Home Before Dark (30 page)

'You’re wasting your time,’ Grace Wilkes said. 'I haven’t the
first idea what became of the boy, couldn’t even tell you if
he’s still alive.’
'I’d like to hear your side of what happened.’
'How did you get hold of my name?’ Grace frowned, narrowing
her eyes at Campbell Armour over her raised coffee cup.
'The local paper,’ Campbell said, which was close enough
to the truth. He felt it might be unwise to let her know he’d
talked to Dr Stilwell. 'It said the bodies were discovered by
yardman, Earl Wilkes and his wife, Grace, housekeeper . . .
so I did a little investigative work, looked you up in the white
pages.’ He smiled.
She just stared at him.
'Mrs Wilkes,’ he added solemnly, I’m real sorry about your
recent loss.’ The way it came out sounding gauche, but not insincere.
Her eyes looked as if they were drowning. An unnatural
puffiness about her face, possibly the result of cortisone
treatment, had erased once pretty features. A small woman,
otherwise delicately trim, maybe sixty-five, seventy, she wore
avocado velour sweats and trainers with pom-pom laces; a pair of crutches, gaily wrapped in tangerine and yellow chiffon
scarves, lay beside her in the booth.
He found it hard to imagine a more unlikely Mrs Danvers.
She lowered the cup and stirred a sachet of sweetener into
her coffee, taking her time before saying slowly, 'Earl was a good man. He had a lot of pain at the end. Never a word of complaint. Lemme ask you something, Mr Armour . . .’
He nodded. 'Sure, anything.’
'Why open this sorry business all up again? It happened
a long time ago and I told the police back then everything I
knew. I’ve put it from my mind. Had to.’
'I can appreciate that, ma’am,’ Campbell said, tasting a forkful of the special – macaroni cheese with pepperoni sauce – and wishing he’d played safe and ordered the fried chicken
basket. 'But I don’t know where else to start. The police were
no help, none at all.’
Earlier, Campbell had considered dropping by the sheriff’s
office in Canaan, but without an investigator’s licence he knew he wouldn’t get far. Just draw attention to himself. The
sheriff involved in the Seaton case had died a few years back.
'You don’t look to me like a private eye.’
'No?’ He smiled, unsure whether it was his youth or
ethnicity that was giving her a problem. 'Then I’d call this
an effective disguise.’
The interview wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. More
comfortable talking to a plasma screen than face-to-face,
Campbell was reluctant to admit his lack of experience might
be telling against him.
They were sharing a booth in the family section of Annie’s
Grill in Torrington, a run-down blue-collar town ten miles
south of Norfolk. White-tiled from floor to ceiling with a
magnolia trim, the coffee shop had been Grace’s choice of
venue.
She wasn’t eating. 'I don’t see how I can help you.’
'You knew him, Mrs Wilkes,’ he said, leaning forward.
'You’re the only one left who has a real connection.’
'I guess. But what exactly does your client want with
Ernest?’
He sat back and waited a moment, toying with his food.
'There’s a confidentiality issue.’ He put on an official
sounding voice, looking at her over the top of his glasses. 'I
can only reveal that it concerns a bequest.’
She thought for a moment. 'You said on the phone it might
be worth my while to get in touch. How does that work?’
'My client is offering a substantial reward for any information
that leads to the discovery of Ernest Seaton’s whereabouts.’
There was a silence. He watched Grace reach for the pink
clam-shell cell phone that lay beside her cup and move it
closer to her. Then he said, 'Maybe we could begin with you
telling me what happened that night?’

