The Drowned Woman Read online

  ‘You’re playing with fire,’ Simon said.

  ‘I don’t care. I want him gone. We’ll make the changes that you want. As soon as the company is running smoothly, Sarah and I will leave. The question is, will you commit to managing things after I’m gone?’

  ‘It’s time I grew up and took some responsibility.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘If you make a motion, I’ll vote in your favor.’

  * * *

  Daphne, Toby, and Granna waited for us outside. Daphne, dressed in her riding breeches and her boots, her face twisted into a scowl, was not pleased to see her husband. Granna stood near her, Toby clinging to her leg. When the car pulled up to the house, Toby broke away from Granna and tore down the steps. Simon jumped out of the car and scooped Toby into his arms, holding the child close to his heart.

  ‘Daddy, where did you go? You’re not leaving us, are you?’

  ‘Of course I’m not,’ Simon said.

  ‘Granna, Sarah and I need to talk to you. Where’s Father?’

  ‘In his study,’ Granna said.

  Toby, Simon, and Daphne had walked into the house together. Zeke told Granna of his plan to oust his father from the company. Granna agreed and promised to support Zeke. Zeke grabbed my hand as we headed up the stairs, toward the eye of the storm.

  ‘Let me speak to Daphne, alone, would you? Go in with Granna, and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  Zeke went off to find Daphne. I followed Granna into the study where Will Sr sat behind his desk. A crystal glass sat on a coaster near his elbow, half-full of the Scotch that he preferred, even though it was only eleven-thirty. He hid behind the newspaper and pretended to read.

  ‘Hitting it a little early, aren’t you?’ Granna asked.

  ‘Like you haven’t been known to sip from that flask you have in your pocket,’ Will Sr said. He ignored us and continued to read the paper.

  We sat down on the sofa under the window.

  ‘What’re you doing in here? Don’t you have someplace else to be?’

  ‘Zeke wants to talk to us,’ Granna said, ‘about the mill.’

  ‘What about the mill?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Will. We’re just going to have to wait and see what Zeke says.’

  He went back to his paper until Zeke and Simon came in. Simon carried a folder under his arm. He withdrew a document from it and placed it on the desk in front of Will Sr.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Will Sr asked.

  ‘Turn to page seven,’ Simon said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We are having a meeting of the board of directors, as provided in Article 17, subsection (c).’

  Will Sr picked up the document. He skimmed it and tossed it aside with a grunt.

  ‘We’re voting you out, Father,’ Zeke said.

  Simon stepped away from the desk.

  ‘I will not stand for this rubbish.’ Will Sr slammed his hand down on his desk. Simon jumped. Granna didn’t flinch. Zeke moved closer to his father.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, in that calm voice. ‘We know about Margaret. You know she’s pregnant? She came to you for help and you ignored her. You should be ashamed of yourself. Simon had the decency to help her. He gave her enough money to have the child and get herself situated.’

  ‘He’d better not have used corporate funds,’ Will Sr said.

  ‘I did.’ Simon found his voice after all. ‘I gave her one thousand dollars. I’d have given her more, so you’d best consider yourself lucky.’

  Will Sr blustered for a minute, until he reached for the folder that Simon handed him and read it again, more slowly this time.

  ‘I make a motion to oust William Caen Sr from the Millport Fabric Works Corporation,’ Zeke said.

  Simon seconded.

  ‘All in favor?’

  ‘I’m in favor,’ Granna said. She stared at her son with a look of disgust.

  ‘You are to stay away from the mill and all of the girls that work there. Do you understand?’ She spat the words at him.

  Will Sr pushed away from the desk, and without a backward glance, walked out of the room.

  Seconds after the door slammed, Daphne stormed into the room, her cheeks flushed, her eyes ablaze.

  ‘You want to know where I got the money to pay off Simon’s debts?’ She carried a small burlap sack with a drawstring. She came to a stop before the desk, undid the string, and dumped a wad of bills onto the desk. ‘That’s where.’

