The Mill River Recluse Read online

  Leroy stole a glance out the kitchen window and cursed to himself. It was Crazy Daisy, dressed like a damned Eskimo and looking expectantly up at the door.

  She’ll go away after a few minutes, he thought as he stood in the kitchen, but then he heard a car pull into the driveway and his heart began pounding even faster. He knew well the sound of that car. Claudia was home.

  His mind was racing. He heard a car door slam, heard Daisy’s sing-song voice chattering about some love potion and Claudia politely trying to refuse Daisy’s solicitation. He would have to go now and hope that they were too distracted by each other to notice him leaving.

  Leroy was out the back door just as Claudia stepped in through the front. He hid behind a thicket of trees in her backyard in case she looked outside. He watched Daisy walk past the house on her way toward St. John’s. The little round woman paused for a moment when she passed the thicket in which he was hiding and then kept going. She probably hadn’t seen him. Once Daisy was at the front door of the church, he walked casually around the back, down to where his car was parked. The adrenaline still coursed through him, but he was beginning to feel intense satisfaction at his accomplishment. He stuck his hand in the pocket where the panties were. Though he had never imagined he would, he felt a sort of grudging gratitude toward Crazy Daisy. As batty as she was, her showing up had enabled him to escape with his treasure.

  Chapter 10

  Two months after their wedding, Mary was standing at her bedroom window in her nightgown, watching Patrick leave for work. His new midnight blue Packard Clipper coupe, the wedding present promised by his father, rolled smoothly down the driveway and disappeared. After a few moments, she caught sight of the car again, moving up the main street of Mill River heading toward Rutland.

  Although Vermont’s autumn glory was at its peak, Mary barely noticed the bright orange and flaming red of the sugar maples. Her gaze bypassed the golden aspens interspersed among dark green pines. The rolling hills surrounding Mill River had become a rich natural palette, but one that held no interest for Mary.

  She turned her tear-stained face from the window and gingerly flexed her wrist. Perhaps some ice would stop it from hurting, she thought. She headed downstairs to the kitchen. There, she pulled a tray of ice cubes from the freezer and slammed it on the counter. A handful of cubes popped loose. She wrapped the ice in a towel and applied the cold, lumpy mass to her wrist.

  Mary stood over the sink in the kitchen for several minutes. The ice in the towel melted, spreading coldness through the plush cotton fibers. Water droplets began to fall into the sink. Drip. Drip. In the quiet interior of the marble house, the droplets sounded like sharp blows of a hammer. Mary leaned against the counter and began to cry again.

  How could she have been so happy and so wrong at the same time? The two months that she had spent as Patrick’s wife felt like two years. The man that Patrick was today was not the man she had married. Or perhaps he was, and she had been too naive to realize it.

  The towel holding the ice cubes was almost completely soaked when Mary finally dropped it into the sink. She held up her wrist. It was slightly swollen. Reddish-purple bruises had appeared on each side, left by the vice-like grip of Patrick’s hand. She flexed it again and was surprised that it felt much better. Mary took another towel, dried her hands, and pressed it lightly against her damp cheeks.

  The tree branches outside the kitchen window twisted gently in the wind. She thought of how that cool breeze would feel on her face and headed back upstairs to get dressed. She really needed to get out of the house.

  Mary pulled a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of her comfortable work pants out of her bureau. The first time she had seen Patrick, she had been wearing clothes like this. He hadn’t given any indication that it bothered him then, but the last time she dressed this way in front of him, he screamed at her to go change immediately, because no wife of his would dress like a pauper. A different person, she thought again, as she peeled off her nightgown. Her injured wrist made it difficult to dress, but she managed. Mary went downstairs, slipped on her riding boots, and headed to the stable through the back door of the house.

  True to his word, Conor had had a stable built for Patrick and Mary on the land behind their new home. The barn held three horses—Penny, Patrick’s new chestnut Thoroughbred mare, Monarch, and Ebony. The horses turned expectantly as she opened the door. Ebony swung her dark head over the stall door and nickered.

