The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 8

Rebecca sat trembling in the waiting room of Blackstone Memorial. She was doing her best to answer all the questions she was being asked. Most of what had happened was still clear in her mind. She recalled waking up and smelling smoke, then calling out to her aunt and cousin to warn them that the house was burning. After that, as events started moving faster and faster, her memories were jumbled. She remembered calling 911, and getting her aunt out of the house. But then it became a blur. The fire engines began arriving, and a police car, and people had come out of the other houses. That was when they started asking her questions, but there were so many people and so many questions, she couldn’t keep them sorted out. Finally, when Andrea was carried out of the house and put in the ambulance, Rebecca had begged to be allowed to go to the hospital with her.
She’d crouched on the floor of the ambulance, trying to stay out of the way of the medics, who were putting an IV in Andrea’s arm. When she got her first good look at her cousin, she almost screamed out loud. Andrea’s face was badly burned; her eyebrows were gone, and flesh was peeling from her cheeks and nose. The skin on her arms and shoulders was blackened, and all her hair was gone, except for a charred stubble on her blistered scalp. Though Rebecca quickly looked away, she felt a terrible hopelessness flood over her, wondering if Andrea would survive even long enough for them to get to the hospital. But when the ambulance had finally screeched to a stop, her cousin was still breathing, and Rebecca scrambled out of the ambulance fast enough not to delay the medics. A few seconds later they pushed past her with the stretcher bearing Andrea’s body, and Rebecca thought she heard a faint moan.
Rebecca had been clinging to that sound ever since, while the waiting room quickly filled with people and the questions began all over again. This time, though, it was the deputy sheriff, Steve Driver, who had put his hands on her shoulders to stop her trembling, and was gazing down intently at her.
“Is there anything else you can remember, Rebecca? Anything at all?”
She shook her head. “I’ve told it all.”
Driver shifted his gaze to Martha Ward, who was sitting next to her niece, her rosary clutched in her fingers, her lips working as she silently recited her prayers. “What about you, Mrs. Ward? Did you hear anything? If you were awake—”
“She was praying,” Rebecca said quietly. “When she prays, she never hears anything at all. She didn’t even hear me when I came into the chapel to get her out of the house.”
Steve Driver reached out and touched Martha’s arm. “Mrs. Ward? I need to talk to you. It’s really important.” When Martha only kept on praying, he squeezed her arm and shook her slightly. “Mrs. Ward!”
As if jerked out of a deep sleep, Martha suddenly looked up. There was an odd, empty look in her eyes, but then her hands dropped into her lap and she shook her head sorrowfully. “It was God’s will,” she pronounced.
Steve Driver frowned, glanced at Rebecca, then turned his attention back to Martha. Leaning forward, he took her hands in his. “Mrs. Ward? Can you hear me?”
Martha seemed to gather herself together, taking a deep breath and straightening in the plastic chair on which she was perched. “Of course I can hear you. And I’m telling you what happened. God has punished Andrea for her sin.”
The deputy’s frown deepened. “Her sin?”
“She killed her child,” Martha said, her voice strong now, and carrying throughout the waiting room. “And God has stricken her down.”
The deputy sheriff cast a questioning glance at Rebecca.
“Andrea had an abortion,” she explained. “Aunt Martha didn’t approve of it, and—”
Martha drew up still straighter, and now her eyes fixed angrily on her niece. “God didn’t approve,” she declared. “God judges, not I. All I can do is pray for the soul of the child she murdered.” Her fingers tightened once more on her beads. “We shall pray. We shall—”
Before she could finish, the door separating the waiting room from the emergency room opened and a nurse appeared. Spotting Rebecca, she hurried over and knelt down. “Your cousin’s awake, and she’s asking to see you,” she said.
“Me?” Rebecca asked, her voice puzzled. “Shouldn’t Aunt Martha—”
“It’s you she’s asking for, Rebecca,” the nurse said.
“How is she?” Steve Driver asked, rising to his feet. “Is she going to make it?”
