The Mill River Recluse Page 5

“I’ll be here at five. Don’t worry, it will only be my family, and you’ll be with me,” he said, turning to leave. Halfway down the footpath, he turned and waved at her. Then, he shook hands with her father, climbed into the van with the driver and his father, and was gone.

  ~~~

  “Well, son, you finally have your Morgan. Never did get to meet that girl you were telling us about, though,” Stephen McAllister said as the van strained to pick up speed.

  “She was up at the house, Pop. She wasn’t feeling well. But she’s agreed to have dinner with us next weekend.”

  “Ah, splendid!” Stephen said. “It’s strange--you say she was there the day we first came for the colt, but I can’t remember seeing her. Oh, well. You remember, of course, that your mother has invited the family to the house next Saturday. It would be an excellent time for you to introduce us to this little hayseed we’ve all been hearing about.”

  Patrick ignored his father’s belittling reference to Mary. Despite her country upbringing, she was well-spoken and lovely—something his family would surely recognize once they met her. He had, however, forgotten about his mother’s plans. Such a large gathering might prove problematic with Mary, if he could even get her out of the house. Still, Mary had promised to visit, and visit she would.

  A loud stomping and a whinny came from the van’s cargo compartment behind them. “Son, have you named this colt yet?” Patrick’s father asked.

  A regal power coursed through Patrick as he remembered the feel of Mary’s face locked in his hands and the sweet taste of her mouth. He, a gentleman and heir to a great fortune, would have all to which he was entitled, including the queen of his choice. “Funny you should ask, Pop,” Patrick said. “I just decided on it. His name’s Monarch.”

  Chapter 5

  In the gray February dawn, Father O’Brien drove slowly up the hill toward the white marble home. Even with all-wheel drive, his truck strained as it rolled through almost nine inches of new snow. He pulled around to the side of the house and removed his key to the back door from his coat pocket. His hand trembled as he inserted it into the lock.

  The house was still and silent except for the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the parlor. Father O’Brien wiped his shoes on the doormat and proceeded quietly through the house, up a sweeping marble staircase to Mary’s bedroom. He could have walked this route blindfolded. But today was different. He took each step carefully, keeping a hand on the banister. He paused for a moment at the door before stepping inside.

  Her adjustable hospital bed faced the bay window opposite him. The bed was in a slightly upright position to enable her to see out the window, and Father O’Brien had to step in front of the bed to see her. His breath caught in his throat as he came around and whispered her name.

  “Mary?”

  She was gone.

  Mary lay in the bed, her eyes closed and her hands resting gently in her lap. He took one of her hands in his. It was still warm and pliable. Her skin was a grayish pallor tinged with the yellow of jaundice, but her illness had cast such a tone over her for so long that now, in death, Mary looked to him as if she were only sleeping. The absence of her breathing revealed the truth.

  For a long moment, Father O’Brien looked at her. He let go of her hand to smooth a strand of hair out of her face. His lip quivered as he noticed the empty prescription bottle on her nightstand. As he began to pray over her, his voice cracked and fell to a whisper. His tears fell freely onto her. He prayed for her soul, suspecting how she died and hoping that her soul would somehow be allowed into heaven. When he finished, he made the sign of the cross and knelt by her bedside. In the stillness of the marble house, the sound of weeping joined the ticking of the grandfather clock.

  ~~~

  Kyle was a pancake master.

  Since his wife’s death, his abilities in the kitchen had vastly improved. Through trial and error and frequent solicitation of advice from Ruth Fitzgerald, he had developed a limited repertoire of meals that he could prepare successfully. Pot roast and mashed potatoes, for example. Slap the roast in the crock pot for eight hours--simple. Boil peeled potatoes until soft, add milk, salt, and butter, and beat the heck out of them--easy. Hot dogs, hamburgers, and other things that he could boil or fry were no problem. Most vegetables could be boiled or eaten raw, and he forced himself to eat them so that he sounded more credible when he insisted that Rowen eat hers, too. But pancakes were his specialty and Rowen’s favorite.

