I’d left shortly after that.
So the job was to find out a dead woman’s secret which had something to do with the house known as Old Cedar. How did I tell Mrs. Wenlow that? She wouldn’t be too happy to hear my name and the word ‘secret’ in the same sentence. And I couldn’t lie; she might find out.
So the next day I told her I was doing some odd jobs for Mr. Hornton out at Old Cedar and left it at that.
It went okay. She knew Elmer Hornton, and despite the fact I’d gotten involved in a few “police matters” from time to time, and that Elmer had been indirectly, or even directly involved in the same, she gave her approval.
Outside, two of the Wenlow children were drawing in the road, a bucket of chalk at the end of the driveway. I leaned over and helped myself to two sticks of chalk, tucked them in my pocket, then got on my bike and headed back to Manamesset.
He handed me the keys, a big old ring of them, the kind that look like they could open a pirate chest.
“House is empty, wasn’t rented this summer. Fellow in Hyannis handled all the rentals. I offered to do it, but Molly told me, you do enough, Elmer. But I don’t think I did. She was a lonely woman and if it hadn’t been for me, she’d have had no friends at all.”
“Mr. H., how do you know...”
“Mr. H.?” he snapped. “Damn it, I’m Mr. Hornton or Elmer!”
“How do you know that, Elmer?”
He spun his walker around, dropping it almost on my feet, then pushing up the brim of his green corduroy fishing hat, he stared up at me.
Up at me, perhaps that was a shock to him, but I didn’t move. I had no desire to upset him, and I wasn’t trying to be a wise guy.
“Because I got too many friends!” he shouted. “And I know the burden—” He stopped short and smacked his lips. “This is doing a number on me, Herbie. I can’t talk about it without getting all misty-eyed. Damned embarrassing.”
I looked past him, past the little cabin out by the road, its purple hydrangeas rustling in the light breeze. Behind the house was a grove of at least thirty red cedars, and just above the tallest of them, the very top of Old Cedar could be seen with its dark gray roof.
But there were still things I didn’t understand: “This woman had a secret that had to do with that house, but she died before she could tell you. Now you want me—” I shook my head. “Honest to God, Mr. Hornton, I haven’t a clue what you want me to do.”
He shook his head, then turning away, said, “I’ll walk up to the door with you and we can talk.”
I turned the key in the old lock, felt the tumblers move into position under my hand, and wondered if any of the renters — of which there’d been dozens in the last sixty-plus years — had felt the life in the lock, the soft moan of the house as the door swung open before them.
An old, wood-paneled door, stained a deep mahogany brown, was Mr. Hornton’s handiwork, for sure, and though I’d seen this house many times from the beach and from the road, I’d never been on these steps, never been inside the house. Never felt its huge coolness as I stepped through a small side porch into the wide, black-and-white kitchen.
“So what should I be looking for?” I’d asked as we walked up the driveway. “Diaries? Letters? Scrapbooks or photographs—”
He cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Ain’t anything like that in the house. She kept nothing personal up there. No furniture left in there but a few pieces of junk. Weren’t any desks. Molly had the house filled with that new modem stuff and that’s all been sold or given away, per instructions in her will. Most that’s left is a chair here or there. This was a rental, Herbie. You’re not going to find personal items in a rental house.”
“Then what do you—”
“Just look around! Use your good eye to see what might have been missed. Look inside the closets, the pantry, all the shelves. There’s bookcases everywhere. And the fireplace — just feel around, just look.”
I walked into the empty pantry, clean as a whistle, as my mother would have said. Clean shelf paper, a few pots and pans on hooks, some empty tin canisters.
He’d said, “There’re no linens either, no blankets, towels, that sort of thing. Molly had a service supply those, made it easier for her.” He frowned, shook his head. “She had the floors buffed and polished last fall. Told her I’d do it, but she said, you do enough...”
I stepped back into the kitchen, and from there walked into a small room that gave a magnificent view of the bay. The room was totally empty. Not a rug on the floor or picture on the wall, not a stick of furniture. Smooth, bare, dark wood floors. There was a small closet, some built-in bookshelves.
From there into the wide living room with an even more expansive view to the bay. Through a pair of French doors, the room opened out onto a wide, unscreened porch. Nothing there either, except two rather worn-looking Adirondack chairs tipped to their sides and a metal stand for a hammock.
On the other side of the living room was another smaller room, which looked like it had been made into a media room: There was a huge shelving unit built into the far wall with space for a television, stereo equipment, and so on.
Then back into the living room, which was the largest room of the house. The dark floors had been polished to a shine. The walls were clad with barnboard.
At the far end of the living room was a massive fieldstone fireplace with a flagstone hearth. All the fireplace utensils were gone. The mantel above it looked like a single piece of carved gray wood, maybe driftwood, and over that, hanging on the wall, was a rather ordinary-looking painting of a large house behind some trees.
I went into the next room, a formal dining room. It had a smaller side room from which stairs curved up to a small landing, and then off to the second floor. Off the dining room, facing east, was a morning room or what some might call a breakfast room. There were built-in bookcases everywhere, and at least two closets in every room, even the smallest. But every closet was empty, as were all the rooms. There was only an occasional rug rolled and pushed against a wall, or a broken chair.
It all smelled of age, of floor polish, and that peculiar musty odor that fills Cape houses when they’re closed up for a while. I went back into the living room, started unlocking and pushing up windows, pulling down screens. In fact, I decided any room I was in, I’d let in the air. Out past the porch was the wide, green lawn, meticulously maintained, which ran about thirty yards to the top of the cement seawall, and beyond that was the pale sand of North Manamesset Beach. There were boat sounds out in the bay, people shouting on the beach, kites whipping in a stiff offshore breeze.
I opened the French doors going out onto the porch and stepped outside.
I tipped one of the chairs — the one that looked cleaner — right-side up and sat down.
Maybe Molly Windsor’s secret was this: Her life, though seemingly quiet and simple, was a happy one. Maybe she didn’t need the “burden” of too many friends. Maybe Mr. Hornton and cribbage, the Red Sox, was all she needed or wanted. She had a job in Boston, possibly a demanding job, maybe sher friends were there — who knows? Maybe summer was her escape, her quiet respite.
So why wouldn’t she go inside her own house?
I had said to Mr. Hornton, “So I’m looking for what? Secret passageways? Hidden panels? Hidden rooms?” He hadn’t cut me off that time, just given me a grim look.