“You have the same job she did. Surely you can provide some insight into what it’s like caring for Lenora Hope. How is she as a patient?”
“Fine,” I say.
“Any problems?” Detective Vick says, pressing.
“Just the usual growing pains that happen with every patient.”
Along with Lenora’s sordid reputation, noises in the night, and the still-eerie fact that she claimed her dead sister was roaming her bedroom. But those are best left unmentioned. Detective Vick has always looked for a reason to not believe me. It’s not a good idea to toss him a few more, even if it leaves him looking disappointed. I think my answer is exactly what he expected to hear.
“You’re not concerned that Lenora Hope might be the person who committed those three murders you just mentioned?” Detective Vick says.
“I’m not worried she’s going to kill me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The detective purses his lips. A surprisingly dainty gesture on a face that’s grown rugged with age. “It wasn’t,” he says. “But since you brought it up, do you think Mary was worried about that?”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. Lenora’s harmless,” I say, echoing what Carter told me when I first arrived.
“Do you think Mary had any problems with Lenora? Or, for that matter, any other aspect of living and working here?”
I’ve wondered that myself, especially when I thought Mary had abruptly left in the middle of the night. Even though I now know better, it still tugs at me. Did something about Hope’s End—its history, its quirks, its unidentifiable noises—drive Mary to jump from the terrace? Or could it have been the history and quirks of the person she was caring for? I can think of only one person who might be able to provide some insight.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “But I know someone who does.”
“Who?”
At last, I’m able to give Detective Vick an answer I know he isn’t expecting.
“Lenora Hope.”
NINETEEN
I lead the way, guiding Detective Vick up the Grand Stairs.
“Watch the bloodstains,” I say dryly as we climb. I swerve around them. Detective Vick walks right over them, not breaking stride. A disappointment. I was hoping he’d react the same way I did the first time I noticed them.
I do get a reaction at the top of the stairs, though. Stepping onto the landing, the detective immediately reaches for the wall and says, “Whoa.”
“The mansion’s tilted,” I tell him, as if I’ve been here years and not mere days.
“Is that safe?” Detective Vick says.
“Probably not.”
“Man, it wasn’t like this last time I was here.”
I stop in the middle of the hallway. “What do you mean?”
“I used to work here.” Detective Vick removes his hand from the wall, thinks better of it, slaps it back onto the blue damask. “Just for one summer, plus some weekends that spring and fall. Mr. Hope used to hire boys from town when things got busy.”
“When was this?”
“It was 1929,” the detective says. “I remember because of the murders.”
“So you know Lenora?”
“Only from a distance.”
I start off down the hall again, talking over my shoulder to a still-wobbly Detective Vick. “Is that why you became a detective?”
“Because I spent a summer working in a place where there was a triple homicide?” Detective Vick chuckles, as if he finds the idea preposterous. “It was more than that, I can assure you. Detective work’s a calling. It’s in our blood to find the people who do bad things and make them pay.”
Even though I walk ahead of him, I know the detective is shooting daggers at me. I can feel his stare burning the back of my neck. No doubt he thinks I’m someone who did a bad thing and managed to get away.
For now.
I turn left into Lenora’s room, where she sits in her wheelchair, the Walkman in her lap and earphones on her head. My sudden arrival with a stranger startles her. Her left hand flutters against the blanket laid over her lap and her green eyes go wide.
She’d spent most of the day with Archie or Mrs. Baker as I waited downstairs in the sunroom. And while I’m not sure which one of them told Lenora what happened to Mary, it’s clear she knows. Once the surprise fades, her eyes shimmer with grief.
Outside, the storm clouds have gotten darker and more menacing, plunging the bedroom into a gloom that feels both suffocating and appropriate.
“Lenora,” I say as I go to her side. “This is Detective Vick. He’d like to ask you some questions about Mary. Is that okay?”
Lenora stares at him, uncertain. She looks so hesitant that I expect her response to be no. I’m surprised when, after a few more seconds of contemplation, she taps twice against her lap.
