The Mill River Recluse (4 page)

Kyle relaxed as the torrents of hot water streamed over him. It was amazing how much Rowen was beginning to look like her mother. That thought saddened him, though, so he reminded himself of how far they had come since his wife, Allison, had lost her battle with cancer.

He had met his wife in Boston. Kyle had been a detective with the Boston Police Department, and Allison had worked as a counselor with the city’s Department of Social Services. Allison had been an absolute natural in her job. Her kind, easygoing nature put almost anyone at ease and made her a favorite when children were involved. When Kyle and his partner at the time had arrested a husband and wife in South Boston on child abuse charges, Allison was called in to interview the two little boys. It was a tragic case, like many others in which Kyle had been involved in his years on the force. But unlike the others, something good had come out of that one--a relationship with Allison that eventually led to their marriage.

After Allison died, Kyle found himself a single father with a seven-year-old and a job that regularly required forays into the most dangerous parts of Boston. The excitement of being a big-city detective disappeared. He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to him and Rowen losing both her parents. He began looking for a job in a safe place, preferably a small town where people felt no need to lock their doors at night. When a buddy told him that he’d heard there was an opening for a police officer in a small town in Vermont, Kyle applied immediately.

Mill River was nothing like Boston. A fender-bender or an occasional act of vandalism made for an exciting day in the small town. Pulling someone over for a traffic violation was a major incident. In Boston, people scurried; in Mill River, they strolled. For Kyle, the move was well worth a steep pay cut. The chances of his being injured or killed on the job were extremely low. Even with the rare emergencies that required his help when he was off-duty, life was now leisurely and refreshing. Of course, there was Leroy, too, but Kyle considered that to be a minor nuisance.

Kyle and Rowen lived in a small apartment in a building owned by Joe Fitzgerald, the police chief, and his wife, Ruth. There were two units on the second floor of the building, and the Fitzgeralds lived in the other apartment. Ruth ran a bakery out of the first floor. Fitz, as everyone in Mill River called him, offered the apartment to Kyle when he accepted the position with the town’s police department. It was clean and cozy, and the rent was cheap. Plus, there were other advantages.

Kyle’s schedule often required him to work irregular hours, and Ruth, a grandmotherly type whose own grandchildren lived several states away, insisted on looking after Rowen when Kyle wasn’t home. When Kyle was on duty after Rowen went to sleep, a baby monitor in her room (or, as Rowen referred to it, a “daughter monitor”) allowed Ruth to keep tabs on her from the apartment across the hall.

Then, there were the smells.

Fresh bread. Cakes. Chocolate chip cookies. And pies, especially the pies. Pecan, Boston cream, strawberry-rhubarb, pumpkin, coconut-custard, apple. By the time Rowen left for school each morning, Ruth had the ovens downstairs full of the day’s baking. The fabulous aromas rose through the floorboards of their apartment and made getting up on chilly Vermont mornings almost pleasant.

Kyle was surprised and relieved at how well Rowen had adjusted to their new life. She loved her school and her new teacher. He worried about Rowen being lonely, but since they lived in town, she could go play with other children who lived only a few blocks away. She had recently been asking for a pet. Kyle figured that a dog or cat would also be good company for her, and he’d eventually give in to her request.