  “Good morning, pretty girl,” Mary said to the black horse. She rubbed the mare’s nose and forehead before she went to the feed room.

  While the residents of the barn busied themselves with their morning oats, Mary sat on a bale of straw, her brow furrowed in thought. She had tried so many times to talk to Patrick. Lately, he had been in such a foul mood. He wouldn’t open up to her, and had taken to staying at work later and later. Perhaps it was just the pressures of his job. He had complained several weeks ago that as the war in Europe escalated, demand for marble was steadily dropping. And, for what orders they did have, they were short on workers since men at the Marbleworks were being drafted into the military or transferred to war-related industries.

  There was also other pressure that Patrick must be feeling. As much as she tried not to think about it, he could be drafted as easily as any of the other employees at the Marbleworks. When his conscription questionnaire arrived, he had filled it out and returned it as he was required to do. He had been assigned a number, like all of the young men in Rutland County, and every month, the Rutland Herald printed columns of names of the men whose numbers had been drawn by the local draft board.

  Her great fear was that it was something about her that bothered him. In the few weeks after they had returned from their honeymoon, he had wanted her to go to dinner or attend some other social function with him almost every night. She had acquiesced. During these outings, Patrick seemed to delight in presenting her to his friends and acquaintances, which made her quite uncomfortable. She had become much better at quelling any anxiety that she felt in those situations, but she now understood that she would never come close to matching Patrick’s social prowess.

  This morning over breakfast, when he had mentioned an upcoming dinner engagement, she had asked if they might decline the invitation and enjoy a quiet evening together alone.

  “Mary, you know it would be rude to do that.”

  “Well, surely, Patrick, people don’t accept every invitation they receive. Don’t you think we could decline this one?”

  Patrick’s green eyes blazed. He took a last swig from his coffee mug and picked up his briefcase.

  “I think that a good wife does what her husband asks of her.”

  Mary was silent a moment. She couldn’t think of what to say, but she had to say something before he left.

  “Patrick, wait--” As he opened the side door to leave, she laid a hand on his arm. He turned to face her, and the fury on his face was cold and cruel. He grabbed her wrist, bending it backwards as he spoke.

  “You will come with me tomorrow night. End of discussion.”

  “Patrick, you’re hurting me. Please,” she said. Glaring, he released her wrist and walked out the door, slamming it behind him.

  She had run upstairs to the bedroom clutching her wrist, her mind reeling. Finally, the tears came. This was her husband, the man she had married. The wonderful man who had been so patient and caring when she had wanted nothing to do with him. It was as if they had switched places, and she didn’t know what to do.

  A shrill whinny came from Monarch’s stall, and Mary looked up, startled. Ebony was still licking the last oats from her feedbox, but Monarch and Penny were finished. One at a time, she led the bay colt and the copper-colored mare outside and turned them into the pasture. Monarch raced around the field and then lowered himself onto the ground. As Penny grazed, the bay colt rolled, grunting, with all four hooves flailing in the air. Mary watched and smiled. He still acts like a yearling, she thought to herself
.

  She went into the tack room and, taking care not to strain her wrist further, took down a bridle and saddle. She would go riding for the morning, maybe out to her father’s. That way, Ebony could still enjoy the afternoon in the pasture.

  Mary managed to get the saddle and bridle on the black mare. It took her longer than usual to tighten the girth, but Ebony stood patiently, turning more than once to nuzzle her shoulder. Finally, she climbed into the saddle. She had ridden to her father’s several times over the past few weeks. The black mare knew the way. Mary held the reins loosely with one hand, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight.

  Perhaps she would talk to her father about Patrick’s strange shift in personality. He could, after all, offer her a man’s perspective. She had previously decided against mentioning their troubles to her father--he liked Patrick and was so delighted that she had married. Still, nothing she had tried seemed to make the situation any better. In fact, she thought grimly as she looked at her wrist, it seemed to be getting worse.

