“Well, even born and raised, this would have been a little before your time, but . . . what can you tell me about Fred Lone’s family? I mean, when he was a boy. I know about his older brother Ezra, the senator. But there was a sister, too, right? Who died when they were young?”
There was a pause, probably while Tanya considered asking what this was about. Then she said, “Actually, there were two sisters. One was the oldest child. She committed suicide. That’s the one buried in that fancy mausoleum. And the youngest child was also a girl. She left Llewellyn after high school, and the word is she’s never been back.”
Livia felt her cop instincts prickle. There was something there. She just didn’t know what yet.
“Suicide? Why?”
“No one knew why. Not really. Supposedly there was a history of mental illness. There were several attempts before she finally succeeded. Threw herself out her bedroom window onto a fence. Picket fence.”
Livia frowned. What had Eric and his bully friends used to taunt her with, when she was new in the school? Hey Lahu, when are you going to jump out a window onto a fence and kill yourself? She had never known what they were talking about. But it must have been that. Some kind of town lore.
“How old was she?”
There was a pause, then Tanya said, “Seventeen, I think. It was the summer before her senior year.”
Livia imagined how desperate a teenage girl would have to be to hurl herself onto a row of wooden stakes.
Though it was more remembering than imagining.
“What was her name?”
“Ophelia, believe it or not.”
Livia thought of Hamlet, which she had read in one of her high school English lit classes. “Unlucky name.”
“I’d say so.”
“So you weren’t even born when all this happened.”
“That’s right, I came along ten years later. But you know the Lones. They’ve always been a big deal in this town, going back to Fred Lone’s grandfather, who started the paper mill. In a town like Llewellyn, news is like throwing a rock in a lake—the bigger the rock, the bigger the ripples, and the farther they go. Ophelia Lone killing herself the way she did . . . shit, kids were still talking about it when I was in high school, and that was almost twenty years later. ‘They took the fence away, but that’s the spot where she landed, and the fence posts went through one of her eyes, her mouth, her heart, her private parts’ . . . depending on how gruesome the teller wanted to be. You never heard any of this when you were in school? I guess the talk finally died out.”
“No, there was still talk. I just didn’t know what it meant.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s like a ghost story, you know? People want to keep telling it around the campfire.”
“How old were the brothers and the other sister when it happened?”
“They were each only a grade apart. So figure Ezra was sixteen. And Fred . . . he was a tad younger, so fourteen. And Rebecca, who they called Becky, she was thirteen.”
“Sounds like Lone Senior was a man with a mission.”
“Yeah, he wasn’t giving the missus long breaks, that’s for sure.”
“You said Becky moved away.”
“That’s right. Caused a minor scandal by going to Berkeley rather than Yale.”
“Why a scandal?”
“The family was a big Yale legacy, going all the way back to the grandfather, and then the father, and Ezra and Fred were both Yalies. I think there’s even a Lone building somewhere on campus—that’s how much money the family donates. Plus you know how conservative the Lones are—church every Sunday, a flag out in front of the house. And back then, Berkeley was a hotbed of hippie radicalism. So a Lone going to Berkeley . . . hell, it was like changing religions, or something. Becky was the black sheep of the family.”
“You have any idea where she wound up?”
“After Berkeley? No, I don’t. But like I said, I never heard of her coming back to Llewellyn. I don’t think she was even here for her brother’s funeral.”
“No. She wasn’t.”
“Well, even for a black sheep, that’s a little odd, now that we’re talking about it.”
Maybe, Livia thought. Or maybe it makes perfect sense.
There was a pause, then Tanya said, “I’ll tell you what, Livia. I won’t ask what this is about. But if you ever want to tell me, I won’t tell you not to.”
She couldn’t tell Tanya. Or anyone. Not without telling all of it. Which she was never going to do.
“It’s probably nothing,” Livia said. “But if I’m wrong about that, I’ll . . . try to find a way to let you know.”
Tanya chuckled. “Fair enough. Either way, I’d still enjoy that drink sometime.”
“So would I. This is the second time you’ve been really good to me. I hope I’ll be able to repay you at some point.”
Tanya laughed. “You don’t owe me anything. Just seeing what you’ve made of your life makes me smile. I will let you buy the drinks, though, okay?”
Now it was Livia’s turn to laugh. “It’s a deal. And thanks, Tanya.”