Chapter 6
Through the Belgian glass windows, I watch the sheriff’s olive-brown steamer, the Forthright, cut its way up the sound.
When the news of Mr. Sanders’s death broke, his secretary, Miss Evelena Jack, fainted dead away.
The general manager, a Swede named Sveyn, promptly ordered me to her office, though I’d never touched a telephone in my life.
Below, a crowd holding lanterns moves agitatedly through the Garden of Tranquility, where there will be no peace tonight.
Howls of grief still ring in my ears. Most scoff at Orkus rumors, but the believers have grown more vocal.
Even the most skeptical have to admit that something strange is going on.
Seal heads, and now this? Is the demon to blame?
Or someone seizing upon its legacy of terror?
The dockmaster, Doc, raises his lantern as the Forthright glides in from Friday Harbor, eleven nautical miles away. He vanishes down the path to meet it, some following him to the vessel, others keeping vigil looking out to sea. Another Rifle, not Koa, patrols the sea path.
Koa found the boar with the torn ear stumbling around a grove of trees near the shipyard. No human remains were discovered in its stomach.
I pull my sketch pad from my satchel. Maybe drawing will calm my nerves.
My tiny sketches drift down the page—African mountain zebra, ibex, spiny pancake cacti—species I hope to see one day but never will here.
The walnut telephone box clamors for the dozenth time.
I doubt Mr. Sanders ever imagined that the underwater cables he financed to bring telephone service to our island would be used to discuss his gruesome demise.
I pluck the warm receiver from its candlestick base and hold it awkwardly to my ear.
“Office of Mr. Sanders,” I say into the mouthpiece.
“Washington Daily, please hold,” says the operator, and the call is put through.
“Good evening. I wondered if I could speak to someone concerning the tragedy,” the caller says with a touch of drama.
“No one is available for comment at this time,” I say, as Sveyn instructed.
“Any reason to think someone had it in for him?” the caller quickly adds.
A memory of Shimmelfen’s glaring face springs to mind. A disgraced valet, armed with one of his exotic knives, slipping back unseen from the ferry… Could he still be here?
“No comment,” I say more sharply, and hang up.
A few minutes later the phone rings again.
My hand shakes as I pen the call into the secretary’s neat phone log. I hope I will not need to relive the horror of the moment in recounting it to the sheriff. Mr. Sanders’s spine, jagged through the neck like a fang…
Poor Mr. Sanders. He was a great man, the sort whose determined pedaling turned the world.
He was good to me, even if he scared me a little.
I hope he didn’t suffer. Without him, the future of Nowhere is uncertain.
It is well-known that Mr. Sanders named his estate Nowhere because he liked his privacy and hoped to discourage intruders.
Of course, it only made people more curious.
And now perhaps it will all come crumbling down, and Nowhere will finally be nowhere.
I will never learn my history. But at least now I am free to leave. Tomorrow, then, when my head is clear.
Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Could Mr. Sanders’s death have something to do with my parents? With me? But in what world does a lion’s path depend on a mouse? I fill my mouth with the cold dregs of my teacup, but it does not rinse away the sour taste.
My drawing of Shadow and Scull catches my eye from where it is proudly displayed on one of Mr. Sanders’s bookshelves.
A little mistiness clouds my vision. He had wept when I gave it to him—Shadow arcing like a scythe, her calf clumsy in imitation.
It might not be my best drawing, but it is easily the most dynamic.
Without Mr. Sanders, there will be no book. Nash Sanders-Byre, the probable heir, will certainly not take up the project. He was more patient with nature studies than Daniel growing up, but sporting and fine living seem more his style now. He will probably let my illustrations grow moldy.
A knock comes. Quickly, I slip my drawing into my sketch pad. Mr. Sanders owned all the work I produced for him, but surely he would not object to me keeping this one.
Before I can reach the door, Mrs. Bonefat steps inside—her gunshot-gray eyes showing not a trace of red, her pale skin and black skirts free of a single wrinkle.
Mr. Sanders didn’t give her a nickname, even though she was one of his most valued employees.
He must have thought her name perfect as is.
“Lucy, you are being called to the reception room.” Her winged eyebrows flex toward my crumpled scouting duds.
After returning to the big house, I couldn’t get rid of my vomit-stained serving dress fast enough.
Mrs. Bonefat looks especially raptor-like tonight, her thin chest puffed, her eyelids half closed, as if peering down from a high branch.
The rouge on her cheeks has been wiped off, and the lilac perfume is only a distant memory.
A single cat’s-head cameo gleams at her throat.
The walnut box begins to clang again, and I answer.
“Diocese of Seattle,” says the operator, “go ahead.”
“Hello, this is the clerk of the diocese,” a man with a thick Italian accent intones. “I have an urgent message for Mr. Dakon Sanders.”
“I’m sorry—Mr. Sanders has passed away.”
A stunned pause. “What do you mean?”
“He is dead.”
Mrs. Bonefat’s eyebrows flex disapprovingly. She depresses the lever that disconnects the call. The list of things that annoy her is long and includes telephones, houseflies, sunlight, and me.
“That was the diocese. Perhaps they have a message that concerns Father Pinnyhorne.”
“Never mind. Inventions are supposed to serve, not enslave. Follow me.”
I collect my satchel. She marches away with the grim efficiency of the farmer’s wife going to kill a chicken, and I can’t help wondering whom she prettied up for earlier. It could be anyone. But fraternization between employees is forbidden, and she is the type to enforce rules, not break them.
We use one of the twin staircases curving along the round walls. She moves jerkily down the stairs, ignoring maids with tear-streaked faces. She never complains of sciatica, but I have noticed that it bothers her most at the end of the day, and that is when her tongue grows sharpest.