  Mary swayed in the saddle as the black mare picked her way through the forest. The trail was a shortcut. It would end on the main road almost directly across from the driveway to her father’s farm. Mary relaxed and looked up at the autumn canopy ruffling in the breeze. The light that found its way through the leaves left moving spots of sunshine on her face, on Ebony, on the ground as they passed by. The milky-white trunks of the aspens stood out against the darker bark of oaks and maples. With each gust of wind, round, gold aspen leaves rained down around them.

  Mary reached out and caught one of them. When she was younger, during the worst years of the Depression, she had collected these leaves. She had grown up doing without, all the while knowing that her father struggled as best he could to make ends meet. The aspens had provided for her an escape into an imaginary world of riches. She used to pretend that the golden leaves were coins, removing the stems and filling her pockets with them. Several times, she had placed them under her pillow in the hope that the tooth fairy would transform them into real gold while she slept.

  She was grateful that she no longer needed to wish for gold to magically appear--Patrick did provide very well for her. Mary sighed. If only her father would let her help him...Patrick had already agreed to pay for a new home to be built at the farm, but her father had insisted on keeping the old farmhouse and scraping by on repairs he made himself. Mary thought of him, sitting alone in the creaking house each evening, and was glad that she had decided to visit. He was most likely outside working with one of the young horses.

  The trail through the forest curved gently and stopped at the main road. Mary urged Ebony across, but the black mare needed no encouraging. She pricked up her ears and broke into an eager trot.

  “You know where you are, don’t you, old girl?” Mary asked her horse, smiling. “I miss the place too.”

  The mile to the farm was a short one. As the huge red barn came into view, Mary noticed that its doors were open. Her father was probably in the training ring. She dismounted and looped the ends of Ebony’s bridle around a rail of the fence before walking toward the barn.

  “Papa?”

  A large cluster of horses grazed in the pasture, and the gate in the fence was unlocked. She walked through it and into the barn. It was empty.

  “Hello? Papa, are you out here?”

  The door at the back of the barn was open, and a snort and short whinny came from the training ring.

  “Papa?” Mary walked through the back door, and her breath caught in her throat.

  A young colt wearing saddle and bridle stood in the training ring looking at her. Her father lay motionless on the ground only a few feet away.

  “Papa!” she screamed, and ran to him.

  The horse farmer lay face-up in a smattering of red maple leaves, and a great gash on his scalp had stained the ground around his head to match. His eyes were half-closed.

  “Papa!” Mary grabbed her father’s hand, held his face, shook him by the shoulders. “Papa, wake up! Please!” She put an ear to his unmoving chest and heard nothing but the autumn wind winding through the trees surrounding the training ring. Something in her mind told her to go to the house to call for help, but a frantic sense of inevitability overcame her. She was sobbing, shaking her father and wiping at her eyes, screaming for someone, anyone, to help her. The training ring began to spin around her as she collapsed.

  Mr. Pearson from the next farm over found her that way, slumped over her father, sobbing and muttering unintelligibly to herself. He had heard her screams and come running, but all he could do was call the sheriff and watch over Mary until her husband and the authorities arrived. The coroner determined that Mr. Hayes had died as a result of trauma to the head. Most likely, he had been thrown against the fence when he tried to ride the young colt, but no one would ever know quite how it happened.

