The House on Seventh Street (20 page)

Winna sat down on one of the tall bar stools with her tea. She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, smiling at herself. What have I done? She wanted to sing, to dance, to eat, to make love again. Her long suppressed desire for Johnny, the remembrance of their first love brought tears to her eyes and she began to tremble, knowing this was something she no longer wanted to live without.

The rain had stopped and the late afternoon sun lit up the landscape which, washed clean of dust, gleamed like a well-watered garden. She felt a hand on her shoulder and kisses on the back of her neck.

“Are you hungry?” John asked as he leaned to open the refrigerator door.

“Famished,” she said, snuggling against his broad back, which filled the white terry cloth bathrobe he wore tied at the waist. She touched the white hair that curled over the back of his collar.

“I love the back of your head,” she said, tugging on his sleeve.

With the refrigerator lit up behind him, he turned and flashed a big grin. “Well that's a start.”

“John,” she said, wrapping her arms around his back as he perused the contents of his well-stocked refrigerator. “I'm going back to New Hampshire to put my house on the market.”

WINNA DIALED
CHLOE'S
phone number, but it was Todd, not Chloe, that she wanted to speak with. Adolph Whitaker's boyhood home and Juliana's letters were what she had in mind, or at the very least found papers or objects that had belonged to Dolph, something that might reveal why her grandmother had been in possession of a fortune in jewelry.

Todd answered the telephone and offered to get Chloe.

“No. I called to talk with you. Do you have a minute?” she asked.

“For you, Winnie, I have all night,” he said, sounding a little buzzed.

“I just wanted to ask a few questions about that house you guys tore down on First Street—the one where you're building a donut shop.”

“Yep, what about it? You ain't going to rip into me for tearing down Grand Junction history are you?”

“No, I'm not—though I'm sure the architecture of the house was more interesting than the donut shop will be. What kind of house was it? Had it been abandoned or had someone lived there?”

“It was old clapboard with a big front porch hanging off it. From the looks of the inside, someone lived there, but they picked up and walked away from it. Don't know how the donut folks got a hold of it.”

“Did they leave anything behind?”

“Yep, some old junk and furniture. We bulldozed the whole mess and carried it off. Why?”

“That's the house where Adolph Whitaker grew up.”

“The dude who wrote those sissy letters?”

“The very same.”

“I'll be damned. Imagine that.”

“I'm trying to learn more about him. You didn't find anything did you—like old letters?” Her question came with a nervous chuckle.

“Nope.”

“Who else worked with you on that job?”

“Just the usual crew—and Seth Taylor—we signed him on for a couple of days.”

“Look, Todd, would you do me a favor and ask the one man you trust the most if he saw anyone carry anything off?”

“Sure enough, Winnie, but that kinda thing ain't allowed—not without my go-ahead. Say, did you talk to the police about the missing jewelry?”

Winna was ready to humble herself, to confess to the fact that she had allowed a misunderstanding about the jewels. “Let me talk to Chloe. Why don't you stay on the line?”

Todd called for Chloe to pick up the other phone and, right away, she heard her sister's voice. “Hello?” She sounded depressed.

“Hi, sis, I wanted to let you know that I've got some good news and some bad news.”

“Good news first, please,” Chloe sighed.

“Well, the good news is that the jewelry wasn't stolen.” A moment of silence followed. “The bad is that I let you guys leave with the wrong impression. All I can say is I'm sorry. I shouldn't have scared you like that.”

“Where is it? It sure as hell wasn't where we put it.”

“It's in the safe deposit box. I put it there the day after my fall. I'm really sorry. I don't know what got into me yesterday.”

“I do. That's when Mercury slipped into retrograde.” Chloe sounded exhausted.

ONCE SHE HAD decided to stay in Grand Junction, Winna felt a weight lift from her shoulders and work at the house had new purpose. The pressure to go home was off and she slipped comfortably into what seemed right—being in Grand Junction with her family and bringing life back to the old family home. After her bold announcement to John, she had worried that maybe she was about to make a mistake. The house was, or could be, fabulous, but there were problems: the break-ins and her on-and-off suspicion that someone wished her dead.

She met with Seth a couple of times and they delved into plans for her office and darkroom and the restoration of the house and rose garden. Winna had reassured herself that she wanted to live close enough to be a grandmother to Isabelle and an extra hand for her daughter. She wanted to turn Juliana's old house into her “house beautiful”—and she was in love with John.

