The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,96
gossip disguised as “networking” had somehow managed to stretch out to half an hour. Even then, Bill McGuire and Ed Becker were still at the counter when he left, postponing the start of their workday under the guise of a serious conversation regarding the financing for Blackstone Center and when it might finally come through. That Melissa Holloway, who had officially been appointed permanent president of the bank at the last meeting of its board of directors, had told them they could count on no approvals any earlier than June seemed to cut no ice with Bill and Ed. But then, it was that kind of morning: today everyone seemed to prefer speculation over actual labor. When Oliver finally arrived at the Chronicle, it was more of the same.
“Everyone wants to know when you’re going to run a story about what’s been going on,” Lois Martin said as he opened the office door. “I just got another call—this time from Edna Burnham. She says everyone in town is talking, and it’s up to you to stop it.”
The temperature of Oliver’s pleasant springtime mood notched down to a wintry chill. He knew perfectly well what Lois was talking about: a day hadn’t gone by in the month since Martha Ward had burned her own house to the ground and perished in the flames that someone hadn’t called the paper demanding to know what—exactly—the connection was between the suicides of Elizabeth McGuire, Jules Hartwick, and Martha Ward. As far as Oliver could see, there was no connection at all.
A few odd coincidences, perhaps, but nothing more than that.
It was Edna’s contention, Oliver knew, that there was ominous significance in the fact that all three of the suicides had occurred shortly after a full moon. But the term lunacy had been around in one form or another for millennia, and given that all three of Blackstone’s tragic victims had been under one form of stress or another, Oliver wasn’t willing to call the full moon a causative factor for any of them. A trigger, possibly, but certainly no more.
Still, if Edna Burnham was demanding answers, it meant the talk was starting to get even more serious than Oliver had thought.
“Does she have a new theory, or is she just upset?” he asked.
Lois Martin hesitated before answering his question, and when she did, her eyes didn’t quite meet Oliver’s. “She’s wondering if it might not all go back to the Asylum somehow.”
“The Asylum,” Oliver repeated. “And did she say what put that idea in her mind?”
Lois’s eyes finally met his. “A few things, actually,” she said, picking up a pad on which she’d scribbled some notes when old Mrs. Burnham had called. The phone had been ringing off the hook when Lois arrived that morning. “First off,” Lois told him, “there’s the anonymous gifts. Edna claims to have heard whisperings about weird things that turned up, first at the McGuires’, then at Jules’s house and at Martha’s. She says no one knows where they came from.”
A look of disbelief came over Oliver’s face. “Come on! What kind of things?”
“Well, Bill McGuire was talking about a doll that showed up in the mail a few days before Elizabeth killed herself, and Rebecca told her about a gold cigarette lighter—”
“I know where that came from,” Oliver told her. “No mystery there. Rebecca and I found it at the flea market.”
“I know, I know.” She held up a hand to stop his protests. “Edna’s been doing some sleuthing of her own. She’s been over at the library, chatting with Rebecca. And it seems she asked Janice Anderson where she got it, and Janice has no memory of ever having seen that lighter before the morning Rebecca bought it.”
Oliver groaned. “I suspect Janice can’t remember where she got half the merchandise in her store,” he said. “And the stuff she was selling at the flea market was just junk. Besides, what about Jules Hartwick? What mysterious item supposedly showed up there?”
“There was a locket,” Lois replied. “Celeste found it on the lawn after the snow melted.”
“Which means that anyone could have dropped it sometime between December and three weeks ago, when Celeste and Madeline got back from Boston,” Oliver pointed out. “I would hardly call that conclusive evidence of anything.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Lois protested. “I’m just reporting what Edna Burnham said.”
“She said a great deal,” Oliver remarked dryly. “But what actually is she getting at? Does she think there’s some kind of curse on these things?”