The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 5

Oliver pushed open the gate in front of his uncle’s house and brushed past the overgrown laurel hedge. Unless something was done this year, its branches would soon block the entrance. Not, Oliver was sure, that his uncle really cared if the gate became impassable. More and more, Harvey Connally had retreated from the life of the town, content, it seemed, to be by himself in the company of his memories. It seemed to Oliver that over the past few months, his uncle had withdrawn nearly completely from the community in which he’d lived his entire life. Oliver was uncertain as to whether Harvey Connally’s self-imposed isolation was a natural result of his advancing years or a reaction to the series of tragedies that had befallen the town. The truth, he thought as he climbed the steps of his uncle’s front porch, lay somewhere in between.
Not bothering to ring the bell, Oliver tried the door and discovered that it was, as always, unlocked. “Locks were invented to keep honest people out,” Harvey had instructed him years ago. “They don’t do a damn thing to prevent dishonest people from getting in.” It was a maxim few people followed anymore; and in Blackstone, given the events of the past few months, it was a rare door indeed that was left unsecured for more than a moment or two, despite the utter lack of evidence that there was anything more than coincidence to the plague of death that had spread through the town. What had once seemed the quirky opinion of an old man trying to preserve old-fashioned ways now had the ring of prescient wisdom, Oliver thought as he stepped into the hall: none of Blackstone’s locks had yet kept anyone safe.
“Uncle Harvey?” Oliver called out as he closed the door behind him. Silence. He opened his mouth to call out again, but even as he was forming his uncle’s name, a cold chill of foreboding stopped him.
Something in the house was not right. He was about to start toward the kitchen, where his uncle habitually sat while he sipped his two cups of coffee and read the paper, when the old hall clock began striking the hour of ten. By this time, Harvey Connally would have finished his coffee and been at his desk, tending to the business of an elderly man: his stock portfolio and his correspondence.
Instead of turning into the dining room, Oliver moved past the base of the staircase to his uncle’s study. The door was open. Harvey Connally was sitting rigidly in the leather chair behind the desk, his face ashen, his lips stretched into a tight rictus of pain.
Oliver gasped. “Uncle Harvey? What is it? What’s wrong?” He moved quickly toward his uncle, his hand instinctively reaching for the telephone to summon help. Before he could lift the receiver, his uncle reached out and laid his right hand on the instrument, holding it firmly in its place.
“Not yet,” he said. His voice was strained, and Oliver could see the old man’s fingers trembling even as they held the receiver on its cradle. He was obviously in a great deal of pain, yet there was something in his voice that made Oliver abandon the idea of taking the telephone forcibly from his uncle’s grasp. As Oliver’s hands dropped to his sides, his uncle’s eyes, as clear and sharp as ever, despite the old man’s age and obvious pain, fixed on his. “Something was left for me this morning,” he said. His lips twisted into a grimace that was intended to be a smile. “I’m not sure what it means, but I have a feeling it wasn’t meant for me at all. I think it was probably meant for you.” His hand moved from the telephone to the polished mahogany box that still lay on his desktop. As Oliver automatically reached for it, Harvey Connally shook his head slightly and left his hand where it was, preventing Oliver from taking the box, just as a moment ago he’d prevented his nephew from lifting the telephone. “Not yet,” he said softly. Then he nodded to the chair opposite him. “Sit for a moment, Oliver.”
Oliver made no move toward the chair. “Uncle Harvey, you have to let me call Dr. Margolis. You look like you’re about to—” He abruptly cut off his words, but his uncle managed another smile. The piercing gaze did not waver.
“About to die?” he asked. “I think that’s exactly what I’m about to do, and if you do anything—anything at all—to keep me from it, I shall do everything in my power to make your life as miserable as possible for however much longer I live. I’m old, and I’m tired; I don’t mind dying. But before I go, I need to tell you something.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Oliver sank into the chair across from his uncle. The old man’s gaze remained fixed on him, and Oliver had an eerie feeling that his uncle was peering inside him, right to the depths of his soul. Finally, apparently satisfied by whatever he’d seen, Harvey spoke once more.
“I have always tried to do my best by you, Oliver,” he said. “I’m afraid I was not always successful, but I want you to know that I did my best, and that I never believed what your father told me. Never.” He fell silent for a moment, and cocked his head as if listening to words that were coming from a distant country, a place deep in the past. Then he shook his head and spoke again. “You were never a bad boy, Oliver. You were always as good as you knew how to be.” He paused, and now his eyes drifted to the mahogany box. “After I’m gone, you’re going to have to deal with what is in this box. I won’t try to tell you how to deal with it. You might choose simply to put it away somewhere. If you do, I advise you to put it where it cannot possibly ever again be found. If you choose to deal with it by opening the box, then I want you to keep one thing in mind.”
Once again Harvey Connally’s eyes fixed on Oliver’s, but this time they burned with an intensity greater than Oliver had ever seen before.
“I raised you to be a Connally, Oliver,” the old man said. “After your father died, and you were all I had left, I did my best to raise you as my own son.” He paused again, and Oliver could see him searching for the exact words he wanted to say. Then, wincing against the pain in his chest, he made his pronouncement: “It’s not your name that matters, Oliver. It’s what you are inside that counts. And deep inside, Oliver, I know you are not a Metcalf. You are a Connally. You may be of his issue, but you are not your father’s son!”
Suddenly, Harvey Connally’s head snapped back and his eyes opened wide in an expression of surprise. Clutching his chest, he slumped in his chair as Oliver rose to his feet and gathered his uncle into an embrace.
“No, Uncle Harvey,” he begged. “Don’t die! Please. You’re going to be all right. I’ll—”
Harvey Connally’s right hand closed on his nephew’s arm. “Remember, Oliver. A Connally! Always remember that I raised you to be a Connally!” His fingers tightened on Oliver’s arm, sinking deep into the younger man’s flesh, and then, with a deep gasp, he exhaled his last breath and his head sank down, his chin resting on his chest. As life slipped away from Harvey Connally, his grip on Oliver’s arm slowly relaxed and his hand fell away. For long seconds Oliver stood still, gazing at his uncle.
Even in death, Harvey Connally’s face retained its strength of character. Oliver studied that craggy, once handsome face—the face of the man who had been his only relative, his sole source of unconditional affection since the age of seven.
Always remember that I raised you to be a Connally!
Reaching down, Oliver gently closed his uncle’s blue eyes, the light inside them having finally faded. As he straightened, his glance fell on the mahogany box that still sat on his uncle’s desk. His first instinct was to open it and see what was inside, but even as he reached toward it, his uncle’s words echoed in his memory:
You might choose simply to put it away somewhere. If you do, I advise you to put it where it cannot possibly ever again be found.…
Oliver’s hand hovered over the box, then moved toward the telephone. Lifting the receiver from the hook, he dialed Philip Margolis’s private number. The doctor picked up the phone on the third ring. “It’s Oliver, Phil,” he said to Margolis. “My uncle has died. I’d appreciate it if you could come over. I’m at his house.”