Murder at Beechwood (15 page)

I looked away. There were problems enough to face. Reggie's, serious though they were, would have to wait.

I spent most of my time pacing and staring out into the hallway for any signs of approaching doctors, only to report back to my aunt each time with disappointing news.

“What can be taking so long?” She held both Gladys's and Gertrude's hands in her lap. Gladys laid her cheek against her mother's shoulder and stared silently up at me with large, solemn eyes. “Why won't they let me see him?” Aunt Alice lamented. “It's a bad sign, isn't it?”

“No, Aunt Alice.” I clasped my hands at my waist in an attempt to appear calm. “I'm sure it's merely a sign that they're taking the very best care of him.”

“Perhaps we should have conveyed him onto the steamer and brought him back to New York. He might need a specialist.” Her chin quivered. “Who knows where the doctors here received their education?”

Footsteps halted any further debate. The doctor who had spoken to Aunt Alice upon our arrival entered the room. Uncles William and Frederick, and Cornelius's two sons, all came to their feet at once. Aunt Alice and the girls sat nervously waiting, their backs rigid and their chins raised in expectation. Tears filled Aunt Alice's eyes but didn't fall.

The doctor silently walked the length of the room, making little eye contact until he stood in front of her. “Mrs. Vanderbilt,” he said in a kindly voice, and she visibly shuddered. The room suddenly seemed smaller to me, as if the walls had closed in; the voices and commotion of the staff became a dull echo in my ears. “Your husband has suffered what we call a stroke of apoplexy. It's when—”

“I know what it is,” she replied. She released Gertrude's hand to dash away the single tear that spilled over. I couldn't remember the last time, if ever, I had seen Alice Vanderbilt so vulnerable, and the sight of her faltering courage seemed akin to the earth trembling beneath my feet. “Will he live?” she whispered.

“Yes, we believe he will, so long as he doesn't suffer another attack.” The man spoke softly, as though he feared disturbing a sleeping patient, though there was none housed nearby. “But he'll have challenges ahead. We don't yet know the extent of the paralysis, but there is almost sure to be some.”

“Oh, my Cornelius!” Aunt Alice dabbed at another tear. Her daughters pulled closer in a show of support. Gladys sniffled and tears pooled in her eyes. Gertrude had clamped her bottom lip between her teeth, something she did, I knew from experience, when she struggled to keep her emotions under control.

“Will the paralysis be lasting, Doctor?” Uncle William asked.

“We can't yet tell. He may need a variety of therapies. Thermal waters are often helpful. He'll certainly need a long convalescence with as much rest and as little disturbance as possible. That means he must not return to work any time soon.”

“He won't, Doctor. I'll see to that.” The stubborn determination returned to Aunt Alice's voice. “I'll see to it that nothing and no
one
disturbs him.”

My stomach sank; I knew to whom she referred. Neily wasn't here. I didn't know where he was presently, and I could only guess at the despair and guilt he must be feeling.

With a silent signal to Gladys and Gertrude to help her up, Aunt Alice stood. “May I see him now?”

The doctor hesitated before nodding. “He's sedated and sleeping, but I don't see the harm in it. No more than two at a time, mind you. Come, I'll show you to his room.”

The family filed to the stairway, the doctors and nurses parting for them like whitecaps around a yacht. I followed them only as far as the upper landing. As fond of Uncle Cornelius as I was, I didn't feel it was my right to intrude on their time with him—not just now. Instead, I headed in the opposite direction.

I wanted to check in on Derrick, tell him what happened, and let him know I had talked to his sister aboard
Lavinia's Sun.
As reticent as he had been concerning Judith and his troubling relationship with her, I wondered how he would react to the news of her bizarre behavior toward me. Would he feel moved to confide in me?

His door was closed, so I knocked, softly at first and then, receiving no answer, I gave a few sharper raps with my knuckles. Still nothing. Was he sleeping? Or had he been released? I felt a stab of sadness at the thought of his having returned home without letting me know. I turned the knob and pushed the door inward.

