The Eternal Ones (25 page)

“Three? I know about Constance and the Strickland guy,” Beau said. “Who’s the third?”

“Jeremy Johns.”

Beau whistled softly. “Damn, Haven. This is getting pretty serious. You’re not talking about something that happened ninety years ago. Jeremy Johns has only been dead for a few months!”

“I know! But I can’t leave the city until I find out what’s going on. I’d never be able to live with myself.”

“I see what you mean.” Beau paused to think. “But isn’t there anywhere else you could stay? You’d be an idiot to keep sleeping at some psycho’s house.”

“I guess I could take a room at the Ouroboros Society. But how am I supposed to solve this if I’m hiding from my only suspect?”

“Are you sure you can solve this, Haven? I mean, sounds like all you’ve found so far are a bunch of old newspaper clippings. Do you have any real clues?”

“Not real—” Haven started to say. “Wait a second. I did find out that Constance has a relative who may still be alive. Someone named Frances Whitman. She was the one who donated the scrapbook to the Historical Society—in 1995.”

“Well, there you go—that’s a clue! You gotta go see her.”

“How? She could live in Tibet for all I know.”

“Did you look her up on the Internet?”

“No,” Haven admitted sheepishly.

“Good God, Haven. A person who didn’t know you so well might think you were scared or something. Hold on.” He laid down the phone, and Haven heard him start up his computer. A few minutes later, Beau reappeared on the other end of the line. “That couldn’t have been easier. Her address is 150 Central Park West. She held a fund-raiser there last month for some park renovation project.”

Haven could see the building in her mind, its twin towers reflected in Central Park Lake. The Andorra apartments. Constance Whitman had once lived on the seventeenth floor, and even the thought of returning made Haven squirm.

“I don’t know,” she said, her courage faltering. “Constance’s parents had an apartment there. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable—”

“Dammit, Haven!” Beau bellowed, and Haven jumped. “Sometimes we gotta do things we don’t want to do. You have no problem waking me up at seven o’clock in the morning, but you’re not willing to do anything that makes you
uncomfortable
?”

“You’re one to talk,” Haven pointed out. “You can’t even leave Tennessee.”

“Don’t you
dare
change the subject. I
told
you we are not going there. Now grow some balls and go see Ms. Whitman. Otherwise I’m not going to help your sorry ass anymore.”

“All right.” Haven sighed.

“And call me when you’re done!”

“Bossy, bossy, bossy,” Haven mumbled as she hung up the phone.

 

EVEN FROM A DISTANCE, the Andorra was intimidating. Big enough to house everyone in Snope City, it was renowned for the two towers that rose so far into the sky that the neighboring buildings seemed stunted. The towers had always reminded Constance of horns, Haven recalled as she reluctantly made her way north along Central Park West. When she finally arrived, she found herself looking at two identical entrances and instinctively chose the one to the south. Even as she stepped through the door, Haven felt her body tense up, as if she were revisiting the scene of a terrible dream. If the elderly doorman hadn’t greeted her with a friendly smile, she might not have found the courage to speak.

“I’m here to see Frances Whitman,” Haven announced.

“Is she expecting you?” the man asked as Haven stared at his epaulets. The doormen’s uniforms hadn’t changed since the days when Constance’s parents had lived in the building.

“No.”

“Your name?

“Haven Moore.” She waited as the doorman rang the Whitman apartment and relayed the information. After a moment he turned back to Haven.

“Ms. Whitman would like to know the purpose of your visit.”

“Please tell her I have a few questions about Constance,” Haven said, taking a chance.

The woman on the other end of the intercom must have been listening. “Okay, miss,” the doorman told Haven after a short pause. “You can go up. She’s on the seventeenth floor.”

“Apartment D,” Haven added.

“Have you been here before?” asked the doorman.

“Not for a very long time,” Haven told him truthfully.

 

A HUSKY MAID in an old-fashioned blue-and-white uniform answered the door just seconds after Haven buzzed.

“This way,” the maid announced, leading Haven through a maze of museumlike rooms, each more lovely than the next. As they passed the living room, Haven caught a glimpse of a prim blonde woman with an angry expression sitting on the edge of a velvet-covered sofa. A man wearing old-fashioned spectacles sat beside her with his arms folded across his chest. Haven blinked, and Constance’s parents disappeared.

At last Haven arrived at a door. When the maid opened it, Haven at first saw nothing but sky. Squinting in the sunlight, she followed the woman out onto an enormous terrace that overlooked Central Park Lake—the same terrace she had seen in her vision. With the city smog beneath them, the air smelled sweet and clean. Rosebushes scaled the building’s brick wall, their crimson flowers dangling from trellis holes like the heads of criminals left to suffer in stocks. In each corner of the terrace, topiary trees trimmed in perfect spheres sneered down at their cousins in the park below. Haven expected to find some aristocratic dowager pruning the roses, but sitting at a table with the paper and a pot of tea was a woman in her midthirties, wearing jeans and flip-flops.

“I’m Frances,” the woman said, rising to shake Haven’s hand, then gesturing to the seat across from her at the table. With her short blonde hair and willowy figure, she looked far more like Constance than Haven ever would.

“Haven.”

“I’m just having some tea. Would you like a cup?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Haven said.

“I must admit I’m intrigued,” Frances said as the maid set down another cup and saucer. Haven instantly recognized the china’s red and gold pattern. The dishes belonged to a set Constance’s mother had inherited from an aunt. “I was expecting someone quite a bit older. How on earth do you know about Constance?”

