The Stone Hill Inn was a traditional New England white clapboard-sided house with
dark green shutters. The front door was flanked by a pair of benches facing one another,
shaped like church pews and painted the same green as the shutters. Behind the benches
were a pair of white trellises. In summer they were covered with climbing pink roses,
but now there were only brown vines crisscrossing the white wooden grids. The inn
sat at the end of a quiet road, surrounded by brown fields with gray stone fences.
A few trees, still wearing the last blaze of autumn, ringed the edge of the fields.
Dawn opened the door as they came up the walk and rushed out to greet them, shivering
in her thin cardigan, her yellow Lab, Leo, beside her.
“Mom, hi,” said Tess, embracing her. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Oh, you look wonderful,” said Dawn, releasing Tess and holding her at arm’s length.
“And you…” she said, turning to Erny.
Erny had fallen to his knees and thrown his arms around Leo’s ruff. He grimaced with
glee as Leo licked his face.
“Hey, I want one of those,” said Dawn.
Erny scrambled to his feet and put his arms around her and Dawn held him tightly for
a moment. Tess watched her mother embrace her son with a full heart. Dawn had moved
from Boston to Stone Hill after the death of Rob DeGraff, from a heart attack at the
age of forty-seven. Tess always suspected that the stress and the shock of Phoebe’s
murder had destroyed her father’s health. On a visit to Jake and Julie’s during a
holiday, Dawn noticed an ad for an innkeeper at the Stone Hill Inn. When she questioned
Jake about the Phalens, he explained to his mother that the Phalens’ daughter, Lisa,
had killed herself at the age of fourteen. After that, Annette began to drink and
she and her husband, Kenneth, separated. They sold the inn and moved away. The new
owner wanted it strictly as an investment.
To her own surprise, Dawn found herself applying for and getting the job as the innkeeper.
She and Sean moved up from Boston and into the inn. Sean finished high school in Stone
Hill, and then immediately left for Australia with a couple of his buddies. Dawn referred
to her youngest child’s decampment for Australia as Sean’s “walkabout.”
Tess had always admired her mother’s incredible strength. Dawn had held them all together
after Phoebe’s murder and had stayed strong even when she lost Rob. But strength was
not the same thing as happiness, or peace of mind. There was an emptiness in Dawn’s
eyes. She moved through her life with the same efficiency and purpose as ever, but
her face was haggard and the buoyancy of her spirit seemed to have flown away on the
day that Phoebe’s lifeless body was found, and it had never returned. Now Dawn’s hair
was starting to gray and her face seemed more drawn than usual.
“Come on in. Julie, can you stay for a cup of tea? I made those thumbprint cookies
you like,” said Dawn.
Julie shook her head with real regret. “Oh, I do like them. But I’d better get over
to the hospital. I’m filling in for a friend and my shift starts in twenty minutes.
Tell my husband, when he gets back from work…” She hesitated and then seemed to think
better of it. “Never mind. I’ll tell him when I see him.”
“Thank you so much for picking up Tess and Erny,” said Dawn. “I hate that drive to
the airport.” Most people pronounced Erny’s name as if he were one of the
Sesame Street
puppets, but Tess noted that her mother, with her usual sensitivity, pronounced her
son’s name as
Air
-knee, just as Tess did, and even tried to roll the R. Tess had once explained to
Dawn that she wanted to pronounce it as Erny’s grandmother, Inez, had, and Dawn had
instantly understood.
“Just as well you didn’t go,” said Julie. “It was a madhouse out there, between the
reporters and the governor’s arrival…”
“Are you coming to the press conference tomorrow?” Tess asked.
“I’m working again. I’m sorry,” said Julie. “But I’ll see you afterwards.”
“Do you know if Jake is coming?” Tess asked.
Julie rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me, he wouldn’t miss it. I’m going to run. I’ll
talk to you later.”
“Come inside, you two,” Dawn insisted, ushering them up the path behind the bounding
Leo and through the front doorway of the inn. Inside, there was a wide vestibule that
led to the main hallway. On the right of the hallway was a paneled library with a
door for privacy, which usually stood open, a pair of wing chairs, and a leather sofa.
