The Sound of Glass (19 page)

“So good to see you both. I can’t tell you how much my granddaughter enjoyed last Saturday with Owen. She just can’t stop
talking about it. I warn you, though: She’s already planning your next outing.”

“We all had a good time, and Maris is a lovely girl,” I said. “I’m so glad Owen’s met a friend before school starts.”

Cynthia’s face got serious. “I know it’s early, but I would suggest putting in his application for Beaufort Academy as soon as possible. I’ll be happy to send a recommendation.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I’m not sure Loralee wants to send Owen to private school. Regardless, the decision really isn’t mine.”

Cynthia frowned. “Well, she definitely expressed interest in Beaufort Academy when I spoke with her, and she asked me to send her some information. It’s where Maris goes, and we couldn’t be happier with her education.”

I wasn’t going to discuss Loralee’s financial status, so I let the subject drop, making a mental note to ask Loralee about it later. “We have an appointment to see Deborah. Is she in?”

“Oh, yes, and she’s expecting you. Her office is at the top of the stairs, first one on the right.”

We thanked her and headed up the long, straight staircase, holding on to the thick, dark wood of the banister as the old steps creaked beneath our weight.

Deborah’s office more closely resembled a library’s archive room, with four walls covered with shelves, leaving space only for the window and stacks of papers teetering on and around the perimeter of a metal teacher’s desk. I didn’t spot her until a loud thud came from a spot in the room behind us, and we turned to find Deborah standing on a tall stepladder, her arms overstuffed with books, the one on top threatening to join its partner in crime on the floor, where it lay with spine splayed, like a dead bird.

Gibbes reached up and took the stack of books from her, then stayed beside her while she carefully made her way down the steps. “Thank you,” she said, peering over her glasses at him. “If you could put them on my desk, I’d appreciate it.”

There were no exposed parts on her desk, so I began carefully stacking folders and books to make room. I noticed two small frames perched precariously on the edge, both containing photos of the same two cats. There were no photos of children or grandchildren, just the cats. I wondered whether, after Loralee and Owen were gone, and Gibbes had finished taking what he wanted from the house, and I was alone again, I’d need to get a cat or two to keep me company. The thought stung more than I cared to admit.

Deborah wore a quilted vest with appliqués of cats and balls of yarn. Her khaki pants were pulled up higher than current fashion dictated, and she wore the same sensible shoes she’d had on when she visited the house. But her eyes were bright with anticipation, and when she clasped her hands in front of her, I almost expected her to rub them together with glee.

“Thank you both for coming. And it’s so good to see you, Gibbes. I haven’t seen you since your grandmother’s funeral.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been working hard. One of the doctors has been out on maternity leave, so we’ve all been a little busier than usual.”

She’d said it so bluntly that I wondered whether she wasn’t originally from Beaufort. I knew she’d babysat for Cal’s father, but that would have been when she was a teenager. And she didn’t sound anything like Loralee—or Gibbes for that matter—where syllables were added to even the shortest words, and consonants were sometimes dropped completely.

“Are you from Beaufort, Ms. Fuller? I can’t place your accent.”

Her eyes continued to sparkle, and I could describe them only as mischievous. “I’m a true Beaufortonian. My family has owned land here since the original land grants. As for my accent, my mother taught me how to speak correctly, without a lazy drawl, and to clip the ends of my words. Some people mistake it for a New England accent.”

I smiled, thinking I knew now why I’d taken a liking to her
when I’d first met her. “The last time I saw you, you said you had something here that I might be interested in seeing.”

She nodded eagerly. “Oh, yes. And Gibbes, too, I would suspect. Follow me.”

She took a lanyard off a hook screwed into the side of one of the bookshelves, about a dozen keys dangling from the end. It looked handmade, with needlepoint cats marching up and down the length of it.

Deborah stopped in front of a closed door and turned to us with a secret smile before sorting through the keys. “We only open up this room by appointment. It’s full of miscellaneous historical artifacts that have been either purchased for or donated to the society by residents who wish to preserve a piece of their family history.” She stuck a key in the old lock, then opened the door, letting it swing wide in front of us. “Take a look.”

