Must the Maiden Die (22 page)

It had been early evening when she had
finally returned to her boardinghouse, uncomfortably warm in the
humidity left by the earlier showers and drained of energy. She had
no sooner walked through the front door when Harriet Peartree,
perspiring in her jean-cloth gardening outfit, had come hustling
down the hall to say, "Your redhead has left, Glynis. Gone. Flown
the coop, so to speak."

"Bronwen? Whatever do you mean?"

"She came rushing in saying she needed
notepaper. That she didn't have time to explain, but would leave
you a message—I imagine it's up in your room. Then about five
minutes later she left with that little valise of hers."

By this time Glynis had started for the
stairs, but paused with her hand on the banister's newel post to
ask, "Do you remember what time that was?"

"Probably an hour or two after midday."
Harriet turned toward the kitchen, saying, "Just came inside to
warn you. I'm working in the back garden if you want me."

Glynis hurried up the stairs, thinking that
this mysterious flurry of activity must have come shortly after
she'd seen her niece burst from the telegraph office and dash
across the street to Carr's Hotel. But what reckless course could
Bronwen be pursuing now?

As soon as she stepped into her room, she
saw the note propped against her clock. Since she thought that,
Bronwen being Bronwen, it would be prudent to sit down before
reading it, she went to her wing chair beside the window and
unfolded the notepaper.

Dear Aunt Glyn,

I hope you won't be
too
upset
about this, but I have to leave town. Temporarily. Professor Lowe
and I found out that Rochester would be the best place to inflate
and launch the balloon, so we're catching the next train out with
it—no small amount of baggage even when it's deflated!

I'm sorry I've had to be secretive, but
there are things I can't talk about. And you're so good at solving
puzzles I hardly dared say anything, for fear you'd figure out what
was going on before—well, before it actually happened
.

I'll explain it all when I see you at the
wedding. If there
is
one. And please, DON'T WORRY ABOUT
ME!

Love, B

Glynis sighed; when it came to Bronwen,
saying
don't worry
was like saying
don't breathe.
Why
on earth did her niece think she had to accompany Professor Lowe
and the balloon to Rochester? Lowe had seemed quite a reasonable
man, but Glynis now realized she had misjudged him. Which was
inexcusable on her part, because, after all, how reasonable could a
man be who insisted on flying? How could she have been so
blind?

Nonetheless, it seemed that Thaddeus Lowe
and Bronwen, an incautious duo if ever there was one, were embarked
on what she had described as "things I just can't talk about." How
reassuring!

Just as disturbing was Glynis's conviction,
based on the phrasing of the note, that Bronwen's Treasury job must
be the explanation for her shady behavior. Glynis should have
credited this before now, but she had discarded as outlandish the
idea that the wedding of Bronwen's cousin and the business of the
U.S. Treasury Department could somehow coincide. What possible
interest could Treasury have in western New York? And how did
Professor Lowe fit into the picture?

But there was nothing she could do about any
of it. Nothing except serve as the object of her sister's wrath
when Gwen arrived in Seneca Falls to hear that her daughter had
once again evaded restraint.

Glynis pulled off her dress and crinoline,
then unpinned and brushed out her hair, before slipping into her
flowing, green silk undress; another of Emma's lovely creations.
She padded barefoot down the stairs and into the kitchen, just as
Harriet was coming in from the garden, ruddy skin laved with
moisture, and silvery hair plastered to her face and neck.

"It's hot as midsummer out there," she
panted. "Flowers are exploding with the heat. I've never seen
tulips and dogwood and poppies and lilacs blooming at the same
time. The peonies are ready to bloom, and so is the mock orange.
And here, just a few weeks ago, I thought we had entered an ice
age."

"It has been peculiar weather," Glynis
agreed.

Harriet nodded. "Well, I'm stiff as a board
from working out there, so it's a cool shower for me, then I'm off
to bed. And thank heavens for Dictras Fyfe!"

The non sequitur startled Glynis until she
realized that Harriet referred to her former boarder, Mr. Fyfe—now
living with his daughter's family in Syracuse and close to eighty
years of age—who had built a wooden shower stall behind the
kitchen. Its tank being attached to the cistern on the roof, the
recent rain would have filled it.