On the left was a large sitting room with a fireplace. The interior of the inn was
painted in subdued but lovely shades of slate blue and acanthus green, which complemented
the hooked wool rugs, the comfortably upholstered furniture in Colonial-era floral
patterns, and the many antique wooden tables that glowed with a waxed sheen. “I had
to put you two in the same room,” Dawn apologized, fishing a large key out of the
pocket of her skirt. “With all the journalists in town for the governor’s announcement,
we are full.”
“Oh no, Mom,” said Tess. “Don’t tell me there are reporters staying here. We won’t
have a minute’s peace.”
“No, no,” said Dawn. “I think I managed to weed out anybody from a news organization.
But there are still a lot of leaf peepers in town, and everything else is full.”
“Okay, well, that’s fine, Mom. We don’t mind bunking together.”
Dawn held up the key. “It’s down the hall on the first floor. Erny, you want to take
the bags to your room?”
Erny eagerly reached for the key.
“And open the kitchen door for Leo, would you?”
“Sure,” said Erny. He started down the hall, Leo in tow.
“Come in the sitting room and get warm.” A fire was already lit in the wide, age-blackened
hearth. “Here, sit,” said Dawn.
Tess flopped down into the sofa and gazed at her mother, who was adding a log to the
fire and adjusting it with a poker.
“Are you feeling all right, Mom?” she asked.
“Fine, dear,” Dawn said absently.
“You must be dreading this press conference tomorrow,” Tess said.
Dawn gazed into the fire. “Actually, I’m not…I’m not planning on going, Tess. I can’t
face all that again. I think I’ll wait here. I’ll stay here with Erny.”
Tess was taken aback. She had assumed her mother would go. “Are you sure?”
Dawn looked at her daughter and shook her head. “I don’t think I can,” she said.
Tess got up and put her arms around her mother, who stood stiffly, her gaze vacant.
Dawn seemed numb, as if she were encased in bubble wrap, looking out at the world
with detachment. Even as she held her in her arms, Tess mourned for her feisty, exuberant
mother, a woman who was just a memory. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Jake
and I will do it. Leave it to us. We’ll represent the family. In a strange way,” she
said grimly, “I’m looking forward to it.”
At the sound of the front door opening, Dawn pulled away from her daughter’s embrace.
“Well, speak of the devil,” she said.
Tess turned and saw her brother, in a worn engineer’s jacket, his thick blond hair
speckled with dried paint, entering the room His skin was weathered, his hair thinning,
and there were lines around his mouth and eyes, but he still retained his rugged good
looks.
“You just missed your wife,” said Dawn.
“No such luck,” said Jake. “I passed her coming up the road. She stopped long enough
to tell me what a jerk I was. Hey, Tess.” Brother and sister embraced briefly and
Jake sat down in a spindly-looking Windsor-style armchair by the fireplace. “How was
the trip?” he asked.
“Not bad,” said Tess. “Erny’s putting our bags in the room. He’s excited to be here.
He doesn’t really understand what this is all about.”
“He’s better off,” said Jake.
“Apparently, this is going to be quite a scene tomorrow.”
“Asshole,” Jake muttered.
Jake was angry. Nothing unusual there, Tess thought. He had been angry for years.
He always had a story about what was currently infuriating him, but Tess suspected
that it all stemmed from that long-ago night when his decision to go to town, and
leave his sisters alone, led to catastrophe. “Who’s an asshole?” Tess asked.
“Governor Putnam. This is all about politics. This is a career move for him. He thinks
Lazarus Abbott is going to be exonerated and he’s gonna be on the national scene as
the great hero of the anti–death-penalty set. I can’t wait until this backfires in
his face. And that attorney that Edith Abbott hired. Ramsey.” Jake shook his head.
“It said in the paper that he’s a local guy,” said Tess.
“Well, he’s local, but he’s new,” said Dawn. “He just moved here a year or two ago.
Didn’t he, Jake?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah. He was a big-shot Philadelphia lawyer and his place here was a
vacation home. Then his wife died and he moved up here full-time. I guess he decided
to chuck the rat race and come live among ‘the little people.’”
“Oh Jake, now, you don’t know that,” Dawn said.