“Two taps mean yes,” I explain to Detective Vick. “One means no.”
The detective nods and approaches Lenora the way I first did—with awestruck trepidation. From the way he talked in the sunroom, I suspect the detective thinks Lenora is guilty as sin. Still, he kneels beside her wheelchair on legs made unsteady from the slanted floor and says, “Hi, Lenora. I’m sorry about Mary. I heard the two of you were close?”
Rather than tap out an answer, she gives a slow, sad nod.
“So you liked her?”
Lenora returns to tapping, giving two quick raps.
“And Mary liked you?”
Another two taps.
“How was she as a nurse?” Detective Vick shakes his head. “Sorry. There’s no way for you to answer that.”
“There is.” To Lenora, I say, “You feel like typing your answers?”
Before she can tap a response, I wheel Lenora to the desk and insert a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. I place her left hand on the keys and turn to Detective Vick.
“She can’t type very fast, so try to ask her things that only require short answers.”
“Uh, sure.” The detective rubs his hands together, uncertain. I can only assume this is the first time he’s questioned someone via typewriter. “Lenora, when was the last time you saw Mary?”
Lenora blinks, confused.
“He wants you to type your answer,” I say, gently prodding her.
Instead of typing, Lenora stares at the typewriter as if she’s never seen one before. She lifts her hand, hovering it uncertainly over the keys before dropping it back down. The force of the landing hits a key hard enough to slap a single, faint letter onto the blank page.
h
“Do you need my help?” I ask her.
Simmering with impatience, Detective Vick says, “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
I look to Lenora. Normally so expressive, her face has taken on a frustrating blankness. It dawns on me that this could be too much for her. Mary’s death. The detective’s presence. All his questions. I kneel next to her, put my hand over hers, and say, “Are you too upset about Mary to type?”
Beneath my palm, Lenora curls her hand into a fist and raps the keyboard once.
“Then why aren’t you doing it?”
“Do you even know how to type?” Detective Vick asks her.
Again, Lenora gives another single rap.
Outside, a gust of wind slams against the mansion, making the whole room—including those of us in it—shudder. Drops of rain smack the windows as the wind howls.
The storm has arrived.
With it comes another shudder. One only I can feel. An internal shimmy brought on by a single realization.
Lenora is pretending.
Detective Vick kneels on the other side of her wheelchair. He shoots me an annoyed look and asks Lenora, “Just to be clear, Miss McDeere is lying about you being able to type?”
This time, Lenora raises her hand and taps the typewriter twice.
My stomach drops. “She can,” I say. “I swear.”
I give Lenora a desperate stare, as if she can confirm what I just said any other way besides actually pressing one of the typewriter keys. But she can’t. And she won’t. For reasons I don’t understand.
The storm’s at full force now. Water pours down the windowpanes, casting undulating patterns on the bedroom floor. I watch them, furious at Lenora for making me look like a liar, wondering why she’s doing it, and trying to think of some way to prove I’m right. That’s when it hits me.
“We typed this morning,” I say. “Before I found Mary. The page is right here on the desk.”
I search the desk for the page I know was still in the typewriter when I went downstairs to call Mr. Gurlain. I even remember the words that had been typed on it—Lenora telling me her dead sister was in this room.
But the page isn’t on the desk.
It doesn’t seem to be anywhere.
“It was just here,” I say, scanning a desktop that contains nothing but a typewriter and a lamp.
“There wasn’t a page in the typewriter,” Detective Vick says, maybe trying to be helpful but coming off smug instead. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”
“I’m sure.” I start opening desk drawers, searching for the page that bore Virginia’s name. It’s not in any of them. Nor is it on the floor. I look to Lenora and say, “You know it was here.”
Her left hand remains atop the typewriter keys, motionless and seemingly useless.
“Tell him I’m not lying, Lenora,” I say, my voice sliding perilously close to outright begging. “Please.”