I put on my robe and called down for breakfast. While I waited, I opened the shutters, and smiled at the blue glow of the water in the distance.
Breakfast arrived and I took the tray in bed and started with my coffee. The smell of it assaulted my nose as I picked up my cup, and when I took a sip it tasted absolutely vile. I nearly spit it back into the cup. But I swallowed, like a lady, feeling nausea rise up in my chest. I went to reach for the telephone to call down and complain. But just as my hand touched it, it began to ring. The sound surprised me, and I jumped.
“Mrs. Buchanan?” A slightly familiar man’s voice on the line. “This is Mr. Hapford, the hotel manager.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was just about to call down, about the coffee—”
“Mrs. Buchanan,” he cut me off. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”
“An accident?” I repeated his words, suddenly breathless. An accident. I thought of Rose and Daddy, and the train. Jordan had left on a train yesterday. My mouth felt dry, my tongue too thick. It felt impossibly hard to swallow.
“Everyone’s all right. It’s just… Mr. Buchanan and Miss Wilde had a small bang-up in the car. They were taken to the hospital and Mr. Buchanan has a little bump on the head, that’s all. But Miss Wilde broke her arm.”
“Miss Wilde?” I repeated back the unfamiliar name, confused. Why was Tom driving to polo when it was close enough to walk? And I was certain I would have heard of a woman polo player. “There must be some mistake.”
Mr. Hapford didn’t say anything for a moment, but I heard him still breathing on the line. Finally, he said, “Mrs. Buchanan, I’m very sorry, but there isn’t any mistake. Miss Wilde is one of our chambermaids, and I saw them walk out to the car together myself.” He paused. And I tried to comprehend all the words he was saying that still didn’t make sense. Chambermaid. Tom. Walking out together, to a car? “We were hoping to keep this out of the papers.” Mr. Hapford was still talking. “But a reporter from the Dispatch has already called me asking for a quote. So I thought I’d better call up and let you hear about it from me, first.” His voice sounded more timid now, apologetic even.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured, still trying to make sense of it. “Why was Tom… with the chambermaid?” But even as those words escaped my lips I suddenly understood their meaning perfectly.
I inhaled sharply and hung up on Mr. Hapford without even a good-bye. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but bile rose in my throat so fast and I knew I was going to vomit.
I ran to the toilet and made it just in time, retching into the bowl. I sat on the cool tile floor and rested my head against the porcelain, too listless to move for a long while.
Detective Frank Charles September 1922
ROCKVALE, ILLINOIS
THE MCCOYS’ FARM IN ROCKVALE was a whole different kind of sprawling than the Buchanan estate in Minneapolis. Grazing pastures as far as Frank’s eyes could see, expansive enough to swallow the tiny redbrick farmhouse that sat off to the side, down a long dirt road.
He’d checked in with Dolores before he’d left Minnesota three days ago, and she said she was getting along just fine in Brooklyn without him. He hated extending his trip, but it felt worse for him to have come all this way for nothing. Rockvale wasn’t too far out of the way home, and interviewing Daisy in person had given him nothing but more questions and a pressure ache just above his eyes. He didn’t know if he’d get much more from Catherine McCoy, either, but he’d come this far. He had to at least try.
He’d gotten a taxi at the train station and had it drop him off at the end of the dirt road, figuring the fresh farm air might clear his head. But as he walked down the road now, he realized it was longer than he’d thought. The air was warmer here than in Minnesota, the summer humidity hanging on, even though it was the middle of September. By the time he reached the farmhouse, he had to take his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and dab the sweat from his forehead.
“You?” Catherine’s voice came through the screen, before he even reached up his hand to knock. Behind her a small dog barked. “Duke, hush,” she said, turning to the dog. But Duke kept at it.
He folded his handkerchief and put it away, wondering if she’d been watching him walk up the long winding dirt road, seething. She didn’t sound very happy to see him. People often weren’t. It was all part of the job, albeit a part he’d never quite gotten used to.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice trembled a little, breaking on the word here. Maybe she wasn’t seething. Maybe she was afraid. The dog yapped still.
“I was in the area and wanted to pay my respects,” he said, shouting to be heard over the dog. The coroner had approved the request for transport of her sister’s body just before Frank had left the city, and he knew the family planned to bury Myrtle out here in the family plot.
Catherine sighed a little, picked up the dog, walked him away, presumably to another room, because his barking suddenly got muted. Then she came back and opened the door.
She looked different than she had in New York last month. Her red hair was pulled back tightly against the nape of her neck, her face was pale, the freckles across her nose somehow appeared more prominent. Instead of the fashionable dress and heels she’d been wearing the first time he’d met her at the morgue, now she was barefoot and whatever dress she was wearing was covered up by a stained, mustard-colored apron. She held a dish towel and wiped her hands. Then she stepped aside, gesturing for him to come into the house.
He walked inside, his eyes going over the small living spaces, the sparse wood furnishings, the framed photographs on a parlor table of two girls. Babies, kids, teenagers. He picked up one of what looked to be a young adult Myrtle and a teenage Catherine. They were standing in front of the farmhouse wearing matching gingham dresses, arms around each other.
“Our mother sewed those for us to wear to our cousin Lillian’s wedding,” Catherine said. “That photograph was taken the morning Myrtle left for New York. She said she wanted to go into her new life wearing her best dress. I put mine on to match. Father took that picture of us…” Her voice trailed off, caught up in the memory. She raised her finger to the glass, traced the outline of her sister.
“I really am very sorry for your loss,” Frank said, and he meant it. He was.
She took the picture and set it back down on the table. Her eyes snapped up to him. “You didn’t even know my sister, Detective. Why are you really here?”
He opened his mouth, considered telling her the truth, that he’d gone on a long and fruitless journey to talk to Daisy Buchanan in Minnesota, and when that had led him to nothing but more suspicion, he figured he might as well stop here, too, on the way back to New York. But instead he told her another truth. “I had a sister… once.”
“Once?” Catherine asked softly, raising her eyebrows. “What happened to her?”
“She died. Nearly twenty-five years ago now.”