“Anyway, he no sooner arrived than he got involved with that nut job, Edith Abbott.
I guess he figures we’re such hicks that we must have convicted the wrong man. Why
don’t people like that mind their own fucking business?”
“Jake,” Dawn admonished him. “Erny’s coming.”
They all glanced toward the door of the sitting room and saw Erny edging into the
room. Jake’s face lit up. “Hey. How’s my guy? Come ’ere.”
Erny grinned and went over to his uncle, high-fiving him and giggling as Jake squeezed
him in a bear hug. “Yeah, you and me will have a good time while you’re here. We’ll
go honky-tonkin’. Get us a couple of tattoos. Whaddya say?”
Erny grinned, wide-eyed, at his mother. “Can I?” he asked.
“No,” said Tess, bemused.
“I’m going to the kitchen. I made these cookies…” said Dawn. “Erny, you want to help
me?”
“Okay,” said Erny. He was a child with energy to spare and never minded having a job
to do. It was one of many things that made Tess proud of her son.
Just then the front door opened again. “I’ll go see who it is,” Erny called out and
ran for the front door before anyone could stop him.
Tess heard murmurs in the front hallway and Dawn went out to see if there was a prospective
guest in the foyer. A minute later she returned to the parlor. “We have company,”
said Dawn, her eyes widened in warning.
“Who?” asked Tess.
“It’s Nelson Abbott. Come in, Nelson.”
Tess looked at Jake. “Abbott?” she whispered.
“Lazarus’s stepfather,” said Jake in a low voice.
Tess looked up warily at the man who was following her mother through the door. He
removed his John Deere cap and crushed it in a large grimy hand. He was a craggy-faced
man in his sixties shaped rather like a hedgehog, with a small mouth, angry black
eyes, and a gray, military-style haircut. He was wearing work boots caked with mud
and a fleece vest.
“Hello, Nelson,” said Jake.
“This is my daughter, Tess,” said Dawn. “And you’ve met her son, Erny. Nelson, why
don’t you have a seat? We were just going to get some cookies from the kitchen.”
Nelson glanced from Tess to Erny, frowning with disapproval as he seemed to note the
ethnic difference between them. Then he cleared his throat and shook his head. “I
ain’t stayin’,” he said stiffly. “I just come over here to tell you all that I don’t
want no part of this circus tomorrow. I won’t be there. My wife won’t listen to reason
about her son. I can’t help that. But Lazarus was not right mentally. It’s a well-known
fact. I did the best I could with him.” Nelson sighed.
Jake nodded. “Thanks, Nelson. It’s good of you to come by and say that.”
“Never wanted any part of this…crusade of hers.”
“I know,” said Jake.
“Can’t you sit down for a while? At least have something to drink?” Dawn asked.
“Nope. I’ve got to get back to work. Winter’s comin’, you know. I got rosebushes to
wrap. And the leaves don’t rake themselves. I just wanted you to know my thinking.”
“Thank you,” said Tess. “We appreciate it.”
“Are you sure you won’t stay?” said Dawn. “We have plenty.”
Nelson shook his head sharply. “Nope. I’ve said what I came to say.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” said Dawn.
Nelson nodded and turned away. Tess could hear their voices in the hallway and then
the sound of the front door closing. She raised her eyebrows at her brother. “That
was strange,” said Tess.
“I thought it was decent of him,” said Jake.
“I guess it was. It’s just…he’s not exactly a pleasant fellow.”
Jake shrugged. “He’s just been driven around the twist by that crazy wife of his.
I swear, I would’ve strangled that woman by now.”
“Jake, please,” said Tess.
Jake frowned. “Oh, come on, Tess. It’s just a figure of speech. And besides, it happens
to be true.” He shook his head. “Edith Abbott spent a fortune on attorneys trying
to clear her precious Lazarus, and they don’t have a dime to spare. Nelson knows as
well as we do that it was money down the drain.”
Tess shivered, despite the warmth of the fire. “God, I will be so glad when all of
this is over tomorrow,” she said.
Jake nodded grimly. “Me, too. For once and for all,” he said.
