Walking the Labyrinth (26 page)

“I have a question for you, Bess. If there is a heaven you must be in it—there’s no one I know who’s a better person, or more deserving. And in heaven, of course, everyone is happy all the time. But how can you be happy knowing how miserable I am? You were always so caring, so concerned.

“This sounds terribly selfish, I know. I hope you’re not unhappy, of course. I hope you’re busy playing your harp, or whatever it is they do there. I try to imagine it, but I can’t. It’s almost as if there are two of you, the living, lively Bess I knew and the one who is dead, and there are no points of congruence between the two whatsoever.

“Here’s something I learned about sorrow—you can cry and brush your teeth at the same time. You can cry and do any number of small household chores, washing laundry or making sandwiches or doing dishes.”

A door opened somewhere in the apartment. Peter stepped back quickly. He had read enough of other people’s mail to know that this was something unusual, extraordinary. He did not think he had ever read the sentence “I have been very unhappy since you died.”

An old man—a very old man—moved forward slowly, pushing his walker into the room. His hair was white and reached to his shoulders, and there were patches of white stubble on his lined cheeks. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“I’m Peter Myers. The receptionist told you I was coming up.”

Peter took out a business card and handed it to Andrew Dodd, but the other man ignored it and sat heavily on the couch. “What do you want?” Dodd asked.

“I’d like to ask you some questions about an article you wrote. The Allalie Family.”

“She told me not to talk to you,” Dodd said.

“Who did?”

“That woman. Fentrice. No, wait. Molly—her name was Molly.”

“Molly was here?”

“Sure she was. Looked exactly like her aunt Fentrice, too, ’cept she didn’t have the gapped teeth. She sure didn’t act like Fentrice, though—she was a nice kid, straightforward. I appreciate that.”

“Wait a minute,” Peter said. When had Molly talked to this man? Had she gotten anything from him? He couldn’t imagine that she had. “Molly told you not to talk to me?”

“That’s right. She said if that detective comes around, that what’s-his-name, not to talk to him.”

“John Stow?”

“How am I supposed to remember? That might have been it. I don’t know.”

“I’m not John Stow, Mr. Dodd. My name is Peter Myers.” He offered the business card again, and this time Dodd took it.

“I don’t give a damn what your name is. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Why did you let me up, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know. My wife just died—I’m not thinking very clearly.”

“Bess?” Peter asked.

Dodd’s head jerked up. “How did you know that?”

“I’m a reporter. It’s my job to know.”

“Reporters have certainly changed since I was a pup.”

Peter looked at the letter on the desk. “Did you know the Order of the Labyrinth claims to be able to contact the dead?” he asked.

“The Order of—what was that now?”

“The Order of the Labyrinth.”

“Never heard of them.”

“It’s an occult group Fentrice’s grandmother started. Emily Wethers, also known as Neesa Allalie. Ever hear of her?”

Dodd shook his head.

“She received messages from a dead man named Lord Albert Westingate.”

“What’s your point, young man?”

“If she could do it then maybe her descendants can as well. Fentrice, or Molly. Maybe you could talk to Bess again.”

Dodd sagged against the couch. His lips moved, murmuring something.

“The thing is, I called Fentrice,” Peter said. “She won’t speak to me. Maybe you’ll have better luck. They liked you, the Allalie Family—I could tell that from the article you wrote. They put on a show just for you, to teach you something. Maybe you can go out to Illinois and ask Fentrice about the Order. And about Bess. After all, you were a reporter too.”

“I haven’t seen Fentrice in sixty years.”

“I’ll give you her address, and I’ll pay your way out there. All you have to do is answer a few questions for me now, and then ask her some things.”

Andrew closed his eyes wearily. He moved his lips again. “Maybe,” he said finally.

A while later Peter let himself out. He went down the street to Tangled Tales Bookstore, and spent a long time in conversation with the pale man in the turban.

A few days later Molly went to Callan’s study. A doorstop in the shape of a rock held the door open.
Maybe it really is a rock,
Molly thought. This house would drive her crazy before she was done.

She lifted the phone out from behind a pile of books. It seemed surprised to see her, its mouth an
O
of astonishment.
What do I tell Fentrice about Lila, about Callan?
she thought.