Men in business attire crowd our round reception room, coating the air with the odor of stale cigars and hair oil.
Most are department leaders, like the head carpenter and the chief engineer.
I recognize Father Pinnyhorne’s shape right away, with the three-button minister’s coat hanging loosely over his long torso and his round saturno hat.
He lifts his gaze from our Japanese groundskeeper and nods at me, his eyes full of grief.
At the compass rose mosaic in the center of the domed chamber stands Sveyn, glaring at me with his good eye.
If the eye patch weren’t enough, a braided beard, lobster-red skin, and a hulking figure give the general manager the look of a pirate.
“The research assistant,” he utters in an accent that likes to lean on the syllables.
As Mr. Sanders’s right-hand man, overseeing the entire workings of the thousand-acre property, Sveyn doesn’t brook nonsense. He brings his bulk closer, inspecting me head to toe, and it is clear he has not made up his mind on whether I make sense or not. “The sheriff wants to talk with you.”
“Yes, sir.” No doubt the sheriff wants to confirm my discovery of the remains. Or question me about Shimmelfen’s ejection. Just tell him what you know, and do not break into hysterical fits.
A man with brown-black clipped hair and curly muttonchops dips his gaze to the empty chair next to him.
“You might as well sit down while you wait,” says Mr. Sanders’s left-hand man in his musical accent, though his face is as expressionless as a mahogany steamer trunk.
Everyone calls him Boots because he manages the hiring and firing of labor.
Mrs. Bonefat bends a frown in my direction, hair straining at her tight bun. Servants are not allowed to sit in the public rooms. But these are exceptional times. She nods.
I lower myself into the heavy handcrafted chair, though I can hardly relax with Sveyn and Boots staring at me.
Usually, the two trusted advisors who form Mr. Sanders’s Brain Trust are a pair of chattering jays.
Tonight they are noisy without saying a single word.
I keep my eyes focused on the far end of the room, where a curtained stage houses the organ.
Forests of brass pipes climb the curved walls on either side.
At last, a balding man with deep-set eyes enters from the west wing. A badge that sits high on his plain brown suit is the only remarkable thing about his appearance. “Miss Lucy, I am Sheriff Orr. Please follow me.”
Feeling all eyes tracking me, I follow the sheriff down a scarlet runner leading into the west wing. He walks with less hurry than a man in his position might. Soon we sit in a shadowed office of mahogany shelves, dark floorboards, and a heavy oak desk.
“Now, Lucy, I know this is upsetting, but there is no need to be afeared. I’d just like to know how you found Mr. Sanders, in your own words.” The sheriff’s eyes, though genial, press prints into my face.
I recount the tale, focusing on a vase of nodding wild onions, their pink flowers bobbing as in sympathy.
The sheriff scribbles in his notebook. “To your knowledge, besides his former valet, Shimmelfen, did Mr. Sanders have any enemies, anyone with whom he’d had a disagreement, a falling-out, bad blood?”
My mind wheels back to an image of myself, digging my heels into Mr. Sanders’s parquet floor. “No. We all respected him. Do you think the killer is the same person who did in the Can Man?”
He hooks an eyebrow. “The Can Man’s more fable than fact. Not saying a man didn’t die, but the sheriff at the time had his reasons for letting it lie. Not like any of those cannery workers spoke English anyway.”
That doesn’t strike me as a good reason not to investigate, but I’m no sheriff.
The man considers the nodding wild onions. He is polite and agreeable, but I get the feeling he hides most of his layers. His gaze snaps back to mine. “I understand you had an argument with Mr. Sanders earlier today.”
I cough, caught in a snare. The room seems to sway, and I clutch the arms of my chair. “I—I wouldn’t say it was an argument.”
“Very well. What did you discuss?” The sheriff leans forward, a chevron etched into his brow. Any friendliness has disappeared. He is a man locked onto his target.
My breath sits high in my chest. The glare from the overhead lamp seems too hot. I say in a small voice, “I told Mr. Sanders that my work for him was done and that I was accepted to the university.”
“And what did Mr. Sanders say?”
“He told me to wait.”
“What reason did he give?”
I suck in my breath. Mr. Sanders had not wanted me to know about my parents. What had he feared? “He didn’t give me one.”
“Did that make you angry?”
“I was disappointed,” I say, not wanting to admit that I had tripped on that root sin of anger.
Father Pinnyhorne’s sorrowful gaze pours ice down my spine.
I told him I felt like doing something violent.
Surely he hasn’t revealed my confession?
Doesn’t the clergy swear an absolute duty to keep the secrets of the penitent?
“One of the maids heard Mr. Sanders yelling, and a chair being thrown.”
“I never threw a chair. That was…” My tongue falters. Nash. Nash argued with Mr. Sanders. But he couldn’t have hurt his uncle, could he? And where is he now? He wasn’t in the reception room.
“That was…?” prompts the sheriff.
I don’t want to shift the blame onto Nash, but I won’t take the fall for something I did not do. “I heard Mr. Sanders-Byre arguing with him before I entered his office.”
The sheriff’s small mouth bunches to one side. “That’s Mr. Sanders’s nephew, by his sister Viridian?”
“Yes.”
He nods and leans back, face gone blank.
“I would never hurt Mr. Sanders.” I hate the pleading in my voice, and I unhook my nails from the chair.
How I wish Mr. Sanders had thrown me off the island this afternoon. That I were still none the wiser about my father and ready to make my way. For there are places far worse than a gray island with no answers.
The State of Washington has an active gallows.
Better gray fog than a black hood.