Kyle finished rinsing and stepped out of the shower. After he dried himself, he tied the towel around his waist and wiped his hand in a circle on the steamy mirror. His reflection stared back at him through the round porthole. He had baggy eyes and a few days’ worth of stubble. On a whim, he struck his best bodybuilder’s pose. With the veil of steam coating the rest of the mirror, his biceps didn’t look too bad. Satisfied, he left the bathroom seeking boxer shorts and bed.

~~~

Jean Wykowski managed to fall asleep beside her snoring husband, but her rest was wrought with vivid, piercing dreams. She was in the white marble mansion, walking up the stairs to check on Mrs. McAllister. The stairs went on and on, curving and twisting, and as she struggled to reach the top, she heard the old widow calling for help, calling out for her. She could see the bedroom at the top of the stairs, the light from inside leaking beneath the door. She climbed faster.

“I’m coming, Mrs. McAllister,” Jean called in her sleep. “I’m almost there.” With superhuman strength, she vaulted the final four stairs and burst into the bedroom.

The old woman was out of bed, standing at the window.

“Mrs. McAllister, how did you get—“ Jean began, but she stopped speaking as the woman turned slowly to face her. The eye patch the widow usually wore was gone, revealing her cloudy, unseeing left eye.

“I know you have it, Jean,” Mrs. McAllister said, shaking her head. “You’re too late.”

“Oh, but Mrs. McAllister, I don’t, let me help you,” Jean stammered, rushing toward the frail widow, but before Jean could grab the old woman, she felt a strong hand gripping her own arm.

“Jeanie, hey Jeanie, you’re dreaming. Wake up, hon.”

She felt the hand shaking her now, and opened her eyes. Ron was sitting up in bed beside her.

“Are you all right? You were thrashing around and yelling, having some sort of nightmare. Thought I’d rescue you.”

“Sorry. Did I wake the kids?” Jean asked. Her heart was still beating heavily.

“Nah. You yelling has never done much to get them up.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jean said, playfully elbowing her husband. He grunted and lay back down on his pillow.

“So, what were you dreaming about?” Ron mumbled.

Jean thought of Mary McAllister’s sad face, her deliberate stare. Somehow, the old woman
knew
.

“I don’t remember,” Jean said, but Ron was already snoring again.

~~~

Leroy Underwood sat in his rusty 1986 Chevy Camaro in front of Claudia Simon’s house. The air inside the car reeked of smoke. Without taking his eyes off the teacher’s home, Leroy lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. He had really become comfortable with this house-watching habit. Sit, smoke, relax. Hope to see Claudia. He pictured her wearing only her panties, waving to him from her brightly-lit bedroom window, inviting him inside.

Frustrated, he took another drag on the cigarette. She was probably asleep, but even if she weren’t, the damned snow would prevent him from seeing her. His camera resting on the passenger’s seat would be useless tonight.

Leroy pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed *67 to prevent his number from appearing on caller ID, and selected Claudia’s number from his electronic phonebook. Since he couldn’t see her, he decided to permit himself the occasional indulgence of hearing her voice. He felt his pulse quicken as he waited for the connection. Claudia anwered after the third ring.

“Hello?” Her voice was soft and low, with just a touch of confusion. “Hello? Who’s there?”

He held his breath until she hung up and then exhaled a long, steady stream of smoke.

A part of him felt guilty for waking Claudia, but hearing her throaty voice only intensified his need for her. That voice, and the images of her that ran through his mind during these late-night spying sessions, sustained him. They also supplemented the real pictures of her that he had at home.