“We don’t know,” the nurse said quickly. “She has third-degree burns on most of her body.” She shook her head. “She must be in terrible pain.” She turned back to Rebecca. “But she’s awake, and she’s asking for you. It’s going to be very difficult for you, but—”
“It’s all right,” Rebecca assured her. “It can’t be nearly as bad for me as it is for Andrea.”
She followed the nurse through the double doors and into the emergency treatment room. Andrea was lying on an examining table. There was a large bottle attached to the IV that the medic had put in her arm while she was still in the ambulance, and there was another tube in her nose. Dr. Margolis and two of the medics were carefully picking what looked like dead skin from Andrea’s body, but as she drew closer to the bed, Rebecca realized it wasn’t skin at all, but the remains of the nylon nightgown Andrea had been wearing when the fire broke out. Rebecca winced as one of the medics lifted a scrap of the material loose, taking a small patch of burned skin as well.
“I—I’m lucky,” Andrea breathed, her voice barely audible. “I can’t feel it yet.”
Rebecca started to reach out to take her cousin’s hand, stopping herself just in time. “Thank God you’re still alive,” Rebecca whispered. “And you’re going to be all right.”
She saw a barely perceptible shake of her cousin’s head. “I don’t think so,” Andrea whispered. “I just—” She fell silent, winced as she tried to take a breath, then managed to utter a few more words. “My fault,” she breathed. “Fell asleep with … cigarette. Dumb, huh?”
“It’s all right, Andrea,” Rebecca told her. “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”
“No accident,” Andrea whispered. “Mother said—” “It doesn’t matter what Aunt Martha said,” Rebecca told her. “The only thing that matters is that you’re alive, and you’re going to get well.”
For a long time Andrea said nothing, and Rebecca thought she must have gone to sleep. Then she spoke one more time. “The dragon,” she breathed. “Don’t let—”
Rebecca leaned forward, straining to hear what her cousin was saying. Andrea struggled, then her charred lips worked again. “M-Mother,” she whispered. “Don’t—” But before she could finish, the sedatives that had been added to the IV took hold and Andrea drifted into unconsciousness. She lay so still that finally Rebecca looked up at the nurse.
“What happened? Did she—”
“She’s asleep,” the nurse said. “If you’d like to go back to the waiting room …”
Rebecca shook her head, her eyes never leaving Andrea’s ruined face. “Can’t I stay here?” she asked. “What if she wakes up again? If I’m here, maybe she won’t be so frightened.”
The nurse hesitated, then indicated a chair close to the door. “Of course you can stay with her, Rebecca,” she said. As Rebecca lowered herself into the chair, the nurse went back to work, helping the medics and Dr. Margolis clean the worst of Andrea’s wounds and treat them with Silvadene ointment to try to prevent infection.
Rebecca, feeling utterly helpless, could only watch in silence.
Oliver Metcalf stood up and stretched, then stepped outside to suck a few breaths of morning air into his lungs. He’d been at the hospital for four hours, arriving minutes after Rebecca had been taken in to see Andrea.
He’d collected every scrap of information about the fire he could get. He and Steve Driver had come to the same conclusion. The fire had undoubtedly been an accident, caused by Andrea’s habit of smoking in bed. The crew that had put the fire out had found an ashtray next to the bed, and though it was overturned, there were half a dozen sodden cigarette butts scattered around the floor in the same area. The only thing that saved Martha Ward was that she’d been praying in her downstairs chapel, and even that might not have saved her if Rebecca hadn’t awakened.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Driver said as he and Oliver finished comparing notes.
With nothing more that could be accomplished at the hospital, Driver had left. As the night wore on, the waiting room slowly emptied, until only Oliver and Martha Ward were still there. Though Oliver had tried several times to speak to Martha, she utterly ignored him as she concentrated on a seemingly endless repetition of her prayers. Eventually the rain stopped and the day dawned, the sun shining outside.
Half an hour before, Philip Margolis had come into the waiting room to ask Martha Ward if she wanted to see her daughter. Martha shook her head.
“I am praying for her,” she said. “For her and her child both. I don’t need to see her.”
The doctor, nearly exhausted after hours of trying to save Andrea’s life, turned away in disgust and started back to his patient. Oliver stopped him.
