Rosemary for Remembrance

Chapter 1

If only Michael were in his office at home—with a pencil tucked behind his ear and his dark hair ruffled into what Abigail teasingly called rooster tufts while the music of Cole Porter crooned from the stereo speakers in the corner. As Abigail dwelt on the image, the outline of the wingback chair in her law office blurred into Michael’s lean form hunched over his drafting table, but his face, hauntingly illusive, remained hidden. She willed him to look at her, hungry for a glimpse of that familiar cleft chin and Roman nose.

But the ghost Michael, his face still averted, dissolved like smoke in the wind, leaving her surrounded by the mundane furnishings of her office. Using a pencil eraser, Abigail punched the buttons on the calculator in front of her and watched meaningless numbers click onto the tape.

The intercom interrupted. Paul is on line three, Abby.

Paul Faber’s baritone had the hearty, jovial quality of a department-store Santa. Abby! In the midst of a legal crisis?

Conversing with her boss required the patience of a therapist soothing a manic-depressive on an upward mood swing, but in her present mood she welcomed the interruption. Just finishing up the Kilpatrick estate plan—

Excellent! A ringing clatter. He must have dropped some spare change—Paul had a weakness for vending machines, and as a result, his pockets had a permanent sag from the weight of quarters, dimes, and nickels. The next words jerked out in breathless spurts, indicating he was stooping to retrieve the coins. Need you to cover appointment…my closing held up…

She waited until his gusty breathing told her the calisthenics were over before asking the client’s name.

Flora Albertson. As she’s a recent invalid, you’ll have to go to her house—Debbie’s got the address. He wheezed. She wants to draw up a new will. This’ll be a nice change of pace.

Abigail had first met Paul in a job interview over a year earlier. Paul Faber had a statewide reputation for a brilliant legal mind and she’d been nervous about her qualifications to work with him, until he set the tone for their relationship by asking his only question, one involving her skill level at strip poker.

The lending bank’s trying to back out—claims there’s a landfill under the proposed subdivision, he was saying. A two-million-dollar deal hanging fire because some bozo lied about former usage—Clarence Darrow’s kidneys!

Abigail smiled at his choice of oaths. Good-bye, Paul. I’ll take care of Mrs. Albertson like she was my own baby.

Her unthinking words echoed in her head as she hung up the phone. Michael had wanted children, but Abigail had opted to postpone the pitter-patter of little feet until later…

Stopping at the receptionist’s desk, she accepted an index card with the required address. Thanks, Debbie. Please call Ken Harris and tell him I’m sending over a transcript of the Garvey deposition.

Lucky Abby! I wish Paul would grant me parole from this dusty legal prison. Debbie sighed in unconcealed envy. A muted beep indicated an incoming call, and with a flip of glossy black hair, she whirled back to the switchboard. Crimson Seduction polish gleamed on her nails as she waved. Have a good evening, Abby!

Debbie probably defined heartbreak as a chipped fingernail, Abigail reflected as she crossed the parking lot. Sliding into her car, she twisted the key in the ignition. Today was a day when everything she touched sparked a memory, and above the roar of the engine, a song from Oklahoma repeated like a warped record in her head, with Michael’s name substituted for Jud Fry’s: Poor Mike is dead, poor Michael is dead.

She realized she was singing the dirge aloud, an anthem to self-pity, and shaking her head, she glanced at the index card on the seat beside her. Flora lived on Linmar Avenue, an address that Paul irreverently referred to as Easy Street.

As she entered the residential area, a boy delivering the evening newspaper pedaled down the street ahead of her, a heavy bag bumping against the spokes of his rear wheel. He looked up as she passed, a gap-toothed grin visible under the bill of his Chicago Cubs cap. Boy and bicycle, an inseparable team. That’s how friends had described Abigail and Michael—inseparable. Abigail toed the accelerator in a futile attempt to outrun her depression.

Although her eyes saw the well-kept houses and yards filled with toys, dogs, and children and the driveways where men and women took advantage of a hot Friday afternoon in late July to wash and wax their BMWs, none of the impressions were retained longer than it took for her brain to process the colorful parade of images.

The sunlight was in painful contrast to the sorrow that filled her heart as she passed two women joggers and turned the car onto Linmar Avenue. The upscale neighborhood gave way to mansions concealed behind privet hedges, high cedar fences, and iron scrollwork fences hung with discreet signs warning of guard dogs; the rolling acres and trimmed trees of each estate had the rich green hue that spoke of professional lawn care and unlimited funds.

The Albertson colonial-style mansion was located at the loop of the cul-de-sac of Linmar Avenue. Abigail drove past a pond nestled in the fork of a winding drive, her passage ignored by the two swans ruling the azure ripples. She parked on the paved oval adjoining a walkway of flagstones and swept a comprehensive glance over the house, noting the enormous redwood tubs of yellow and lavender flowers flanking the front door and the small shrubs which lined the path that circled to the left of the mansion. Someone certainly had a green thumb.

Nice legs!