Gibbes and I stole a glance at each other before heading inside. It took me a moment before my eyes adjusted to the dim light. Heavy shades were drawn over the windows to block out the harsh South Carolina sun, and the double-bulb light fixture in the porcelain shade on the ceiling did little to illuminate the room and its contents.

Small vitrines were set against one wall, displaying pieces of jewelry, portrait miniatures, and pocket watches. Larger pieces of furniture were set randomly around the room, with handwritten descriptions on cardboard plaques set in ornate wood frames. An antique rocking horse, a baby’s cradle, and a modern mannequin wearing a nineteenth-century dress complete with hoop skirt and feathered bonnet were crowded in one corner of the room, allowing for a labyrinthine path through the artifacts.

I met Gibbes’s gaze and he shrugged, confirming that, like me, he had no idea what we were looking for. He lifted a corset from a pile of linens and waggled his eyebrows, and I smiled before I could stop myself.

I turned to Deborah. “Ms. Fuller, was there something in particular that you wanted us to see?”

“Absolutely,” she said, not bothering to mask a simmering excitement. “Over here.” She walked toward a heavy rocking chair that looked like it had been made for a giant, and began tugging on the arms to slide it backward.

“Let me,” Gibbes said, taking over and moving it easily on the wood floorboards, revealing a small end table behind it. On top of the table sat a large open shoe box on its side that was suddenly and horribly familiar.

“Where did this come from?” Gibbes asked, his voice clipped.

“The Beaufort Police Department. Your grandmother made it.”

Gibbes stared at the older woman. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. What is this?”

“She never told you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

It was her turn to stare at him. “It’s a crime-scene re-creation based on a real case. Surely you’ve heard of Frances Glessner Lee.”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gibbes said.

Her lips clamped together, like a teacher disappointed with a star pupil’s performance. She took a deep breath. “Edith’s father was a detective in the Walterboro Police Department, and she was always interested in his work and probably would have become a detective herself if she’d been born later. In those days it was unheard-of for a woman to have such a profession. But she was quite artistic and studied art in college. It was there that Edith found out about Frances Glessner Lee. Frances founded the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard in 1936—a precursor to modern forensics in this country.”

She looked at us, expecting us both to nod our heads in recognition. When neither of us did, she continued. “Frances created her crime-scene boxes in order to train detectives to assess visual evidence. She called them the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, after a well-known police saying: ‘Convict the guilty, clear the
innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell.’ Edith, with her background in art and her knowledge of detective work, began making her own for her father’s cases and then, after her marriage, for the local police department.”

Gibbes and I moved closer to study the contents of the shoe box. It was a 1950s-style office, with no electronics in sight, but with a black telephone on the corner of a wooden desk, its coiled cord neatly wrapped around the neck of a male doll lying on an Oriental rug next to the desk. A miniature pencil holder had been upended on the desk, tiny pencils scattered on the surface like toothpicks. A framed photo of a woman with two children was placed prominently in the center of the desk, right in the middle of the pencils. The man’s eyes protruded slightly from his cloth face, the knot of his necktie still taut around his blue-stained doll neck.

“In this particular case, the man was stepping out on his wife with his secretary, and she caught them together. The wife came into the office when her husband was working late at night and made sure that he wouldn’t be doing that anymore. She would have gotten away with it, too.” She pointed to the framed photo. “That was the biggest clue—the placement of the frame, obviously done after she’d strangled him. Notice how his chair is facing away from the desk. She was able to overpower him because of the element of surprise.”

Gibbes and I regarded Deborah Fuller with renewed interest.

“You’re very familiar with my grandmother’s work?” he asked.

The older woman nodded. “I dropped out of law school and returned to Beaufort to nurse my mother in the last years of her life. Edith and I became good friends, even though she was closer to my mother’s age than my own. That’s how I first learned about her work for the police. She was very private about it.”

Gibbes shook his head. “I had no idea.”