Before her life in Grand Junction could begin, Winna had to return to New Hampshire to sell her house and make plans to transfer her business. The morning before her flight to Boston, she looked down on the lawn and out to the street from a window in Edwin's second story bedroom. The lawn was turning brown and she wondered if she should save water and just let it go dormant.

Seth's truck pulled into the drive and parked behind her car. He had promised to come by with the paint Winna had picked out for the kitchen. She wanted to ask him if he would paint the kitchen while she was away.

Hurrying downstairs to let Seth in the door, she heard the phone ring and picked it up in the hall. It was Emily wanting to chat. She'd been invited to speak at the town planning board's August meeting.

Emily had written enough columns and letters to city officials and it had finally paid off. Her voice came to Winna's ear full of enthusiasm. “They want to talk about sustainable landscaping for all the town parks.”

“That's just fantastic. If you can convince them, Grand Junction could become a model throughout the Southwest,” Winna said, excited for her daughter. “Look, honey, Seth just arrived—I'll call you back, okay?”

Winna went to the kitchen door wondering why Seth hadn't rung the bell or knocked. She opened the door, but no Seth. She looked out at the drive and saw that his truck was still there. Where was he?

Winna stepped down from the stoop and turned to look at the back yard. When she didn't see him there, she walked around the front of her car, startled to see Seth kneeling by her right rear tire. There were tools on the ground. Intent on his work, he didn't see her standing there.

Immediately, she thought of the cracked brake fluid reservoir. Why was Seth fooling around with her tire? She stepped back out of sight and retreated through the open kitchen door. Hardly able to breathe, she quietly closed it. Standing inside, her back to the door, she told herself that she should just go outside and ask him what the hell he was doing. But she was afraid.

From the window, she saw Seth throw his tools in the back of his truck, then lift a box she assumed was the paint. He looked normal—not like he had murder in mind. She pulled away from the window and waited for a knock on the door.

The doorbell rang. She jumped, but her feet were glued to the floor. Should she let him in? The urgency of the second ring came like a command and she opened the door.

“Good morning, Winna. Where do you want me to unload the paint?”

Why is he smiling at me? She opened her mouth to speak but didn't know what she was supposed to say. Had he asked a question? Was that smile the hook she was supposed to swallow? She knew she had better get hold of herself.

“Yes—Seth—I'm sorry—good morning—I was just—uh—”

“Are you okay?” He was chuckling, looking at her like he thought she had just lost her mind. “The paint? Where do you want me to put it?”

“Ah, sure. Why don't you just leave it in the garage?” She looked past him, then at the floor. Suddenly she knew what to say. “I'm on my way out—ah—I have a great idea. While I'm away in New Hampshire, you can enjoy to a two-week vacation from me.” She hoped she looked cheerful, unruffled. “We'll paint when I get back,” she said, forcing a smile.

Seth looked puzzled, like he sensed something wrong, but he turned and headed for the garage. “By the way,” he said, turning to look over his shoulder. “I found your hubcap lying on the ground and did my best to fix it.”

“Thanks,” she said, doubting him, wishing he would go.

Seth smiled at her. “Well, have a safe trip.” His face brightened. “Be sure and take lots of pictures.”

Winna got his joke and managed a laugh.

She closed the door and locked it.

THAT EVENING, SHE packed her suitcase, laptop, and photo equipment, hoping two weeks would be long enough to wrap up things at home. She thought back to her afternoon drive to J & B Auto Repair, made after she had convinced herself that Seth had been tampering with her tire.

Charlie was busy, but the young man at the front desk took a look. He removed the hubcap and tire and examined it carefully. She had told him that she had just seen someone fooling around with the tire and that she just wanted to make sure it was not going to fall off on her way up or down a mountain. He found nothing wrong with the tire, but told her that the snap locks on the hubcap looked worn. He suggested she get new hubcaps. Feeling stupid and paranoid, she drove home hoping she hadn't hurt Seth's feelings.

That night, she lay in bed with the moon and stars shining in through her window—a new moon so thin it looked as if it would break. When she closed her eyes, the fear came back—Seth in the driveway working on her tire. She felt guilty for thinking the way she had about Seth and opened her eyes to distract herself from her thoughts. She turned her back to the window and watched the swaying shadows on the wall until her eyes closed and she felt herself fall down the basement stairs. Soon, she was pumping her brakes, her tires screaming around turns.

