There Was an Old Woman (23 page)
Read There Was an Old Woman Online
Authors: Hallie Ephron
A single item was left on the floor of the room, and it was the one thing Evie knew Mrs. Yetner would have taken with her. Her cane.
Evie heard sirens outside, each second growing louder. She returned to the doorway to the stairs. The stairwell had filled with dense smoke. It was too dangerous to try to go back down. She ran to the window. A hook and ladder was parked outside. An ambulance with its siren wailing pulled up behind it, and behind the ambulance, a police cruiser.
Firefighters were already hooking up a hose. People were gathering from up and down the street to see what was happening. Two police officers pushed spectators back. “Stay back!” one of them yelled through a bullhorn.
In the crowd, she spotted Finn. He waved at her. Shouted something she couldn't hear. Then he ran over and grabbed one of the police officers. Pointed to Evie.
Moments later, firefighters had a ladder off the truck. Evie tried to open the window, but it was stuck. She swung Mrs. Yetner's cane, using the handle like the business end of a bat, and broke the glass. Immediately she felt heat build behind her from the updraft she'd created. The smoke in the room thickened.
With a thud, the ladder hit the side of the house. Ratcheted up to the window.
Evie was about to climb out when she looked across the street. There, in the second-floor window of Mr. Cutler's house, stood a pale figure. At first Evie thought it was a child, standing there staring out, her hands up against the glass, pale hair haloed around her face.
Then she realized. It was no child. It was Mrs. Yetner.
Twice in a row Mina had fooled Dora, using a trick she'd learned from Annabelle, and transferred that horse pill from one hand to the other and then only pretended to put it in her mouth. Sure enough, her head had started to clear. Otherwise she'd have slept right through the sirens.
She'd gotten out of bed and felt her way past the familiar pieces of furniture. When she pushed aside the window shade, she'd seen a beacon of rotating red light and more lights flashing blue and white in the street below.
Now she stood at the window in Annabelle's nightgown, her feet bare, her hands pressed to the glass. Fire was blazing across the street. It looked like someone had set a bonfire in Frank Cutler's driveway. Dark figuresâprobably firefightersâwere swarming the street.
Mina heard more shouting, but this time it sounded as if it was coming from right downstairs. The windowsill shook as what sounded like the front door slammed.
“Stop!” Dora's voice. “You can't go up there.”
“Get out of my house this instant!” It was a man. Not Brian.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Mina shrank into a corner of the room as the door slammed opened. A figure stepped into the room.
“Mrs. Yetner?” Mina recognized Evie's tentative voice. “Mrs. Yetner! You're here! Thank God, you're all right. I thought . . . I thought . . .” The girl wrapped her arms around Mina, sobbing.
Mina hugged her back. The poor thing was trembling, and she smelled of smoke.
“What on earth are you doing
here
?” Evie asked.
“Where else would I be?”
“In your own house. That's where I was afraid you were.”
“Isn't that where I am?” But even as Mina said the words, she knew she was not. Ever since she'd run into the wall, trying to get back to bed from the top of the stairs, she'd felt as if she'd fallen down the rabbit hole and landed somewhere elseâa place that was almost the same as her upstairs bedroom but not quite, a parallel universe the mirror image of her own.
“You're across the street in Mr. Cutler's house,” Evie said.
“But isn't that my bed? And all my things? ”
After a pause, Evie said slowly, “It is. It looks like they moved everythingâthe furniture, the rugs, the bedding, plus everything you had in the closet. They even moved the woodwork. Except for the new bath of course, this is a perfect replica of your upstairs. And then they must have moved you.”
Mina shuddered at the thought that she'd been picked up, carried out of her own house and across the street, and installed there without being any the wiser.
“As long as you stayed in this room,” Evie went on, “as long as you didn't have your glasses, you'd think you never left home. They left only one thing behind.”
Mina took the cane that Evie handed her. “I guess they didn't think I'd need it any longer.”
“You almost didn't.”
“Thenâ” Mina turned and pointed out the window where emergency lights flared and flames shot toward the sky. She felt as if she were about to collapse. But she pushed Evie away and steadied herself with her cane. “The fire. That's not Mr. Cutler's house burning. That must be my house.”
“I'm sorry,” Evie said. “I'm so sorry. By the time I got there, the paper and lumber alongside your house had caught fire.”
“What lumber?”
“From the construction. I thought they were building you a bathroom. But that lumber is probably the old woodwork from this room.”
