An Open Book Part 3

Edward nodded, with a small smile. "Of course. I'm already a great-grandfather several times over, but Philip's arrival was indeed a surprise. But a happy one, let me a.s.sure you. He's met the rest of my family-I live with one of my daughters now-and they have been quite welcoming."

Vanessa cleared her throat. "So, the kid here talked you into coming to look for Edith?"

Both Edward and Philip nodded. "As he told you, Philip had her maiden name Mercer from the birth certificate," Edward said. "I told him where she had been living when I knew her, and Philip was able to track down a Pennsylvania marriage license for Edith Mercer and Robert Hathaway. I gather she and her husband remained here after they married."

I nodded. "They did, and she stayed on after he . . . was gone." Why are there no terms for death that sound neither silly nor cruel? "She was a very independent person, you know."

Edward smiled sadly. "She always was, else we would not be here now."

Laura Johnson poked her head in anxiously. "Everything all right in here?" she said.

"Just fine, my dear. We were explaining to these ladies how Philip found me. And we were just getting to the point of how we located Edith."

Laura looked blankly at him. "Edith?"

Edward looked distressed. "Oh, dear-I hadn't realized . . . perhaps you could explain?" He looked at Vanessa.

Vanessa once again a.s.sumed her professional voice. "Mrs. Johnson, the purpose of our trip here today was to find out if you knew anything about the death of Edith Hathaway on the hill behind your property."

"What? Oh my goodness!"

"You weren't aware of this?" Vanessa pressed.

"No, I hadn't heard . . . When did this happen?"

"Yesterday afternoon, when you said you were at the mall. I a.s.sume the coroner and his crew had left by the time you and your family returned home?"

Laura was clearly having trouble processing what she was hearing. "There was nothing unusual here when we came home, and then I sent the kids upstairs and we sat in the living room . . . Uncle Edward, did you know? Why didn't you say anything?"

Edward had aged perceptibly, and I felt sorry for him. "I was so stunned by what happened that I didn't know what to do. This community is unfamiliar to me, and I had Philip here to consider. I owe you an apology, Laura. But may I complete this interview and fill you in on the details later?"

"All right, I guess," Laura muttered. "But I'm staying. I'll let you speak." She looked at Vanessa to see if she would challenge her right to be here, but luckily Vanessa only shrugged. The so-called interview was already so far from standard that one more partic.i.p.ant wouldn't make a lot of difference, I figured. "How are you related to Laura, Mr. Fairfield?" Vanessa asked.

"She is a first cousin, twice removed, descended from that uncle that I mentioned. Her grandmother inherited the house from my uncle, and the family has lived here all along. I'm afraid we've rather imposed on her, especially since we've really only met once or twice over the years."

"And you were staying in this house while you waited to s.h.i.+p out?" Vanessa asked, making a note in her notebook.

"Yes. In 1944 it belonged to my uncle. It was more convenient to the Philadelphia Navy Yard than my parents' home in Pittsburgh. That's how I happened to be here when my friend threw that party-sort of a farewell event."

"And how did you talk Laura into letting you stay here now?" Vanessa demanded.

Edward sighed. "If you're asking, no, I didn't tell her the full story. I said that at my advanced age, I wanted to visit all my far-flung relatives one last time, and revisit places I had once known. I suppose I made her feel guilty, but she was kind enough to invite me to stay. I do apologize for misleading you, Laura," he said to her. She just shook her head.

"How did you explain Philip?" I asked.

"I told Laura that Philip was one of my great-grandsons, which is true, and said we could share a room."

"You two couldn't have stayed in a motel?" Vanessa asked.

"I had a particular reason for wanting to stay here, as you'll see," Edward replied.

"Laura didn't know about Edith?"

"That we were once lovers, or that she died up on that hill?"

Laura's eyes widened at that, but she held her tongue.

"Either. Both." Vanessa definitely appeared frustrated at the slow pace of Edward's replies.

"No, not yet. I would have explained the connection to Laura, were it not for unexpected events. I wanted to make sure Edith didn't object."

"Where were you yesterday?" I asked Philip.

"I picked up Mrs. Hathaway at her house and brought her here. Then Mr. Fairfield asked if maybe I might like to do some sightseeing, since I've never been to Pennsylvania before. But I knew he really wanted some time alone with Mrs. Hathaway, and I wanted to give them some privacy." The poor boy looked miserable; obviously his high school project hadn't turned out the way he had expected.

"Hold on," Vanessa said. "You'd already met Mrs. Hathaway? Because I don't see her getting into a car with some kid she's never seen before."

Edward interrupted, "Chief Hutchins, please, may I go on with the story?" "Your questions will be answered, I promise."

"In a minute," Vanessa said. "Why'd you bring Edith here? Why not just go to her house and talk with her there?"

"A fair question. This was where I was staying when Edith and I . . . came together. So many years ago . . ." He seemed to be drifting into memories, and I had to wonder how much stamina he had.

I could tell that Vanessa was getting more and more impatient. "Okay, so you two show up here in Strathmere. Did you go straight to Edith and introduce yourselves?"

