Secrets of Hallstead House (5 page)

I reluctantly agreed. I wanted her to stick to a schedule to optimize her recovery time, but I realized that she also had a job to do and that I would have to be a little flexible. There was something I needed to do while Alex worked anyway.

I went in search of Leland, and I soon found him, on the porch around the rear of Summerplace, replacing a broken floorboard. As I approached him, he looked over his shoulder and saw me but turned away and kept working. I stood next to him silently for a while, waiting for him to acknowledge me.

Finally, he grunted, “What do you want?”

“I think you know the answer to that, Leland. Yesterday, when you showed me how to build a fire in the fireplace, you deliberately left out the part about the flue,” I accused. “You knew exactly what was going to happen when I built that fire.”

He swung around to face me. “If you can’t remember a simple thing like using the flue, which I
did
tell you about, then you’re going to have an even harder time living on this island than I thought you would,” he snarled before stalking off.

I stood there looking after him, wondering how Alex could have tolerated this man and his wretched wife under the same roof for so many years.

I continued around to the front door of Summerplace and met Pete as he was leaving. He saw me immediately, so I couldn’t turn around and head in the opposite direction. I would have to face him. He put his hands in his pockets and waited for me to get to the door. “That was some show you put on last night,” he said.

“Thanks,” I retorted, wincing inwardly.

“How’d you forget a simple thing like opening the flue?” he asked.

I resisted the urge to tell Pete that Leland had left out the part about the flue, because blaming someone else would undoubtedly make me look even worse. Instead I said hotly, “I said I was sorry. And I still am. What do you want from me?”

“Nothing, nothing. Sorry I brought it up. I guess someone from the big city shouldn’t be expected to know how to use a flue.” With that he left.

Defensively, I called after him, “You know, people in New York City have fireplaces too! I just never used one!” I immediately heard the petulance in my own voice and was embarrassed all over again.

I decided to go indoors and start moving furniture around to make Alex’s paths around the house a little easier to navigate. Although I had asked Leland for help yesterday, I figured I would be better off just doing the work myself. I started by looking around for double-sided tape. Luckily, Valentina wasn’t around and I found some in a drawer in the kitchen. I went first to the living room. I moved several small occasional and end tables back toward the walls and placed the tape along the edges of the rugs. Once that was done, I rolled up the hearthrug and placed it by the doorway. It was so thick and fluffy that it could still trip Alex even if I taped it down. Leland would have to put it somewhere else. The room didn’t look as nice as it had before I started, but at least it was safer now, and it would have to stay like this only temporarily. I walked over to the fireplace again and looked at the portrait of Forrest Harper above the mantel. He had indeed been a handsome man. I wished again that I had been able to meet him. His eyes looked so kind.

Next I went into the library. The room was practically a minefield of obstructions for Alex, and I spent a good deal of time securing rugs and moving furniture and reshelving the stacks of books that lay about on the floor and tables. I didn’t know whether there was a system for replacing the books, so I put them where I thought they belonged. It was an interesting job, actually, and I pored over many titles that I hadn’t seen before.

After I finished in the library, I checked on Alex. She hadn’t mentioned what time she wanted to start her exercises, nor had she said how long her meeting with Stephan and Will was expected to take. I knocked softly on her door and heard her call to me to enter.

When I walked into her sitting room, I was surprised to see Alex sitting on the sofa with a man I hadn’t seen before. A woman sat in the leather wing chair near the sofa. Stephan and Will were nowhere to be seen. I stopped short and started to apologize for interrupting, but Alex held out her hand to me and beckoned. “Macy, I’d like you to meet Brandt Davis and Giselle Smythe. I’ve known them both for a very long time.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Davis,” I said, holding out my hand.

He stood up and smiled, saying, “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Stoddard.”

“Please, call me Macy,” I replied.

