Final Rights (21 page)

THIRTY-SIX

2004

Family
had always defined Leland Howard’s life. First his parents and grandparents
when they lived on the homestead in the mountains, then Ellie and Clayton, and
later Cally—all of them made Leland Howard the person he was. Rather, the
person he had once been. In the wake of the loss of his entire family in a
matter of days, nothing could have persuaded Leland to continue participating
in his daily life, so the accident in the courtyard that led to his brief coma
and subsequent hospitalization proved to be a blessing. The injury, coupled
with his unremitting depression, provided a reason no one could question for
him to slip out of reality and never return.

It proved less of a blessing that his mind
remained sharp and his memories kept trying to claw their way back into the
light of day. He kept them caged b
y focusing
only on his daily activities—making the little boxes from wood supplied by his
dear friend, Richard Price; bantering with the staff at Forest Glen; and
occasionally sharing some of his carefully selected memories such as he had
done with Tate Marlowe recently.

Of course, rummaging
through his mind for recollections of happy events threatened to pull him deep
into the abyss of grief awaiting him, so he rarely ventured into that
territory. The presence of this young woman claiming to be his granddaughter
created a critical decision point for Leland Howard. Keep her out, and he could
remain in the relatively comfortable world he had constructed. Let her in, and
he would . . . what? What stood on the other side of that possibility?

Leland Howard did not
know what he would find if he chose to acknowledge the woman. He knew only that
he had searched her face and found his sweet, little granddaughter with tears
in her eyes and in need of comforting. He had searched his heart and unearthed
the anguished aching, long in need of healing that only family could provide. S
he called me Gampa.

He reached his hand out
into the past, into the present, and gently touched Cally’s cheek. He chose
family, willing to face whatever horror that choice might unleash.

He felt a bit dizzy and
put his hand on the table to steady himself as if he were about to rise out of
his chair. Then he sat back and took a deep breath.

“It’s me, Gampa. Do you
remember me?”

He sat quietly with
eyes closed, mind racing,
slipping in and out of coherent thought. It couldn’t be
Cally.
Cally
is gone. They’re all gone.
The woman squeezed his hand and pulled it gently to her
cheek again. He felt her tears on his fingers.

“Cally is gone,” he muttered. “They all went
away and left me alone.”

“I’m right here, Gampa. I came back. I
thought you had died, and I came back and found out you were still here. It’s
me. It’s Cally, all grown up.”

Leland shook his head, trying to unscramble
his thoughts. He looked again into the woman’s eyes. And there she was—little
Cally. He heard the faint echo of her laugh, saw her dancing around the living
room of the old house in her princess dress, eyes twinkling as she waved her
magic wand.

“Are you a princess or a fairy?”

Cally puzzled over this
question. She looked to Tate for help.

“I think he’s confused, Cally. This is probably
pretty shocking for him.”

Dorothy joined them at Leland’s side and
placed two fingers on his wrist to check his pulse. She noted his shallow
breathing. “His pulse is racing. This is very stressful for him.”

“I should leave . . .” Cally said, hesitantly,
looking to Tate and Dorothy for confirmation.

“Are you a princess or a
fairy?” Leland smiled as he stared intently into Cally’s eyes.

“I don’t understand, Gampa . . .”

“You have a princess dress and a fairy’s
magic wand. Which are you?”

The shared memory flashed into Cally’s
awareness, and she gasped as she remember that day in the living room at the
old house. She responded just as she had so very long ago: “I’m a magic
princess, Gampa!”

“Indeed you are, Cally. Indeed you are!”

They wrapped their arms around each other
and began sobbing. Tate and Dorothy retreated to the edge of the room, leaving
them to find their way back to family.

THIRTY-SEVEN

1942

Valentine’s
Day approached, and Ellie had agreed to help stage the annual party for the
teen group at church. She hoped Clayton would attend. He showed no signs of
outgrowing his wildness, and she sought any means possible to turn him in a
positive direction.

Constance Ryland
arrived at the same time. She and Ellie fell into a familiar banter as they began
pulling decorations out of storage and catching up with each other. Their
friendship, which began in grade school, remained solid through years of
volunteering together even though they now lived very different lives.

Connie—Ellie was one of
few still to call her that name—had married a wealthy man, but she came from
working-class roots. Although it took a long time, she had eventually secured
acceptance in her husband’s social circle. With that acceptance came a
challenge. Abandon her past or embrace it? She struggled to do both and
eventually found balance. She remained involved at the church of her childhood
through her volunteer work but now attended services with her husband at his
place of worship. What many people interpreted as haughtiness, Ellie saw for
what it was—Connie’s way of straddling two worlds and remaining true to
herself. Sure, she wore fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, but she never
acted superior, at least not to Ellie.

“It’s so good to see you, Ellie! I’ve missed
you.”

“I missed you, too, Connie. You’ve been out
of town, haven’t you?”