F
eeling the chill, Tess fumbled for the quilt that had slipped off the bed during her
restless night. She opened her eyes and instantly was jarred fully awake by the realization
of what lay ahead of her today. It was not that she was worried about what the test
results on the evidence would be—far from it. She had seen Lazarus Abbott take her
sister. There was never a doubt in her mind. She was just a little concerned that
she would not be able to maintain her composure in the face of all those newspeople’s
questions about Phoebe’s murder. Tess could think about Phoebe now, after the passage
of twenty years, with some equanimity, but there was a good chance that her voice
would crack and her eyes would well up if she actually had to answer questions about
her sister’s death.
Tess’s gaze traveled past the soothing flowers and vines on the gray-blue bedroom
wallpaper and out the window to the bare trees’ branches. Beyond the trees the brown
fields, bordered by rock walls and covered with the white lace of early frost, stretched
out, spiked with evergreens, to the horizon and the granite peaks of the White Mountain
National Park. The day was beautiful, the sky blue, the clouds puffy, just as it had
been on the last day of her sister’s life. Deceptive, Tess thought, and for a moment
she saw again, in her mind’s eye, Phoebe’s gentle face, forever thirteen in her memory.
With a sigh, Tess turned over in the narrow bed and looked across the room. The other
bed was a tumult of sheets and blankets and Erny was already gone. Probably helping
Dawn with breakfast. Tess smiled at the thought of him. He had needed her desperately
when his grandmother had died and left him all alone in the world. But Tess had needed
him, too. It had not been easy all these years to keep doubt and depression at bay.
Her childhood had been severed in two by Phoebe’s murder. Before that time, all she
could remember was happiness. And after, even the happiest days had a melancholy shadow.
Sometimes she thought that she and Erny had been brought together by fate to save
each other from those shadows.
Tess looked at the clock. She had to get up and get ready. For a moment more she lay
there, avoiding the inevitable. She turned her gaze back to the window and was jolted
by the sight of a gaunt man in a gray parka, standing on the nearby path that cut
through the knee-deep brown grass of the field, staring in at her. Their eyes met
and he held hers with his gaze until Tess averted her eyes.
For a moment Tess remained under the covers, her heart pounding, unnerved by the stranger’s
intruding gaze. Then her anger flared. She jumped up and pulled down the shade with
a snap. It was probably one of those goddamn reporters, she thought. Couldn’t they
at least have the decency to stay out in front of the house? She made the bed, washed
her face, and got dressed in a good pair of pants, a cashmere turtleneck, and her
hacking jacket. When she pulled back the edge of the shade and peeked out, the man
was gone.
She walked over to the bureau with its framed mirror, a vase of winter pansies, and
her comb, brush, earrings, and makeup. She brushed her thick brunette hair back, considered
putting it into a ponytail but decided against it. She put on some silver hoop earrings,
some blush and lipstick. Last, she picked up the silver necklace on the linen bureau
scarf. It had a rectangular pendant that read “Believe” on it and was the twin of
the one that Phoebe had always worn. For some reason, it gave Tess comfort to wear
it. It was a kind of promise, to always keep Phoebe’s memory alive. Tess fastened
the clasp on the necklace and then tucked it inside her sweater as she normally did.
She liked to wear it beneath her clothes, to keep it close to her heart.
The door to the room burst open and Erny stood there grinning. “Good. You’re up. Dawn
says you have to come on. Uncle Jake is already here. We’re all eating pancakes.”
“Did you help make ’em?” Tess asked him with a smile.
“Yup,” he said. “Blueberry.”
“Cool,” Tess said, although she had little appetite. “I’d like to try those.”
“Okay, hurry up,” said Erny.
“Hey, just a minute. How about this bed, buddy?”
“Dawn said I didn’t have to make it,” he assured her.
“I said you do.”
“Aw Ma,” he complained.
“Now,” Tess said. “Chop, chop.”
Erny went to his bed and shook the sheets into some semblance of order. Then he jerked
up the bedspread, smoothed it out, and tossed the pillow on it while Tess gathered
up her satchel and checked its contents.
“How come the shade’s down?” he asked.
Tess thought of the man in the field outside her window. “I don’t need the whole world
watching while I get dressed,” she said.
“There’s nobody around,” said Erny.
“There are a lot of reporters,” she said. “They’re here for this press conference.”