The receptionist at All Saints Preschool and Daycare Center,
a heavily pregnant Indian woman in a sari called Joy, informed
me in a hushed sing-song that they had no vacancies till next
spring.
'I’m not interested in enrolling a child,’ I explained patiently.
'A friend of mine works here.’ I looked around. 'Where is
everybody, by the way?’
The place seemed unusually quiet for a kindergarten.
'Nap time,’ she said. 'Please speak softly.’
I showed her Jelly’s photo, which she barely glanced at
before handing it back, shaking her head. 'Haven’t seen her.’
'I think she might be a supervisor. She … plays the piano.’
Joy cut her cow-like eyes to a roster of staff faces on the
wall beside her desk, the 'All Saints’ team presided over by
'mother hens’, Mrs Quinn and Mrs Arbogast. I could see
Jelly’s was not among them.
'What did you say she was called?’
'I don’t know her last name. It’s really important. Look, I
wonder if I could talk to some of the other members of staff?’
'She doesn’t work here, I tell you.’
Her tone firmer now’ and not all that friendly.
It was the same story at The Leapfrog Center and Precious
Littles. Nobody recognised Jelena from her photograph, the
only one I had of her, or from my notional description. I
spent the next hour trudging around in the heat checking
with the other local kindergartens I’d marked on the map as
'possibles’. They were no help either. I realised that Jelly
might’ve misled me about where she worked, but I couldn’t
give up on the idea that she was somehow connected with
the area. The subway stop was all I had to go on, my only
point of reference.
Disheartened, I retraced my steps through the drab tree
lined streets. A mixed, lower-middle-class neighbourhood of
narrow clapboard houses, white-brick apartment buildings
scarred with graffiti, the odd run-down mini-mart on a corner,
it was a long way from the Hotel Carlyle. By the time I’d got
back to the main intersection with Macdonald Avenue, my
shirt was soaked with sweat. I began to feel the sidewalk sucking
at the soles of my feet, every step becoming more difficult,
as if I was wading through quicksand.
It should have been a warning.
I remember standing in front of the Astoria Federal Savings
Bank, debating whether to go inside – Jelly had told me she
once worked at a bank – when a jet fighter passed low
overhead making the sound of tearing paper. I looked up at
the pulsing white sky and suddenly my head started to spin.
When I tried to walk on I could no longer see the sidewalk
or feel my legs. There was a hand at my elbow.
We only just made it through the door of a Carvel’s icecream
franchise that was next to the bank before everything

went black.
I thought I was going down, but the moment passed. I
heard a female voice ask, 'You okay? Want me to call an
ambulance?’
'I could use a glass of water,’ I said.
The girl came from behind the counter and helped me to
a chair. There was no one else in the ice-cream parlour. 'You
don’t look so good, mister.’
Had I imagined the guiding hand?
'I’ll be fine. Just not used to the heat.’ I shivered. I could
feel the air conditioning turning the wet shirt on my back
clammy.
'Yeah, you want to be careful, it’s hot as balls out there.’
It seemed an odd thing to say. She was a fresh-faced high
school kid, blonde and freckled, not more than sixteen.
Revived by the iced water, I thanked her for 'saving my life’,
left her a tip that made her eyes light up, and headed for the
door.
I turned and asked, 'Did somebody help me in here?’
She looked blank. I saw her remove a white earphone. 'I’m
sorry?’
I repeated the question.
'I wasn’t really looking. You take care now.’

50

'It was too quiet, even for a Sunday,’ Grace began, nervously
flicking the flap of her cell phone open and shut. 'I got a bad
feeling the moment I walked in the front door . . . the house
was silent, and there was this smell I didn’t recognise.’
'You remember the time?’ Campbell asked.
'Sunday mornings we’d get there late, like around nine.’
'You didn’t live on the place?’
She shook her head. 'Moved out when I got married.’
Campbell dropped his gaze. 'Okay, you entered the premises
. . . then what?’
'There was no sign of anyone, so I called Earl in from the
yard and made him go up . . . just to check they were all
right… I waited at the foot of the stairs. It was too damned
quiet – little Ernie was always up and about.’
She paused, and he could see her trying to filter the memories,
not to let them swamp her. 'I could hear the clock ticking
in the hall, and then him tapping at their bedroom door,
calling out their names . . .’
He steered her past the moment of discovery. 'The boy
was hiding in the broom closet under the stairs?’
'We thought at first he was dead too:
Campbell nodded. “I read about the blood.’
'We woke him … he didn’t know where he was, couldn’t
barely talk, trembling all over. I wrapped him in a blanket
and gave him some hot tea.’
'You think he was hiding from someone?’
She squinted at him. 'Ernie hated it when his parents
fought. He’d crawl in there sometimes just to get away. It
was like … his special place.’
'Where had all the blood come from, Grace?’
'There was some blood. You know how the papers

exaggerate.’
'Yes, but how did it get there? On his face and hands. You
think he witnessed what happened, or only went in the room
after the event?’
'How the hell would I know?’ She flared suddenly. 'I didn’t
want to think about it then – what that poor kid might have
seen or heard – and I damned sure don’t want to think about
it now.’
'I understand,’ he said, backing off.
Campbell pushed his plate aside. He looked at Grace’s
moon face that in repose gave little away and wasn’t sure
whether he should try to win back her confidence, or start
putting on the pressure.
He shifted down a tone. 'How did he get on with his

