Quiet Dell: A Novel (16 page)

Emily allowed herself to look at his hands. A ring, of course, though Emily doubted a wedding ring daunted certain Park Ridge ladies. A sterling reputation, Mrs. McKee had said, and the wife, delicate. Catholic, though Malone was not. Her priest, apparently, called on her at home. “And did you, Mr. Malone, think Mrs. Eicher unwise?”

“She would not sell the house, reduce her circumstances, conserve
her resources. She felt she could not seek employment outside the home, though she was a skilled artisan.”

“But, for income—”

“Mrs. Eicher took in roomers, the past five years, until Lavinia’s illness.”

“And this past spring, in late June, she left her home with Pierson.”

Malone turned from the window. “I’m told Pierson looked respectable, but the discovery of these letters, obviously left in haste, is ominous. I should have stopped him, saved the children, or at least tried.”

“You?”

He sat at his desk, quietly addressing the room. “The day they left, I was in Chicago on banking business. My employee reached me by telephone early on July second. She said Grethe Eicher was at the window, with a note, purportedly from Mrs. Eicher, requesting one thousand dollars cash. I asked her, was Grethe alone. Yes, Grethe was alone.”

“That was unusual?”

“Very much so. Grethe was often in the bank, but always with her mother. Once, just before the children disappeared, with her brother.” He paused. “She was, too trusting. Slow—an illness, as a baby.”

He had lovely brown eyes, golden almost.

“Sad,” Emily said.

“More than sad. I told the teller to
say
it was not her mother’s signature, and in case Grethe didn’t know what that meant, to ask her to return to the bank, early the next morning, when I would help her personally. Someone was forging a note, but I had no idea Pierson was at the house, no idea of the urgency. If I’d been here that day, I would have accompanied Grethe home, to confront him. If I’d phoned the police from Chicago immediately, and dispatched them, on a hunch, to the Eicher home—”

“The police,” she said quietly, “would have detained him, on a word from you?”

“I don’t make spurious requests of the police,” he said. “They
could have detained him, in fact, if I’d had the note in hand, but the teller, another mistake, gave it back to Grethe. Still, the police might have prompted him to leave without the children.”

“At that point, though—early July—Pierson was thought to be Mrs. Eicher’s fiancé. I’m told that Abernathy gave the police a letter in Asta’s hand, saying that Pierson was coming for the children.”

“Yes.” Resigned, he bowed his head slightly, and touched the fingertips of one hand to his brow. It was a deeply mournful gesture.

She judged him near fifty, perhaps, but his bearing was that of a younger man. Broad chest and shoulders. Riding, Mrs. McKee had said. Large home and grounds, his own barn and groom, a few acres of pasture, a pond. City Council member, pillar of the community. He certainly seemed so.

Silent, he leaned back in the chair, lost in some middle distance. Then he said, “Do you ride, Miss Thornhill?”

“I do, Mr. Malone, though not for some time.”

“No?”

She felt such heaviness emanating from him, but pressed on for his sake. “I learned dressage at finishing school, but spent summers on my grandparents’ Iowa farm. My grandfather raised quarter horses, and he was determined I ride like the wind.”

“Ah. Good man.”

“He was a very good man. I still miss him.”

Malone said softly, “You are going there, to that place.”

“Yes. Tomorrow.” She felt herself on some precipice above a raging sea, that he was standing beside her, had arrived before her.

“Have you covered this sort of case before?” His tone was personal now, as though opening some ground between them.

“I do what you might call the woman’s angle on hard news—I’ve seen some horrific things, children who’ve died of neglect or preventable illness in the settlement houses, gamblers shot in hotels, murders of wives, or husbands. Mine is not a lady’s profession, I’m often told, but I enjoy membership in the Junior League, the Women’s Travel Club—”

“I ask you to be in touch with me, Miss Thornhill. While you
are gone, and after your interviews today. I would like to send an instruction, to Mrs. Abernathy, that she surrender her key to the Eicher residence, to you. I ask that you return it to me, here, in this office, after concluding your interview. Would that be a terrible imposition?”

“No, Mr. Malone. And I would be happy for your consultation, going forward.”

He sealed a note addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Abernathy, and gave it to Emily. “I would accompany you, to deliver this note and accept the key personally, but you’ll want to see through the house, and Mrs. Abernathy may be more forthcoming if you are alone. Lock the house when you leave. Nothing must be disturbed.”