Abigail whirled to confront the speaker, a slim man with wavy black hair, high cheekbones, and eyes as blue as the sky above. The smile on his lips mocked her as his gaze roamed over her figure in open appreciation. Moving as soft-footed as a cat, he had given no warning of his approach.

And the rest of you isn’t anything to cry about. He took another gliding step toward her, but the leer was replaced by a respectful smile as a woman appeared in the doorway of the house.

The newcomer’s glance flicked rapidly between the twosome standing by the car. Quincy! I want that border of lovage thinned before you leave tonight.

Yes, ma’am. Under his breath, but loud enough to reach Abigail’s ears, he drawled, And here I done thought Massa Lincoln freed the slaves.

Slapping a wicked-looking trowel against his palm, he sauntered off down the path whistling Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.

Quincy give you any trouble? The woman’s voice was curt.

Nothing I can’t handle, Abigail replied, holding her briefcase like a shield before her as she walked toward the house.

I’m Abigail James—

Her attempt at an introduction was cut off by an upraised hand. Mr. Faber called. Mrs. Albertson is upstairs. I’m Belle DuBois. The black woman in a blue wrap skirt issued the staccato statements in a nervous burst, then gestured for the visitor to follow.

The low heels on Abigail’s pumps sent up muffled echoes from the polished wooden floor as they passed darkened, shuttered rooms from which the sounds and warmth of human habitation seemed to have long since departed. The house had the hushed, eerie silence of a deserted funeral parlor. Belle began ascending an open staircase that swept up to the left, holding her head with the regal grace of the swans floating on the pond. Abigail followed, casting an uneasy glance over her shoulder. The gloom of the first floor was an almost-tangible presence, so starved for the life force that she half expected to find the shrouded furniture drawn along in their wake.

The staircase ended on the second floor. Belle rapped on the first door along the passageway and entered without pausing, but Abigail stopped on the threshold, her stillness paying tribute to the striking architectural design. Ablaze with light, the room featured a west wall composed entirely of glass and the sun carpeted the floor with a golden haze. Ivory paper patterned in crimson and gold threads covered the walls; a golden bird cage suspended from the ceiling imprisoned the smoky fronds of a fern.

An elderly woman crowned with downy white curls, which reminded Abigail of the swans’ feathers, was seated in an armchair set before the window wall. Miss James? I am Flora Albertson.

Belle drew up another chair and left in response to a wave of dismissal. Receiving no invitation to be seated, however, Abigail occupied herself by studying her surroundings. The sun was more at home, running its iridescent fingers over a Waterford crystal vase, catching a Chinese clay horse under a spotlight, and illuminating the glowing purples and reds of a Tiffany lamp shade.

An oppressive silence filled the room and Abigail, under her hostess’s intense gaze, felt herself reverting to an awkward third-grader, struggling with a math problem on the chalkboard and impaled by the piercing glare of the teacher. Her cheeks stained pink, her feet lengthened into gunboats, and the briefcase became a clumsy parcel in her hands until, disgusted by her childish reaction, Abigail straightened and summoned up the benefits of poise acquired in the courtroom.

She must have passed inspection because Flora smiled. Excuse my rudeness. Please, be seated. I’ve never seen a woman lawyer and I find it curious that you would want to invade a man’s world. But I suppose one’s thinking must be adjusted to move with these modern times. Is it Miss or Mrs. James?

Abigail sank down, the memory of a wedding band hidden in a drawer jolting her like an electric shock. I’m unmarried. And, please, call me Abigail. But unmarried seemed too sterile a word, a neatly bandaged incision under clean sheets and surrounded by get-well bouquets, when today she was the wounded soldier left on an abandoned battlefield, amid other shattered bodies and flies gloating at the scent of death.

She jerked her mind back from the graphic rawness of the metaphor and tried to introduce a more impersonal note by indicating the floor-to-ceiling window. You have a lovely view.

Flora’s erect posture was broken by a nod of agreement. I have always enjoyed the majesty of nature, more so since my pessimistic young doctor has predicted I will not live to see another spring.

Abigail felt the muscles of her face tighten. A dying woman. A nice change—Paul’s blithe words came back to her.

I will not overwhelm you with ghastly details, Abigail. Suffice it to say when I broke my hip a few months ago, tests revealed bone cancer. The medical profession has admitted its helplessness and I’m allowing Belle to give me relief from her magic garden.

Magic garden? Abigail surveyed the stone walls that enclosed a courtyard filled with flowering plants whose colors ranged from royal purple to silver white, all hushed and drowsing in the afternoon sun. The details of the scene below were sharply etched; bees were visible on their journey from flower to flower.

Quincy came into view and Flora looked at him, a speculative expression crossing her features. All of those gorgeous flowers are from the herb family. The plants closest to the house are medicinal in nature.

Straining the seams of tight jeans, Quincy knelt by a border of dark green plants and wielded the trowel with swift, efficient strokes as Flora continued. Belle’s an herbalist. A plant doctor. She cooks, rinses my hair, even stuffs my pillow with herbs. Flora studied Quincy’s bowed head with a slight frown. She hired that young man to help with the herb garden for the summer. He seems pleasant enough, but there’s a gleam in his eye that reminds me of an unbreakable stallion.