“I will if you call me Brandt.” He smiled again, a very wide, contagious grin. He was of medium height, probably in his mid-forties, with wide, dark eyes and very short-cropped, graying hair. He was trim, and wore blue slacks and a white oxford shirt.

Next I turned to the woman, who remained seated, eyeing me warily. “It’s nice to meet you, Macy. Please call me Giselle,” she said in a clear, cultured tone.

“It’s nice to meet you, Giselle,” I said.

Up close, Giselle appeared to be about forty years old, but it was clear she had made an effort to appear younger. It worked, at least from a distance. She had blond hair that hung to her shoulder blades and light-blue eyes. Even seated, I could tell that she had a very good figure, and her clothes suggested that she knew she did too. She was dressed in a tight sweater with a low scoop neckline and slim capris. She made a very striking appearance.

“Brandt and Giselle sometimes come to visit me when Brandt isn’t working,” Alex explained. “He works for the Coast Guard, so his hours can be unpredictable. I never know when he’s going to show up, but he’s always welcome. And Pete just loves Brandt’s boat,” she added. “I’ll bet he’s down at the dock admiring it right now.” Alex looked at Brandt fondly and smiled.

“Would you excuse me, please?” Giselle asked. “I promised I’d stop in to see Aunt Vali and Uncle Leland.”

I was surprised to hear that this woman was related to Vali and Leland but said nothing. She smiled thinly at me as she walked by, then squeezed Brandt’s hand and said, “I’ll meet up with you soon, darling.” She kissed him quickly and disappeared.

Brandt looked at Alex with concern and asked, “So how have you been feeling? I’m sorry I haven’t been able to stop by in several days, but things have been very busy at work.”

“That’s fine, Brandt. You know I always appreciate it anytime you can visit. And I’ve been feeling fine, thank you. Macy has been a big help and we have even started some special exercises so that I can get back to normal.”

Brandt looked at me and chuckled. “It sounds like you’re a good influence on Alex, Macy. It’s not everyone who can get her to stop working and exercise!”

I liked Brandt right away. His was an easy laughter, and he seemed solicitous of Alex. For her part, she clearly had a great affection for him.

After some small talk about local events and the weather, Brandt excused himself, saying that he had to go find Giselle. He promised to return as often as he could and gave Alex a gentle hug as he left.

As he closed the door behind him, Alex said to me, “That Brandt is a dear. You know, he used to be married to my daughter. He was heartbroken when she died.” She sighed. “Giselle is not my favorite person, but Brandt loves her, plus she’s related to Vali and Leland, so I put up with her. She grew up in Cape Cartier, but this was kind of her second home. She was always here visiting Vali and Leland, and she and Diana became very close friends. She’s a morning news anchor for the local TV station. She doesn’t like to have Brandt out of her sight for a moment, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I think she’s too clingy.”

She put her hands on the sofa and rose slowly. “Shall we do those exercises now?” she asked.

We worked on exercises for an hour and then I suggested that she take a rest and a warm shower before lunch. She declined to rest again, as she had yesterday, but she did agree to a shower.

I ate lunch alone in the dining room. Alex had decided to work through lunch with Stephan and Will, so Vali took three trays to Alex’s office.

After lunch, I knocked on Alex’s door to see if she was ready to go for a walk. Stephan and Will were gone so she was by herself working again. She noted that Stephan and Will each had a “satellite office” in their rooms upstairs, and they had gone to confer and make some phone calls up there for a while. As she had done in the morning, she asked whether we could postpone a walk outdoors until later in the afternoon so that she could get some work done. “You know, Macy, I’ve been thinking,” Alex said. “You mentioned that you love to paint, and there are still some of my painting supplies in the turret above your room. How would you like to go up there and have a look around? You’re welcome to use any supplies that you find.”