“I will not touch, or disturb, anything. I merely want to take notes, and . . . stand in the rooms.”

Such an admission was unlike her. She suddenly felt they’d been talking for hours. In fact, it was less than thirty minutes.

“I shall wait for you, here,” Malone said. “You can park your automobile in back, as I do. Ring the bell at this side entrance, and I will let you in.”

She had closed her notebook, packed up her bag. “Mr. Malone, one more question, if I might. Do you think she went with him, willingly?”

“Oh yes, I have no doubt.”

“Why? Was she reckless?”

Malone stood and moved to the front of his desk, not two feet from her. “Not at all. She was artistic, well bred, careful, even a bit reclusive. But emotionally desperate for some years, I think. And then financially so. Desperate people see a chance, and take it. Some of them are quite unlucky.”

She met his gaze openly and felt him near her, like a force. “Only desperate people take risks, Mr. Malone?”

“Risk can seem compelling, even necessary. If asked, Miss Thornhill, I counsel deliberation, always, no matter how painful.” He stepped toward her.

Immediately, she stood and moved close to him. The fragrance,
so subtle, was the smell of his skin. It was as though she’d stepped into some inchoate sympathy, charged and alive, between them. They stood so, looking at one another, and did not need to speak.

•   •   •

She found the Eicher home easily, a mere seven blocks away. Abernathy, tall, thin, her gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, stood waiting by the front steps. She held a dog’s leash in one hand, and the dog, small, dark brown, stocky, sat panting at her feet, beside a square basket. Emily, locking the car, took a look at the house, a pretty place with grounds behind, and waved at Abernathy, a gesture of acknowledgment.

Abernathy made no response, but the dog tore suddenly forward, dragging its leash, to greet Emily effusively. Jumping up, paws on her skirt, it backed off to execute a kind of circle on its hind legs. “Goodness,” Emily said. “Very pleased to meet you.” The dog was coughing, seemingly, as though overexcited or asthmatic. Emily leaned down, and the terrier jumped into her arms. It was about the size and heft of a twelve-pound bag of flour, thicker than it looked, solid, and sat still, comfortably adjusting itself to the crook of her arm and the brace of her hip.

“You’ve a very friendly dog,” she said, by way of greeting.

“That is not my dog,” Abernathy said. “It is the Eichers’ dog.”

“Was it choking, before?”

“No, it was barking. That is, it can’t bark.”

“Oh.” Emily put the dog down, and it ran up the front steps, leash trailing. It was funny looking, a Boston terrier with eyes that bulged to the sides like marbles, and ears that seemed too big for its head. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Abernathy, and I thank you for coming.”

“Yes, Mrs.,” Abernathy said.

Emily made no move to shake her hand. Abernathy didn’t appear to want to be touched. “Mrs. Abernathy, I am acquainted with Mr. Malone, president of First National Bank in Park Ridge, and with Mr. Charles O’Boyle, friend of the Eicher family, and you
know that I want to interview you concerning the Eichers, and Pierson, Cornelius Pierson.”

“Yes, and I’m to let you into the house.”

“That’s right. I am allowed to see through the house. And I have a note from Mr. Malone on bank letterhead, authorizing you to surrender your key to me, which I will deliver to him.” She gave Malone’s letter to Abernathy and looked up at the entrance, where the dog stood, nose pressed to the front door. “So, the dog hasn’t been here since you left, some weeks ago?”

“No.” Abernathy opened the note and scanned it briefly. They were walking up the front steps, to the porch. Abernathy put the basket by the front door. Some sort of conveyance for the dog, it seemed a homemade contraption: a square wicker basket with leather handles, and a pillow inside. The top was a doubled layer of chicken wire that fastened snugly. “Did you make that?” Emily asked.

Abernathy looked at her as though she were daft. “Heavens no. It was in the pantry. It was the only thing I took from the house, to transport the dog.”

“Of course. Before we go in, Mrs. Abernathy, let me ask—you have keys, as do the police. Would you know, who else has keys?”

“Why, Mrs. Eicher, of course, has her keys.”

Emily caught herself. The fact that detectives were en route to effect Pierson’s arrest was not generally known, but surely, after so many weeks, Abernathy must think something amiss. Or perhaps she was invested in not thinking. “The neighbors? Mr. O’Boyle?”