“Can I go with you to the press conference?” he asked.
“I don’t think so, honey,” said Tess. “This is…grown-up stuff.”
“Why are there so many reporters?” he asked.
Tess sat down on the edge of her bed, wondering how exactly to explain. She had promised
herself that she would explain everything if he asked. But up until this moment, he
had shown little curiosity about the reason for their trip.
“Well,” said Tess. “You know that my sister was killed a long time ago,” she said.
From time to time he had been with her when she visited the grave and she had always
answered his questions, minus the grim details, about Phoebe’s death.
Erny nodded. “I know. Phoebe.”
“Right,” said Tess. “Well, a man named Lazarus Abbott was caught and convicted of
the crime, but some people still think the wrong person was blamed for it. So they
decided to retest the old evidence from the case. And we came here this time to hear
about the results.”
Erny had seen crime shows like
CSI.
He had a vague idea of what she was talking about. “So if the evidence doesn’t match,
they’ll let the guy go,” he said eagerly.
Tess blanched. “No…Lazarus Abbott got the death penalty for killing my sister.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes,” said Tess.
“Then why are they doing this now?”
Tess shook her head. “His mother hired an attorney. She refuses to accept that her
son committed this horrible crime,” she said. “Mothers can be…stubborn that way.”
“But he did do it, right?”
“Yes,” said Tess firmly. “He did it. Now, come on, let’s go get those pancakes.”
“After breakfast I’m going out on Sean’s bike,” Erny announced. Half the reason Erny
loved coming to Stone Hill, besides constant access to Leo the dog, was the freedom
he had here to come and go on his own. In the city, he was more confined. “Dawn said
I could.”
Tess pressed her lips together. “It would be a big help to me if you would stay here
with Dawn till I get back. I think it would be a big help to her, too.”
“Why?” he asked.
Tess thought about her mother, having to relive her family’s tragedy yet again. “She’s…thinking
about my sister a lot today. It makes her sad. You can help keep her mind off it.”
Erny shrugged. “Okay.”
Tess went over to him and kissed him on the top of the head. “Thanks. It’s just till
I get back.”
When Tess entered the dining room, she saw Jake seated at a corner table with Dawn,
shoveling down the last of his pancakes. He was dressed in work clothes, a buffalo-check
shirt over a chamois shirt and jeans, but at least his clothes weren’t spattered with
paint. Tess sat down with them and Dawn asked Erny to go out to the kitchen to get
Tess a plate.
“Did you sleep?” Dawn asked.
“Not bad. Considering,” said Tess. She noted the dark circles under her mother’s eyes
and didn’t need to ask her the same question.
Jake wiped his mouth with the napkin and drained his coffee cup. “I slept like a baby,”
he declared.
“The first thing this morning, when I woke up, I saw some guy out in the field,” Tess
said. “It gave me a start.”
“Could have been a hunter,” said Dawn. “Or just a guest. Out walking.”
Tess shook her head. “No, he looked weird. I thought it might be a reporter.”
“Those bastards,” said Jake.
Dawn sighed. “It’s public property back there.”
“I know,” said Tess. This place will always scare me, she thought.
Jake cleared his throat. “I brought Kelli’s car,” he said. “I thought you could use
it while you’re here. Julie’ll come pick me up when she’s done at the hospital.”
“Oh Jake, that’s really nice. Thanks,” said Tess.
“No problem. Kelli doesn’t need it where she’s at.”
“Have you heard from her lately?”
“She calls her mother like clockwork every Sunday,” he said. “She’s still at Fort
Meade. No marching orders yet.”
“I wish she could just stay there,” said Tess.
Jake shook his head. “She had to go into the army. Nothing else would do. She says
she can go to college for free when she gets out.”
“Well, that’s true,” said Tess. “That’s pretty responsible of her.”
“She’s a good kid,” said Jake. “Anyway, you can drive her car around for a few days.
It’ll do the engine good. I took it out to Julie’s dad at his garage. Had the oil
changed and all. She’s good to go.”
Tess nodded as Erny returned and proudly placed a plate piled with pancakes in front
of her. Dawn sat across from Tess, apprehension written on her face and in her sad,
anxious eyes.
