Chapter Twenty. Rose
CHAPTER TWENTY
ROSE
IT’s our third Sunday at the hotel. I’m reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on the terrace while Lou builds a castle from wood scraps the workmen left behind.
On our first Sunday, Auntie asked Ella and me if we’d like to go to services at St. Paul’s.
We declined. I’m afraid we are rather lackadaisical churchgoers.
We attend the mandatory Episcopal services in the ivy-draped chapel at school, and I enjoy the rituals—the incense and prayers and hymns I know by heart—but I can’t say I feel any real communion with God.
Father takes us to the National Cathedral on Christmas and Easter.
But he isn’t devout; Nanny says he lost his faith when God took my mother so young.
Mostly my sisters and I stay home and enjoy long, leisurely pancake breakfasts while we read the Sunday Post.
I am rather evangelical about a good pancake.
I hear voices and look up. Grace and Coop are picking their way across the rutted tracks in the lawn.
They’re still in their church clothes—pressed trousers and a blue button-down for him, a white blouse and plaid midi skirt for her—which reminds me of the day we arrived.
I feel slovenly in my red T-shirt and blue jeans and bare feet.
Grace throws herself onto the wrought-iron chaise next to mine. I dog-ear my page. “Good morning.”
“Is it?” she says caustically.
“I thought church was meant to restore one’s spirits?”
“How would you know, you heathen?” she retorts.
Coop has stopped to admire Lou’s tower. “Stan was flirting with Lottie again,” he explains. “Dad got after Grace the whole way home.”
“That little—” Grace glances at Lou and thinks better of what she was about to say. “Stan and I haven’t spoken for a whole week. I’ve got to either fix it or break up with him, and I can’t break up with him.”
“Can’t you?” It’s my turn to be caustic.
“She could. But Dad wouldn’t like it.” Coop sits on the bottom of my chaise. I hug my knees in to my chest to make room, and he gives me that shy, melting grin. “Hi.”
I grin back. “Hi.”
“I’m going to vomit,” Grace mutters.
“How’d you like to go out with me on Friday night?” Coop asks.
“I’d love to.” It’s been a week since our date at the weenie roast, and I was starting to worry that his dad’s warning had scared him off.
“‘I’d love to,’” Grace mimics. “Are you two going to be like this all summer?”
“Maybe.” Coop scuffs his shoe against the stone of the terrace. “The firemen’s carnival starts this week. There’ll be fireworks on Friday for the Fourth. They have games and rides and funnel cake. What do you say?”
“That sounds swell.” Honestly, I’d go anywhere with him. Even a rodeo, or a baseball game, or something equally bucolic and boring.
“It’s not bad. For Greeley.” Grace smirks, then points at Lou. “Rose.”
My baby sister is jumping, barefoot and delighted, into the mud puddles that have formed in the ruts left by the construction vehicles. It rained cats and dogs yesterday. Absolutely poured.
I groan. “Lulu! You’re a mess! Come here.”
Lou runs over. “What? Auntie says a little dirt never hurt anybody!”
“You’re more than a little dirty.” She’s caked in mud to her calves, splattered all the way up to her waist. Her white pinafore has new brown polka-dots. “Come on. We’ll rinse you off in the basement and get you into clean clothes for brunch.”
“Bunny pancakes!” Lou shouts. Our cook in Washington makes special pancakes shaped like bunny rabbits on Sundays.
Lou bounds ahead of me into the shadowy, cavernous basement. “We’ll be right back. Can you wait? Five minutes. Ten at most,” I tell the twins. Grace harumphs but Coop nods. I follow Lou’s muddy footprints toward the big construction sink.
“Rosie, what’s he doing?” One forefinger is in Lou’s mouth. The other stretches out in front of her, pointing at the man sprawled at the foot of the stairs.
I start and clutch her shoulder. There’s a man lying at the foot of the basement stairs! He’s face down—is that supine or prone? I never can remember—with his legs akimbo and his right arm crumpled beneath him like he thought to catch himself but couldn’t, and his neck—
I swallow a scream.
I mustn’t scream in front of Lou.
“He’s taking a nap. Let’s use the bathroom upstairs.” I try to pull her away.
She plants her feet. “But I’ll get mud all over!”
“That’s all right. Auntie won’t mind just this once.”