Philip spoke up. "Uh, not exactly. Mr. Fairfield here thought it might be less of a shock if I showed up and talked to her first. He wasn't sure if she'd be happy to see him. So that's what I did."

"How did she take it?" I asked.

"Fine, really. She asked me in, and we spent a lot of time talking. I was surprised how honest she was, since she didn't even know me. She said she'd often thought about the baby she gave away, but she still figured she did the right thing. She wasn't sure if Mr. Fairfield would come back, either to her, or at all, after the war. She wasn't mad or anything-I mean, they'd only known each other a week. I think she was sorry that she and her husband never had kids, but she didn't say so. Anyway, we got along great."

I could imagine Edith finding pleasure in that unlikely scene, and realized that the incongruous sodas in her refrigerator had probably been meant for Philip. But I kept silent: I had the feeling we were getting to the important part at long last.

Vanessa apparently agreed. "So you told Edith about Mr. Fairfield, and you all got together here?"

"Yeah. Mrs. Hathaway handled the news pretty well, so I told her that Mr. Fairfield was still alive, and I asked her if she wanted to see him again, and that if she did, he was here in town at his uncle's old house. She looked surprised, and then she asked if she could think about it-alone. I said sure, fine, and I came back here and waited for her to call me."

"What time was that?" I asked.

"After lunch, on Thursday, I guess. We'd spent the morning looking at old photos and just talking, and then I told her about Mr. Fairfield, and she said she'd let me know later. And then I left."

I looked at Vanessa. "Edith came into the library that afternoon and took out the book that Philip returned. She seemed fine." She certainly hadn't looked as though she'd just heard life-altering news.

Philip glanced at me quickly, then went on, "Yeah, well, she called around five and said she would like to meet us the next day. Yesterday morning I went over and picked her up and brought her back to the house here. Then like I said, Mr. Fairfield asked me if maybe I could be somewhere else for a while. I was okay with that."

"Mr. Fairfield, what did you tell Laura? After all, you were her guests, and she barely knew you, and then you go and invite guests into her home?" Vanessa asked and glanced at Laura; Laura merely shrugged.

"It might've been wrong of us, but she never knew Edith would be coming here," said Edward. "She told me that she and the family had planned the shopping excursion, and I pleaded fatigue-I can get away with that at my age-and sent them on their way."

"That's true," Laura said. "I invited Philip to join us, but when he begged off I just figured he was staying behind to keep Uncle Edward company."

Edward nodded. "So you see, we didn't have to make any elaborate excuses."

"What did happen?" Vanessa asked. "Mr. Fairfield, how did Edith die?"

Edward sat back in his high wingback chair, looking like an ancient statue carved in stone. "We talked. We remembered. Then she said, 'I want to go back to our place.'"

Vanessa c.o.c.ked her head. "'Our place'? Where was that?"

He looked over our heads, into the distant past. "We met in summer, and the gra.s.s was high. We used to climb the hill there and admire the view. Which has changed very little, I must say. And then we would hide ourselves in the tall gra.s.s and . . . I think you can fill in the rest. Our daughter was conceived there."

"How could you take a frail old woman on a hike in the snow? She'd had a hip replaced, for G.o.d's sake!" Vanessa said.

"She didn't tell me. And she would have been angry if I had fussed. She was the one who proposed going up there. As you may well know, she was a strong-willed woman."

He was right about that. "So you went up the hill. And?" I prompted.

"We went up there-a bit more slowly than in the past, I must admit. We admired the view, after we'd caught our breath. We talked a bit. And then she sort of crumpled, and she was gone."

"How could you know she was dead? Couldn't you have gone for help? Or called someone?" Vanessa demanded.

"My dear officer, I don't possess one of those cell phone things. I knew it would take me some time to make my way down the hill, and I knew there was no one home in any case. I came back to the house and took a moment to catch my breath, and by then I could see someone up on the hill, and shortly after that you appeared. I certainly didn't intend to just leave her there, but by the time I was in a position to call for someone to do anything about it, I could tell it was already in your capable hands. In any case, at my age I've seen death often enough. It would have made no difference. She didn't suffer."

Of course that was the moment Vanessa's cell phone rang. I think we all jumped, so absorbed were we in Edward's story. Van fished it out of her pocket impatiently and looked at it, then stood up quickly. "I have to take this." She stalked off into the hallway, lifting the phone to her ear. No one spoke in her absence; what was there to say?

Van was back in under two minutes, and dropped into her chair. "That was the coroner's office. Turns out the guy on duty had Edith as his teacher, so he put her at the head of the line." She turned to face Edward. "She died of a blood clot in her heart. Even with blood thinners, it happens with people who've had a joint replaced. Could have happened anytime, even while she was sitting in her own living room. So it wasn't the climb that caused it." Vanessa paused to let Edward digest this fact before going on. "Just for the record, what did you do next?"