“Do you want me to call you from there when it’s over?” Tess asked her mother.
“You don’t need to,” said Dawn, shaking her head. “We all know what the results will
be. Just get back as soon as you can.”
“I will,” Tess promised.
“Ma, try ’em,” Erny insisted.
“They look great,” Tess assured him. Even though her stomach was in knots and she
had no appetite, she picked up her fork and knife and began to slice through the stack.
Neither Tess nor Jake spoke a lot on the drive from the inn to the
Stone Hill Record
’s offices. Tess looked out the window at the quaint but severe-looking New Hampshire
town with its well-kept Colonial-era houses and the brilliant foliage now past its
peak and fading. They traveled past the shops on Main Street. The center of Stone
Hill looked pretty much the same. The general store, which sold everything from paper
lanterns and plastic glassware to pliers and bags of nails, still anchored the block.
But a few trendy new shops had storefronts in the old, austere buildings. There was
a gourmet deli and a video store and a shiastu massage studio called Stressless. Tess
raised her eyebrows. “Shiatsu massage?” she said. “How New Age.”
Jake chuckled snidely. “Yeah, a massage parlor. And guess who runs it? Charmaine Bosworth.
The wife of the police chief. Former wife, I should say. I guess the chief wasn’t
man enough for her.”
Tess was just about to insist that shiatsu was therapeutic, not licentious, when she
was struck by what her brother had just said. “Bosworth? What about Chief Fuller?”
“He’s not the chief anymore, Tess.”
“He’s not?”
Jake shook his head. “He had some health problems. He had to retire.”
“Oh no,” said Tess. “I was hoping he would be here. He was so…good to us.”
Jake shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”
Tess nodded and lapsed into silence as they rode along. The newspaper offices were
in a relatively new building several blocks past Main Street. The building had its
own parking lot, which was now overflowing with television news vans and people with
sound and video equipment milling around, their cables crisscrossing the lot. A crowd
of curious onlookers had gathered outside of the plate-glass façade of the
Record
’s offices.
“Don’t talk to anybody,” Jake said as he pulled into a parking space at the edge of
the lot. “Just keep your head down and hang on to me.”
Tess nodded. Together they picked their way through the milling crowd to the door.
A few people called out questions to them, but Jake’s jaw was set. “’Scuse us,” he
said, leading with his shoulder and pressing his way through the crowd. Tess did as
he had told her and kept her head down. She wondered if they were going to be exiled
at the back or even outside of the room, where the press conference was taking place,
but as Jake managed to reach the door of the conference room, a murmur went through
the crowd and immediately Tess heard a voice saying, “Let these people through. Stand
aside. Let them through.”
Tess kept her eyes down and clung to a corner of Jake’s buffalo-check shirt as someone,
whom she could not see, escorted them to a pair of seats toward the front. As they
went past the rows of chairs filled with onlookers, she could see the head table where
all the lights and microphones were set up. Seated at the table was Governor Putnam,
looking official in a gray suit and a red tie. He was talking with the man she had
met at the airport, the publisher, Channing Morris. Chan was wearing a white shirt
and tie today and leaned against the table, his arms crossed over his chest.
At the other end of the table, on the governor’s right, was Edith Abbott conferring
with a man whom Tess assumed was her attorney. Edith was a tall, sinewy woman with
frizzy, brown hair and glasses. She was wearing a purple polyester suit that swam
on her bony frame and had an improbably large white corsage pinned to the lapel, as
if today were Easter or Mother’s Day. She appeared to be Lazarus Abbott’s sole supporter.
As promised, there was no sign of his stepfather, Nelson, in the room.
Edith’s attorney, athletic-looking and dressed in pinstripes, had a square jaw and
a handsome, unlined face, but his perfectly groomed hair was prematurely silver. He
was listening intently as Edith spoke rapidly, unceasingly into his ear. For a moment,
he looked in their direction and his impassive, porcelain-blue eyes met Tess’s cool
stare. Their gazes locked for an instant and Tess felt an unexpected jolt of sexual
electricity pass between them. Upset by her own response, Tess blushed. She felt as
if she had, in that moment, consorted with the enemy. She quickly looked away.