Mina remembered the sound of band saws and drills she'd heard coming from Mr. Cutler's second floor. He hadn't been putting in a roof deck or a Jacuzzi. He'd been preparing the room for her. Those workmen hadn't been putting a bathroom upstairs in her house. They'd been removing all the woodwork so they could install it across the street.
“Smoke and mirrors,” Mina said, the taste of the words bitter in her mouth. “Tell me, how many days ago did we talk about the Empire State Building fire?”
“Day before yesterday.”
The news went through Mina like a shot of adrenaline. She hadn't lost an entire week, after all.
“Come on,” Mina said, exhaling and standing up straight. “Let's get out of here.”
Mrs. Yetner refused Evie's help as she held on to the banister railing and used her cane to feel her way down the steps, resting on each tread before taking the next. Evie couldn't tell if she was even aware of Frank Cutler and Mrs. Yetner's nurse, who were watching from the kitchen. Ivory was meowing at the foot of the stairs. Evie picked up the cat and followed Mrs. Yetner out.
On the sidewalk Mrs. Yetner held her head high and leaned on her cane, staring into the middle distance. Water hissed and steam billowed as firefighters turned hoses on the smoldering embers. There was no way to tell if Mrs. Yetner's house was salvageable, and it broke Evie's heart to think of that perfectly lovely interior in ruins.
The wind blew a particularly sharp scent of fire over them, and Evie gagged.
Mrs. Yetner held her hand over her own nose and mouth. “Brings it all back, doesn't it?”
It certainly did. Evie remembered standing in just this spot, watching her parents' house burn. That house now stood unscathed on the other side of Mrs. Yetner's.
“It was such a hot day, remember?” Mrs. Yetner said. “Windy, too.”
“Like today,” Evie said, burying her face in Ivory's soft fur. She'd been wearing a sleeveless top and shorts and her feet were bare. The crowd then, just like the crowd now, had been mostly strangers who'd looked on with disappointment as firefighters doused the last vestiges of fire. “Ginger was there, and so was my mother. And all I could think was that Blackie and her puppies were inside and there was nothing I could do.”
“We all felt helpless.”
Evie turned to face Mrs. Yetner. “The weirdest thing happened. When I was in your bedroom, I opened the bedroom closet door and I had the sensation that I'd been there before, only I was inside the closet looking out.”
Mrs. Yetner pursed her lips and nodded. “You and Ginger had gone into your parents' closet with the dogs to hide.”
“We did?”
“I was the one who found you there and got you out.”
“You? But I thought my motherâ”
“I was sitting out on my back porch when I smelled smoke. I banged on the door but no one answered. I ran down the street to pull the alarm, and when I got back, your mother's car was there. She was frantic. The house was burning, and she couldn't find you or your sister anywhere. The fire trucks hadn't gotten there yet. Someone had to go inside, so I went.” Mrs. Yetner's eyes went wide as she remembered. “I found you and Ginger in the closet in the downstairs bedroom. You'd been playing dress-up and trying to smoke your mother's cigarettes. You were still wearing her high heels.”
“Trying to smoke? Me and Ginger?” It took a moment for the realization to hit Evie. “You mean my mother didn't start the fire?”
“That's what she let everyone think. She didn't want you girls labeled as fire starters. I think she especially didn't want your father to know, him being a firefighter and all. But really, you were just children, and much too young to have been left alone. It's a lucky thing I was there.” Mrs. Yetner touched the scar on her face.
Evie remembered after the fire had been mostly put out, watching in agony, worrying about the dogs. Finally, one of the firemen had gone inside. What felt like hours later, he'd come out carrying Blackie and her pups. They were alive, but barely. She'd watched as a medic held an oxygen mask over Blackie's snout. She'd promised God that she'd be good, really she would, if only Blackie didn't die.
It had been quiet then, just as it was quiet now. Evie realized the fire hoses had been turned off. A moment later there was a crash as the roof of the house next door to Mrs. Yetner's caved.
Firefighters in dark turnout gear broke down the front door and went into Mrs. Yetner's house. When one of them came out later, carrying three inert bundles, Evie was grateful that Mrs. Yetner couldn't see that they were cats. White cats. They must have been hiding when Evie had gone in, looking for Mrs. Yetner.
“Another crazy cat lady,” the firefighter said to one of his buddies as he lay a tarp over the three little bodies. “And no batteries in the smoke alarm. That house is a hoarder's nightmare.”
