Home Before Dark: A Novel (22 page)

One for every year since Petra Ditmer disappeared.

And the last one I see tells me exactly who wrote them.

WHERE IS MY SISTER?

The interior of Bartleby’s library bore an uncanny resemblance to Baneberry Hall. Large and charmingly Gothic, it was a riot of arched windows and carved cornices. Stepping inside literally felt like coming home. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the bronze plaque just inside the door announcing that the library had been paid for by William Garson.

A portrait of him hung on the other side of the hallway. I recognized his face from the one in the great room, although this portrait’s painter had been far more kind. Mr. Garson’s features were softer, his eyes not as dark. With his top hat and white beard, he looked more like a kindly old man than someone capable of killing his daughter.

The library’s main reading room was a wood-trimmed octagon in the middle of the building. The circulation desk sat in the center of the room—the library’s beating heart. Fanning outward from the desk like spokes on a wheel were wooden bookshelves that stretched
from floor to ceiling on two separate levels. Staircases flanking the door swept upward to the second floor.

That’s where I found Petra.

She had commandeered an entire table, which was covered with books about Bartleby history and several bulky file folders. “You’re here,” she said when she saw me. “I didn’t think you were going to show.”

I almost didn’t, for Jess’s sake. Although she had apologized for what she said yesterday—an exhausted “I’m sorry about the Petra stuff. I was just being jealous and ridiculous”—I knew she wouldn’t like the idea of my meeting alone with Petra. Especially when our intention was to dig into Baneberry Hall’s history, something I promised my wife I wouldn’t do. But my curiosity about Indigo Garson’s fate overrode any apprehension I had about our meeting. It always won out over common sense.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” I said as I took a seat next to Petra.

“I had help.” Petra patted the stack of folders. “The reference librarian gave me this. Said they get a lot of people coming in wanting to know more about your house. Does it feel weird living in a place that’s famous?”

“I haven’t been there long enough,” I said, leaving out how Baneberry Hall feels weird for a bunch of other reasons. “Does it feel weird living almost literally in its shadow?”

Petra snagged a lock of blond hair and absently twirled it. “Not really. I haven’t lived anywhere else to know the difference, but my mom gets weird sometimes.”

“How so?”

“She always prays before she goes up there. Kisses her crucifix. Stuff like that. She told me once that it was haunted.”

“She really thinks that?”

“She’s just superstitious,” Petra said as she grabbed one folder and handed another to me. “It’s the German in her. Very strict.
Very
Christian. Like, if she knew I was doing this, she’d tell me no good could come of it. That it will only lead to me being haunted by William Garson’s evil spirit or something.”

The folder she’d given me was filled with newspaper clippings. Most of them came from the local paper, the
Bartleby Gazette
, which looked to be almost as old as Baneberry Hall. The first clipping was a photocopy of a ragged front page dated September 3, 1876. The top story—bearing the headline
OPEN HOUS
E AT GARSON MANSE
—was about the evening William Garson invited the entire town to visit his grand estate.

Many other articles in the folder had a similarly fluffy bent. Headlines about balls and birthdays and famous visitors to Baneberry Hall. I especially got a kick out of one from 1940.
HO
LLYWOOD ROYALTY SUMM
ERS IN BARTLEBY
. The article included a blotchy photo of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard having cocktails in the Indigo Room.

But tales of death also lurked among the stories of glamour and frivolity. Far more than I had been led to believe. A string of tragedies that began with the death of Indigo Garson. A car accident in 1926 that killed another member of the Garson clan. A drowning in the bathtub in 1941. Two bed-and-breakfast guests dying mysteriously, one in 1955 and the other a year later. A fatal fall down the steps in 1974.

Sorting through them made me think of what Hibbs had said.

Baneberry Hall remembers.

It also made me wonder why he never bothered to tell me about all the other deaths that happened there. It was impossible to think he simply didn’t know about them. His family had worked those
grounds for generations. Which meant there was a reason he omitted those other deaths.

Maybe he didn’t want to scare us away.

Or maybe he never wanted us to know.

I came to the
Gazette
article about Curtis and Katie Carver, the most recent tragedy to occur there. The writer wasted no time in getting to the grisly details.

A man and his young daughter are dead in what Bartleby police have called a bizarre murder-suicide at Baneberry Hall, one of the town’s oldest and most infamous addresses. Police say Curtis Carver, 31, smothered his six-year-old daughter, Katie, before killing himself—a crime that has sent shock waves through the normally quiet community.

The photo that ran with the article was the same picture Jess had found during our tour of the house. Marta Carver and young Katie in matching dresses and smiles, Curtis keeping his distance, looking simultaneously handsome and sinister.

