“Where were you?” I persisted, walking behind him.
“I’ll explain later,” he said, without turning around. “There are things I need to attend to now.”
I stood in the doorway of his study while he sifted through the papers on his desk until he found the one he was looking for. Ignoring me, he picked up the phone and dialed a number written on the page.
“Yes, hello. Is this the LaBarge residence?” With one hand he loosened his tie.
“Who is that?” I mouthed.
“Yes, thank you,” my grandfather continued, and, leaning over the desk, he shooed me out into the hall. As his office door closed, I could hear him say, “Jeffrey, hello. This is Brownell Winters speaking. I’m so sorry for your loss….”
With nothing else to do, I slid to the floor and waited. I tried to listen in, but all I could hear were occasional phrases. “I see.” “How odd.” “Yes, I would very much like to see it, if it’s not too much of an imposition.”
His muffled voice faded in and out until the door opened.
“Oh, Renée,” my grandfather said, bumping into me. “You’re still here.”
“Of course I’m still here. What was that about?”
Instead of answering my question, he rolled down his shirtsleeves and fastened them at the wrists with cuff links. “Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going on a trip.”
Vermont was green and rolling. I spent half the drive dozing in and out of sleep, my dreams permeated by dairy farms and grain silos, garage sales and lawn ornaments. The car sagged in the back with my grandfather’s shovels and Monitoring supplies, which made a loud thumping sound every time we drove over a bump. He had brought them along just in case we encountered any Undead; though it seemed pretty unlikely that the Undead who killed Miss LaBarge would come to her childhood home. I had been trying not to think about where we were going, but everything around us reminded me of Miss LaBarge: the yarn stores and bakeries, where I could almost see her in a window, wearing an oversized sweater as she nibbled on a scone.
Her house was off of a pastoral road riddled with potholes. It was a weathered wood cottage burrowed into a hillside, the roof almost completely overgrown with grass. There was one car in the driveway; otherwise, it looked deserted. Two of the front windows were broken.
We pulled up next to the house, in front of a small vegetable garden. “After we give our condolences to her family, I’ll have to spend a few minutes examining her house to search for any information on the Undead she was hunting, per Monitor protocol,” my grandfather said as we made our way up the stone path to the front door. “I’d like for you to join me.”
“Monitor protocol?” I asked. “You do this for every Monitor that’s killed?”
“I don’t, but someone from the High Monitor Court does. I used to be a member, and now that I’m retired I only take cases that are especially close to me. Annette LaBarge was one of your mother’s best friends. It’s the least I can do to honor her memory.”
Climbing roses curled their tendrils around the railing as if trying to pull the house into the ground. Swallowing, I gave my grandfather a brief nod and smoothed out my skirt, feeling unsure about what I was supposed to say or do once we went inside. “Just be yourself,” my grandfather said, as though reading my mind.
Just before he swung the knocker, the door opened, and a stout man wearing a baggy sweater greeted us. “You must be Brownell,” he said with a smile. He had the smooth face of a baby, but had to be at least forty years old.
My grandfather took off his sunglasses.
“I’m Jeffrey,” the man said, holding out his hand first to my grandfather, then to me. “Annette’s mother’s nurse. She was too ill to make the journey, so I’m here in her stead. Please, come in,” he said, and showed us into the front of the cottage. In the living room, a couch was positioned oddly next to a few overturned stools; a bland print of a landscape leaned on the floor in the hallway, as if it had been knocked off the wall; and a pile of broken dishes had been swept into the corner of the kitchen.
“The front of the house was ravaged when the police got here,” Jeffrey said. “The windows were broken, the furniture was all over the place….They think it happened after her death; someone trying to steal her things. Thankfully there wasn’t much here, and whoever it was didn’t touch the back rooms.”
“Where is everyone?” I asked, realizing we were the only ones there. “Her family? Friends?”
Jeffrey clasped his hands behind his back. “Annette wasn’t close with her family. I don’t think any of them have been in touch for years. This cottage, which belongs to her mother, is really their only connection. Annette spent summers here, when she was away from Gottfried.”
By my grandfather’s foot was a shard of pottery. He picked it up and tossed it into a nearby dustpan, which contained the remains of a broken vase. “Remind me, what was her mother’s name?”
“Henriette LaBarge. She’s been living in a nursing home for twelve years.” Jeffrey reached for a tin kettle steaming on the stove. It was dented and was missing its lid. “Can I offer you tea?”
We nodded, and he took out two chipped mugs from the cabinet and dropped tea bags inside. When he opened the refrigerator for milk, he winced at the smell.
This didn’t seem like Miss LaBarge at all. Where were her books? Her photographs and tapestries and figurines? Her teacups?
“Twelve years?” my grandfather said. “That’s quite a bit of time. I hope you won’t take offense, but I was surprised to receive your message, especially since I’ve never heard about you before.”
Jeffrey smiled. “With Annette gone, there’s no one left to take care of the house, which is why I came. I contacted you first because Annette had your number listed as her emergency contact, though under the name of Lydia Winters.”
I nearly dropped my mug at the mention of my mother’s name. My grandfather frowned. “I see.”