in an unsteady voice that she was so bright and beautiful, that he so enjoyed having her in his class. That he loved her. Caught her by the wrist when she tried to move past him to the door, pushed her against the blackboard, stifled her scream with his wet mouth. Pinned her against the cold linoleum as he took her innocence. Threatened to kill her if she told anyone of their secret.

In shock, she’d picked herself up from the floor, wiped her eyes, denied to herself that anything serious had happened. She vaguely remembered walking home, staying in bed the next day, telling her father that she didn’t feel well. During the weekend, she busied herself with the horses, helping to break a new filly and taking Ebony on long rides in the evenings.

On Monday, though, everything changed.

As she stepped again into Mr. Snee’s classroom, she began to tremble. She felt his stare as she took her seat and fumbled with her notebook. She refused to look at him when he announced that he had completed grading the compositions turned in the previous week. She shuddered when he announced that he had selected a few of the better ones to be read aloud.

“Miss Hayes,” Mr. Snee said, leaning forward and placing her graded composition on her desk, “you earned the highest grade on this exercise, so you’ll go first.”

Finally, she glanced up at him. He was so close that she could see the pupils of his dark, beady eyes and the shimmer of sweat on his upper lip, could smell his sickeningly familiar musk tinged with aftershave. Mr. Snee took a step backward, beckoning her to stand. With hesitation, she had risen and turned to face the other students.

“Now, don’t be shy, Miss Hayes. Step up a bit more, to the center here, so that everyone can see and hear you.” Mr. Snee settled himself behind his desk as Mary edged away from hers. He smiled again and waited for her to begin.

Feeling her cheeks redden under the stares of her teacher and classmates, Mary had looked down at her composition and tried to focus on her own handwritten words.

“Frankenstein’s monster: a lesson in humanity,” she read. “A primary theme of the novel
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus
, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is the failure of man to recognize the humanity in a being of his own creation.”

Mary remembered how, at that point, she had begun to feel dizzy. She had stopped a moment, knowing that everyone was waiting for her to continue. She had tried.

“Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist obsessed with the miracle of life, assembles a creature using a myriad of discarded body parts. He is successful in animating the monster but finds its physical appearance so disturbing that he abandons it. In doing so--” She paused, trying to steady her voice. “In doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events whereby a kind, innocent creature is mistreated...mistreated and misunderstood by almost everyone who encounters it.”

Mary stopped reading to look over at Mr. Snee. The teacher had been watching her intently. She felt again his hot breath on her neck, the suffocating pain of him pressing on her and in her. Her hands began to shake. She gazed from student to student, from one face to another, each frowning at her, or smirking, or smiling nervously. She dropped her gaze and focused on the floor. With a start, she realized that she had lain precisely where she now stood, struggling and screaming into Mr. Snee’s large hand clamped over her mouth. She gasped as the room began to spin.

For the first time, she’d felt the icy fist of anxiety closing around her stomach. From somewhere in the room, she heard Mr. Snee’s voice asking, “Miss Hayes? Is there a problem, Miss Hayes?” But at that point, she had cared only about getting out of the classroom, away from the raw memory of violation reflected in the taunting eyes of her teacher.

“I have to leave,” she said, and burst out of the classroom. She remembered turning left and sprinting down the hallway, past the lockers and closed doors of other classrooms. She needed to be alone, in a dark place, where no one could hurt her again.

At the end of the hallway, she’d frantically turned the doorknob on the janitor’s closet. There, among the mops and brooms and buckets, she felt safe. The pungent odors of the cleaning solutions masked the smell of her own fear, while the darkness protected her from seeing anything else that might upset her. She cried then, muffling her sobs with her hands and feeling the warmth of her tears on her fingers.

It had taken them nearly an hour to find her. The school called her father, who rushed over to pick her up. She would never be able to forget the tortured expression on her father’s face once she finally revealed what had happened. She’d had no way of knowing, though, that the panic that had driven her from Mr. Snee’s classroom had taken root and would force her to suffer through fits of fearful agony for the rest of her life.

~~~

Patrick walked up the footpath, reviewing a plan in his head. Tonight he would begin in earnest the process of acquiring Mary. She was the final piece in the puzzle—the last thing he needed before he could ascend to his rightful place in society. He knocked on the door of the old house, and Mr. Hayes opened it.