I put the clipping on a pile of articles about the other Baneberry Hall deaths. I wanted to read more—about all of them. But we were there to learn about William and Indigo Garson. The others would have to wait.

“I’m going to make copies of these,” I told Petra. “I’ll be right back.”

The library’s only photocopier sat large and heavy just outside the door of the octagonal reading room, offering copies for a dime apiece. Digging out change from my pocket, I got to work, making copies of each article.

My final copy—a reproduction of the article about the Carver
family, the photo of them splotchy and dark—was sliding out of the machine when a woman passed by and entered the reading room. The mood inside the library shifted at her presence. It was like an electric pulse sparking across the entire place, silent yet keenly felt by all. People glanced up from books. Whispered conversations came to a sudden stop.

Turning around, I saw the same face that was on the photocopy.

Marta Carver.

Trying to ignore the unwanted attention, she browsed a shelf of new releases, her head held high. But then she caught me staring, and I had no choice but to approach her. Nervously, I said, “Excuse me. Mrs. Carver?”

She blinked at me from behind her spectacles. “Yes?”

“I’m Ewan Holt.”

Her posture straightened. It was clear she knew who I was.

“Hello, Mr. Holt.”

We shook hands. Hers was small and contained the slightest tremble.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there was anything still at Baneberry Hall that you’d like to keep. If so, I’d be happy to deliver it to you.”

“I have everything I need, thank you.”

“But all that furniture—”

“Is yours now,” she said. “You paid for it.”

Although her voice wasn’t unkind, I sensed an unspoken
something
humming just beneath her words. It was, I realized, fear.

Marta Carver was terrified of Baneberry Hall.

“It’s not just the furniture,” I said. “I’ve found other things that I think belong to you. A camera. A record player. I think there are some photographs still there.”

At the mention of photographs, Marta Carver glanced at the freshly made copies still clutched in my hand. The top one, I realized, was the article about her husband murdering her daughter. I flipped the copy inward against my body, but it was too late. She’d already seen it, and reacted with an involuntary flinch.

“I need to go,” she said. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Holt.”

Mrs. Carver slipped past me and quickly left the library. All I could do was mumble an apology at her back, feeling not only stupid but rude. I returned, vowing never to bother her again.

“Look at this,” Petra said when I came back to the table.

She was reading a
Gazette
article about Indigo Garson’s death, written a few months after it happened. I looked over her shoulder at the headline.

GARSON DEEMED INNOCENT IN DAUGHTER’S DEATH

“According to this, a maid told the police that on the night of Indigo’s suicide, she saw Mr. Garson in the kitchen putting what looked like a bunch of baneberries in a bowl. She was coming up from the cellar, so he didn’t see her. She said he took the berries and a spoon upstairs. An hour later, Indigo was dead. I just know he killed her, Mr. Holt.”

“Then why wasn’t he put on trial for her murder?”

“That’s what this whole bullshit article is about. How there wasn’t any evidence and how even if there was, a man like William Garson would never do such a thing. ‘An exemplary member of the community.’ That’s a direct quote from the police.” Petra pointed out the words with a stab of her index finger. “I know things were different back then, but it’s like they didn’t even try. ‘Oh, a teenager is dead. Who cares?’ But you can be damn sure that if it was the
other way around—if Indigo had been seen bringing a freaking bowl of baneberries to her father—she would have been hung in the town square.”

She slumped in her chair and took a deep breath, her rant over. I understood her anger. We’d reached a dead end. Even though both of us believed William Garson had killed his daughter, there was likely no way to prove it.

“I’m going to go,” Petra said. “I’m too riled up. I need to get ice cream. Or scream into a pillow. I haven’t decided. See you tomorrow.”

I looked at her, confused. “Tomorrow?”

“The sleepover. We’re still coming, right?”

After all the ceiling chaos and fighting with Jess, I’d forgotten about the plan to have Hannah and Petra spend the night at Baneberry Hall. It wasn’t a good time for a sleepover. It felt like the worst time, actually. But Maggie was in desperate need of friends. I couldn’t deny my daughter that.

“It’s still on,” I said as I tucked the articles under my arm, preparing to leave the reading room. “Maggie can’t wait.”

The reporters are still at the front gate.

I see them when I reach the end of the driveway, milling on the other side of the wrought iron, waiting for me to emerge. Now that I have, they surge forward, shoving their microphone-clutching hands through the gate’s bars like a horde of undead in a zombie movie.

Among them is Brian Prince, his bow tie askew as he elbows others out of the way, angling for prime position.

“Maggie!” he shouts. “Talk to me! What are your plans now for Baneberry Hall?”

Behind him, flashbulbs pop into firecracker brightness. Caught in their glare, I retreat, slowly at first, shuffling backward before turning my back to the crowd. Soon I’m running up the driveway, winding my way up the hillside toward Baneberry Hall.