An empty bed greeted me, the covers tossed into a bundle against the footboard. Puzzled, I opened the door wider and stepped inside.

The smell hit me first, a stench that filled my nose and triggered a primal, unspeakable horror. My stomach heaved at the sight confronting me. Blood smeared the back wall, and beneath it sprawled a body—a man in a summer suit, its ivory weave dripping scarlet. A scream tore from my throat.

 

I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew I was half-crouched, half-slumped against the wall beside the door. A woman stood over me, her hand on my shoulder. I didn't immediately recognize my surroundings. Bright sunlight streamed through a window opposite me, but my vision and my thoughts remained a blur.

I narrowed my eyes to bring the woman into focus. Her face was smooth, youthful, her cheeks pink and pleasantly rounded. Her hair was pulled back beneath a white kerchief, and she wore a simple pale blue dress covered by a starched white apron. Her expression registered concern . . . no, anxiety . . . and fear. Why?

“Miss, are you all right? Miss . . . Oh, my goodness—Emma?”

“I . . . Who are you?” Recognition struck. “Hannah Hanson?”

“Yes, Emma, it's me. It's been a long while. No, don't try to stand, not just yet,” she added when I attempted to pull my feet beneath me. “I found you like this and . . .” She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, and I saw that we weren't alone. A small commotion occupied the space near the back wall, several men in shirtsleeves I took to be doctors.

And the blood, smeared and dripping down the wall behind them.

My limbs went cold and a wave of dizziness sent the room spinning. I groaned, but at the same time I fought Hannah's restraining hands and pushed to my feet.

“Derrick.” The name was little more than a gurgle in my throat. “Oh, Derrick . . .”

Tears scalded my eyes and throat. My chest ached as if encircled by a tightening iron band, and my legs felt as if liquid had replaced the bones. Hannah thrust an arm about my waist and I leaned heavily into her side. But I reached out, my hand open, fingers stretched and shaking . . . tears streaming. The men standing over the . . . the body . . . didn't turn around, didn't acknowledge me in any way. They moved in their orderly fashion, murmuring in their calm manner. Damn them. How could they be so blasted calm? “Derrick. No. Oh, please no . . .”

“Emma, if you mean Derrick Andrews, the patient who occupied this room, that is not him.” Hannah spoke slowly and clearly. “He was discharged and left the hospital earlier today.”

Still I fought her, trying to conjure the strength in my watery limbs to pull away. Her words fell like gibberish against my ears until she tugged me none-too-gently around to face her, framed my cheeks in a pair of firm hands, and repeated what she had said.

“That is not Mr. Andrews. I don't know who it is, no one has told me, but . . . Come. The police are on their way, and we can wait for them somewhere else.”

“Not—not Derrick?”

She shook her head adamantly. “No.”

I fell against her ample side, and I could only credit her nursing skills and her experience dealing with light-headed patients for my not falling to the floor on my face. She aimed us toward the door, but before we reached it a man in a dark blue uniform rushed in. I recognized Scotty Binsford, who had attended school with my brother years ago. He stared first at the body on the floor, then blinked at me. “Emma, what are you doing here?”

I answered his question with another. “Who is he?”

“I don't know, I've only just arrived.” He moved past us to the group congregating around the body. There he placed his hands on the shoulders of two of the doctors, parting them as he would reeds at the beach. He bent at the waist, drew in a deep breath, then straightened and returned to me. “Emma, it's Wyatt Monroe.”

My eyes went wide, and my gasp stopped the doctors in their tracks. I ventured toward them. Hannah tried to catch my arm, but I sidestepped her and kept going, at the same time declaring, “I have to see.”

I stopped short a few feet away, appalled and nauseated by what I saw. Wyatt Monroe lay on his back, staring blankly up at the ceiling, a several-inch gash nearly dividing his throat in two. Judging by the amount of blood beneath and all around him, there couldn't have been a drop left in his body.

“Oh, dear God . . .”

Scotty gripped my elbow; Hannah slipped her trustworthy arm once more around my waist and pressed me to her side. “Come, Emma. You've seen enough for now. Let me take you away from here.”