  They held the funeral Mass at the stone church in Mill River. Mary wore a black dress, and the only McAllisters in attendance were Patrick’s immediate family. Again, the Pearsons sat together in the front row of the church, but they did not smile. And again, Father O’Brien stood at the altar, but he spoke quietly, out of respect for the man who lay at rest in the closed casket behind him.

  ~~~

  For the McAllister family, May 1942 brought none of the joys of spring.

  On one of those May nights, long after the employees had gone home, a single window at McAllister Marbleworks remained lit. The remnants of winter-chilled air swirled outside the glass, seeping through the crevices, challenging the old steam radiator in the office that sputtered and hissed in response. Conor, Stephen, and Patrick McAllister sat at a table inside the illuminated room. Accounting ledgers lay strewn before them, along with diagrams of machinery and lists of inventory.

  “We don’t have a choice, for Patrick’s sake,” Stephen said. “We can keep him from being drafted. He’d be working in a war-related industry. That means he’d be eligible for a deferment.”

  “I think you’re right,” Conor said. “And it would make good business sense. I don’t see how the demand for marble will do anything but decrease while we’re at war. It won’t be easy, but we’ve got to convert to war production, or we won’t be able to generate enough income to break even, much less turn a profit.”

  “Then it’s settled. I’ll file for a deferment first thing tomorrow,” Patrick said.

  “Good,” Stephen said. “That’ll be one less thing to worry about. “I’ve still got to deal with the blasted tires, though.” Effective February 10, the government had placed a moratorium on the sale of new cars. Not only were Stephen’s automobile-buying sprees now prohibited, but the tires on most of the cars he did own had been confiscated by the government for the war effort. Only the Lincoln still had tires, and Stephen worried constantly that one of them would go flat.

  Patrick had no interest in listening to his father complain about his inability to maintain his automobile collection. He was far more worried about his own precarious situation. He felt sick every time he thought about the telegram that he had received two mornings ago. It had been an official greeting from Uncle Sam, informing him that he was to report for induction into the Army on June 12, exactly a month from today.

  The military induction center in Rutland had been busy ever since the attack at Pearl Harbor the previous December. He drove by it each morning on his way to the Marbleworks and shook his head at the long lines of men waiting to enlist extending through its doors. Many of those men had worked at the Marbleworks. Some had been drafted, but more had gone willingly, eager for the chance to blast the Japs for their sneak attack.

  What others did mattered little to Patrick. He would be lying if he didn’t say that, on some deep level, it bothered him that a tiny island nation had the audacity to take on the United States, and that German U-boats were rumored to be prowling just a few miles off the Atlantic coast. There was no doubt in his mind, though, that there were enough foolhardy volunteers and blue-
collar draftees available to satisfy the local draft board.

  He was unlike those men. He had worked hard to reach the ideal position in life, and his place at the helm of the Marbleworks was assured. He was educated, intelligent, and privileged. He could not bear the thought of standing in the line outside the induction center, standing beside those men as an equal, and eventually taking orders from some chump officer with only space between his ears. He had no intention of wasting his Harvard degree and placing his life and family’s future success in jeopardy to fight a war. His participation would have little, if any, effect on the outcome.

  Avoiding the draft, though, would be difficult. He was healthy, in the prime of his life, and could not escape with a deferment for some physical problem. He was not a farmer, and so could not qualify for an agricultural exemption. He supposed his grandfather could twist a few arms, maybe convince the draft board to “forget” that his number had come up. That option was risky, though. If word of such a scheme ever leaked out, his family’s social standing would be forever compromised. Working in a war-related industry would be ideal. It would qualify him for a deferment and would be seen as a legitimate, even honorable, alternative to going to war.

  The next morning, Patrick mailed a letter to the chairman of the local draft board. In it, he requested a deferment based on the fact that McAllister Marbleworks would soon be converted to a machine shop. His family’s business would produce rifle barrel drillers, machines to make cans, engine parts for Liberty ships, bombsights, and an assortment of other supplies for the war effort. He mentioned that, as the eldest son, he would bear substantial responsibility in overseeing production.

  Sending the letter gave him a certain measure of relief. Surely, with his father and grandfather’s influence in the community, he would be spared the indignity of being conscripted. Jubilantly, he decided to leave work a few hours early so that he and Mary might go riding before dark.