In order to leave this place, I’m going to need a different escape route. Lucky for me, I know of one. Also lucky: Brian Prince and the other reporters haven’t found it yet.

Veering off the driveway, I plunge into the woods and start to descend the hill again, this time under the cover of the trees. I push
through the forest until I reach the stone wall that surrounds the property. A walk alongside the wall leads me to the section that’s crumbled away. I pass through it and, five minutes later, find myself emerging from the woods behind Elsa Ditmer’s cottage.

Because there could also be reporters waiting out front, I stick to the backyard, crossing it quickly before hopping onto the rear porch. The back door swings open before I get a chance to knock. Hannah stands just inside, her jaw clenched.

“What do you want?” she says.

“To say I’m sorry. For your loss.”

“That’s not going to bring my sister back.”

“I know,” I say.

Hannah bites the inside of her cheek and asks, “You’ve got anything else to say?”

“Actually, yes.” I reach into my purse and pull out the notes, all twenty-four of them. “I was wondering if you could explain these.”

She steps out of the way, allowing me entry into the cottage. I follow her to the kitchen. On the way, we pass the living room, where a game show blares from a console television. I get a glimpse of Elsa Ditmer cocooned in a recliner, a knit blanket pulled to her chin.

I wonder if Hannah has told her that Petra’s been found. If so, I wonder if Elsa understands.

In the kitchen, I’m hit with the smell of cigarette smoke and cooking oil. We sit at a kitchen table with one leg that’s shorter than the others. The table tilts when Hannah grabs a cigarette and lights up. It tilts back when I place the notes in front of her.

Hannah doesn’t bother giving them a glance. It’s clear she’s seen them before.

“I started writing them a year after you guys left and Petra vanished,” she says. “That damn book your dad wrote had just come out, and I was mad.”

“That the three of you were in it?”

Hannah gives me an incredulous look. “That he did something to Petra and got away with it. When your dad showed up out of the blue—literally a year to the day after Petra disappeared—well, I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”

She reaches for the notes, sorting through them until she finds the one that led me to her door.

WHERE IS MY SISTER?

“I was so angry when I wrote this,” Hannah says, flattening the note against the tilting table. “I thought it would be therapeutic or something. To finally write down the question I’d been thinking about for an entire year. It didn’t help. It only made me angrier. So angry that I marched up to Baneberry Hall and left it on the front porch. It was gone after your father left the next day. That’s when I knew he had seen it.”

“And then it became an annual tradition,” I say.

Hannah exhales a stream of smoke. “I thought that if I did it enough times, I might finally get an answer. And after a few years, I think your father had come to expect it.”

“Did he ever confront you about it?”

“Nope,” Hannah says. “He never talked to us. I guess he was afraid of what I would say.”

“But he still paid your mother?” I asked.

“Every month.” Hannah taps her cigarette against a ceramic ashtray and takes another long puff. “He paid a little more every year, directly deposited into my mom’s account. Out of guilt, most likely. Not that I cared what his reason was. When you’ve got a sick mother to take care of, it doesn’t matter where the money comes from. Or why.”

“Even if it’s from a man you think killed your sister?”

Hannah leans back in her chair, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Especially then.”

“I was told most people thought Petra had run away. Why did you think my father had anything to do with her disappearance?”

“Because I saw him come back to Baneberry Hall,” Hannah says.

“When?”

“About two weeks after Petra was gone.”

Shocked, I lean on the table, which does another jolting tilt. “Two weeks? Are you sure?”

“Positive. I had a lot of trouble sleeping in those first few weeks Petra was gone. I’d lie awake all night, waiting for her to come back. One morning, I got up at the crack of dawn and went walking in the woods, thinking that I could still find her if I kept looking hard enough.” Hannah lets out a sad, little laugh. “So, there I was, roaming the woods behind our house. When I reached the wall around your property, I followed it to the front gate. I had almost reached the road when I saw a car pull up.”

“My father,” I say.

“Yes. I saw him clear as day. He got out of the car, unlocked the gate, and drove on through.”

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so. I was still in the woods. Besides, he seemed pretty focused on getting inside as fast as possible.”

“How long was he there?”

“I don’t know. I had gone home by the time he left.”

“What do you think he was doing?”

Hannah stubs out her cigarette. “At the time, I had no idea. Now, though? I think he was dumping Petra’s body.”

Chief Alcott told me she went to Baneberry Hall the night we left, finding nothing out of the ordinary. If my father had killed Petra and stuffed her body in the floor, that means he either did it well before the chief searched the house or well after.

Maybe two weeks after.

In which case Petra’s body would had to have been kept somewhere else. Something I don’t want to think about.

“Did you tell anyone that you saw him back at the house?” I ask Hannah.