“How’s she doing?” he asked, but even as he uttered the question, the expression on the doctor’s face told him all he needed to know.
“I don’t see how she can hold out much longer,” Margolis said. He looked carefully at Oliver. “What about you? How are you feeling? Any more of those headaches?”
Oliver shook his head.
“Well, there’s nothing in your CAT scan to worry about. I was going to call you later this morning. I had a friend up in Manchester take a look at your pictures, and he couldn’t find anything wrong. Says you’re perfectly normal.” The doctor forced a tired smile. “ ’Course, he doesn’t know you as well as I do, does he?”
Before Oliver could reply to the weak joke, an alarm sounded from beyond the double doors and Margolis hurried out. Oliver sank back onto the sagging Naugahyde sofa, then restlessly stood up and walked outside. Now, as he turned to go back into the waiting room, he saw Rebecca Morrison emerging through the double doors. Her eyes were red, and tears stained her cheeks. Hurrying back into the waiting room, he put his arms around her and held her close. “It’s over?” he asked quietly, though he already knew the answer. He felt her nod, then she pulled back a little and looked up into his face.
“It was so strange,” she said. “First she was breathing, and I thought she was going to be all right, and then she wasn’t. She just stopped breathing, Oliver. Why do things like that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Oliver said quietly. “It was just a terrible accident.” He gently smoothed a lock of hair back from Rebecca’s forehead, then brushed a tear from her cheek. “Sometimes things happen—” he began. Martha Ward’s voice interrupted him.
“Things do not just happen,” she declared. “There is such a thing as divine retribution, and it has been visited upon Andrea. God’s will has been done. Rebecca, it is time for us to go home.”
Oliver felt Rebecca freeze in his arms, then pull away from him.
“Yes, Aunt Martha,” she said softly. “I’m sure Oliver will take us.”
Nodding curtly to Oliver, Martha said, “You may take us home,” then turned and without looking back strode out into the morning sun.
Rebecca was about to follow her, but Oliver held her back.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Does she even realize what’s happened?”
Rebecca nodded. “She thinks Andrea was punished for getting an abortion. But I don’t think God would do something like that, do you?”
Oliver shook his head. “And I don’t think you ought to be living with her anymore, either. Isn’t there some other place you can go? You could come and stay with me. I’ll—”
“It’s all right, Oliver,” Rebecca said. “I can’t leave Aunt Martha now. She doesn’t have anyone else, and she’s been so good to me for so long.”
“But—”
“Please, Oliver? Just take us home?”
Five minutes later Oliver pulled into the driveway of Martha Ward’s house. Amazingly, the only outward signs of the fire from this side of the house were the damage to the lawn and shrubbery, which had been inflicted by the hoses the firemen dragged from the trucks into the house and up to the second floor.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Oliver asked once again. “Even if the house is livable, it’s going to smell—”
But Martha Ward was already out of the car and striding toward her house. As she reached the steps to the porch she turned back. “Come, Rebecca,” she commanded.
Like a dog, Oliver thought angrily. She treats her like a dog.
But before he could say anything, Rebecca too had slipped out of the car, and a moment later both Martha and Rebecca disappeared inside.
Oliver knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he opened the door of the Red Hen. But he’d been so intent on satisfying the hunger in his stomach that he’d momentarily forgotten the equally strong hunger of the regular morning crowd who came to the diner to begin their day—not a hunger for the crullers and coffee for which the diner was famous, but a hunger for information.
“Information” was what they called it, since they were men. Their wives—far more accurately—would have called it “gossip.”
Either way, almost every voice in the Red Hen fell silent as Oliver entered, and nearly every eye shifted to fix expectantly on him. After scanning the faces, he chose the table where Ed Becker and Bill McGuire were involved in a conversation that was suspended only long enough to beckon him over. As Oliver slid into the booth next to the attorney, Bill McGuire looked at him questioningly.
“Andrea Ward died about half an hour ago.” he told them in answer to Bill’s unspoken question.
The contractor winced. “What the hell’s going on around here?” he asked.
Ed Becker signaled to the waitress for more coffee. “Nothing’s going on,” he said, and his tone was enough to tell Oliver that last night’s fire wasn’t all they’d been talking about.
