“when he realized his tours were a flop and his inheritance was going to drain away soon. So. About four years ago, he took out a loan against the equity in the castle itself and used it to refurbish the chapel by the creek. Vandals had broken some windows and spray-painted the walls and floor. Eliot spent fifty thou on folding wooden chairs, heaters, an antique organ, a handmade gold cross, spotlights, repairs to the stained-glass windows, and installation of electricity. The first wedding went off well. Unfortunately, Eliot hadn’t thought of security, and vandals broke in after the celebration and stole the gold cross.”
“Wow,” said Julian, as he piled jewel-colored baby vegetables on our plates. “How much bad luck would that bring?”
Tom nodded. “Eliot’s next strategy, in addition to installing a lockbox, was to arrange an interview with the Mountain Journal. He claimed the dead duke, the rich young nephew from Tudor times, still haunted the place and roamed the grounds. Eliot called his own estate ‘Poltergeist Palace.’ He warned that anyone breaking into Hyde Chapel or the castle could be attacked by the ghost.”
“So he’s the one who came up with the name,” I muttered.
“A second couple tying the knot in Hyde Chapel didn’t even finish their ceremony. The bride was spooked to begin with, because the groom had lost his first wife in a car accident. Before they got to ‘I do,’ a screaming started up in the chapel. Or near the chapel; the witnesses couldn’t agree. Nobody could find the screamer. So the bride got hysterical and started hollering herself, claiming it was the ghost of her husband’s first wife.”
“How come none of this was publicized at Saint Luke’s when Eliot gave them Hyde Chapel?” I asked, fascinated.
“Because Episcopalians have the Holy Ghost,” Julian interjected.
“That’s the Holy Spirit to you,” I shot back.
Tom grinned. “You guys want me to finish this story?” When we both nodded, he went on: “The bride in the second ceremony refused to go on with the service. The groom demanded his money back. Eliot said no. The groom gave Eliot a fist to the jaw, and knocked him out. One of the guests called us. By the time we got there, the guests had all dispersed, and the bride and groom had skedaddled to a justice of the peace. Somebody had given Eliot Hyde smelling salts. We found him in the chapel storage area, where he was rewinding a tape of screaming sounds, probably broadcast through speakers in the chapel. He said he’d set up the tape to go off if the chapel was broken into, but somehow the recorder had gotten tripped by the wedding party. We told him to get rid of the tape, or next time we’d arrest him for creating a public nuisance.”
“Poor Eliot,” I said.
Julian rolled his muscled swimmer’s shoulders as he polished off his plate of veggies. “Way I heard it, when I was at Elk Park Prep? Someone actually did die here. A child. And not four centuries ago, either.”
“What?” Tom and I demanded.
Julian shrugged. “The story at school was that a couple came up here to have an illegitimate baby, and it was a stillbirth. They threw the baby’s corpse down the well. As I said, this isn’t an ancient ghost rumor, either. It was something in the last ten years.”
“No one reported it to the sheriff’s department,” Tom replied, “or I would have heard about it.”
“Search warrant!” I cried.
“Forget it,” said Tom.
“Here’s my opinion,” Julian said, picking up our plates. “Eliot may have acted weird by scaring folks off. But if you ask me, Sukie’s the nutcase.” He frowned. “There is such a thing as too clean, you know. I finish with a bowl, she washes it. She wipes down the walls, then cleans the windows. Done with that? She sweeps the floor, gets on her hands and knees, and scrubs it. Why would a rich person with a hired cleaning service be so anal?”
“Julian!” Tom and I cried.
He went on: “I’ve only been here one day. Sukie seemed to like the lunch, right? But then I began thinking she was just keeping an eye on me, to make sure I didn’t steal anything. When she grabbed away a saute pan I was still using, I told her she didn’t need to worry, I was bonded She apologized. She says she cleans because she’s Swiss. Next week, she’s hiring a specialist to wax all the wood floors. She told me that while she was at a church meeting Sunday night, Charde came in and she and Eliot splashed paint samples all over the place. Sukie went absolutely nuts. Then the paint guys came back today with more paint samples. Eliot told her not to worry, brighter colors would make the castle more attractive as a conference center.” He motioned with the tray he had now filled with plates. “Anyway, if I don’t put these in the dishwasher before I go to bed, she’ll come around in the middle of the night looking for them.”