I let her guide me, but stopped yet again when we reached the doorway. “Scotty, how did you get here so quickly?”

“I was already here. The station sent me over when we learned Mr. Vanderbilt had been brought in. Just a precaution, seeing as who he is.” He glanced over his shoulder at the victim, shook his head, and made a sound beneath his breath—probably an oath, and who could blame him? “I guess I'll call the station now and send for more men and the coroner.”

Hannah brought me up to the third floor, where a small dormitory had been improvised for the nurses to catch a few hours' sleep in between their shifts. A cramped kitchen area provided a few cupboards and a stove. Hannah made tea, and she and I sat at a round table beneath the slanted eaves and narrow dormer windows.

“I'm sorry we had to meet again under these circumstances, Emma. But it
is
good to see you.”

I blew at the steam rising from my cup. “How long has it been since you went off island?”

“Four years. We were just girls when I left. I went to live with my aunt in Providence and studied nursing at Roger Williams Hospital.”

“Do you like it? Nursing?”

She smiled. Hannah had always been a pretty girl, with golden brown hair and blue eyes, and a smile that always made one feel she meant it. “Very much,” she said. “But I missed Newport. When I heard of an opening here, I jumped at it. I've only just come back. It's been about two weeks, I think.”

“Your parents must be very happy.” The Hansons lived on Chestnut Street, not far from my house on the Point, and her grandparents had owned a butcher shop in town until they retired to a cottage near Sachuest Beach in Middletown. “Nanny will be pleased to hear you're back. She and your grandmother still keep up.”

“Do they? I'm glad.”

We sipped our tea, falling into a thick silence. There was so much to catch up on, so much to say after four years. We had been friends as girls—real friends, with shared secrets and favorite games and special rhymes we made up about the places and people we knew. How long ago it seemed. How lovely and carefree. But how does one happily reminisce when a man lay but a floor below in a pool of his own blood?

Yet I couldn't turn my thoughts to Wyatt Monroe's death either. The shock had been too great, and the implications too weighty to contemplate. I had seen him but a few hours ago at Beechwood. He had been my main suspect, both in his brother's death and my near drowning at the Yacht Club. The question nagged at the edge of my mind: What did his murder mean?

“I heard about Adelaide,” Hannah said.

My gaze snapped to her face. “What? Oh . . . yes.” Adelaide, who had also played with us as children, but hadn't always wanted to include Hannah, especially when an invitation came to play with my cousins at The Breakers. Oh, at those times Adelaide wanted me all to herself. Little had she known Hannah had accompanied me on those summer afternoons far more frequently than Adelaide.

“Such a shock, and so very sad at the same time.” Hannah tilted her head and set down her teacup. She reached across the table to cover my hand with her own. “Emma, are you all right? Shall we have one of the doctors take a look at you?”

I smiled, a weak effort, and shook my head. “No, I'm all right. I just want answers. I want to talk with Jesse—you remember Jesse Whyte, don't you?”

“Indeed, I do.”

“Emma.” As if I'd summoned him with my thoughts, Jesse stood in the doorway. The look on his face made me shrink against my chair and drop my gaze. It wasn't hard to guess his sentiments.
Another murder, and here's Emma in the thick of it, as always.

“Jesse, I was only in that room to see how Derrick Andrews was doing,” I found myself explaining. I got no farther.

“Yes, I'd like to talk to you about that,” he said. “Come with me, please.”

I frowned, finding his blunt request rude and wondering why he simply didn't sit down with us at the table. Hadn't he recognized Hannah? But then I remembered we sat in the nurses' dormitory, where men were never allowed, not under any circumstances.

I excused myself to Hannah and promised we would catch up soon.

My feet dragged as Jesse led me back to Derrick's hospital room. “Must I . . . ?”

“We needn't go in. Besides, the body has been removed.” He stopped outside the door. “Tell me exactly what happened, exactly what you saw.”

I went over it, trying to remember every detail as it had happened. There wasn't much to tell. “I learned from Hannah that Derrick was released earlier in the day.”