Of course, that was how it was supposed to look. Evie was about to go over and set them straight when she saw Finn emerge from the crowd of bystanders, vault the police barrier, and race toward her. Evie had to hold on to keep Ivory from leaping out of her arms as Finn flew past and up the steps of Frank Cutler's house.
Cutler was standing behind the screen door. Finn yanked open the door, grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him down his front steps. Mrs. Yetner's nurse came running out and tried to pull Finn off. Finn pushed her away. She staggered back a few steps and went down hard on her tailbone, stunned.
“This your idea of a business deal?” Finn yelled at Cutler. “You promised. You said no one would get hurt.”
“You said do what it takes,” Cutler spat back.
“You moron. I didn't expect you to try to kill people. You and your goddamned shortcuts.” Finn turned to one of the policemen. “I'm getting myself an attorney. And then I want to talk to a police detective. My cousin here does, too. He just doesn't know it. Not yet.”
Evie felt as if the air had been knocked out of her. Frank Cutler was the cousin Finn had been talking about? The one who was helping him right the wrongs done to their great-grandfather?
Finn turned to Mrs. Yetner and gave her a pleading look. “I wouldn't blame you if you don't believe me, but I am sorry. I never meant for any of this”âhis gaze slid over to Evieâ“to happen.”
Evie couldn't bear to even look at Finn. The deception had been there from the very moment she'd set foot in Sparkles Variety. It was there when he'd stood on her mother's front steps like a goofy overgrown puppy, wooing her with a six-pack from Bronx Brewery. Just weeks before, his cousin Frank had seduced her mother with gifts and the promise of a steady stream of cash and then accelerated her death with “vitamins.”
She heard Finn's voice as he went on explaining, as if there could be an explanation, but she tuned out. Instead, she focused on the minivan that had pulled up at the corner, which Ginger had just gotten out of. Her arms were folded tight across her chest, and as she got closer Evie saw that her face was puffy and her eyes red.
Evie handed Ivory over to Mrs. Yetner and ran over to Ginger. She didn't need to ask. She knew their mother had died.
A week later, Mina was getting used to living in the trailer that the city let her park in her driveway. She was sitting in its dining nook, savoring a final sip of tea and scratching Ivory behind the ears. Every day she was walking farther and feeling stronger.
It would be months before she could move back into the house. Fire had gutted her downstairs bedroom; smoke and water had had their way with the rest of the house. The marble mantel had survived, and of course the entire interior of the upstairs bedroom could be brought back from across the street once the house was scrubbed clean and painted. She was lucky: the house next door was a total loss, boarded up and waiting to be demolished.
So far, Frank Cutler had been charged with fraud, arson, kidnapping, and murder. Mina wanted him charged with hit-and-run, too. She was sure he'd been at the wheel of the black pickup truck, probably borrowed from Finn, that had tried to back over her. When she replayed that moment in her mind, she thought she could see his beady little eyes taking aim in his side mirror.
Newspapers detailed the exploits of Frank and his firm, Soundview Management; how they preyed on the elderly, getting them to deed their homes in return for a lifetime income and then speeding their demise. Mina still couldn't believe that Frank and Finn were cousins, and she didn't want to believe that Finn had had any part in the scheme.
Dora turned out to be Celeste Hall, the woman who'd taken Mina and Brian on their tour of Pelham Manor. Silver haired under a brunette wig, she was being held, too, though Mina wasn't sure on what charges.
Brian insisted that he'd known nothing about what the rest of them were up to. According to him, “Dora” told him that Mina had had a stroke after she returned from the hospital, and that it would be an
act of mercy
(Dora's words, according to him) to move her into Frank's house, where she could get round-the-clock care and wouldn't even realize she'd left home.
Brian admitted that the papers Dora had tried to get Mina to sign would have deeded the house to Soundview Management. But setting her house on fire and removing her smoke alarm batteriesâhe'd had nothing at all to do with that, or so he said. Mina was pretty sure he was responsible for putting her purse in the refrigerator, hiding her teapot whistle, and maybe even burning her chicken.
When Mina was feeling generous, she could convince herself that Brian believed he'd had her best interests at heart. And if it hadn't been for those poor cats, she might have been able to get past the betrayal. But standing by as the house burned with those poor creatures trapped inside? That was a bridge too far. Not that it was entirely his fault. He'd inherited all of Mina's father's ruthless avarice and sadly none of his common sense.