Haven had her answer ready. “I’m researching the history of the Ouroboros Society for school. I came across an article about Constance’s death, and I wanted to find out more.”

“I see. An intrepid girl reporter,” Frances said. “What school do you go to? I graduated from Spence about a million years ago.”

It was the one question for which Haven hadn’t prepped. “Blue Mountain.”

“Blue Mountain? Where is
that
?”

“Tennessee,” Haven admitted.

“And you’ve come all the way from Tennessee to interview
me
?” Frances Whitman didn’t buy it for a second.

“I have a few other things planned while I’m here,” Haven said, wishing she could lie as easily as Iain.“This apartment belonged to Constance’s parents, didn’t it?”

Frances smiled knowingly. “Yes. Constance was their only child. When they died, their nephew—my father—inherited the place. I’m the last of the Whitmans, so I got it when my parents passed away a few years ago.”

“Did your mom and dad ever meet Constance?”

“Oh God, no. Constance died
at least
twenty years before my father was born, and the family didn’t like to talk about what had happened. I doubt I would even have known her name if I hadn’t come across her obituary when I was about your age. It said that she’d died along with her lover in a tragic fire, which of course I found terribly romantic. And it mentioned that they had both been members of an organization called the Ouroboros Society that was devoted to the study of reincarnation. After that I was hooked. I visited the OS and started reading all the old articles I could find at the Historical Society. And then I remembered the basement.”

“The basement?” Haven asked.

“Every apartment in this building has its own storage facility in the basement. When my parents moved in, we tried to put some boxes down there, but our space was jammed full. I guess we just forgot about it. But after I started reading about Constance, I went back down there.” Frances paused to taste her tea. “And I hit the jackpot.”

“What did you find?” Haven asked eagerly.

“All of Constance’s things. Her parents must have packed up everything that wasn’t destroyed in the fire and put it in storage. There were boxes and boxes of these crazy flapper dresses with the most beautiful beading I’d ever seen. I think she may have made them herself. And there were photos of her with her boyfriend and different people from the OS. I even found some old love letters.”

“From Ethan?”

Frances’s eyes glimmered. She had gossip to share. “I don’t think so. None of the letters were signed. Whoever wrote them was trying to win her over. As far as I can tell, Ethan never had to try that hard.”

“Do you think I could see the letters?” Haven asked.

“Sure—if I still had them.”

“Where are they?” Haven asked.

“Gone. A couple of months after I found the stuff, the building’s storage facility was robbed. Our next-door neighbors lost a fortune in furniture. They took all of Constance’s boxes, too.”

“Why would anybody want to take a bunch of old letters and dresses?”

Frances shook off a flip-flop and propped her bare foot up on a nearby planter. “I imagine the thieves knew what they were doing. Those dresses were probably worth a mint. The guys showed up on the security tapes. I watched them myself. Two professional-looking types loaded all the stuff into a truck parked out back. They left fingerprints and everything. You’d think the cops could have caught them, but we never heard a thing.”

“What about the scrapbook you donated to the Gramercy Park Historical Society?” Haven asked. “How did that get left behind?”

“The Gramercy Park Historical Society? I’ve never heard of it. You must mean the New York Historical Society. Anyway, the thieves didn’t leave the scrapbook behind,” Frances said. “As far as I know, it never belonged to Constance. I found it at the Sixth Avenue flea market back in the nineties. The guy who sold it to me said it had come from the estate of some rich old spinster—his word, not mine. He didn’t know her name. He thought she must have followed the case back in the day.”

Haven let the information sink in. “And what did you think of the articles in the scrapbook?” she finally asked. “Do you think Ethan Evans could have murdered Constance?”

“Absolutely not,” Frances said with a vigorous shake of her head. “I think he and Constance were madly in love. I’m thirty-six years old, Haven, and I’ve already been married three times. And even though all my husbands turned out to be jerks, I’d still like to believe I know real love when I see it. Maybe you’ll say I’m just a hopeless romantic. But I read the police report. Constance and Ethan died in each other’s arms. In fact, the firemen found the bodies still locked in an embrace. Does that sound like murder to you?”

“No,” Haven had to admit. There was something stirring inside of her that she had thought was dead. “I guess it doesn’t.”

“Exactly,” Frances said with a satisfied smile. “So. Now that I’ve told you everything I know, why don’t you tell me why you’re
really
here, Miss Moore.”

The question took Haven by surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, come
on
,” Frances replied with a comic huff. “Blue Mountain High School? Are you kidding?”

“I don’t understand,” Haven stammered as she started to rise.

“Please, sit down,” Frances urged. “There’s no need to get upset. You can trust me. I’ve been expecting Constance to show up again since I first read about her. Now a girl from Tennessee comes to see me with questions about my cousin who died in 1925? It can’t be a coincidence.” She raised one eyebrow in expectation. “So. Give me the scoop.”

“I . . . I really don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Whitman. I think you may have read too many books on reincarnation. Thank you for your help, but I have another appointment this morning.”

“Such a shame,” Frances pretended to pout. “All right then. Just promise you’ll come back to see me when you’ve finished your ‘research. ’ ”

“I promise,” Haven lied. She was beginning to feel light-headed. A vision was on the way, and she had to force herself to remain upright and alert.

 

ONCE SHE HAD FLED the Andorra, Haven crossed the street in a daze and stumbled into Central Park, hoping she could reach a safe place before she was overcome by the vision. Haven plopped down on the grass by the lake—just as Constance must have done a hundred times before—and the world faded into darkness.