Leroy sighed, started the engine, and twisted what was left of his cigarette into the ashtray.

~~~

The alarm clock on his nightstand read 3:15 in the morning, but Father O’Brien was still awake. He turned over onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. In this position, he wouldn’t have to see the red digital glow of the clock as the minutes passed. He lay this way for almost half an hour, but it was no use. At 3:41, he climbed out of bed, put on his robe, and went into the dark living room.

The furnishings were sparse. There was an old sofa and matching recliner, a coffee table in need of refinishing, and a television, but those few things were enough. He rarely took anyone into the parish house. When he was home, he preferred to sit in the kitchen or at his desk in the office. What little time he spent in his living room usually occurred during the middle of the night when he had trouble sleeping.

Now he squinted down at the television. It was old, too, an RCA model from the early 1970s. He had received it as a gift when it was brand new. Sparing use had ensured that it remained operational more than thirty years later. He reached out and turned the channel dial carefully, flipping through the stations. Since he had neither cable nor a satellite dish, he could get only two or three clear channels. His choices tonight appeared to be an infomercial, a “Three’s Company” rerun, and several channels of static.

Opting for none of those, Father O’Brien returned the dial to the “off” position and sat down in the recliner. The footrest of the cranky old chair came up beneath his legs even though he had not pulled the lever to extend it, but he didn’t care.
In fact
, he thought as he rubbed his eyes and hoped for sleep,
it was quite comfortable
.

The light from his bedroom down the hall was just enough to allow him to see his reflection in the dark television screen. It was more like a silhouette, really, because he couldn’t make out his features. The outline of his balding head and the few hairs on top that refused to lie flat were all that he could see in the glass.

He remembered well the day before Christmas in 1973, the day he had received the RCA. He remembered it because on that day,
every
household in Mill River had received a new television just like it.

His mouth turned up in a slight smile as he closed his eyes. It had been such a pleasure, hearing his parishioners wonder aloud who had given so generously that Christmas. For children in town, and for perhaps a few of the adults, the delivery of the TVs had reinforced or restored beliefs in Santa Claus. Many of them had come to him with their questions, convinced that he and the church were behind the surprise. He had answered honestly that neither he nor the church was the gift-giver.

By that day in 1973, it was widely known that strange things happened in Mill River. Gifts for people seemed to appear out of nowhere--usually clothing or household goods, or an occasional money order to help cover bills for someone having a hard time. But the delivery of the television sets was the beginning of a series of larger events that occurred every few years or so.

In 1975, there was the check for ten thousand dollars that arrived at Rutland County Hospital just in time to pay for Elma Wilson’s open-heart surgery. Twice during the 1980s, a brand new school bus had been delivered to the Mill River school system, even though the school board had lacked the funds to even consider such a purchase. In 1993, a few days after a group of delinquents had driven through town in the cover of night, slashing tires as they went, a truck from the Sears auto store arrived with replacements for everyone. And not a week after the McGregor family’s house had burned down during the frigid winter of 1997, Stan and Claire McGregor and their five children had been presented with a proposed contract to rebuild their house, along with an escrow account containing the full amount of the cost of its reconstruction.

The townspeople didn’t know how or why the kindnesses were bestowed on them. No recipient was ever told the identity of the benefactor--they were simply left to wonder.

Over time, the occurrences became town legends, stories told by the oldtimers as they sat on porches drinking lemonade or in the bakery lingering over lukewarm cups of coffee. The television episode, especially, was rehashed dozens of times. Each time it was told, to a newcomer or after another person in town had received an anonymous gift, the number of televisions given on that Christmas Eve Day increased slightly. The last time Father O’Brien had heard the story, well over two hundred TVs had been given, even though the actual number had been one hundred thirty-six.

It was after four in the morning when, in the comfort of his recliner, Father O’Brien felt sleep come to him. His rest would be brief, he knew, for dawn was only a few hours away. He would have to go back to the marble mansion then, but for now, he clung to those happy memories of the past and struggled to focus on the benefactions yet to come.

Chapter 4

In her nineteen years, she had never met anyone like him.

Mary lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of her room. The image of Patrick, tall and blond, standing beside her father and the young Morgans earlier that day, was seared in her mind. She remembered over and over again how he had stared at her. She had been paralyzed by her shyness. Mary blushed at the memory and, cringing, turned her face into her pillow. She remembered what she had been wearing and felt her face burn even hotter. Not that she even owned a fancy dress, but if she had known that someone like Patrick were to arrive at the farm, she would have at least worn a skirt instead of her work pants and mucking boots.

And now, he would be at the farm every Saturday.

She didn’t know how she would be able to avoid him, but she would try.

That Saturday, and for the next several that followed, Mary managed to slip away with her black mare, Ebony, before Patrick arrived. One Saturday morning in July, though, as she was leading Ebony through the gate, Patrick pulled up beside the barn in a dark green sedan. He got out of the car and smiled at her.

He was early.

“Good morning, Mary! It’s nice to see you again! Looks like we’re in for a great day, don’t you think?”

She stood, frozen on the spot with Ebony’s reins in her hand. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry.

“Yes,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Good morning.”

“So, you’re headed out for your Saturday ride? Your father told me you do that often,” Patrick said. “Hey, maybe we could take a quick ride together before we start working him? The bay, I mean. I’ve been riding him in the training ring, but there’s not much room in there. Here comes your father now, let me ask him.”