  ‘Daphne, where did you get that?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Simon. I am so tired of you. There’s twenty-seven-hundred dollars there.’

  ‘Daphne, where did you get this money?’ Simon asked, as he moved toward the desk.

  When he reached a hand out, as if to touch it, Daphne slapped his hand away.

  ‘Keep your hands off of it. That is for Toby,’ she said. She leaned against the desk, positioning herself between Simon and the wad of bills. ‘My husband has a gambling problem. Most of the time he loses, but sometimes he wins. He always comes home drunk. I check his pockets and keep what I find there. It’s a habit now. He never knows how much he’s got. I have got to look out for my son. God knows, his father won’t. I hope you trust him with the mill, Zeke. I certainly wouldn’t.’ She gathered the money, stuffing it back into the sack, and left us.

  ‘I had no idea,’ Simon said.

  Neither Zeke, Granna, nor I spoke. Zeke and Simon both looked shocked. Granna, on the other hand, had the faint beginning of a smile etched into her mouth.

  ‘Something’s not right,’ Simon said. ‘I would remember if I had won that much money.’

  ‘Just leave it, Simon, will you?’ Zeke said.

  ‘I’ll just go find Toby then,’ Simon said. He gave Granna and me a wan smile, and headed off to find his child.

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ Zeke said. ‘Do you mind if I go for a walk by myself?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘See you soon.’ He kissed my cheek and left Granna and me alone in the office.

  ‘How are you coping, Granna?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I will always be fine. It’s about time Simon grew up.’

  Chapter 11

  Will Sr disappeared. No one knew where he went after his family voted him out of the business. A search by Mrs Griswold revealed he had packed a bag and taken the majority of his clothes, without bothering to say goodbye to anyone. He left no forwarding address, so we had no way to contact him. The mood lifted in his absence, and before long the household slipped into a quiet routine.

  Zeke and Simon made plans for the mill. They informed the workers that the mill would close for a two-week equipment upgrade. The women were happy when Simon told them not only would they be paid for the two weeks the mill was closed, they would receive an immediate bonus and a fair raise when they returned to work. Millport Fabric Works was to be one of the few places that paid its female workers the same wages as the men. There were a million details to be tended to, and Zeke needed to do the tending.

  Zeke’s frantic schedule posed little difficulty for me. Dr Geisler’s handwritten notes flooded in daily, in a fat envelope addressed to me in his familiar scrawl. This suited me fine, as it gave me an excuse to stay sequestered in my room as I transcribed his written notes on my typewriting machine.

  While all these things were happening at home and at the mill, an undercurrent of worry for Helen ran through my subconscious. She knew something. I half expected Rachel’s ghost to appear and tell me what to do next, but alas, she was noticeably absent. Granna had all but told me to leave the girl alone, but I couldn’t let it go. Helen knew something. I needed to know what that something was.

  The mill had been closed three days when I decided to go to her.

  I planned to slip out of the house unnoticed but was waylaid by a group of reporters who were staked out where the drive met the roadway.

  The reporters had come after Ken Connor’s death.
Just a few at first, but it didn’t take long for one of the more tenacious of them to figure out Ken’s role as the lead investigator of Rachel’s murder. His murder, along with the discovery of the emeralds in Portland – now common knowledge, and in all the papers – had brought the media to Millport, and to the Caen house, in force. I ducked behind the trunk of a very large tree, lucky to have done so before they saw me.

  I counted ten of them, all drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. They laughed and talked and threw their empty cups on the grass. Every single one of them smoked one cigarette after another. They left their ground cigarette butts on the street. They waited, like vultures stalking a carcass. Some had cameras on straps held around their necks, ready to memorialize our pain in a picture. One man stood out from the crowd. I recognized him right away. His hair was longer than the others. He didn’t wear a hat, suit or tie. He dressed like a dock worker. Nick Newland, the newspaper reporter who hounded me since Jack Bennett’s trial and the painful time after, when I took refuge at the Geisler Institute, grateful for a job. Nick’s presence in Millport did not bode well for our desire to stay out of sight.