  This Sunday morning, after mixing up a bowl of batter, Kyle stood in front of the stove. He was armed with two spatulas and a turkey baster. When the oil in the frying pan reached the proper temperature, he used the turkey baster to squirt batter into a large circle in the center of the pan. Then he added two smaller circles in the ten and two o’clock positions at the top of the large circle. The small batter circles ran together with the large one to form—voilà!-- Mickey Mouse. He used the two spatulas to flip the edible Disney character as Rowen stumbled into the kitchen.

  “Morning, sleepyhead.”

  “Morning, Dad.” She wore a long flannel nightgown and slipper booties. Her light brown hair was rumpled. Rowen rubbed one of her eyes and crawled into a chair at the table. Kyle had already set two places.

  “I poured you some OJ,” Kyle said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her reach for her glass. “I hope you’re hungry. I’m making us something new for breakfast. Mouse pancakes.”

  Rowen swallowed a mouthful of juice and looked at her father.

  “Nuh-uh,” she said, smiling, but her eyes revealed just a hint of uncertainty.

  “Oh yeah. I was talking to Ruth the other day. She said that when she gets a mouse in one of her traps, she skins it and puts it in the freezer. When she has a few of them stored up, she chops them up and puts them in pancakes. Says it’s convenient because you get some meat for breakfast without having to fix sausage or bacon on the side. Pass me your plate, will you?”

  “That’s really gross, Dad,” Rowen said as she handed Kyle her plate. She had apparently decided that he was kidding. “Besides,” she said, matter-of-factly, “I’m old enough to know Ruth wouldn’t cook something like that.”

  Kyle put the Mickey Mouse pancake on her plate and handed it to her.

  “Yeah, I guess you are,” he said. “But we really are having mouse pancakes.”

  Rowen looked at her plate. “Oh, it’s Mickey Mouse! Cool!” She reached for the maple syrup.

  “Seriously, Ruth did tell me how to make these. She thought you’d get a kick out of them. So be sure and tell her thanks when you see her, okay?”

  “Okay,” Rowen said with her mouth full.

  “By the way, the paper should be here. Why don’t you bring it in? We can read the funnies.”

  Still chewing, Rowen slipped off her chair and skipped over to the front door. She opened it to retrieve the Rutland Herald lying outside in the hall.

  “Hi, Fitz!” Kyle heard her say. He’d just flipped another Mickey likeness with the spatulas, but he took the frying pan off the hot burner and walked over to Rowen. Fitz was standing in the hall.

  “Hey, kiddo! Morning, Kyle,” he said, pulling on his gloves. “So you guys didn’t sleep in?”

  “Nah, we’re up,” Kyle replied. Rowen grabbed the Sunday paper and scampered back into the kitchen. “You want some pancakes?”

  “No thanks. I’m kind of in a hurry. I just got a call from Father O’Brien. Apparently, Mary McAllister passed on last night, and he’s up at her house now. Wykowski’s on duty this morning, but he’s several miles out on patrol, so the dispatcher called me. Looks like a suicide, and the Father wants me to come by to make sure and get what we need for a report before the coroner comes to collect the body. It shouldn’t take long. All I really need to do is take a look around, enough to gather information for the report.”

  Kyle glanced at the clock on the wall; it was almost nine o’ clock. He wasn’t keen on the idea of giving up a cozy Sunday morning with his d
aughter to deal with a suspected suicide, but Fitz was his boss. He felt obligated to offer assistance.

  “Are you sure you don’t need a hand? If Ruth would be here in case Rowen needed anything, I could go with you.”

  “Well,” Fitz said, “I suppose you could come along. It’d give you a chance to see how we handle something like this, and I’m sure we’d be done pretty quick. If not, Ruth could take Rowen to the church with her when she goes.” He backed out of the doorway. “I’ll go down and start the car. Just come down when you’re ready to go.”

  “I’ll be just a second.” Kyle closed the door. Rowen was just finishing her pancake. He set the frying pan back on the burner and finished cooking the second Mickey.

  “Rowen, hon, something’s come up, and I have to go with Fitz to check up on a lady who’s been very sick. Ruth will be across the hall. If I’m not back before she has to leave for church, she’ll take you with her and I’ll pick you up there a little later.” He plopped the second pancake onto her plate and went into his bedroom to get dressed, talking all the while. “Go ahead and finish your breakfast but get dressed in case I’m late, okay?”