“Yes, we went to Palm Beach right after New
Year’s. We intended to return in March, but Phillip had a business meeting in
Washington, so we came back early. I would have preferred to stay longer. You
know I don’t like the cold weather much.”

“You never have, Connie. This winter has
been pretty mild, though. No major storms so far and we’ve had some spring-like
days already. Of course, it could turn bad again with little notice. We’ve all
seen five or six inches of snow arrive in a single day in April or May.”

“Well, it’s good to be
home, even this early in the season. And I’ve always loved this Valentine’s
dance. Remember? We’d come every year hoping to meet Prince Charming and end up
being wall flowers all night!”

“Oh, yes, I remember. But Prince Charming
finally found you, Connie. Quite a catch, that Phillip, and not only because
he’s rich.”

“I have to agree with
you on that, Ellie. I still wonder what I did to deserve ending up where I am.
Don’t you?”

“I know exactly what I did.” Matter-of-fact.
Nothing more needed saying.

“Oh, right.” Connie blushed at her misstep.
Ellie had never shared the details of her pregnancy and marriage, and Connie
had always respected Ellie’s decision not to discuss it.

Connie quickly changed
the subject. “Well, what have you been doing to keep busy while I’ve been
away?”

“The same stuff really. Nothing interesting.
I cook, clean, do the laundry, try to keep my son out of trouble and my husband
happy. It’s not a bad existence, really.”

“Your life sounds appealing to me sometimes.
I get tired of the whole society routine everyone expects of us. I think
Phillip would like to leave it all behind, too.”

“Seems like all those parties would be fun.
Don’t you meet interesting people?”

“Sometimes, of course. There’s the
occasional celebrity—a couple of years ago I met Helen Forrest,
 
who sang with Benny Goodman—but quite
often it’s just the same crowd discussing the same things. Everyone trying to
impress everyone else. I find it quite tiresome. But I have to go, whether I
want to or not.”

“It’s really that bad?”

“Let me give you an example. We went to the
grand opening at Harland Freeman’s house just before Christmas. You must
remember him—such a bore in high school. Everyone wanted to see that place, you
know? It’s really quite garish, but if all your friends are going . . . well,
as bad as it sounds, I didn’t want to miss out.” Connie chuckled at her own
inconsistency. “So we went. Everyone was being polite and commenting on the place,
discussing anything, really, just to not think about the War, and someone
brought up the door that Leland made.”

Ellie tensed up, not sure she wanted to hear
what came next. “Really? People noticed it, then?”

“Oh yes. They noticed all right. Harland
made a point to brag to Thomas Bristol. Anyway, everyone thought the design was
unique, and then I told them about the door on your house.”

“You didn’t!”

“Of course, I did! Yours is really much
prettier, I think.”

“Did he hear you? Does he know?”

“Ellie, you’re upset . . .”

“Oh . . . no . . .” Ellie tried to act
nonchalant. “. . . no, I just wondered what he said when he heard your
comment.”

“I’m not sure he heard it. He wasn’t in the
room. In fact, just then he had some kind of episode in the hallway outside.
The men took him up to his room and helped him settle in. We all left soon
after.”

Ellie paled.

“Come to think of it,”
Connie went on, “maybe that party wasn’t so boring after all!” Connie’s
lighthearted laughter did little to dispel the worry building in Ellie’s mind
as they went back to preparing for the dance.

As if in response to Ellie’s prediction of the previous
day, fat, wet, heavy snowflakes began falling copiously early in the afternoon
on February 13, 1942. They formed the last image to register in Harland
Freeman’s brain before he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger of the gun in
his mouth. Moments before that irreversible act, he fleetingly considered
delaying his suicide because of the unanticipated storm, but Harland had never
been a man to second guess himself once he made a decision. A modicum of
foresight would likely have swayed him, but the only accommodation he made for
the unexpected weather was to cover himself from foot to armpit in a warm
woolen throw after carefully positioning his chair before the front door of his
mansion. The blanketing snow muffled the sound of the gunshot, which thus
alerted no one to his demise other than the squirrels, already scurrying for
cover from the encroaching blizzard.

Snow fell for twelve hours straight. By the
following morning, it had transformed the neighborhood into a hushed winter
wonderland, with willowy hedges bent low, shrubs camouflaged as snow drifts,
and streets and sidewalks swathed in pristine, untrammeled snowy splendor. For
nearly a full day after his death, Harland’s body remained undiscovered.

The sun finally
dispersed the thick cloud cover and broke through by mid-morning on Valentine’s
Day, revealing the streets as ideal paths for cross-country skiers and kids on
sleds, along with bundled-up neighbors walking their dogs. Several such
adventurers passed by Harland’s house but took no notice of anything out of the
ordinary. Harland’s poor social skills and generally unfriendly style had
resulted in everyone who lived nearby avoiding him whenever possible, so the
fact his body went unnoticed for so long came as little surprise to anyone when
news began spreading about his death later in the day.