Edward's gaze looked past us all. "I sat with Edith for a time, remembering her as she was. It had been so long . . . and the time we had together was so short. Then I tried to decide what I should do. I went back down the hill, but by then I was exhausted-it was snowing just a bit, if you recall-and by the time I felt strong enough to call, I saw your vehicle's flas.h.i.+ng lights on the road in front of the house, and I knew that someone had found Edith." Then he turned to me. "I'm very sorry, Sarabeth, that you had to find her like that. It never occurred to me that anyone else would pa.s.s by so soon, and I didn't see you coming."

Vanessa insisted on following through. "What did you tell your great-grandson here? Didn't he ask where she was?" Philip looked startled by Van's attention, and glanced at his great-grandfather again.

"When Philip returned, I said only that Edith had gone home. I gather your crew had left by then, so he didn't see them."

"Mr. Fairfield, you should have told me!" Philip looked like he was trying not to cry.

"You're right, Philip. But I wasn't sure how you'd take the news, and I hadn't made up my mind how I would handle the whole situation."

"Were you planning to talk to the police, or were you just going to walk away?" Vanessa demanded.

"To be honest, I don't know. I must have been more shaken than I realized. As you might imagine, it's been a rather stressful few weeks-I had not had time to properly absorb all that had happened. Philip finding me, learning of our daughter, and that Edith was still living in Strathmere. I had hoped to make amends, but I was not granted time to do so. I'm sorry if that caused you trouble, Chief Hutchins. Laura, I apologize that I inadvertently brought you and your family into this unfortunate situation."

We sat in silence for a few moments. Edith had lived among us for decades, and as far as I knew, no one in town had known about her baby. Then nearly seventy years later, a teacher in another state a.s.signed a school project which ended in Edith's death on a snowy hill. Had she finally achieved closure for that long-ago episode, and, knowing that her child had prospered and the family had gone on, had Edith felt she could finally let go? I felt bad for Edward and Philip: the elder having just learned the story, only to see Edith die; the younger to be thrown late into an unexpected drama with tragic consequences. I wondered how much he would include when he turned in his project report.

"What happened to Edith's purse?" the ever-practical Vanessa asked.

"It's here-she left it behind when we climbed the hill. I was going to turn it over to you," Edward said.

"And the library book?" I asked gently.

"I found it in the car," Philip answered. "It must have fallen out of her bag. I tried to take it back to Mrs. Hathaway's house, but she didn't answer, and I didn't want to leave it in front of the door in case it got wet. I figured it'd be safer at the library, and I knew where that was."

I smiled at him. "Edith did always want to have something to read on hand. Thank you for returning it. And thank you both for your explanation."

"Do we face any charges?" Edward looked at Vanessa.

"No, I don't think so," she said. "The coroner said it was natural causes, and he's not going to make a fuss." She hesitated before adding the standard phrase, "I'm sorry for your loss."

"You're very kind," Edward replied.

Vanessa stood up. "We should go so I can write all this up. You two driving back to Ohio?"

"I wondered if perhaps there would be a service of some kind for Edith?" Edward said. "If so, I would like to attend."

"I can't imagine there wouldn't be," I answered. "If n.o.body else steps up, I'll see that there's something planned. I'm sure it would be well attended. I'll give you a call and let you know."

He smiled at me. "Thank you."

Laura, recognizing that the conversation had finally run its course, came to her feet. "I'll see you out." She followed us to the front door, then asked in a low voice, "Is Uncle Edward in any trouble?"

"I don't think so," Van said. "I'm not going to make things difficult for him."

"That's good. I'm sorry we didn't know anything about it-you could have wrapped this up faster if we'd only come home a little earlier."

We'd made it out the door when Philip came out and ran to catch up. He thrust a piece of paper toward me, and I saw a phone number on it. I let Vanessa go ahead of me before I spoke to him. "Was there anything else, Philip?" I asked.

"Well, yeah, kind of. You knew Mrs. Hathaway pretty well, didn't you?"

"As well as anyone else in town these days, I suppose." She'd kept all of us in the dark about some rather important things, but I would have called her a friend. "Why?"

"Well, you know, I only just found out she existed, and now she's gone. You think maybe I could get in touch with you sometime and you could tell me more about her?"

"I'd be happy to, Philip. She was quite a lady. You let me know and I'll be happy to talk with you, or email, or whatever you prefer."

"Thanks," he said shyly, then retreated back into the house.

Poor Laura-unknown relatives showing up on her doorstep, followed by a body up on the hill and police coming to call? And people thought that life in a small town was so peaceful. Little did they know!

Vanessa and I drove back toward town. I thought for a while about how to go about planning a memorial service for Edith, and then another thought struck me. "I wonder if Edith left a will."

"Probably. I was going to track down that lawyer on Monday. Why?"

"I wonder if she'd made any provision for the heirs of her daughter."

"Huh, I hadn't even thought of that. It's a long shot, but you never know. Funny about how the things you do early in your life come back to bite you in the b.u.t.t," Vanessa said.

"Does that mean you're hiding any deep, dark secrets in your past?"

"No, not me. You?"