Chapter 11
Fiona
This book is set here, at Wurimbirra. It’s all here—the yard, the cemetery, the enormous staircase, the chandelier and the
double doors at the entrance. Maybe I could convince myself that was an enormous coincidence, except that I found Marie’s
ring upstairs in my own bathroom. And could Silas be . . . Tad? The similarities are undeniable. My uncle was a wonderful
man, but he was utterly lost in his work every single time he sat down to write.
When Jack knocks at the front door I am still numbly staring at the book. I walk to the door but even as I open it, I’m struggling
to string a greeting together.
“Those cats really gave you a fright, huh?” Jack says, giving me an odd look. He’s carrying two wire cages and a tote bag
full of supplies and he’s handsome and kind and he’s here for me without question or protest even at midnight.
I want to hug him, but I feel like if I do, I’ll just end up sobbing into his shoulders and he’ll think I’ve lost my mind.
“It’s been a big week” is all I croak as I welcome him inside. “Can I get you anything? Tea or coffee? I don’t have any beer
but there’s wine . . .”
“I’m good, thanks, Fi. Where should we set all of this up?”
We consider a few options. The cats have been lurking in the kitchen and the parlour, but I’ve seen them in my room and the study.
In the end, we go with the study—mostly because I want to get some sleep tonight and I doubt I’ll sleep if I’m lying there waiting for the traps to go off at the end of my bed. I take the tote
from Jack and we walk up the stairs, side by side, as I explain about the dog door and the events of the past few nights.
“Why do cats push things off furniture!” I exclaim in frustration when I finish. Jack chuckles.
“Why do cats do anything? They are a law unto themselves, I’m afraid. The behavioral science theory is that they like to chase
movement so when they are bored they create it for themselves, but my personal theory is they’re just arrogant little jerks.”
“Not a cat person?”
“I’m an every-animal person,” he tells me. “But I’m not blind to their flaws. Honestly that ‘pushing’ behavior is more common
in young cats so it’s likely you’ve got yourself some kittens. And given one decided to snuggle up to you once you were asleep,
that tells me it’s at least a little tame. They’re probably both skittish and desperate for your attention.”
“They’ve aged me ten years in doing it, but they definitely got my attention.”
“I’ve never been in this study before,” he says quietly as he crouches low on the ground, beside the coffee table between
the two dusty chesterfields. I wince at the creaking sound my knees make as I bend to kneel beside him. “When we were kids
this was the forbidden zone, remember?”
“Oh, I remember,” I sigh. “This was his sanctuary. He had so few rules, but staying out of this space and keeping quiet when
he was working were not negotiable.”
Jack explains these are fox traps. We’ll bait them with some smelly wet food, and when the cats step inside, their weight
will activate the trigger and the door will close to lock them in.
“And then what do I do with them?” I ask.
He reaches into the tote bag and withdraws a little wand.
“I’ll scan them for microchips once we catch them. If they are chipped, we’ll try to get them home to their owners. I should
warn you . . . I’m not optimistic about that. If they had loving owners, they likely wouldn’t be all the way out here, you
know?”
“And if they aren’t microchipped?”
“Well, that’s when it gets a little more complicated. We’ll take them to the pound, but black cats are always the last to
be adopted, and if these aren’t entirely tame . . . All I’m saying is, we’re in the brief lull between mice plagues. It was
probably the last plague that lured these cats into your house in the first place, so you might want to think about keeping them for the next
one.”
My first inclination is to refuse immediately. I haven’t had a pet since Uncle Tad’s dog Rosey, mostly because Lucas is allergic
to pet dander, but there’s no reason I can’t have pets now.
In fact, there are quite a few reasons two cats might do me some good. Now that I know they’re here, at least.
“I’ll give it some thought.”
He shows me how to load the food he brought into the trap, and how to arm it. As he’s working, I push the coffee table out
of the way to make some more room. The floorboard beneath the rug shifts as I do, making a loud shuddering sound.
“See?” I say pointedly. “The whole house is noisy—”
But something stops me, just like that. I can’t explain it—it’s almost like that moment in my bathroom when I found the ring,
despite there being no earthly way I should have seen it back there, or the moment in the kitchen when I just needed to sit and read the book, or the moment when a wind that couldn’t possibly get through a closed window pushed a door closed
and locked it.
I reach down and I press on the floorboard and I am startled to realize there’s a ton of movement there.