  ‘Sarah, come here. They’ll see you.’ Granna hissed at me from behind a row of hedgerows, away from prying eyes. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to find Helen. Please don’t talk me out of it. I’m so worried about her.’ I wanted to go alone but knew that Granna would insist on coming with me.

  She squinted at me. ‘You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? Very well. Come with me,’ she said. ‘Daphne and I will get you there.’ I had no choice but to follow her back to the house.

  Fifteen minutes later, Daphne, Granna, and I stood in the foyer, plotting a means of escape.

  ‘I don’t think we need to go to so much trouble,’ I said.

  ‘We do, my dear,’ Granna said. ‘The majority of our business is for the government, for the war effort. We don’t want a lot of people around our family right now.’

  ‘You’re making parachutes,’ I said.

  ‘We’re making products for the war, and we are vulnerable to sabotage. Any manufacturer is,’ Daphne said. ‘We don’t need the publicity. Now come on. Let’s go find Helen.’

  ‘I think we should take her down the back trail. We can walk,’ Granna said.

  ‘Nope. There are reporters camped out near the intersection where the dirt and paved roads meet. We need to take the car.’

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’ Granna asked.

  ‘We are going to walk to the stable – they can’t see us do that from the road – and take my car. I parked it there this morning and walked home after my riding lesson. We can have Sarah duck in the back seat and fly past them.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Granna said.

  The sun beat down upon us as we slipped out the back door and walked through the vegetable garden toward the stable. Gleaming white clouds, full of the rain we so desperately needed, hung heavy in the sky. Birds chirped in the bushes, and squirrels rustled in the trees over our heads. The horses grazed in the pasture, ignoring us as we climbed over the fence and walked past them. There wasn’t a soul around when we climbed into Daphne’s car. I got in the back, clutching a stable blanket. I got down on the floorboards and Daphne and Granna tossed the blanket over me.

  True to her word, Daphne hit the accelerator as the reporters swarmed the car.

  ‘Stay down, Sarah,’ she said.

  I said a prayer as I did so.

  ‘Daphne, he’s blocking the road,’ Granna said.

  The engine roared.

  ‘You’re going to hit him,’ Granna shouted.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the crash. After about twenty seconds the car slowed, and Granna breathed.

  ‘You can sit up, Sarah,’ Daphne said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You scared me, Daphne,’ Granna said. ‘You nearly ran over that young man.’

  She smiled at Granna. ‘But I didn’t, did I? He got out of my way, and we’re free of them.’ Ten minutes later we pulled up in front of Helen’s house.

  ‘I’d like to speak to her alone, please,’ I said. They didn’t protest. Daphne let me out. Once I was up to the door, she drove away, in search of a shady place to park her car and wait for me.

  The cottage had a desolate feel today. Someone had picked the roses from the bushes in the front yard. New buds were coming on, and in a few weeks, new flowers would bloom. I stepped onto the sun porch and went through to the main door of the cottage. I rapped on it. Nothing. I rapped again and strained to hear the footsteps in the house. Soon the front door opened and a short, solid-looking man came out the front door.

  ‘Hello.’ I peered through the screen. ‘I’m Sarah Caen. I’ve come about Helen.’

  ‘I know who you are, and I know why you’ve come.’ His voice was gruff at first, but after a moment, his manners took over, and he opened the screen door for me.

  ‘I’ll speak to you out here.’ He stepped onto the sunporch, shutting the door behind him. He held out his hand, and I shook it. It was a strong hand, dry and calloused from labor. Two wooden chairs were arranged on the porch so they looked out on the street. Mr Dickenson sat in one and beckoned me to sit in the other.

  ‘I’m sorry to come unannounced,’ I said, ‘but I really must see Helen. She left in such a hurry.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ the man said. ‘She’s left. Scared to death, she was. And I’ll not go and give her away. Not even to you, who she trusts.’