My eyes must have lit up, because Alex laughed. “Here,” she said, taking a key from one of her desk drawers. “This will unlock the turret door from the balcony. You can’t get up there from inside your room because that door is locked from inside the turret stairway.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s really a very interesting story. Long ago, when many of these large homes were built in the Thousand Islands, their owners had listening and spying posts built into many of their rooms, but particularly the guest rooms. The owners of the homes were successful businessmen and entrepreneurs, and I suppose they wanted to know what guests may have been saying about them. So they had secret spots built into the homes to allow them to see and hear without being seen or heard. The turret doors in Summerplace are examples of those spying places. With a key one can enter a turret stairway from the balcony and listen to a guest’s conversation or even enter the guest’s room without the guest knowing anyone is there. It’s something about this house that has always fascinated me.”

“What intrigue!” I exclaimed. “Guests could have gotten themselves into real trouble if they didn’t watch what they were saying.” I laughed.

I took the key to the balcony door and went up to my room excitedly. I let myself out onto the balcony and unlocked the turret door. The stairway was dark and smelled musty, and the stone walls were clammy to the touch. I shivered when my shoulder brushed against them as I looked and felt around briefly for a light switch. I could not find one, so I slowly made my way up the winding staircase inside the dank turret.

When I emerged from the gloom at the top, I stepped out into a large, bright room with tall windows inviting sunlight from every direction. There were shades on each window, but they were rolled up at the top. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to pull them down! The wooden floors were planks painted a pale blue-gray. The walls were taken up mostly by the glorious windows, but in between the windows the walls were completely covered by paintings and pencil drawings. More paintings stood stacked against one another under the windows and against the walls. A large wooden table on one side of the turret held a wealth of art supplies, including oil paints, acrylics, watercolors, brushes, pencils, charcoals, chalk, jars, and rags—an artist’s dream! A pile of blank canvases stood waiting for inspiration in a large basket under the table. It looked like Vali had been up here to clean, because there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Beyond the table were an easel and a stool. I walked over to the easel and looked at the painting that hung there.

It was a beautiful, but unfinished, watercolor of two Canada geese flying low over the surface of the river in what looked like a narrow cove between two wooded islands. A gray, overcast sky was reflected in water that looked blue-black. A lone figure in a rowboat drifted nearby, fishing peacefully. The islands, which were only sketched in pencil, were covered with dark fir trees that reached loftily to the sky. Looking at the painting, which showed a great deal of talent, I could almost hear the geese calling starkly over the silent water.

I turned from the easel and walked around the perimeter of the large room, drinking in the breathtaking views on all sides. I could see all of Hallstead Island from this room, as well as the trees and homes on the neighboring islands. The river stretched away on either side of the island, and I could see other islands dotting the surface of the water far into the distance. As I walked around I peeked at some of the paintings that were stacked against the walls. There were some lovely waterscapes, as well as a few amateurish paintings of wildlife. There was even a charcoal sketch, signed by Alex, of that strange tree I had seen leaning over the water on the other side of the island.

This was such a tranquil room. I hoped I would be able to visit it often. The art books on the coffee table looked very interesting, and I sat down and began to look through them. I leafed first through the pages of a landscape book and had just turned my attention to a beautiful volume on watercolor painting when I heard a noise. I looked up, expecting to see a visitor emerge from the turret stairway, but no one appeared. I had probably heard something from outside. I got up to look out one of the windows and I could see Pete on the balcony below, just outside my room, using some sort of tool on one of the railing slats. I must have been so engrossed in the books that I hadn’t heard him working.

I needed to check on Alex and see if she was ready to go for that walk, so I put the books back the way I had found them and started downstairs. I had already decided that I would try to peer inside my room, as though I were an Industrial Age entrepreneur spying on one of my guests. At the bottom, though, I gave a start when I saw that the door to my room was already ajar.

I cautiously opened the door further and looked around for whoever had been here while I was upstairs. The person must have entered the turret from the balcony—that must have been the noise I had heard. Nothing seemed to be amiss, but I took a quick look around anyway. I noticed with dismay that the nightstand drawer was partially open and I knew before I looked inside what was missing.