She opened the French doors onto the glassed-in porch. The chill was refreshing after the heat of the parlor fireplace and the warmth of the kitchen stove. She couldn’t find a light switch, so she followed the dim passageway toward the darker rear of the house, letting her eyes adjust. She set her teacup down on a wicker plant stand and crossed her arms to the cold, looking out at the snow shaking out of the unseen sky and tumbling onto the grounds. A glowing white carpet stretched to the bare trees at the foot of the mountains and the silence was absolute. She wondered at the strangeness of the day, a study in contrast: ADX Gilchrist and Luther Trait standing in sharp relief against the agreeableness of the inn. She thought of killers and innkeepers and bestselling sequels and wondered what direction her life and her career were taking.
“Excuse me.”
The voice was low and perfunctory — but still Rebecca jumped as Kells walked out of the shadows at the dark end of the porch, stepping past her.
“Didn’t want to startle you,” he said.
“Right,” she said, nervously touching her throat with her hand. “Thanks.”
He was already on his way back to the parlor door. She stood there a moment, angry with herself for being spooked, then she turned her attention back to Kells. There was an air of tensile strength in the way he carried himself. What had he been doing on the porch?
She returned to the parlor door, but he was gone again, as was the plate of crumbs. Rebecca ignored the growing cold and continued stealthily along the outer porch almost to the front entrance of the inn, stopping at the twin French doors. She saw Kells there, just inside the saloon doors, handing Fern the small plate and saying goodnight. Rebecca edged back from the wall to avoid being seen, and peeked out again as he moved past the reception desk to start up the carpeted stairs to the guest rooms, a hardcover book in his hand.
She made her way back to the porch door. She found her cup of tea on the plant stand and then, curious, she rounded that last corner, following the porch to the end. Another pair of doors led to an outside stairway going up, and they were locked. Before the doors was Fern’s communal library, the built-in bookshelves packed with chipped paperback spines of varying widths and lengths: chubby romances, thin humor books, self-published Vermontalia, and the familiar stripes of last year’s thrillers. But what surprised her was the top shelf where earlier that day she had viewed Fern’s autographed copy of Last Words above the sign admonishing borrowers, “... Except This One.”
The wire display stand was empty.
The second day
Chapter 6
Rebecca awoke late the next horning to thick snowflakes drifting like downy feathers outside her room’s calico curtains. She showered until the hot water ran out, dressed, and arrived downstairs just as Mia and Robert were leaving. Bundled in mittens and mufflers, Mia gave Robert a playful punch in the back as they pushed through the doors.
Bert-and-Rita were the only ones left in the dining room. Rita was done up in a violet snowsuit, and Bert was sporting a ridiculous pair of gaiters wound to his knees. She disparaged them because she envied them. Here was a good, working marriage, two healthy people growing old together. Rebecca said “Good morning,” then fixed herself a to-go cup of coffee at the serving table, leaving them swapping sections from the local newspaper.
She took a drive around the town. The falling snow kept everything fresh and white without yet impeding movement, so that the Mountaineer rolled along confidently. Snow was the great equalizer, nature’s cream base. Even the most beautiful town in the world profited from a little touching up. It whitened out the rough edges, filled in the cracks where things were wanting, and brought to life the colors that survived its steady march — the sorrel of a tree trunk, the stark black dome of a short silo, the bright brick of a heated chimney.
Outside the town center, life was more rugged and lonely. Collapsing barns. A solitary tree wilting in a field of snow. A makeshift house constructed around a mobile home. A tractor driven by a watchcapped man of flannel and wool. Horses rooting through snowfall for food, near squatting cows, lazily watching her drive past.
She made a circuit of Gilchrist and was back at the common by noon. The Gilchrist General Store, first stop on the right as you come from the inn, was a wood-planked floor of three narrow aisles, a mix of old and new, glass bottles of Moxie and plastic half-liters of Sprite. The post office was there, a scale and a stamp machine and a government seal behind the register. In back was a selection of fishing and hunting gear, and next to the deli counter was a bulletin board of Polaroid pictures of camouflaged men, photos taken at all times of the year, hunters holding up a string of fish or kneeling in the back of an open pickup twisting the head of a dead deer toward the camera. The old man behind the meat case wore a stained smock, drying his hands on a brown paper towel.
She ordered a sandwich and stepped outside. A crowd was gathering on the snowy common, townspeople milling around the gazebo. The historic white buildings spaced around the blanketed common looked like a movie set, The Nineteenth Century New England Village backlot. Dates were printed above the doors, as though a flatlander might question their authenticity: Gilchrist Town Hall, 1854; Gilchrist Masonic Hall, 1841. Rebecca’s cynical eye sought out the anachronisms, things that would have to be framed out of the camera’s view. The snowmobiles lining the curb. The North Face jackets. A placard in the window above the general store advertising Tai Kwan Do.
Yet something about Gilchrist touched her, triggering a sense memory which, despite its authenticity, warmed her heart. It was the simple innocence of a small-town past shared by most Americans, despite their true pasts — memories assigned in seventh grade, with the first three chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This was Rockwell’s America. Rebecca wandered over to the common with her wrapped sandwich.
The bell rang in the church steeple, calling the gathering to attention. It was a ceremony of some sort, the dedication of a bust about to be unveiled. The honoree named Tom Duggan, stood on the bandstand wearing a hangman’s coat. Rebecca remained on the edge of the crowd, biting into her sandwich discreetly and listening to a top-hatted man speaking without a microphone. He was the town historian, joined onstage by the uniformed chiefs of the police and fire departments and the selectmen and other elected officials, reciting from index cards something about the history of the penitentiary and Tom Duggan’s role in bringing it to Gilchrist. But Rebecca was more interested in the conversations around her.
One old salt in a dingy pea coat decried the turnout. “Saturday afternoon, for chrissakes.”
“Town’s changing,” sang his buddy, with the cadence of an oft-spoken refrain.
“Seen all them outer-state license plates these past coupla days?”
“How’s that?”
“Strangers riding around. At night.”
They all resembled each other in some vague way: hearty, red-cheeked, dour. Lots of beards. Kept the chin warm. Rebecca turned her attention to a middle-aged woman talking to a hard-faced neighbor.
“You heard about Lemsie?”
“Drinking again?”
“Tractor stolen last night, right out of his barn. Chief Roy don’t have no clue.”
“Like Dickie Veal’s snowplow two nights ago.” The man sheeshed. “Crime follows money, don’t it.”
“Like shit follows dessert.”
The snow was coming down harder, thick flakes rushing to the earth, the groundfall thickening and muffling sound. The bust was unveiled to applause and a few whistles — it was granite and chip-cheeked, just like Mr. Tom Duggan — and then the man of the hour began to speak, slowly and shyly. “Louder, Tom!” came the cries, and he smiled with embarrassment and opened his mouth to start over.