“This is what she believes. I’ve known Rose for a while, but it’s difficult to understand her sometimes.”
The Rose that Callie remembered had never been difficult to understand. Rose was direct, precise. If anything, it had been the other women, Callie’s mother and her friends, who were sometimes confusing.
Callie struggled to recall Rose’s tales about fairies and mythology. A lot of those stories were Irish, probably passed down through Rose’s family, though Rose had grown up here. But all those stories were fairy tales or old myths Rose told her at bedtime. Auntie Rose had been quite the storyteller, but not in a way that was confusing or hard to understand. “She used to talk about fairies sometimes,” Callie offered. “But I don’t remember anything about banshees.”
“I know a little about them,” Rafferty said. “But I’ve never heard anyone but Rose suggest that banshees are killers in any traditional sense. Or human, for that matter.”
Once again, Callie fell silent. Finally she pulled herself back from the dark place her imagination was leading her to. “Can I see her?”
“Of course. I’ll drive you over to the hospital.”
Rafferty parked in a spot marked MEDICAL STAFF ONLY, pulling in too fast and slamming on the brakes, jolting them forward in the seat, then back.
“Sorry,” he said.
Callie looked out her window at Salem Hospital. The place she remembered had been much smaller. She’d stayed in the children’s wing for a few weeks. Long enough for the nuns who had discovered her standing by the edge of the crevasse, with her hand cut and bleeding, to change their opinion of her: She’d gone from sainted to tainted in their eyes. People had kept coming and going: police, newspaper reporters, even clergy, unwrapping her bandage and making her show her wound over and over. She’d answered all their questions and told the truth repeatedly. But now she knew the nuns had lied to her. Those first days had been a bad dream: walking the entire length of the small hospital with the nurse who’d treated her, just trying to understand what had happened, telling the story again and again until it began to sink in that the whole thing was true, that they were all dead: Susan, Cheryl, and her mother, Olivia. They hadn’t told her about Rose right away, hadn’t said she was dead until they had taken her away from Salem, to their group home in Northampton, where nuns of the same order could protect her from the wild speculation and accusations that were to follow.
Today she could see that the hospital was huge, with many new wings and a big sign advertising its association with Mass General.
“Are those more news vans?” Callie asked, pointing.
“They are. Let’s get inside.”
The hospital was built into the side of a hill, with its main entrance at the top on the sixth floor. They took an unmarked stairway up one flight to the psych unit, pausing to be buzzed in at two different locked doors before they finally reached the nurses’ station.
“This is Rose Whelan’s niece,” Rafferty said to the nurse at the desk. “Her closest relation.” He didn’t look at Callie as he repeated the lie.
“You can go in,” the nurse said, “but only for a few minutes. Ten tops. I’m afraid there’s been no change.”
The officer they’d posted outside of Rose’s door jolted awake as they approached and threw them a guilty glance. Rafferty nodded without acknowledging the slip. He hesitated, turning to Callie. “We are required by law to have a guard outside a murder suspect’s room,” he said. Then, as if to redeem himself, he added, “I called a lawyer for her this time. Before we even tried to talk to her. A good one who’s defending her pro bono.” He opened the door.
Callie had seen Rose’s photo on the news, but she wasn’t prepared for the scene before her: Rose was in four-point restraints. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling, unblinking.
“She’s been this way since last night,” Rafferty explained.
If she was aware they had entered the room, Rose showed no sign. Rafferty saw the look of devastation on Callie’s face and realized she needed a moment. “I have to make a phone call,” he said. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Callie didn’t know what she’d been expecting; still, this was worse than anything she could have anticipated. Rose isn’t here was the thought that came to mind. She felt her throat closing with the effort it took to hold back tears. In the last few hours, all she’d wanted was to have Rose back in her life. She chastised herself for such a stupid hope. She approached the bed. “It’s me, Auntie Rose. It’s Callie. I’m here.”
She leaned down, trying to penetrate the empty stare, to see past the blankness of Rose’s eyes to something behind them. Rose’s eyes had always been so clear, so focused. Her mother and the other Goddesses had nicknamed her Old Eagle Eyes, because nothing got by her. Not ever, much to their chagrin.
“What happened to you?” Callie whispered. And then she sobbed in a way that erased all of the years she had put between herself and the worst moment of her life.
The lesser of two evils. Rafferty couldn’t get the phrase out of his head.
In all the commotion, he’d never called Towner back. He dialed her number on his cell.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I saw the news.” Then she continued. “So the little girl who witnessed the murders is back in town?”
“Was that on the news?” Rafferty sounded horrified.
“No.”
“Then how do you know she’s here?”
“I just know,” she said.
He shook his head. He’d seen Towner do this many times—know about things before being told—but it still surprised him every time it happened.
Most of what Rafferty knew about the 1989 case, he’d learned from his wife. Towner hadn’t lived in Salem at the time of the murders, but her grandmother Eva, who had been a friend of Rose’s, had told her the story.
On the way back down the stairs, Callie stopped and turned to Rafferty. “Why would they lie to me? Why would they tell me Rose was dead? She was like my mother. I’ve missed her for so long, and she’s been right here? Why would they do that?”
Rafferty had no idea what to say. It was clear from what he’d heard about the case that Callie had been traumatized. But that anyone would lie like that to a child seemed cruel. Especially since Rose would have been the only person Callie had left. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a half-empty packet of tissues, and handed them to her. “It’s good for Rose that you’re here now.”
Neither of them spoke as they rode back to the station; Callie kept her face turned toward her side window, and Rafferty noticed her taking in everything as they passed.
“Where are you parked?” he asked as they pulled into the lot at the station. Callie pointed. Her face and neck were blotchy, her eyes bloodshot.
“Is that hotel down on the common still open?”
“You’re staying?”