“Yes, well, not many people knew. She kept it mostly to herself. Her husband didn’t approve, you see. There were more, but after Cal left she asked the police department to return them to her. She never
told me why. This one was being used at a police academy in Georgia, which is why it was left behind. I was hoping that perhaps you’d find the rest in the house.”

She looked at me with hopeful eyes.

I swallowed. “Yes. We found them. In the attic. I’d say about ten of them. It was quite a surprise.”

“They’re extraordinary, aren’t they?” she said. “And the attention to detail is really remarkable. Pencils actually write, rocking chairs rock back and forth to the exact degree as the original, and every detail—a newspaper headline, blood splatter on the wall, an outdated wall calendar—becomes a potential clue to the crime.”

Remarkable
wasn’t the word I would have used, but I let it go. “You’re welcome to stop by and take a look at them,” I said. “It’s hard to sleep at night knowing they’re up there.”

“Just consider them works of art,” Deborah said. “And I’d love to come see them. I suppose I could have just asked whether you’d found them, but it’s rather hard to explain. Better to see it in person.” She pressed her hand over her heart. “Finally, after all these years, we know what became of them. I had the horrible feeling that she’d destroyed them.”

“Why did you think that?” Gibbes asked.

She frowned again. “Because after Cal left, she changed. Not only did she reclaim all the ones she’d donated to the police department, but she stopped going out and didn’t answer her door or return phone calls. I never saw the light on in the attic anymore. She made a few more nutshell studies after her husband’s death, and continued to make wind chimes. She always gave those to her friends—I have five of them myself. She was working on some big project that she said was a secret. But everything stopped after Cal left. I guess I’ll never know what her special project was, or why it was such a big secret.” She peered closely at Gibbes. “And you knew nothing about her work?”

“No. I wasn’t allowed up in the attic. After Cal left, she didn’t
go up there anymore. I knew she was upset that Cal had gone, but she was so sad, too. Now that I know what it is, I’d say she was probably depressed.” He stared down at the doll with the cord around its neck, deep in thought. “She told me she didn’t want me spending too much time in the house with her, telling me that I was her last chance and she was going to save me. That’s pretty much when I began spending so much time at the Williamses.”

His voice sounded stiff and agitated, but it was more than masking pain from an unwelcome memory. There was something else, something that made him stand still in the middle of the room, his gaze turned inward. I waited for him to say something, aware that an uncomfortable silence had fallen.

I wanted to ask Deborah about the plane we’d found with the shoe boxes, whether she knew anything about it, but before I could, Gibbes leaned forward and kissed Deborah’s cheek, making her color. “Thank you, Miss Fuller. This has been very interesting.”

We said our good-byes, and I had to almost run to catch up with him as we made our way down the creaking stairs. I paused long enough to say good-bye to Cynthia with a promise to have her over soon to see the rest of the house, and then ran outside onto the hot sidewalk. Gibbes stood motionless as passersby walked around him. Heat seeped through the soles of my loafers, and sweat dripped down my back. I wondered how long it would be until I found the heat and humidity bearable. And whether I ever would.

“What is it?” I asked.

He looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there. He blinked several times before taking my arm and leading me back to the Explorer. He turned the key in the ignition and put the AC on full blast. We sat in silence with just the sound of the air-conditioning for a full minute.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked. I wanted to tell myself that I didn’t really care, that it didn’t matter, but I couldn’t.
Because after Cal left, she changed.
The mention of my husband’s name
had reminded me that his ghost connected Gibbes and me in ways I didn’t yet understand. And that I would never be free of either of them until I did.

He rubbed both hands over his face, his palms rasping the stubble on his cheeks. “I was ten when Cal left. I always thought that either I was clueless and unaware of any tension between my brother and my grandmother around the time he left, or maybe I’ve just blocked it all out, because I’ve never been able to remember any of it.

“Cal and my grandmother were close, although I always got the feeling that she kept him close to keep an eye on him, to keep him reined in, I think is what Mrs. Williams said. You can still see the marks on the windowsill in Cal’s bedroom where he threw a chessboard after I beat him.” A sad smile lifted his lips, then faded just as quickly. “So that’s probably why I don’t remember much. But just now . . .”