parents?’
'Ernest? He may only’ve been young, but he saw Gary
Seaton for what he was – a small-town loser whose one idea
of a good time was to get smashed at the Gin and Chowder
Club. They didn’t relate. He was a lot closer to his mother.’
Campbell nodded. 'I’ve seen her photograph. An attractive
woman.’
'June had something about her … an energy, you know,
she was full of life, made everyone feel good. She had plenty
of admirers, but she was such a needy soul, always craving
excitement.’ She hesitated. 'It got her killed.’
'You mean she couldn’t find what she wanted at home?’
'It wasn’t a happy marriage … all they ever did was fight.’
Grace gave him a distracted look, her attention somewhere
else, focused on the past. 'They were fighting that night . . .
I was up at the house, fixing their dinner. Gary had been
drinking and the two of them started screaming and hollering
at each other until it got so bad I thought of calling the cops.’
She gave a heavy sigh. 'In the end, well … I just left them
to it as usual.’
'What was the fight about, do you remember?’
'Same, same old story. June had been at a party in New
York City and stayed out all night – only this time she ended
up in hospital down there. Nothing serious, she had a fall
and knocked herself out, but Gary had to go and bring her
home.’
'She was cheating on him.’
Grace nodded. 'He found a letter she’d written some fella
she’d taken a shine to I guess she forgot to mail it, or didn’t
have time.’
'You saw the letter?’
'He confronted her with it . . . accused her of planning to
run off and leave him. June denied everything, said it was
just a fantasy. Then Gary forced her to read part of the letter
out loud . . . about falling in love. She started crying.’
'You don’t know who it was addressed to? Was a name
mentioned?’
She turned her head slowly from side to side. 'Not that I
heard.’
'What happened to this letter?’ Campbell asked. 'There
was nothing about it at the inquest. Did you mention it to
the police?’
'Gary could have tore it up, I guess, thrown it in the garbage;
maybe it just got lost in all the confusion. I told them everything
I knew. What does it matter now?’
A whole lot, the detective thought, but decided to let it go.
A more experienced interviewer, he felt, might have pushed
harder: he was afraid of losing her.
'You think June was really going to leave him?’
'She told me once she only stayed for the boy’s sake. Said
she felt trapped up there in that big house, bored out of her
mind, her life draining away. He kept her under kind of a
curfew. Whenever she went out, Gary used to warn her, “Don’t
forget now, Junebug, home before dark.’”
'Home before dark,’ Campbell repeated.
'And June would always finish for him, you know, like
mocking his authority, “Or there’ll be the Devil to pay.’”
'It must have been quite an ordeal for you, Grace,’ he
said calmly, though he could feel his heart racing. 'I mean,
you were more to the family than just the housekeeper,
right?’
'You could say so. June made a big deal about being friends
with the help, but she never let you forget your place. There’s
always a line.’
She sighed. 'I was fond of her though.’
'And the boy?’
She lifted the back of a wrist to her forehead. 'Like one

of my own.’
'After his grandmother took him to live in New York, did
you see Ernest again?’
'I tried calling a few times,’ she said. 'Then I got a note
from Mrs Calvert saying that he’d gone to live with some
relatives out West I think she said Wyoming. She thanked
me for my loyal service, but felt it would be best for all
concerned if we let him forget the past and start a new

life.’
'You never heard any news of him – like where he went
to school out there, if he graduated college, got a job … he
never tried to get in touch?’
'How often do I have to tell you? No.’
He took a long drink of his soda. 'You must have wondered,
though, over the years, how the boy was getting on, what
direction this new life had taken?’
She looked away, her troubled eyes scanning the parking
lot through the window. 'I always felt somehow he’d be all
right, and after everything he’d been through the good Lord
would take care of him.’
There was a silence.
'I still put flowers on June’s grave every Sunday.’
In his mind, Campbell saw 'Mrs Danvers’ coming out of
the upstairs room in the website house, leading him down
the stairs and out into the dark woods. The beam of her flashlight
slashing through the trees.
'Was there a cemetery at Skylands, a family plot?’
She shook her head.
'Did somebody else … you think maybe someone else came
to the house that night?’ he asked in the same casual tone.
Observing her closely, he caught the involuntary flicker in
her eyes.
'I heard Gary Seaton threaten his wife. I heard him say, if
I can’t have you, I’ll make damn sure nobody else can. Gary killed June, then shot himself. If my husband was still here, he’d be able to tell you . . .’
She clammed up then, as if she realised she had said too
much.
'Tell me what, Grace? Did somebody come to the house?’