Since the fire, Mina had thought long and hard about her father. She came to the conclusion that for too long she'd basked in his name and swept his transgressions under the rug. It was time for her to make what restitution she could. But how? All she had to show for her father's thievery was the house. She'd spoken to a lawyer and changed her will so that the property went to benefit efforts to preserve Soundview Lagoons. On top of that, she was determined to air the truth about her father and his sins.
So, when Evie was helping her move into the trailer and asked her again about her father's dealings with Finn's great-grandfather, Mina gave her a straight answer. “I was very little at the time,” she'd said, “but I do remember there was this manâa very angry manâwho walked back and forth in front of our house with a sign. Yelling whenever he caught sight of my father. That was Finn's great-grandfather. My father told us he was crazy. And by the end, I imagine he was.”
“Your father did swindle him out of his land, didn't he?”
“He did. My father was a visionary and a brilliant businessman. He was also a narcissist, a rogue, and a scoundrel. He could convince himself that whatever he wanted was right and fair, and that he'd earned it. Anyone who stood in his way was a fool. Sadly, Finn's great-grandfather owned what my father coveted. Snakapins Point.”
Mina carried her teacup all of two steps to the sink. She looked out the trailer window at the boarded-up windows of the house next door. It was a myth that the Jamesons were ever coming back from Florida, a myth kept alive so that Mrs. Yetner and her other neighbors wouldn't start asking questions.
Evie seemed far more distressed than Mina at the damage to Mina's house and her possessions. The girl was crouched outside at that very moment, combing through the remnants of Mina's smoke-damaged kitchen, separating what was salvageable from the trash that had been dumped in the house to make the interior look for all the world like something out of a horror movie. The “vintage” kitchen utensils and appliances were all going to the Historical Society. A truck had already come and hauled off Mina's old stove.
As for Mina, she was looking forward to a brand-new kitchen. Secretly she hoped Evie would move into the sad house next door. But Mina hadn't dared say so, afraid Evie would take it as a plea for help. In no way did Mina want to become a burden to anyone but herself.
The one piece of furniture Mina had kept was her mother's mahogany coffee table. Its top was warped and the drawer stuck, but she preferred it to the ticky-tacky table that had come with the trailer. The spiral notebook she'd kept in its drawer survived unscathed, too, though Mina had lost her taste for listing the dead. On fresh pages she'd started writing down information about places to call about hiring a real health aide and calculating just how much help she could afford.
Sitting on that table now was an engraved invitation to the gala opening of Five-Boroughs Historical Society's
Seared in Memory.
Her story, her picture, her souvenir would be featured.
Cocktail attire,
it said at the bottom. Mina was having a black beaded dress of Annabelle's altered for the occasion. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a cocktail, but she was planning to have a whiskey sourâafter she'd been introduced and said a few words, of course. She hoped it would come with a maraschino cherry, or maybe two.
The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She let the call go to the answering machine that Evie had set up for her.
“Hello?” A man's voice came through the speaker on the machine. “I'm calling about the car?”
It was the eighth person who'd called in response to the ad Evie had posted for Mina on something called Craigslist. Mina picked up the phone. “Hello? Hello?”
“Hello?”
“You're interested in the car?”
“1975 Ford Mustang, V8 engine? Ad says fifty-six thousand miles on it. Not a hundred or two hundred fifty-six thou?”
Pffff.
That was what they all asked.
“I hope you don't mind my asking, why are you selling it?”
“Because it's time.” Brian might have been self-serving, but she did need to face facts. It was time to stop driving.
“Any problems with the car?”
“No problems. It runs fine. Not much rust. But you know, old is old. A certain amount of wear and tear is inevitable.”
That brought a chuckle. “What are you asking?”
The current high bid, $2,550, was from Chet in Westchester. That was more than she'd ever imagined getting, and more than she'd paid for it brand-new.
“High bid so far is three thou,” she said.
Thou.
Mina liked the sound of the slang she'd heard every caller use.
He whistled. “That's a lot. I'd take very good care of it.”
“I don't care one way or another how you take care of it. It's not a house pet.” As if on cue, Ivory rubbed up against her, demanding attention. “I'm selling to the highest bidder.”
“But three thou?”
Mina smiled to herself. “You go over to the Sunoco station and sit in it for sixty seconds. The interior's leather. Steering wheel, too. You think you can find another one like it, go right ahead. Then you can call me and if it's still availableâ”
“Wait, wait . . .”
Soon, Mina had herself a new high bidder.