  “Yeah.” She was rifling through the center of the paper in search of the comics. “Aren’t you going to have any breakfast?”

  “I had some juice, but I’ve got to hurry,” Kyle said as he came back into the kitchen hastily buttoning his shirt. “Don’t worry, I’ll have an extra-big lunch.” The truth was, he had lost his appetite knowing what he would be dealing with when he and Fitz got to the old woman’s house. He stepped into his boots and threw on his coat. “Now don’t putter--you need to be ready if I’m not back or Ruth will squawk at you.”

  “I know, Dad,” Rowen said, and Kyle hurried out the front door.

  ~~~

  Daisy Delaine had hardly slept.

  After Kyle and Leroy had admonished her to go inside during the snowstorm, she had returned to her front yard and gathered two pots of the fluffy new snow. By the time the morning light revealed her mobile home to be half-buried in snowdrifts, the kitchen counter was littered with ingredients—rosehips, cinnamon, molasses, crushed cranberries, and a number of unlabeled bottles of herbs and powders—and two pots of potion simmered on the stove. Daisy tended her cooking pots carefully, humming to herself and occasionally bursting into full song. She directed her lyrics toward a charcoal-colored mop of fur that watched her from a kitchen chair. In response to Daisy’s serenade, the mop sat up and wagged its tail.

  The red substance in the larger pot had the consistency of raspberry syrup. Crimson bubbles puckered to the surface, releasing puffs of a sweet, cinnamon scent. Daisy stirred the mixture vigorously and lifted a spoonful to her nose. “Smells done to me! Nice and thick, too. We’ll just let our Valentine’s Day potion sit for a while to cool, won’t we, Smudgie?”

  Smudgie whined and lay back down on the chair. Daisy turned off the stove burner beneath the pot of red liquid and focused her attention on the smaller pan.

  Its contents didn’t smell nearly as pleasant as the red Valentine’s Day potion.

  Daisy whisked the watery, brownish-green mixture that simmered in the smaller pot. “Needs more sassafras,” she muttered. She glanced around her kitchen, finally reaching for an unmarked jar of brown powder. She unscrewed its lid and shook a small heap of the powder into the murky mixture.

  “Not long now, Smudgie, not long at all,” Daisy cooed to the dog as she resumed her stirring. “We’ll have this to Mary in a flash, we will, and she’ll be better in no time.”

  Once the powdered root had dissolved, Daisy sniffed the steam rising from the pot and removed a clean jar from her cupboard. This has to help, she thought as she ladled the jar full of the brownish-green liquid. It’s my strongest batch yet! Daisy gazed at the sealed jar for a moment and then planted a kiss squarely on its lid.

  As she switched off the second stove burner, her face brightened and she turned again to the little gray dog. “Maybe after I take the healing potion to Father O’Brien, I should take some samples of the Valentine’s Day potion to the neighbors. We could even get some advance orders this year, couldn’t we?” Smudgie yipped and wagged.

  Daisy ladled some of the fragrant red liquid into a few other empty jelly jars and screwed the lids on tightly. She then put on a parka.

  “Now Smudgie, you’ll be a good boy, won’t you?” Daisy said with mock sternness. She grabbed the filled jars on her counter and lowered them into the deep side pockets of the parka. “Mommy will be back in a little while,” she said as she disappeared out the front door.

  Standing on his hind legs at the front window of the mobile home, Smudgie watched Daisy trudge up the street through the thick snow.

  ~~~

  Claudia awoke slowly, keeping her eyes closed to the winter sunlight that shone through the blinds on her bedroom windows. She stretched under the covers and felt the stiffness of sleep in her legs and back. She would have loved to doze a while longer, but her mind had begun to race. It was no use now. Besides, it was time for the treadmill.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and began the daily argument with herself. It would be so tempting not to exercise. She could draw a hot bubble bath and soak for a while. Maybe treat herself to a nice chocolate milkshake in the tub. Wasn’t Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

  Of course. But no exercise and a chocolate breakdown would be a boon to the cellulite that threatened to repucker her thighs. She had come too far to slack off now.

