“Oh, no, it’s not like that,” Viveca said. “He sees the children all the time, they spend weekends at his apartment in the city.”
“New York City?”
“Yes.”
“He’s got a big place there, big enough for the kids?”
“Yes.”
Margaret shook her head. “So whadaya doing here?”
“Well,” Viveca said, “the family’s always lived here, ever since my great-grandfather built the place.”
“Yeah? What happens if you leave?”
“Leave? Oh, I couldn’t possibly leave.”
Margaret nodded. “Why not?” she said.
“Well . . . I was brought up to live here.”
“So, if you leave, does the house fall down?”
“No, there’s a nonprofit corporation that takes care of everything.”
Margaret said, “So you’re just like, here’s the famous painter’s family on display. Do you have to wear like Colonial costumes?”
“He wasn’t from that long ago,” Viveca said.
“Okay, flapper skirts,” Margaret suggested. “Is that what you wear?”
“No, we don’t wear costumes or do things like that. We don’t even see the visitors, they’re just downstairs and we’re up—Oh, did you hear that?”
Margaret looked very open-eyed and blank. “Hear? Hear what?”
“There was a rustling sound downstairs,” Viveca said.
“Didn’t hear it,” Margaret said.
Viveca leaned close and dropped her voice. “It’s mice,” she confided.
Margaret looked interested. “Oh yeah?”
“In the winter,” Viveca said, “there’s just no way to keep them out, since there’s nobody ever down there.”
“Huh,” Margaret said. “Tell me about this husband of yours.”
“Frank.”
“Be as frank as you want,” Margaret said, but then she shook her head and patted the air and said, “No, just a joke, I get it, the name is Frank. And Frank said he was leaving the house, not you.”
“Yes. And I know it’s true.”
“You want him back, you feel like shit, you—whoops, sorry, you feel really terrible all the time, and you can’t control your daughters because you don’t feel good enough about yourself, and you don’t know what’s gonna happen next. Have I got the story here?”
“Yes,” Viveca said. She felt humble in the presence of this wise older woman.
“Okay,” the wise older woman said, “I tell you what you do. Tomorrow, when you get your phone back, you call this Frank. You tell him, ‘Honey, rent a truck and come get us, all of us, we’re blowin this mausoleum.’”
“Oh dear,” Viveca said. “I don’t know, Margaret.”
“What you tell him is,” Margaret insisted, “this separation is over. Come on, Frank, rent a truck or hire a lawyer, because we’re either gettin together or we’re gettin a divorce. And if it’s a divorce—”
“Neither of us wants a divorce,” Viveca said. “I’m sure of that.”
“Great,” Margaret said. “But if he wants one anyway—He isn’t alone there in that apartment in New York, is he?”
“No,” Viveca whispered.
“Men,” Margaret concluded. “So if it is a divorce—This guy’s pretty well-off, am I right?”
“Yes,” Viveca whispered. “He’s an executive with a chemical company.”
“So if it is divorce,” Margaret told her, “you rent the truck yourself and move the hell outta here. Take the girls and go where you want and meet a guy and never even tell him about this place.”
Viveca laughed, surprising herself as thoroughly as when she’d cried before. “I shouldn’t have told Frank about it, that’s for sure,” she said.
Looking out the window, Margaret said, “Here comes my ride.”
Yes, here came all those lights, back up the mountain. Both women rose, and Viveca said, “Thank you, Margaret.”
“Anytime,” Margaret said. “Remember, soon as you get your phone back, call Frank.”
“I will.” Viveca smiled. “And I’ll tell him I was a fool to let a house get between us.”
“Well, don’t give him all the marbles,” Margaret said. “Negotiate a little. Come on, I gotta go.”
Viveca carried the Coleman lamp, and they made their way through the house to the kitchen. “I can find my way down the stairs,” Margaret said.
“Margaret,” Viveca said, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“Nah,” Margaret said, “it was just me and my big mouth.”
“God bless it,” Viveca said, and kissed the wise older woman on the cheek.
“Oh, come on,” Margaret said, and turned hurriedly to the door.
Viveca said, “I’ll never forget what you did here tonight, Margaret.”
Margaret gave her an odd look. “Good,” she said.
Murch saw the downstairs door just beginning to open as he drove past it to stop at the family’s entrance to Thurstead. He climbed down out of the cab, and off to his left he saw three huddled figures swathed in motel blankets and toting tote bags hotfoot it across the snow to the rear of the truck.
The family door opened before Murch got to it, and his Mom stepped out, waving to her son, then turning back to shout up the stairs, “You be sure to make that phone call!”
The only interior light source had stayed upstairs, and now it swayed like the signalman’s lantern in movies about nineteenth-century train rides. Murch’s Mom waved up the stairs, then came out and slammed the door, and hurried around to her side of the cab.
They both climbed up and in, away from the storm, slamming their doors. Murch said, “What was that all about?”
“Just a conversation we were having.”
“Oh.”
They waited about another ten seconds, and then a quick rat-tat-tat sounded on the metal wall behind their seats. Then Murch put the monster in gear and drove it around in a great circle to head down the mountain once more.
“Well,” Murch’s Mom said, “I think maybe I did some good in there tonight.”
“I think we all did,” Murch said.
“That, too,” his Mom said.
Two days later, Viveca and Mrs. Bunnion and Vanessa and Virginia and Victoria all piled into Mrs. Bunnion’s red Ford Explorer and drove to New York City, where every trace of Rachel had been expunged from Frank’s apartment. The following month, January, the Thurstead Foundation hired a couple—Hughie, the ex-cop, in fact, and his wife, Helen—to live in the upstairs rooms and take care of the place. In April, when the downstairs was opened to the public, some of the docents, the nice lady volunteers who would lead the tours through Russell Thurbush’s mansion, noticed some items missing, but no one commented. Some of the docents assumed that Viveca had taken a few small pieces with her, and why not, while others assumed the Thurstead Foundation was merely quietly selling off a few less important knickknacks to help with expenses, and why not. No one ever noticed the burglary—or robbery.
At last, the perfect crime.
43
Little Feather didn’t know what to do. Here it was Monday morning, almost noon, and everything was going according to plan, and yet nothing was going according to plan.
The part that was Marjorie Dawson’s plan had ticked along like a charm. Her lapse in failing to send the announcement of appeal on to Max Schreck’s office in New York had created exactly the delay it was supposed to create, stalling the DNA test over the weekend, so that Fitzroy or John or somebody could come up with the solution to the open Burwick Moody grave. But that left the part of the plan that included the solution to the open grave, and so far Little Feather didn’t see any solution forthcoming.