“Floorboard not seated right? Maybe that’s why he had the rug and table here,” Jack says as he shuffles the traps out of the
way so I can roll the rug back.
“Mum bought the rugs when she first arrived from the US. Because of the echo,” I whisper, and my mind is suddenly back with
The Midnight Estate. As I move the rug out of the way I find a floorboard with slight damage along one side. Someone jimmied it up at some point
and failed to repair it properly when they put it back. It’s held in place by one nail on an odd angle, and another that’s
in the original hole, but so loose I can easily pull it out with my finger. There are indents all around the nails from where
a hammer has landed in the wrong spot.
“This is Tad’s handiwork,” I murmur, almost to myself. “I’d know it anywhere. Tad wielded a pen like a sword but used a hammer
like a drunk toddler.” Jack laughs, and he’s baited and armed the second trap now, so he sits it on the floor just past the
edge of the rug, then stands. I am beyond desperate for sleep, but I know the minute Jack leaves I’ll be diving back into
that book.
“I’m glad you messaged me,” he says as we walk back down the stairs.
“You are? You like setting cat traps for old school friends at midnight, do you? That’s one of your favorite hobbies?” I don’t
know where I find the energy to tease him but I do, and I’m rewarded when he laughs again.
“No, but I seem to recall plenty of times over our first few decades when you needed help and wouldn’t let me give it to you.”
“That’s not true!”
“How about when you were struggling terribly with Year Eleven English? I kept offering to help you with your essays and you were adamant you could do it on your own. Or when your chain slipped off on your bike and you couldn’t get it back on?
And don’t even get me started about how maddening it was to watch you trying to dive at the public pool before you finally figured out how not to bellyflop. ”
“So this is progress, huh?” I say softly, as he pulls open the front door, and he flashes me that oh-so-charming smile.
“Call me in the morning if we catch anything? And I’ll pop in on my way to work and scan them for you.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
I wave as he slips into the car, and then I close the door. I’d probably be dissecting our interaction right now, thinking
about the glint in his eyes when he was talking about how glad he was that I reached out, or the way my stomach flipped a
little when he remembered so much detail about our friendship in our younger years.
But I can’t stop to think about that right now.
I run through to the laundry and find Uncle Tad’s old toolbox, then I sprint back up the stairs to the study. The dodgy floorboard
is still exposed, so I pry the remaining nail out of it, and gently lift it up.
I’m not entirely surprised to see a little metal tin hidden beneath it, labeled with the brand of ink Uncle Tad used to buy.
He loved to take notes with a fountain pen, and he went through a lot of ink, so he bought the little bottles in bulk and
they always arrived in these tins. I fish the tin out and sit it on the floor, then take a steadying breath as I open it.
Inside the tin is a thick pair of glasses with black frames shaped like cat’s eyes. There’s a thin strand of pearls. A men’s
wallet, and two passports. I lift each item out one by one.
As I remove the passports, I find a little stack of papers underneath. On the top is a small black-and-white photograph of two headstones.
millicent enid winslow—1898–1959
A good and kind heart is the best of all qualities
virginia joy winslow—1930–1959
She gave her family and her community loving acts of service
Milly Winslow was my grandmother—Mum and Tad’s beloved mum, and I know she died just before Mum immigrated. That’s a terribly
sad photograph for Tad to have kept, but the thing that’s making me feel physically ill right now is the photo of the second
gravestone. The one placed right above a fresh grave. The one that has my mother’s name and date of birth on it, along with
a date of death.
There are cold, uneasy shivers running down my spine and my uncle is not here to explain himself.
I open the wallet next. There are American dollars inside, alongside a few Australian pound notes. There’s a handful of business
cards—mostly faded, some so faded I can’t make out the text. There’s a cardboard driver’s license made out to Julian Noel
Lentfer, born in 1927, a resident of Porterville, California. I open the passport to see a photograph of a stern man with
thick blond hair and hard, cold eyes staring right back at me.
Julian Lentfer.
I’ve heard that name before, but where?
The answer is right under the passport, in a small collection of newspaper clippings, with headlines just like that one I
found in the kitchen a few days ago.
WIFE OF DEPUTY POLICE CHIEF STILL MISSING AFTER SEVEN DAYS.
REWARD OFFERED FOR NEWS OF MISSING PORTERVILLE WOMAN.
PORTERVILLE DEPUTY CHIEF OF POLICE DISAPPEARED JUST WEEKS AFTER HIS WIFE.