“No. Mrs. Verberg said not. Mr. O’Boyle asked me for the key, on the telephone, when he called. He was very surprised Mrs. Eicher had gone, and then the children, with no mention to him, and his things, he said, are stored in the garage.”

“But you didn’t give him the key.”

She turned to look at Emily. “Mrs. Eicher did not instruct me to give anyone keys. Mr. Pierson had a key. I did not let him in.”

Emily nodded. He had Asta Eicher’s keys, of course. “I’m told you had a letter from Mrs. Eicher, saying that Pierson was coming for the children.”

Abernathy turned to unlock the door. “But not when he was coming, or what time. I could not prepare, Mrs.”

“I’m not a Mrs. actually,” Emily said, “never married. Nor a Miss—too old. I’m a journalist.”

“Yes’m.”

They were in the front hallway. It was a lovely Victorian house, once grand, now a bit run-down. There were signs of disturbance: furniture had been moved about, and the rugs in the parlor and living room were rolled up. The tall ornate walnut hat rack had been turned sideways, its diamond-shape mirror agleam in the sunlight falling through the front door window.

Emily took the leash off the dog. It walked straight through into the kitchen, barking its silent, chuffing barks, then began circling through the rooms as though engaged in some determined mission. “You left the house, when? With the dog.”

“They left morning of second July. I stayed, near a week—”

“And was the house like this, things moved, missing—”

“Certainly not. I kept the key and waited to hear from one of them. Mrs. Verberg phoned me a week ago, to say that Mr. Pierson was back, readying the house for sale, and the Mrs. had taken the children to see relatives out West. He came and went, and never contacted me. What was I to do with the dog? Not that he concerned himself.”

“Could we go upstairs?”

Emily followed Abernathy, the dog running before them. The children’s rooms faced the front street, and the girls’ rooms had a door through, one to the other. They were generous, but not luxurious, and shared a bath. The beds were neatly made.

“I made the beds that same day,” Abernathy said. Her expression never changed.

A pity, Emily thought. She’d wanted to see the rooms as they’d left them, sheets tossed back, clothes strewn, toys thrown down—

They went room to room, not speaking. Emily felt a brilliant rage harden inside her. She must remember everything: details accumulated like filings to a magnet. There was Hart’s catcher’s
mitt, a baseball with faded red stitching nestled against the leather thumb. Grethe’s room was rather plain: her parents’ likenesses framed on her bureau, a handkerchief box, closed, a cross-stitched sampler over the bed:
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Annabel’s table was piled with pages of writing and illustrations cut from books—Rackham, Wyeth, Eulalie. Others, from Grimms’ and Andersen’s fairy tales, the Uncle Wiggly books,
A Child’s Garden,
were taped to the doorframes and dark wainscoting, along with many childish watercolors and drawings.

Emily looked at Abernathy, who stood in the doorway as though unwilling to enter. “These drawings, are they original?”

“Ma’am?”

“Are they Annabel’s drawings?”

“Oh. Yes’m. She fancied herself an artist, like her mother. Always darting here and there. I’d never have kept track of her, had I let her wander the neighborhood.”

“So, when you were here, the girls stayed at home?”

“Yes’m. Or in the yard, unless I took them with me shopping.”

“And the boy?”

“He took the dog to the park, baseball, whatever. Boys take care of themselves, is my experience.”

Emily looked closely at Annabel’s drawings. Many were pencil sketches of sprites or fairies, wearing leaves or flower petals, accented with colored inks, and they were charming, really. Each figure held a sort of long wand or stick, like witch hazel or forsythia, arched, with buds. The wands were living branches, it seemed. Tiny starlike spirals hovered at the end of each, dabbed with yellow. Emily wished she might have one of the drawings—they communicated so directly the child’s frame of mind. She felt the dog nudge her ankle. The creature seemed to attend her every movement.

She looked over at Abernathy. “I don’t mean to keep you. Shall we sit in the kitchen to talk?”

•   •   •

They settled at the kitchen table. Emily opened her notebook. With Abernathy, it would be just the facts. This woman did not embroider or conjecture. Emily decided to be blunt.

“I want to ask, Mrs. Abernathy. You were employed as the children’s nurse, responsible for their welfare. And it was Mrs. Eicher, their mother, no one else, who employed you, yes?”