Luckily for Harland, who
had never liked dogs, those four-legged creatures do not squelch their natural
curiosity and joy like their human counterparts do, nor do they parcel out
their love grudgingly. So it happened that a frisky young Labrador retriever
finally brought attention to the dead body sitting on the porch of the house at
305 Chestnut Street.

Sensing the chance of a
new playmate, the dog broke loose from the middle-aged woman on the other end
of the leash, bounded across the lawn and up the steps, stopping just short of
jumping into Harland’s cold lap. Yelping and wagging its whole body, the dog
refused to leave Harland’s side, forcing the woman to make her way up the
treacherous walk to fetch him, apologizing all the way to the unresponsive
Harland for intruding on his privacy. She wondered why he would be sitting so
still in such inclement weather, until she realized as she reached the steps
that Harland was dead. She grabbed for her dog, but the pup remained by
Harland’s side, licking his hand and pawing at him, showering all his love and
attention on the still, cold body in those last moments before the world knew
Harland Freeman as a corpse instead of a man. The woman finally pulled the dog
away and rushed back to her house to call for help, barely able to contain
herself long enough to do so.

The police eventually arrived, and in short
order a crowd had gathered on the street.

“How long has he been there, do you
think?”
 

“Someone killed him, right?”

“Why’s he sitting out there like that?”

“Was he murdered? Surely not!”

“More’n likely he deserved it.”

“I hope he went quietly.”

“He was a mean man. Prob’ly just got what
was comin’ to him.”

“Oh, I don’t like to think he suffered.”

“When did it happen?”

“Why did it happen?”

“How did it happen?”

Of course, most of
those questions would remain unanswered for quite some time, opening the door
for wild speculation on the circumstances leading up to the highly unusual
event. Numerous theories and spurious facts emerged as the news swept through
the city. Few if any who heard the story felt saddened by Harland’s abrupt and
dramatic departure. Some worried about their jobs at Freeman’s Mercantile;
others schemed to purchase the successful business before someone else could
swoop in ahead of them. No one knew of surviving family to whom one could offer
false condolences or press for information. There would be no funeral, no final
goodbyes, no mourning period.

At lea
st not for most. For a very few others, the
suffering which began the day news arrived of Harland’s death lasted in one
form or another for the rest of their lives. But each of them would grieve in
isolation and for very different reasons.

For Leland Howard,
induction into the tiny group took place a week later and came in the form of a
visit from a member of Paige & Schmidt, the legal firm responsible for
handling Harland’s estate. At Ellie’s urging, Leland finally let the man into
the house. The tone for the unwelcome meeting established itself quickly.

“Mr. Freeman’s will is explicit, Mr. Howard.
The house at 305 Chestnut Street is now held in a trust of which you are the
sole beneficiary.”

“That can’t be. I don’t want the place. I
want nothing to do with anything involving that despicable man.” This level of
anger surprised even Leland.

“Now, Mr. Howard, you’re speaking about a
dead man . . .”

“Dead or not, doesn’t change who he was when
he was alive!”

“Leland, please. I know this is upsetting,
but please don’t lash out so.” Ellie sat in the background and had not spoken
until this moment.

“I don’t care, Ellie. He had no right to
burden me so. What did I ever do . . . this is an act of hatred on his part,
not kindness. You know that man never had a generous bone in his body.”

“Mr. Howard, he was your cousin, was he
not?” the attorney pleaded.

“Being blood relation don’t make somebody a
good man. Our mothers couldn’t abide one another, and neither could we. We
never had what you would call a family relationship.”

“Didn’t you help him build that house? I
seem to remember him mentioning so when we were drawing up his will . . .”

“NOT! BY! CHOICE!”
Leland uttered this response with controlled
rage, all the while staring angrily in Ellie’s direction.

“Leland, I’m sorry . . .”

“Not by choice . . .” Leland said in a more
measured tone, “. . . but yes, I did do some of the work on that place. Still,
it doesn’t mean I want anything to do with it now. It’s a cursed house, and I
don’t want the aggravation.”

“What do you mean, ‘cursed’?”

“Well, he killed himself there, didn’t he?
What would you call it?”

The attorney took a deep breath and
struggled to maintain his composure. He had a job to do. He had been sent to
deliver the details of Mr. Freeman’s will to the beneficiary. He never expected
it to be fraught with such resistance and difficulty.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Howard. I can see this is
not welcome news. Still, the will is, as I said, explicit. The house is held in
trust for you.”

“Well, then, I’ll give it away just like he
did! Ellie, who should I give that place to? It’s rightly your decision, don’t
you think? You’re the one insisted I do that work for him.”

Leland directed the full force of his anger
at Ellie for the first time in their entire life together. He wanted this to be
her fault. Hers or Harland’s, but not his, definitely not his.

Leland’s precisely aimed fury landed
squarely on its target, shattering Ellie’s emotional armor instantly. She began
sobbing uncontrollably. Leland immediately backed down, shocked at his wife’s
crying, something he had seen on only the rarest of occasions and never with
such abandon.