"You look fairly wilted yourself," Harriet
said, over her shoulder. "I'll save some water for you."

"Thank you, Harriet. I thought I'd use the
shower after I eat something. I'm nearly faint with hunger."

"Cold chicken and potato salad are in the
icebox."

***

Glynis, showered and again in her silk robe,
sat in the kitchen waiting for water to boil for tea. Harriet had
long since gone to bed and the house was quiet, with only a creak
now and then from beams contracting as the heat of the day
lessened, although the air was still unseasonably warm for the end
of May. Almost as if the frigid spring had overnight melted
directly into summer. Meaning that for another four days, Vanessa
Usher, by sheer willpower alone, would have to hold in abeyance the
opening blossoms on her new flowering trees. Which Glynis had no
doubt that Vanessa could do.

The question remained, however, if in
another four days would there even be a wedding? Glynis had stopped
at the dress shop on her way home, and had only had to glimpse
Emma's forlorn face to know things had not been set to rights.

"Adam keeps going on about some law!" Emma
had told her. "Chapter 90, he claims, is the answer to my concerns.
Just what I need to reassure me—some legal mumbo jumbo that I won't
even be able to understand without a lawyer to translate it. Which,
under the circumstances, seems a little like sending a fox to guard
the henhouse!"

"But you believe Adam will be truthful when
he answers your questions, don't you?"

"Oh, yes!" had come Emma's response, quick
and unequivocal. "That is, if I know what questions to ask."

It did seem ironic that a law written by
male legislators, to be interpreted by male lawyers, was being
touted as the answer to a maiden's prayers, Glynis thought now.
Still waiting for the water to boil, she sat looking out at
Harriet's garden. The pink dogwood, the purple lilacs, and the
opening poppies made bright splashes of color against the twilit
sky. It made her think of the Brant house grounds and their absence
of any blooms.

That afternoon she had told Cullen about the
dapple gray horse and rider she had seen heading north. They had
immediately gone to talk to the stableboy.

At Cullen's questions, the stocky,
freckle-faced boy had fidgeted and said, "The horse, he come back
late last night. No, sir, I didn't see he was gone until I was
muckin' out the stable yesterday. Then, when I tells Mr.
Brant—yeah, Mr. Erich Brant—he got powerful angry about the horse
bein' taken. But it was gettin' dark, so's there was nothin' to be
done for it 'til morning. And, like I said, the horse found his way
home by hisself."

"And he was injured when he came back?"
Glynis had asked, pointing at the wrapping around the gray's
foreleg.

"Yes, ma'am. First I thought he'd tore
somethin', but he's better now, so I guess it ain't too bad."

"Was he saddled when he got back here?"
asked Cullen.

"No. But the girl could ride bareback 'cause
I seen her do it."

"Why do you say the girl?" Glynis asked him.
"Do you know she's the one who took the horse?"

The boy pushed a lank piece of hair out of
his eyes. "Who else would 'a done it? She's gone—nobody else is,"
he added somewhat defensively.

"Yes, of course," Glynis said quickly. "I
just wanted to make certain. But tell me, did the girl ride
often?"

"Not no more," the boy said. "Not after Mr.
Brant, he ..." His voice trailed off and he shifted his feet as if
his boots were too tight.

"Which Mr. Brant? And after he did what?"
Glynis prodded.

The boy looked toward the house. "I don't
reckon I should say—"

"Yes, you should say," Cullen interrupted.
"Now answer Miss Tryon."

"It was Mr. Roland Brant—him that's dead
now," the boy said, looking uneasy.

"How long have you worked here?" asked
Glynis.

"A couple years."

"So you were here when the girl first came
to Brants'?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I see. Now, what did you mean about the
girl not riding anymore?"

Before he answered, the boy again glanced
toward the house. "Well, one day," he said, "after the girl been
ridin' one of the old mares, when she come back, Mr. Brant he run
out of the house with his shotgun. Said he saw the horse was
limpin'—"

The boy stopped, and Glynis saw he was
hesitant to speak, perhaps even fearful. He shook his head at
Cullen, and began to back away. "Mr. Constable, sir," he said, "I
gotta go to the stable."