McGuire shook his head dolefully as the waitress refilled his cup. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” the lawyer replied, then turned to Oliver. “Bill’s starting to sound like he thinks there’s some kind of curse on the town or something.”
“I didn’t say that,” McGuire interjected a little too quickly.
“All right, maybe you didn’t say it in those exact words,” Becker conceded. “But when you start trying to connect a bunch of things that can’t be connected, isn’t some kind of curse what you’re talking about?”
McGuire shook his head doggedly. “All I’m saying is that it’s getting really weird around here. First the bank gets in trouble and Jules goes nuts and kills himself, and now Andrea Ward comes home after years away and burns to death the next day.”
Though no one mentioned what had happened to Elizabeth McGuire, they didn’t need to. Her suicide, so shortly preceding Jules Hartwick’s, still hung over Bill like a specter, and though he hadn’t spoken her name, he didn’t have to.
“The fire was an accident, pure and simple,” Oliver told the other two men. But after he’d filled them in on everything he’d learned over the past few hours, Bill McGuire was still shaking his head doubtfully.
“A few months ago I might have believed it wasn’t anything more than Andrea falling asleep with a cigarette, but now …” His voice trailed off into a long sigh.
“Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” Ed Becker suggested. “Maybe Martha torched her.”
“Torched her?” Oliver echoed, recoiling from the word. “Jesus, Ed, maybe you did criminal law too long. Why on earth would Martha Ward want to kill her own daughter?”
“Well, you said yourself she didn’t seem to be too sorry Andrea had died. Didn’t you say something about it being God’s will?”
“ ‘Divine retribution,’ was the way she put it,” Oliver corrected him. “Martha’s a religious fanatic. You know she sees the hand of God in practically everything.”
“Sometimes people like that decide they are the hand of God,” Becker said pointedly.
“Come on, Ed,” Oliver said, lowering his voice and glancing around at the other patrons in the diner. “You know how gossip spreads around here. If anybody hears you, it’ll be all over town by this afternoon.”
“Let it!” Ed Becker said, leaning back and smiling mischievously. “Personally, I never could stand Martha Ward. Even when I was a kid, I always thought she wasn’t just holier-than-thou. She was just plain mean. What I can’t figure out is why Andrea came back at all.”
“No place else to go, according to Rebecca,” Oliver replied. He was about to tell them about the abortion Andrea had had yesterday, but stopped himself as he remembered that it was the miscarriage Bill’s wife, Elizabeth, had suffered that led to her suicide, just days after losing their baby son. “I, on the other hand, do have places to go,” he announced, sliding out of the booth. “And so does Bill, unless he’s planning to drag the remodeling of my office out until all the problems at the bank are cleared up.”
McGuire smiled for the first time that morning. “Finally figured it out, huh? Well, just don’t tell your uncle, okay?”
Oliver eyed the contractor sardonically. “You think he hasn’t figured it out too? Why do you think he keeps coming up with new ideas every couple of weeks? Come on. Let’s go figure out a whole new idea about what my office is going to look like, just on the off chance that Melissa Holloway gets the bank straightened out and you can finally get to work on the Center. And let’s not talk about curses or dire plots, all right? I’m a journalist, not a fiction writer.”
The two men hadn’t been gone more than a minute before the Red Hen was once again buzzing with low voices, each of them passing on whatever scrap of Oliver’s conversation they’d overheard.
Finally, Leonard Wilkins spoke. A crusty seventy, he had run the drive-in theater for thirty years before it closed and the grounds were given over to the flea market.
“You ask me,” he said, “I think we should be keeping an eye on Oliver Metcalf.”
“Come on,” someone else said. “Oliver’s solid as a rock.”
“Maybe so,” Wilkins replied. “But we still don’t know just what it was that happened to his sister back when they were kids. Lately, since the trouble around here started, it seems to me that boy’s been acting strange. And I heard from my Trudy that he was talking to Phil Margolis about headaches the other day. Bad headaches.”
After only the shortest of pauses, the buzz in the diner resumed.
But now they were no longer talking about the fire that had killed Andrea Ward.
Now they were talking about Oliver Metcalf.