I didn’t like the idea of Julian wandering around the castle alone at night, but tried to keep my voice serene. “Listen, Julian, do me a favor, okay? When you finish in the kitchen and come back up, just knock gently on our door. One knock. So we can be sure you’re all right.”
“So you know the ghost didn’t snag me?” Julian said with a wink. He heaved up the tray. “Okay, Ma and Pa. I’ll knock.” We thanked him again for the marvelous meal. He grinned, delighted with our praise, and backed out the door.
When Tom and I were alone at last, I washed my hands and began the task of removing his bandage, cleaning the wound, then taping it back up. Lord knows, I longed to ask him about Sara Beth O’Malley. But I couldn’t. The newly bloodied bandage, the ugly bruising around the wound, the black stitches on his swollen flesh, made me resolve to say nothing.
Even if I suspected Tom’s old girlfriend had shot him for being disloyal to her and marrying me, what good would it do to confront Tom? I gently laid new gauze in place. What I really wanted to know, I decided, was if he still cared about her, and if he’d acted on that by … whatever. Stop, I ordered myself, as I gently pressed down the last bit of tape. The Jerk had betrayed me for years, years when I’d stuck my head in the proverbial sandbox so much I might as well have been living at the beach. By the end of our marriage I’d turned into a suspicious harpy who thought everything John Richard told me was a lie. If I got back into mistrustful thinking, I was going to make myself miserable.
“Something wrong, Goldy?” Tom gave me the full benefit of those all-knowing green eyes.
“I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t, I’ll be fine.” He paused. “Is Arch on your mind?”
“Yes, that’s it.” My voice cracked.
“The kid’ll be all right. Korman won’t try anything while he’s on parole. Why don’t you come to bed?”
And so I did. I wanted to ask Tom if he still loved me, but I couldn’t. It had been a long day, a very long day. Still, once I was between the crisp cotton sheets and down comforter that were worthy of the most luxurious hotel, sleep eluded me. I switched from fretting about Tom, to wondering if I could safely boot my laptop and read his e- mails, to worrying about Arch. Where was my son at that moment? Did he miss me? I turned over and sighed.
“Goldy, what is it?”
“I’m just thinking about when Arch was a newborn.
I’d lie in bed and fret about whether he was breathing, even though he was just down the hall. I found that if I lay very still and listened, I could hear him. It was like your eyes adjusting to the dark. My ears took in all the sounds of the night, and finally made out his tiny infant breath. In and out. It was comforting. Does that sound nuts?”
“He’s breathing now, Miss G., in his bed at Korman’s house. He’s all right. If he wasn’t, we would have heard about it.”
At that moment a muffled knock on the door indicated Julian was retiring to his room. A few moments later, Tom snored softly beside me.
My eyes remained wide open, my body tense. Finally, I eased from beneath the comforter. Despite the heat pouring from the baseboards, the air in the big room was chilly. I sat down on the velvety wool rug.
Tom wasn’t in a deep enough sleep for me to start tapping away on a keyboard. Besides, if I read the e-mails tonight, I’d feel too guilty to sleep. Especially if he caught me.
I hugged myself against the cold and thought about Arch. Yes, he was with John Richard, and no, I couldn’t phone at midnight to check that he’d brushed his teeth and been tucked in. (Question: How do you tuck in an almost-fifteen-year-old, anyway? Answer: You don’t.) And what if Viv decided to tell Arch a bedtime story about automatic weapons?
Don’t think about it. Very quietly, I slipped into my heavy coat, boots, and mittens. There was something I could do, a ritual that had always helped with worry about Arch’s safety when he was spending the night at a