“No, because I didn’t think anyone would listen to me,” she says. “The police weren’t really interested. By then your dad’s story about Baneberry Hall being haunted was spreading. We’d already started to see looky-loos driving up to the front gate, trying to get a look at the place. As for Petra, they were convinced she’d run away and would return when she felt like it. She never did.”

“That’s what your mother thought as well, right?”

“She did,” Hannah says. “Because that’s what I told her had happened.”

She lights another cigarette and inhales. One long, hungry drag during which she decides to tell me everything she knows.

“Petra had a boyfriend. Or something.”

Hannah lets the word hang there, insinuating. It makes me wonder if Brian Prince had shared his theory about my father with her.

“I don’t know who it was or how long it had been going on,” she says. “But she snuck out at night. I know because we shared a bedroom. She’d wait until she thought I was asleep before climbing out the window. When I woke up in the morning, she’d be right back in bed, asleep. I asked her about it once, and she told me I had been dreaming.”

“Why the need to sneak out?”

“Because my mother didn’t allow dating. Or boys. Or anything that would displease God.” Hannah holds up her cigarette as an example and takes another devilish puff. “The thing you need to know about my mother is that she was strict. As was her mother. And her grandmother. The Ditmer women were hardworking, God-fearing people. There’s a reason they all became housekeepers. Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

A bit of ash drops from Hannah’s cigarette onto the kitchen table. She doesn’t brush it away. A small act of rebellion.

“Growing up, Petra and I weren’t allowed to do anything. No school dances. No going to the movies with friends. It was school and work and prayer. It was only a matter of time before Petra was going to rebel.”

“How long had she been sneaking out?”

“Only a week or two, as far as I could tell. The beginning of July was when I first watched her do it.”

My heart sinks. I’d been hoping it had started weeks before my family moved into Baneberry Hall. But, no, we were there by the beginning of July.

“The night Petra disappeared, did you see her leave?”

Hannah gives a quick shake of her head. “But I assumed she did, because she was gone the next morning.”

“And that’s when you told your mother she had run away?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Buster was also gone.”

Hannah sees the confusion on my face and elaborates.

“He was Petra’s teddy bear. She got it years before I was born and still slept with it like she was my age. If she spent the night somewhere, Buster went with her. You don’t remember this, but she had him when we went to your house for that sleepover.”

Hannah gets up and leaves the kitchen. She returns a minute later with a photograph, staring at it as she resumes talking.

“She’d never leave home without him. Ever. When we realized Buster was also gone, we assumed she’d run away. Most likely with this boy she’d been seeing.”

That boy could have been my father, a possibility that makes me as wobbly as the kitchen table. The feeling gets worse when Hannah finally shows me the photograph. It’s her and Petra, presumably in
their bedroom. Petra sits on a bed. Next to her is a disturbingly familiar teddy bear.

Brown fur.

Button eyes.

A red bow tie circling its neck.

It’s the very same bear Dane and I found in my father’s office. Now it is gone. While I don’t know—and likely will never know—who took it, I can think of only two reasons it was in Baneberry Hall.

“You mentioned that Petra brought Buster that time you spent the night,” I say.

“Yes,” Hannah says. “Even though we never made it the full night.”

I’m well aware of that, thanks to the Book.

“Is there a chance Petra left it behind?” I say, hoping I’m not revealing too much. Hannah doesn’t need to know that, until a few nights ago, Buster was still inside Baneberry Hall. “Maybe it got lost.”

“She brought him home with her,” Hannah says. “I’m certain of it.”

That leaves only the other reason Buster could have been in the house. The one I’d been hoping wasn’t true.

Petra brought the bear with her because she thought she was leaving for good. Probably with my father. The idea sucks all the air from my chest.

Short of breath, there’s nothing left for me to do but stand and leave the cottage in a daze. Hannah follows me past the living room, where the television has changed from a game show to a sitcom. Forced laughter blares from the TV.

It’s not until I’m at the back door that I turn around to ask Hannah one more thing. A question prompted not just by that picture of Petra and her bear but by the memory of yesterday morning. Mister Shadow in the armoire, staring at me, creeping closer.

“You seem to remember a lot about the night you two came to Baneberry Hall for that sleepover.”

“It was pretty hard to forget.” Hannah huffs out a humorless laugh,
as if she can’t believe that, with everything else going on, this is what I want to talk about. It makes perfect sense to me. She was there. She remembers. I don’t.

“The things my father wrote about that night,” I say. “That was bullshit, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Hannah says.

I study her, seeking a tell that she’s lying. She levels her gaze at me, indicating she’s dead serious.

“So, what my father wrote about that night—”

“It’s all true,” Hannah says, without a moment’s hesitation. “Every damn word.”