"You're not going anywhere, son, until we
finish this," Cullen said.

Glynis turned to him and murmured under her
breath, "Perhaps it would be better if you left us alone for a few
minutes." She added, "I think he's scared."

Cullen, his expression thoughtful, eyed the
boy briefly. Then he shrugged and strode off toward the house.

"Why don't we walk to the stable," Glynis
said to the boy, "while you tell me what happened that day? And
your employers," she added, "don't need to know that you've talked
to me."

She started in the direction of the stable,
and after a moment of apparent indecision, the boy fell into step
beside her.

"You were telling us," she said, "that Mr.
Brant came out of the house with his shotgun. He said the horse was
limping?"

The boy glanced over his shoulder uneasily,
then nodded. "But I didn't see that mare limp," he said. "And the
girl said she didn't neither—"

"Excuse me," interrupted Glynis. "The girl
actually
said
the horse wasn't limping?"

"Yeah, she did."

"So at that time she could talk?"

The boy stopped walking and stared off for a
moment. Then he turned to Glynis and, in a surprised tone as if
just realized it, said, "Yeah, she could talk then."

"All right, I'm sorry to have interrupted
you. Please go on."

"You won't tell no one?"

"I won't tell anyone in the Brant family
about this," she answered.

The boy gave her a searching look, and must
have been satisfied, because he started walking again and said,
"Like I told you, that mare was sound, far as I could tell. But Mr.
Brant, he said he got to shoot the horse 'cause it was lame. The
girl starts cryin', and beggin' him not to, and then she throws
herself against the mare. Mr. Brant he tells her to stop talkin'
and get outta the way. I can see he means it, so I pulled the girl
away. And then he shot that old mare."

Glynis drew in her breath, but could say
nothing, and she kept walking. By the time they had reached the
stable, she was able to ask the boy, "What did the girl do, after
the mare was shot?"

The boy answered slowly, "It was like she
went crazy or somethin'. Screamin' and cryin' like you can't
b'lieve. Mr. Brant, he said she was...was...I dunno what he said,
but he slapped her real hard. And he says to her..."

The boy's voice broke off.

"Yes? Can you remember what he said?" Glynis
pressed, noticing the boy's face had gone white.

"He says to her, 'See what happens when you
talk?' And I think he said, 'Don't you ever talk again.' Or
somethin' like that."

"Can you remember," Glynis had said to him,
"if that's when the girl Tamar stopped speaking?"

The boy had looked distressed when he'd
said, "Yeah, it just now come to me. She didn't talk no more after
that. Never talked again."

Glynis, her memory of the afternoon's
conversation still fresh enough to be distressing, now heard the
kettle whistling, and she went to the stove. While waiting for the
chamomile tea to steep, she recalled what she had said to Cullen on
the drive back to town.

"It's like peeling away the layers of an
onion," she had told him, "and discovering the onion is not as
wholesome as it first appeared. There clearly are aspects of
Roland Brant that most people never saw. Other than his family and
household staff."

"Better not put too much faith in what the
staff says," Cullen had told her. "Brant could be tough when it
came to business. It probably carried over to his staff."

"What do you mean by 'tough'?" Glynis had
asked him.

"I was reminded of it just today. Remember
when, about half a year ago, Brant foreclosed on that harpsichord
and dulcimer factory down by the canal?"

"Of course I remember. Afterwards Andre
Gagnon shot himself. Roland Brant claimed he was sorry about the
foreclosure. That he hadn't known Mr. Gagnon's wife was ill, only
that the man had fallen months behind in his payments. And Brant
told everyone that Gagnon killed himself because he was distraught
over his wife's death."

"That's what Brant said," Cullen agreed. "I
thought of it because I saw Gagnon's son in town today. Can't think
of his name. Anyway, if you recall, the son at the time said his
father's suicide was Brant's fault, and that he would—would get
Brant! My God, Glynis, maybe that's it!"

"You think Andre Gagnon's son could have killed
Roland Brant?"