  Claudia reluctantly pulled a sports bra, spandex shorts, and socks out of her dresser drawers. Only the fear of regaining the weight she had lost kept the million excuses from winning the argument. She put on the workout clothes and pulled her hair into a neat ponytail. Her running shoes waited for her on the treadmill in the spare room.

  She stood next to the black machine for a moment, stretching her legs and back. Then she sighed and stepped onto the belt of the treadmill to program the speed at which she would run for the next thirty minutes. The motor hummed, straining to turn the belt. She began to walk. Even after the stretches, her legs were stiff. No excuses, she told herself. The belt turned faster, and she began to jog. Sometimes she listened to music while she ran, but many days, like today, she started exercising in silence and lost her thoughts in the treadmill’s whine and the rhythm of her breathing.

  The first ten minutes were the worst. It took that long for her body to come to grips with the fact that it would have to work. She knew that after that period, her brain would release a surge of endorphins that would give her an “exercise high.” Running was much better after that. She felt the first beads of sweat pop out on her forehead. She hated the initial sweat. It made her feel damp and filthy. Left, right, left right. Keep going. No excuses.

  Claudia glanced down at the digital timer on the treadmill. She had been running for ten minutes and forty-two seconds. Left, right, left, right. Not a moment too soon, she suddenly felt fully awake. Her legs were limber and strong, not the heavy deadweights she had swung over the edge of her bed. The sweat was beginning to pool in the indentation at the center of her collarbone, but now it felt good, almost purifying. A sense of well-being came over her. She punched up her speed two levels and easily adjusted as the treadmill belt rolled faster. Perhaps she would have chocolate today, skim milk with Hershey’s low-cal chocolate syrup. A healthy compromise. Claudia smiled, breathing heavily through her teeth. Left, right, left, right. And, she would definitely have the bubble bath.

  ~~~

  Why was her alarm clock ringing on a Sunday?

  Jean squinted at her nightstand, slapped the clock, slapped it again, then realized it was the phone ringing, not the clock.

  “Mom!” Jimmy burst into her bedroom, holding a piece of toast in one hand and the cordless phone from the kitchen in the other. “Mom, wake up. It’s Margaret from work and she says it’s important.” He barely waited until she had grasped the phone before running out of the room.

&
nbsp; “Your kid said you were still in bed,” barked a woman’s voice through the receiver. “Whatsa matter? You sick?”

  “I had trouble sleeping last night. What time is it?” Jean croaked, sitting up in bed.

  “After ten. Anyway, I’m on my way out for morning rounds, but I had to call and tell you.” The voice paused, and Jean could just picture Margaret gripping the phone, giddy with anticipation before spilling a juicy tidbit of information. “Mary McAllister died last night. Or early this morning, they’re not sure exactly when. Sue knows someone in the M.E.’s office, and they said she overdosed on her meds. So that’s one you won’t have to worry about anymore.” Margaret paused, waiting for her response. “Jeanie? You there?”

  “Yeah. I thought she was close when I saw her yesterday. At least she isn’t suffering anymore.”

  “I wonder who’ll get all her stuff,” Margaret said. “She’s probably got a couple million in her bank account, don’t you think?”

  “Probably.”

  “And she doesn’t have any kids, and her husband’s dead, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, there’s got to be somebody. Hell, Jeanie, you took care of the old broad for months. Maybe she left it all to you.”

  Jean snorted into the phone. “That’s impossible, Marge, and you know it. She hardly ever said a word to me, even before she went downhill. When she wasn’t asleep, she kept to herself, like she was afraid to look at me. Besides, I’m sure she could afford to have someone do her will. Even if she doesn’t have any family, I’m sure her estate’s already spoken for.”

  “Well, whoever gets it is damned lucky. What I wouldn’t give for a fortune to drop into my lap. I’m coming, just a sec,” Margaret said to somebody, and then back into the phone, “Jeanie, I gotta go. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Jean said, and clicked the reset button on the cordless phone. After finding her glasses, she spied her purse sitting on the chest of drawers and felt a pang of shame. At the bottom of a little zippered pocket inside that purse was a stunning diamond ring. Mrs. McAllister’s diamond ring.