“Is that man dead?” Lou points at him again. “I saw a dead bird yesterday. Auntie said we mustn’t touch dead things.”
“Yes, I—I think so.” My voice comes out too high.
“Auntie said the bird prob’ly flew into the window. Its neck looked crookedy, too. Did he run into a window?” Lou clearly won’t budge until her curiosity has been sated.
“I think maybe he fell down the stairs.”
“I fell down the stairs. Five stairs. I got a boo-boo.” She points to her knee. She’s very intrigued by boo-boos and Band-Aids at the moment, and I have a sudden horror of her asking me to put a Band-Aid on that dead man before I can get her out of the damned basement.
Who is he? How did he end up at the bottom of our cellar stairs?
Is he a vagrant? All the way out here?
“What’s the matter?” someone asks.
I scream before I realize the shadow in the doorway behind me is Grace.
“Jeez, Rosie,” she mutters.
A second shadow appears. “What’s wrong?” Coop asks. I’m trembling like a leaf in a thunderstorm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Grace looks at me hard, and I shake my head a smidge. Not a ghost this time.
“There’s a man and he’s dead,” Lou says, excited.
My God, children are macabre little ghouls.
I point across the room. “I didn’t—check—yet.”
Coop swears beneath his breath. “I’ll look,” he says manfully, and I am happy to let him do it. I clap one hand to my mouth. The other is gripping Lou, preventing her from following Coop.
“Mister? Hey, mister!” He nudges the man’s shoulder with his shoe.
There’s no response. I didn’t think there would be. Still, part of me is relieved that Coop can touch him, that this horror is tactile and everyone can see it.
Coop looks at us, then leans down and lifts the man’s shoulder. Quickly, I clap a hand over Lou’s eyes. “Rosie!” she complains, squirming, but I hold fast.
“No, Lulu, you mustn’t look!” She goes still at my firm voice.
I don’t want to look, either, but I do, and then I gasp.
It’s Hank McIntosh.
His face is bruised and bloody from his fall down the rough wooden stairs, or maybe from scraping against the concrete floor. His eyes are red and staring and—
I close mine for a moment, trying to erase the grotesque image.
Grace grabs my arm. “Is that—?”
“Mr. McIntosh.” I take a deep breath through my nose.
Coop lets go of his shoulder, and McIntosh’s body thwaps against the concrete. It’s a sickening, meaty sound. Coop gags.
“What’s happening?” Lou twists away from me. “Did somebody throw up?”
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Grace takes Lou’s hand and leads her out into the sunlight.
I trudge after them, shivering despite the heat.
I stumble onto the terrace, and Coop is there, wrapping an arm around my waist. I let myself lean into him, grateful for his warmth, his steadiness, as we make our halting way across the terrace.
“This is my fault,” I mutter.
“How do you figure?” he asks, a little hoarse.
I babble an explanation of what happened between Ella and McIntosh last Saturday. How I reported his boorish behavior to Auntie and got him canned. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that he’s turned up dead in our basement a week later!
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but he reeked of booze. Maybe he tripped and fell.”
“Maybe. How long do you think he’s been there?” I shudder. When was the last time someone went to the cellar? Were the workmen there yesterday? What if McIntosh has been lying dead for days? Does he have a family? Have they been looking for him? My thoughts are spiraling.
“I don’t know. He’s already sorta—stiff.” Coop gulps.
“Why don’t I take Lou inside and get her into clean clothes. You can tell your aunt what’s happened,” Grace suggests, and I nod, impressed. She’s remarkably calm. I feel about five minutes from a complete come-apart.
“I want to tell Auntie about the dead man! Coop touched him and we’re not supposed to touch dead things,” Lou complains.
“Did you know that Cooper and I used to live upstairs?” Grace distracts her. “I wonder if you’re sleeping in my old room. I wrote on the wall with crayons once.”
“You can’t color on the walls or Nanny will yell,” Lou says solemnly. She leads Grace through the kitchen door, and we follow.
“Why would McIntosh come back?” I ask Coop.
“Maybe he left something behind. His toolbelt or … I don’t know. If he was drunk, maybe he wanted to give your aunt a piece of his mind.”
Maybe. The idea of McIntosh stumbling in through the unlocked cellar door, drunk, while my sisters and Auntie and I were asleep in our beds, gives me the heebies.
