Part 12 (1/2)
”I'm sorry?”
”It's a lousy excuse for a bagel. You ask me, not that anyone has has, d.a.m.n it, a bagel isn't supposed to be sweet. It's like a sandwich, for the love of G.o.d. Does anyone put jelly on their ham and cheese?” He leaned forward. ”You work for van Vleet; you can tell him I said so.”
”Technically I don't work for the Redhook Group,” Ross said.
”You in insurance?”
”No.”
”A lawyer?”
”No.”
”You own a bagel chain?”
”Uh, no.”
Pike shrugged. ”Well, two out of three. What do you want to know?”
”I understand that the land was originally your wife's . . . that it transferred to you upon her death, because you didn't have children.”
”That's wrong.”
Ross looked up from his notepad. ”That's the information in her will.”
”Well, it's still wrong. Cissy and I had a baby, but it was stillborn.”
”I'm sorry.”
Pike smoothed his hands over the blanket on his lap. ”It was a long, long time ago.”
”The reason I'm here, Mr. Pike, is to see if you know the history of the land before you acquired it.”
”It was in my wife's family. Pa.s.sed down from mother to daughter for several generations.”
”Did the land ever belong to the Abenaki?”
Pike turned slowly. ”The who who?”
”The Native Americans who've been protesting the development of the property.”
”I know who they are!” Pike's face grew red as a beet, and he began to cough. A nurse came over, gave Ross a dirty look, and spoke in low tones to Spencer Pike until his breathing had steadied. ”They can't give you any proof it's a burial ground, can they?”
”Certain . . . circ.u.mstances,” Ross said carefully, ”have led to the opinion that the property might be haunted.”
”Oh, it's haunted all right. But not by any Indians. My wife died on that property,” Pike said, the words deep and ragged.
The stillborn; the untimely death of Cissy Pike; the possibility of a restless spirit-it was coming together for Ross. ”In childbirth?”
Pike shook his head. ”She was murdered. By an Abenaki.”
During her lunch break Shelby took a five-minute walk from the library to the Gas & Grocery, where she usually picked up a sandwich. But these days, thanks to the New York Times New York Times article, the little general store was swamped by reporters trying to get their own story of the land dispute that, quite literally, would not settle. She took one look at Abe Huppinworth, nict.i.tating at her from the porch as he swept the ever-present array of rose petals, and abruptly turned in the other direction. article, the little general store was swamped by reporters trying to get their own story of the land dispute that, quite literally, would not settle. She took one look at Abe Huppinworth, nict.i.tating at her from the porch as he swept the ever-present array of rose petals, and abruptly turned in the other direction.
She found herself walking into the munic.i.p.al building before she even realized where she was headed. Lottie, the town clerk, sat at her desk with a diet book. ”I just don't get it,” she said, glancing up. ”They say eleven units, like I'm supposed to eat a condominium.”
Lottie, who had weighed well over two hundred and fifty pounds the whole time Shelby had been living in Comtosook, closed the book and picked up a celery stick. ”You know who invented vegetables, Shelby? The devil.” She took a bite. ”I ought to know better than to start a diet when I'm already in a bad mood.”
”Those reporters bugging you?”
”They're in here sniffing around for G.o.d knows what. I finally ran off photocopies of the Pike property's deed this morning, so I wouldn't have to be interrupted.” She shook her head. ”I imagine it's worse for you.”
Shelby shrugged. ”We unplug the phone.”
”I wish they would go away. I wish it would all all go away. Myrt Clooney told me how Wally LaFleur's parrot started singing Edith Piaf ballads, just like that. The coffeemaker, here at the office? We can't get it to brew anything but lemonade.” She smiled suddenly at Shelby. ”You didn't come here to listen to a fat old lady moan. What can I do for you?” go away. Myrt Clooney told me how Wally LaFleur's parrot started singing Edith Piaf ballads, just like that. The coffeemaker, here at the office? We can't get it to brew anything but lemonade.” She smiled suddenly at Shelby. ”You didn't come here to listen to a fat old lady moan. What can I do for you?”
Ten minutes later, under the pretense of finding a fact for a library patron, Shelby was sitting in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the office, surrounded by boxes of town records. They were rubber-banded by year, but not in order-stacks of yellowed cards chronicling the births and deaths of Comtosook residents from 1877 to the present.