She forced her questions aside and dialed quickly. “Hello,” Fentrice said.

“Hi, it’s Molly.”

“Molly, how wonderful. I was just thinking about you. Are you still on vacation, dear? Are you having a good time?”

“Yeah. It’s great here, very quiet.” Fentrice hadn’t asked where she was; she never would. Still, Molly felt guilty. What would her aunt think if she knew Molly was with Callan? “How are you?”

“Just fine.”

“And Lila? She didn’t go off on any more trips, did she?”

“No, she’s right here, upstairs in her bedroom. I’m a bit worried about her, though.”

“Worried?” Molly said. Her fears for her aunt, never far from the surface, returned stronger than ever. “Why?”

“She’s acting a little strangely. She seems angry about something. Do you suppose I should talk to her?”

“Angry? With you?”

Fentrice hesitated. “Not with me, I think. With her family, with something that happened on her visit.” She paused again, longer this time. “Maybe she is angry with me. Maybe I slighted her in some way, without meaning to. Oh, dear.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“To Lila? I don’t know that that would be such a good idea. I shouldn’t want to disturb her. Why, dear? What are you thinking?”

“Aunt Fentrice, what do you know about Lila? Where does she come from? How did you hire her?”

“I met her through an agency. A long time ago—I’m sure they’re out of business by now. She’d worked for a family in Chicago, but they couldn’t afford to keep her any longer. I wrote to them and they gave her excellent references.”

“Do you still have their address?”

Fentrice laughed. “Oh, no. That was what—forty years ago?”

“What’s the name of the agency?”

“Professional Housekeepers, something like that. Do you think she’s done something criminal? She can’t have, not Lila. I’ve known her for years, after all. She’s just unhappy about something. It’ll pass.”

Should she worry her aunt? After all she had no hard evidence, just a strong guess. But what if Fentrice was in danger? What if Thorne, in disguise, had wormed her way into Fentrice’s confidence? Who knew what might happen, given the sisters’ complex and stormy history?

“Be careful, that’s all,” Molly said.

“I will, dear. Thanks for your concern.”

They said good-bye. She could smell Callan’s cooking through the walls, chicken and sausage jambalaya. She dialed directory assistance in Chicago and asked for the number of Professional Housekeepers. There was no listing for them; she hadn’t thought there would be.

She went outside with Alex and Matt after dinner. The evening was cold, the sky overcast. She turned and looked at the sun setting over Callan’s house.

“Hey,” she said. “The house only has two stories, right? What’s all that extra space under the roof?”

“That’s the attic,” Alex said.

“The attic?” Whenever she thought she had made some momentous discovery it seemed that someone in the house already knew about it. “No one ever told me there’s an attic.”

“Callan would say that you have to know the right questions to ask. Though I don’t think you’ll find anything very interesting there—only old clothes and things.”

“Neesa’s clothes? And Verey’s and Lanty’s?”

“I guess.”

“How do we get up there?” she asked, heading toward the house.

“There’s a closet on the second floor,” Alex said. “Maybe you’ve seen it—it looks like a broom closet. You open it and there’s a ladder leading to the attic. Molly, wait a minute. We’ll have to get a flashlight first—there’s no light up there.”

They went into the house and she followed him as he got the flashlight. The flashlight, not surprisingly, was in the shape of a candle, the light coming from the flame. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and stopped in front of a narrow door.

Molly took the flashlight. She opened the door and began to climb the ladder. At the top was a trapdoor. She pushed it aside.

She shone the light into the attic. At first she could see nothing but dark, bulky shapes. Then her eyes became accustomed to the dimness and she began to make out cartons and wardrobes and racks of clothing. The air smelled dry, like burnt paper.

She pulled herself up into the room and Alex followed. She looked around, playing the flashlight over everything. “This is terrific,” she said.

A tattered pool table. An ashtray from the San Francisco International Exhibition in 1939. A stuffed fox. A high school diploma for Matthew Endicott. A birdcage. A harp with no strings. A dressmaker’s dummy. A menu from the Cliff House in San Francisco, turning brown at the edges.

“Is that Neesa’s pool table?” Molly asked.

“I think so,” Alex said.

She ran her fingers over it, feeling the accumulation of thick, furry dust.

