Twice

“It’s a ghost story, Ms. Strong. An urban-or maybe in this case a small town-legend.”

“Most legends have some element of truth to them,” said Jeffrey.

“I’m not saying the history is false,” said Maura, reaching to a standing ashtray to her right and retrieving a pipe that rested there. She tapped out some stale tobacco from the bowl. “I’m saying that the matter of the curse is merely town gossip.”

She removed a velvet pouch from the pocket of her skirt and pinched out some tobacco. She put the pipe to her lips and lit it with a small gold lighter. Lydia could see that her fingers were yellowed and the nails short and cracked.

“And yet the men that marry the Ross women do seem to fall on some bad luck, don’t they?” said Lydia flatly.

For the first time, Maura Hodge smiled. “I’m afraid I can’t explain that.”

“But it amuses you?”

“They reap what they sow,” she said, leaning back in her chair. Lydia could see that Maura Hodge was not a kind woman, that the heavy burden of hatred she carried had made her cold. The tobacco was a pungent cherrywood and the smell was making Lydia nauseous. Or maybe it was the company.

“So there’s no curse. But you do hate the Ross family? Why?”

Again there was a noise from upstairs. She saw Jeffrey look up at the ceiling from the corner of her eye. Even one of the Dobermans, who had settled themselves at Maura’s feet, pricked up his ears and then emitted a small whine.

“It might be hard for someone like you to understand,” Maura said to Lydia in a mildly condescending tone, smoke filling the air around her, dancing like thin ghosts in the light shining from a lamp beside her. “But when you come from a family of slaves, generally you don’t find yourself overly fond of people who descend from a family of slave owners.”

“But, according to Marilyn, you descend from both.”

A look of annoyance flashed across Maura’s face, as if she resented someone trying to talk her out of her hatred. “My father and mother loved each other, Ms. Strong. But any white blood in my mother’s veins got there through rape, slave owners raping their female slaves. That kind of crime, that kind of injustice… let’s say you don’t just forget it.”

“So that’s why you disliked Eleanor Ross?”

“That and the fact that she’s a bitch and a liar and a damn jezebel,” she said, but without the heat of anger. There was no passion in her voice, just an old hatred, long hardened. Lydia thought of what Ford had said about the overkill, about how the murder was a rage killing. Maura Hodge was a big, strong woman, but there was a lethargy to her, like she might be as hard to move as a piece of the heavy old oak furniture. Time to see what her temper looked like.

“You grew up together in this town,” said Lydia, more a statement than a question. Jeffrey heard a little flame of mischief light up in her voice.

“That’s right.”

“So what was it then, really? She stole your date to the prom? She took your clothes while you were skinny- dipping in the creek with your boyfriend? She wrote your telephone number on a bathroom wall? Or is it just that she was beautiful and rich and you were not-just jealousy, plain and simple? Why do you hate Eleanor Ross?”

There was a flash in the woman’s eyes, her jaw tightened. But Lydia didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for.

“It’s an inherited hatred,” Maura said easily, taking a long puff on her pipe. “Woven and handed down by Annabelle Taylor.”

“Is it a powerful enough hatred that it would drive you to murder?” Obviously, she wasn’t expecting a confession, just a reaction she could read, something to move the investigation forward.

Maura Hodge chuckled and the chuckle evolved into a full belly laugh. “You think I’m murdering the husbands of the Ross women?” she said when she’d finished.

Lydia said nothing, just sat with her eyes on Maura, waiting. It took a little more than laughter to rattle Lydia’s cage.

“Look,” Maura said, turning a hard gaze on Lydia, “the Ross family doesn’t even need a curse. They are so fucked up in so many ways that they curse themselves.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Karma, Ms. Strong. Bad karma.”

“But how are they fucked up?” pressed Lydia.

“That’s a question best answered by Eleanor. Only she really knows the answer. The rest of us can only imagine what went on in that house after Eleanor’s husband was killed. Most of us weren’t old enough to remember Eleanor’s father’s murder. But when Jack was killed, in the same house, no less-you can imagine the frenzy, the scandal in this town. For most people, it was as if the Headless Horseman himself had ridden into Haunted. Of course, people never looked at me the same after that, either. As I am the daughter of the daughters of Annabelle Taylor, naturally they believed that I had something to do with it-mystically or otherwise. As if I were sitting in my living room casting spells.”

“And did you have something to do with it?”

“Please,” she said, shifting her girth in the seat and rolling her eyes.

“Do you have daughters, Ms. Hodge?”

“Stillborn,” said Hodge brusquely. “I’ve never been able to carry a child to term.”

Here Lydia saw the anger she’d been looking for-anger and sadness laced with a mammoth disappointment. Always a volatile mix.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said.

“Maybe it’s for the best. Then this business of the curse will die with me.”

“What do you know about Eleanor’s brother?”

“Most people think he’s dead,” she said, her tone indicating that there was more to come. Maura was silent for a minute, chewing on the end of her pipe. Lydia could see she had something more she wanted to say and was debating whether to continue. The keen desire to gossip was clear in her black eyes.

“Some people say he loved her,” she said finally, her voice lowering a bit. “Not in the way a brother loves a sister. They say it tortured him, drove him mad.”

“What happened to him?”

“I was told his family sent him away. Some people believed he joined the army, but the popular rumor always was that he was sent to an asylum, where he killed himself. And others…” she said, pausing dramatically, “others believe he escaped-either the army or the asylum, depending on who’s telling the story-came back, and killed Eleanor’s husband because he couldn’t stand another man touching her. They say he ran off, leaving her to take the rap to punish her for not loving him.”

She shook her head. “But I never believed that. Paul was a quiet boy, gentle, maybe even a bit on the slow side. He didn’t have it in him. Just more stories for the bored little minds in this town.”

Lydia was quiet.

“He was the only one of them who wasn’t rotten at the core,” Maura said, looking off over Lydia’s head. She opened her mouth again, then clamped it shut as though to keep trapped whatever was about to escape. Her face grew harder and she looked at Lydia. Lydia could sense that they’d outworn their dubious welcome, but she pressed on.

“So who do you think is killing the husbands of the Ross women?”

A smile at once mocking and victorious spread across her face. “Well, it’s always been my hope that it is Annabelle Taylor herself, come back from the grave to do the job.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in curses,” said Lydia, fighting a chill that had raised goose bumps on her arms.

“I don’t,” she said, expressing streams of smoke from her nostrils like a dragon. “But I never said I didn’t believe in ghosts.”