Ross had not asked for her help. Maybe that was why she was here-since their confrontation at the hospital he'd gone out of his way to avoid her, but with a politesse that felt like a knife being twisted: a note left on the counter saying he would be back between 4 and 5 A.M. A.M.; a gallon of milk set in the refrigerator to replace the one he had finished. The conversations they were not not having had slipped under the carpeting, making it impossible to walk through the house without fear of tripping. Shelby wished she were brave enough to sit her baby brother down, to say, having had slipped under the carpeting, making it impossible to walk through the house without fear of tripping. Shelby wished she were brave enough to sit her baby brother down, to say, Can't you see I'm only doing this out of love? Can't you see I'm only doing this out of love? She was too afraid, though, that he might say the same thing in return. She was too afraid, though, that he might say the same thing in return.
What she wanted for him was one lucky break to turn the tide and send him swimming back to her. But since she could not find the way to tell Ross that she was sorry for doubting him, she would hand him this information, in case it might be apology enough.
The box of deaths from 1930 had survived a flood in the late fifties, and many were so faded with watermarks that Shelby could not read the names of the deceased, much less anything else about their states of affairs. The bottom of the carton was lined with an old Town Annual Report, published along with a calendar for the year 1966. ”Comtosook,” she read off the cover, ”derives from the Abenaki word kodtozik kodtozik, or 'what is hidden,' referring no doubt to the wealth of granite found in the depths of Angel Quarry.”
No doubt, Shelby thought. Shelby thought.
She dug a little deeper and came up with the stack of deaths from 1932. These weren't as badly stained, but the rubber band was so brittle it broke off in her hand. The cards spilled across her lap, smelling faintly of sulfur and pressed flowers. Shelby began to scan through them quickly. BERTEL-MAN, ADA. MONROE, RAWLENE. QUINCY, OLIVE.
Two cards were stuck together; Shelby noticed this at nearly the same time she realized that they both were labeled PIKE. The first was a death certificate for an unnamed stillborn infant, 37 weeks. Approximate time of death: 11:32 Approximate time of death: 11:32 A A.M. Glued onto the back of this was another death certificate, for Mrs. Spencer Pike. Time of death: 11:32 Time of death: 11:32 A A.M.
Shelby s.h.i.+vered in spite of the heat in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was not just that this woman, this Mrs. Spencer Pike, who had died when she was only eighteen, had never lived to hold her baby. It was not even that this baby had never drawn a single breath. It had to do with the fixative that had cemented these cards together for so many years. Shelby was no expert, but it could only be blood.
Ruby Weber did not like to admit it, but she was getting old. She told everyone she was seventy-seven, although she was really eighty-three. Her hips moved like rusty hinges, her eyes clouded up when she least expected. Worst of all, she fell asleep in the middle of sentences sometimes, nodding off like, well, an old lady. One of these days she would just fall asleep, she supposed, and forget to wake up.
Not until Lucy was taken care of, though. Ruby knew that the medicine was helping her great-granddaughter, but at a cost-Lucy's nightmares had slinked down the hall to take up residence in Ruby's own bedroom. Now, no matter where or when Ruby dozed, she found herself reliving the phone call that had ruined her life.
It had come on a rainy Monday, eight years ago. She'd picked up the receiver, thinking it was the pharmacy saying her arthritis medicine was in; or maybe her daughter Luxe ringing from the market to let her know she'd be a few minutes late. But the voice on the other end belonged to a ghost.
She was still sitting with the phone in her hand, shaking, when Luxe came in with the groceries. ”You wouldn't believe how long it took me to get through the checkout,” Luxe said. ”You'd think people were stocking up for bomb shelters.” Then she looked more carefully at Ruby's face. ”Ma? What's the matter?”
Ruby had reached out her hand, touched Luxe's skin, smooth and warm as a stone. How did you go about telling someone you were not who they thought you were?
Now, Ruby felt hands on her shoulders, shaking her gently. ”Granny. Granny Granny.”
Ruby could not answer, her mind was still full of Luxe, who had fallen down clutching her chest when Ruby told her who had called; who Luxe really was; who Ruby wasn't. She could still see Luxe's face, waxen and still, through the ER doorway as the doctor came out to say that the cardiac arrest had been fatal. How stupid Ruby had been. She'd held Luxe's heart in safekeeping all those years; to give it back, in retrospect, seemed foolish and irresponsible.
On the day her mother died, Meredith had been a graduate student in Boston. She arrived wild at the hospital, demanding a miracle. Ruby had nearly expected her to get one, for all her fury. Imagine: Luxe throwing back the sheet that covered her on the examination table, sitting up. Wonders like that, they had happened before. Ruby had seen it herself.
Ruby had never told Meredith what she'd told Luxe in the moments before her heart gave out. Now, though . . . with Lucy suffering . . . well, Meredith might understand the way love for a child could make a woman go crazy. ”Merry,” Ruby said suddenly, wanting to tell her all of it. ”Do you remember when your mother died?”