“We need to tell your aunt, so she can get the sheriff out here,” Coop says.
We find Auntie in the glass-walled breakfast room. It’s newly filled with wrought-iron café tables, overstuffed armchairs, and half a dozen feathery potted ferns. The views of the Bay on two sides are gorgeous. Auntie is humming along to an opera while she sets one of the tables.
“Hello, darling. Hello, Cooper. Would you like to join us for brunch? I thought we could eat in here today. Hasn’t it come together beautifully?” She sees my face and sets down her champagne glass. “Rosie, what is it?”
“It’s Mr. McIntosh. He’s dead.”
“McIntosh?” Auntie frowns. “Oh! The workman? The one who—”
I nod. “He’s in the cellar and he’s dead.”
I can’t stop imagining the horrible angle of his neck, the ghastly thump his body made—
“Dead? Are you sure?” Auntie looks bewildered. “In our cellar?”
“Yes, ma’am. Looks like he fell down the stairs. He smells like liquor and his neck—” Coop swallows. “His neck is broken. Grace took Lou upstairs. She was pretty curious about it, but—”
“Louisa saw it? The—body?”
I nod, feeling sick and on the verge of tears. I explain how we stumbled upon it.
“Oh, you poor thing.” Auntie wraps her arms around me.
Father sent her a new perfume from Paris, something from Dior’s collection.
She smells of gardenias. “How dreadful. I’ll have to phone the police.
And the coroner. I don’t quite—I’ve never—” Even Auntie seems a little flustered, unsure of how to proceed.
“It’s the sheriff you want, ma’am,” Coop says. “Sheriff Callaway. The operator will connect you. He was at church, but he’d be home by now. I imagine he’ll come over right away.”
“Thank you, Cooper. Can you run down and let your mother and dad know what’s happened?
Rosie.” Auntie takes me lightly by the shoulders.
“I think you’re in shock. Here. Drink the rest of my mimosa.
” She hands me her glass and watches me drink it down.
It’s fizzy and sweet. “Pour yourself another. I’ll go and phone the sheriff. ”
Auntie strides off toward her office. “I don’t like to leave you alone,” Coop says. “But she’s right, I should tell my folks. Soon as word gets out that the coroner was called here, people are liable to phone them … I’ll be back in a flash, okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Really.” Coop goes.
Auntie’s mixed up a pitcher of mimosas. I pour myself another. Medicinal, Nanny says. I sip it and absently rub one of the ferns between my thumb and forefinger.
Why would McIntosh come back to the hotel? Was it to give Auntie a piece of his mind? My heart plummets at another possibility, one that Coop would never consider. What if McIntosh telephoned Ella, and told her that she owed him for getting him canned—
She wouldn’t have felt obligated to meet him, would she?
Doesn’t she know yet that she can come to me with anything?
I’m not sure that she does. That she would.
I book it to the library. Ella isn’t there. Of course. There’s no music, is there? I climb the stairs, hanging on to the railing for dear life, and burst into her bedroom.
“Jeez, haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” she complains.
Magnolia is propped up against the headboard, her swollen feet stretched out in front of her. Ella is painting her toes.
Scarlet. Like fresh blood.
“Ella, have you spoken to Mr. McIntosh since he was let go?” I ask.
“What?” Ella looks at me sharply. “No! Of course not!”
“You didn’t sneak out to see him last night? I won’t be mad, I swear, but you have to tell me,” I insist.
My sister flushes. “There’s nothing to tell. I learned my lesson, Rosie, okay?”
“You know who did sneak out last night?” Magnolia doesn’t wait for us to guess. “Grace! I got up to use the powder room around midnight, and she wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t anywhere in the cottage. Do you think she snuck out to see Stanley?”
I frown. “No, they’re still on the outs.”
Magnolia’s eyes go wide. “Maybe there’s another fella in the picture.”
“That doesn’t sound like Grace.” She hasn’t mentioned any other guys.
But I remember the parallels she drew between herself and Ella.
I remember her face, warped with anger, as she pointed that knife at Stanley.
It feels like someone’s dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. Suddenly, I hope that Grace did make up with Stanley last night and didn’t want to admit it to Coop and me.
Because otherwise—
What if Ella wasn’t the one who came across Hank McIntosh in the cellar?
What if he didn’t fall down the stairs?
What if he was pushed?