  ‘I am worried for her safety.’

  ‘She said that you’d be around, that you’d want to help her. But there’s nothing you can do, not you or that husband of yours. Helen’s afraid. Said the only sensible thing for her to do is go away. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, does my Helen. If she says she needs to go away, then I say let her go.’

  ‘Mr Dicks—’

  ‘Nothing you can say will change my mind, ma’am. She made me promise. Our household takes a promise seriously.’

  I took an envelope out of my pocketbook and handed it to Mr Dicks.

  ‘Here’s her wages. If she needs anything – money, help, whatever – will you contact me?’

  ‘I’ll see that she gets the money, ma’am, as she’ll be needing it. As for the other, I’ll not be making any promises that I can’t keep.’ He stood, my polite cue to vacate the premises. I followed suit, thanked Mr Dickenson for his time, and headed toward the street. Daphne and Granna had parked the car in the shade down the street. Just before I got in, I glanced back at the house. Mr Dickenson had gone inside and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Well, where is she?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me. Helen made him promise.’

  ‘Why is she being so secretive?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘Because the girl saw something,’ Granna said. ‘She knows who put those emeralds and the stolen goods in Simon’s desk.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Granna. How in the world would Helen know that? She has no reason to be in that part of the house.’

  ‘Daphne, sometimes I wonder at you. That girl’s been cleaning Simon’s room and ironing his shirts for months now. Mrs Griswold doesn’t know it. Simon’s been paying her extra for it. It’s a good thing, as far as I can see. The girl wants to go to school and be a teacher.’ Granna blew her nose. ‘I’m betting she was in the room when whoever it was dropped off the bag of loot. Helen saw something. Must have. Something’s got her scared.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Daphne asked me.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘Helen wouldn’t tell us what frightened her, but she was afraid. Of that I am certain.’

  Daphne took a different route home and succeeded in avoiding the reporters. We parked the car in the garage and were just about to head to the house, when Daphne addressed Granna and me.

  ‘If Helen’s in danger, maybe we should leave her alone. Whatever’s going on here, she’s out of it. Maybe she should stay that way.’
r />   ‘You’re right.’ I knew as I spoke the words that I would never leave Helen to fend for herself, not in a million years.

  * * *

  I went downstairs for a fresh pitcher of ice water and found the entire family, including Sophie, gathered in the study. Sophie didn’t speak to me. In fact, she acted as though I weren’t in the room at all. Simon sat in one of the chairs, an empty glass in his hand. Zeke sat in the chair next to him, his feet propped up on the ottoman. When he saw me, he gave me a tired smile.

  ‘What news of Helen?’ Simon asked.

  ‘She’s fled,’ Daphne said. ‘Didn’t even tell her father where she went. Looks like you’ll have to clean your messes up by yourself.’

  ‘Daphne—’

  ‘Don’t Daphne me.’ She moved over to the window, as if to get as far away from Simon as possible.

  ‘You don’t think Will Sr tried to … you know, like he did to Margaret,’ Sophie said.

  ‘How did you know about that?’ Daphne asked.

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. Everyone knew. Margaret Petty isn’t the first woman Will Sr seduced. He’s a handsome man with a lot of money. He’s old, but he’s got a certain charm. Not for me. I never really liked him – sorry.’ She looked at Zeke and Simon. ‘Any number of young women in town – especially the new girls who work in the mill – would love a chance to marry a man with that much wealth and influence.’

  ‘What?’ Zeke couldn’t keep the disgust from his voice.

  ‘You haven’t been here in a while, so, of course, you wouldn’t know. Will Sr was quite the rogue. He flirted with all the girls at the mill. As far as he was concerned, they were all fair game. The locals knew what he was about, so they didn’t pay him any mind. Daph, you knew that, right?’ She looked at the entire group. ‘I thought everyone knew that. I’ve often wondered if he didn’t try to, you know, with Rachel. She was so beautiful.’