To distract herself from the instant replay, she decided to lie there and go over her packing list. In the morning, she should pack Juliana's story and some of Whitaker's letters. She wanted to look at them again on the plane. She turned her thoughts to her upcoming trip, her house on a hill with a view of the ocean, and finally welcomed the strange little creatures—the phantasmata—that came to her just before sleep.

BEFORE SHE LEFT for the airport, she searched for the story but could not find it. Winna looked at the clock. The last time she remembered having it was the night she went to dinner at Emily's and figured she had left it in the car. Dragging her suitcase and photo equipment outside, she loaded them into the trunk. Of all her possessions, her state-of-the-art digital camera was the most precious and she did not want to leave it behind. It was getting late. The notebook was not in the car. There was no time to search the house again.
I must have left it at Emily's
, she thought.

Winna's plane touched down in Boston where a rental car waited for her at the airport. On the drive north to Portsmouth and New Castle, she drank in the verdant lushness of the New England forest. After Grand Junction's dry barren alkali flats and boxy adobe houses, its stark red-rock mesas and open blue skies, New England seemed almost too green and gentle. She drove past moist wetlands full of waving cattails, loosestrife, and grasses, tangled woodlands, green meadows sprinkled with midsummer wildflowers, and church steeples set amid the architecture of a civilized past.

Aptly named, Portsmouth lay at the mouth of a seaport—where the Piscataqua River formed the border between New Hampshire and Maine. An old town, it had been settled more than three hundred and seventy-five years ago. Winna had always loved its vibrant river port with fishing boats and ships from afar. Reshaped for shoppers and tourists, the town offered history, good restaurants, and innovative shops.

She had shopped and dined in downtown Portsmouth almost weekly, but her house was to the east on the island of New Castle. Thinking of John, who had agreed to keep an eye on the Seventh Street house while she was gone, she headed out of town, crossing Goat Island Bridge. The road took her through what there was of a little town: the post office, the Congregational church, and the town hall. Driving toward the east coast of the island, she passed a wetland, expensive houses, and a field edged by a stone wall. From there she could see her little white farm house sitting on top of a knoll in the midst of an overgrown lawn. Though surrounded by open space, the nineteenth-century house stood above the lighthouse and the beach on no more land than its own sweeping lawn. The vision brought instantaneous regret. Why didn't I ask John to come? Winna wanted him to see her home, to rest with her on the big porch overlooking the island and out to sea.

Inside, she visited every room—the front parlor with a view of the sea, the dining room with the pumpkin pine floors and the welcoming fireplace, the kitchen where a breakfast nook looked over the neighbor's field at the back of the house—and pulled up the windows to let in the ocean air.

With her half of everything from the divorce, she had purchased the rundown house and it became her haven, the place she retreated to nurse her wounds. Walt kept the house in town where they had raised their daughter.

For a time, Winna had taken refuge there, a veteran of thirty-five years of marriage to a workaholic philanderer. Maybe he was neither. Maybe he just lost interest in me.

Why do I do that—make excuses for him as if I deserved to be tossed away? Where Walt was concerned, questioning her worth was a habit.

She opened the door to her study, painted a soft buttery yellow, a color that warmed her like a pool of sunlight. The yellow paint had been inspired by her favorite rose. In a moment of infatuation, she had taken it to the paint store to have the color matched. Winna had spent the past few years in this room planning workshops, marketing photos, filling orders, building frames, cutting mats, and following up with contacts in Boston and New York where she had clients and exhibitions to fill. Here, she had lived in a world of her own making.

Her photographs made the real world go away—beautiful pictures where nothing hurt—still life, sunrises over the sea, woodlands she had walked through in all seasons. Dark images where she cried and shouted at Walt in a way she could not to his face—her wedding gown glowing in the light of a window, Emily's old doll abandoned on the floor, candles burning on a table set for one, empty chairs, broken windows. She'd done a whole show for a Boston gallery on images of broken glass. It had received critical acclaim.

In that room, she forgot that her husband had left her for a sexy lawyer. Actually, Winna had thought at the time, I don't know how sexy she is, but she is smart and well respected in Portsmouth. I am sure she has to be sexier than me, the wife.