“Give me the flashlight for a minute,” Alex said. He turned the light on a box of black-and-white photographs. “Look at these people.”

“Who are they?” Molly asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Would Callan?”

“Probably. Would he tell us? I doubt it.”

She looked through a few of the photographs—dancers, jugglers, dog acts. “Look at that—it’s W.C. Fields, isn’t it? ‘To the Allalie Family, with my greatest admiration.’ And this one.” She held out a picture of a man in a straitjacket dangling from the top of a building. “‘To the Allalie Family, the best disappearing act in the business. Harry Houdini.’”

The next picture showed a man and woman dancing; it was nearly covered with rows of X’s and an illegible signature. Then a black man with an oval face and a crown on his head.
“To Verey and Lanty,”
this one said.
“With love, King Oliver
.”

Alex was busy sorting through another group of photos. “Is that the Allalie Family?” Molly asked, looking over his shoulder. “They look familiar, don’t they?”

“No one smiled in pictures back then,” Alex said. “You can’t tell if they had gapped teeth or not.”

A woman stared boldly at the camera, smoking a cigarette. She had bobbed hair and wore a straight white dress with no waist. Another woman, this one wearing heavy black glasses, stood next to her. “That could be Fentrice,” Molly said, pointing to the one smoking. “Look how pretty she was.”

“She looks a little like you,” Alex said.

Molly lifted out the rest of the photographs. A bundle tied with a faded red ribbon lay beneath them. She pulled it out.

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Letters, I think.” Molly untied the ribbon and opened the first one. “No envelopes, though. No return addresses. Here’s a date—March 20, 1937.”

She began to read aloud. “‘My dear brother. You think you can usurp my position but you’re wrong. You know as well as I do that the direction of the family has always been the responsibility of its oldest member. You think you’re safe now but I promise you I’ll return, and when I do I’ll take my rightful place at the head of the family.’”

“Who wrote that?” Alex asked.

Molly turned the page over. “It doesn’t say. It’s typewritten, and there’s no signature. Thorne, maybe.”

“Thorne?”

“Yeah. She was the oldest, then Fentrice, and then Callan.”

“But Thorne left, didn’t she? She abdicated her position. Maybe Fentrice wrote it.”

“Fentrice left too. She got sick of the whole thing.”

“Well, someone has to have written it. A sister writing to a brother, in 1937—it has to be either Thorne or Fentrice.”

“Wait a minute,” Molly said slowly. “All we know about that time comes from Callan’s diary. He was the one who said Thorne left, and then Fentrice. What if he somehow made them leave? What if he threatened them, got rid of them, so he could take over the leadership of the family?”

“Callan?”

“Yeah, why not? He even gave me the diary to read, through Samuel. He wanted me to think he was innocent. But look here—‘usurp,’ it says. What did he do?”

“I don’t think he did anything—it’s not in his character. You don’t know him the way I do. I grew up with him. He’s a wise man, a good man—”

“He gives that impression. But look at his house—everything here looks like something else. Everything’s an illusion. Maybe even this pose of his, the wise old man.”

“Molly, you can’t think—”

“Why not? Everyone here is so quick to accuse my aunt Fentrice. Callan even said she was the woman in blue. Only she wasn’t—the woman turned out to be Lila, Fentrice’s housekeeper. You might have grown up with Callan, but I grew up with Fentrice. She never pretended to be wise, but she was good. She was a good moral woman, forced out of her rightful place, forced to live separate from the rest of the family.”

“This letter doesn’t sound very moral at all. It reads to me like a threat—You think you’re safe now, but I’ll come after you.”

“It sounds to me like someone who’s been wronged. She’s bitter, sure, but she hasn’t given up. She’s going to claim her rightful place, see that justice is done.”

“What do the rest of them say?”

Molly opened the next letter. They were all on thick rag paper the color of cream. She held it up to the flashlight; the watermark showed what looked like a pair of spectacles, crossed at the temples.
Turn your spectacles around,
she thought,
and look at the backs of things.
Someone had said that to Emily on the streets of London in 1910.

“‘May 29, 1938,’” she read. “‘My dear brother. You have no right to the position you’ve usurped. Surely you know that, surely you understand that the place you’ve made for yourself is built on sand. I promise I will return one day and claim what is mine.’”