Based on Quincy’s bold approach to her, Abigail awarded the older woman high marks for perception. The gardener glanced up but the glare of the sun on the glass seemed to shield his observers from his gaze and Quincy returned to his task, moving his long limbs with the arrogant grace of an untamable animal.

Abigail turned to find Flora watching her, and woman to woman, they exchanged looks of appreciation for the physical beauty of the male species.

As if regretting the shared moment, however, Flora resumed a more formal tone. I’m taking no painkillers except natural ones and am entirely lucid. Bear with me now as I provide some background.

Abigail uncapped her pen as the woman paused and drew a deep breath. My husband, Daniel, has been dead for many years. When we were married in 1940, he was ten years my senior and owned a shop that manufactured bolts for airplanes. By the end of the war, however, the shop had become a booming factory.

The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour in solemn notes, as though tolling a death knell.

Daniel ended the war years a millionaire. We packed up steamer trunks and left on a four-month world cruise. While we were gone, he had this house built and designed this room just for me. I walked in—it was completely bare of furniture—and found an ivory music box playing ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ Sunshine was Daniel’s nickname for me.

Flora’s eyes contained the haunting bleakness of a winter landscape. Remembering the stygian gloom of the shrouded rooms below, Abigail wondered if Daniel’s death had been the tragedy that had quenched the sunshine.

Since receiving my death sentence, I’ve had time for reflection and realized that although I cannot change the past, I can still affect the future with the provisions of my will.

She fell silent and Abigail prompted, And the provisions of this will, Mrs. Albertson?

Flora, my dear. Formalities somehow seem empty when one is gazing across the broad expanse of eternity. The older woman paused to watch Quincy uproot another victim with a vigorous thrust of the trowel.

Belle is to receive a hundred thousand dollars. She’s served me faithfully and shown me more affection than a daughter ever could. The residue is to be held in a fund for five years. If at the end of that time certain specifications are not met, the money is to be distributed to various charities. I have prepared a list and the proportion each is to receive. She indicated a sheet of monogrammed stationery lying on the lamp stand at Abigail’s elbow.

And the specifications? The other woman’s tension had become an almost-tangible presence in the room and Abigail forced herself to relax her grip on the pen as Flora folded veined hands on the fleeciness of her robed lap before replying.

Despite carefully applied makeup, her eyes appeared sunken into her skull. The residue is to be offered as a reward to whoever can give proof admissible in a court of law of the identity of the person who killed my sister on August 7, 1937.

The words crashed down between them with the shocking violence of a rock thrown through a window. The pen slipped from Abigail’s fingers and she bent to retrieve it, grateful for the opportunity of shielding the horror she knew must be in her eyes.

The measured tones had changed; the words spilled out like floodwater through a broken dam. Justice has been denied Rosemary and I intend that her murderer, or his memory, be exposed. The town has forgotten her—who she was and how she died. Someone has gone on to build his life on my sister’s grave!

Racking sobs shook Flora’s body and Abigail jumped up to cradle the older woman’s hands, as dry and fragile as dead leaves in her grasp. As she sought desperately for words of comfort, she wished Paul had warned her of Flora’s obsession with her sister’s death. The door opened and Abigail expelled her breath in a sigh of relief as Belle entered bearing a cup of steaming liquid.

Ignoring the attorney, the housekeeper moved to her employer’s side and supported the elderly woman as she sipped the pale brew. Abigail found herself shivering. A cloud had passed over the face of the sun and blotted out the light.

As Belle straightened the cushions, Flora waved away the cup with a gesture that was a feeble mockery of her earlier imperious dignity. I must apologize for my outburst, but the anger I felt the night she… A convulsive swallow. Guilt is an ugly black dog that never leaves your side. Another tremor racked the frail body. Must ask you to leave—I cannot continue.

Abigail patted Flora’s clenched hands. We’ll finish this when you’re feeling better.

As she stepped back, she caught a glimpse of Quincy below them, now upright and wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans. Although it was impossible for him to have overheard Flora’s words, he was staring up at the woman crumpled in the chair and the corner of his mouth lifted in wry amusement. His gaze shifted, moved on to Abigail, and he lifted the trowel in salute.

Abigail bent to pick up her briefcase, wondering if her impression that the man had been gloating over poor Flora’s distress was a true one or if it stemmed from instinctive dislike.

Belle led the way down the stairs, her feet slapping at the treads in a shocking contrast to her noiseless ascent. At the front door, her stare, hard as a diamond drill, locked on Abigail. Don’t plan on coming back. You’ve done enough damage.

Anger underlined each word.

Abigail’s reply echoed in the expanse of the entranceway. Flora is a dying woman—her peace of mind is of primary importance.

Let Rosemary stay buried. In the dim light Belle, with her closely cropped dark hair, slender neck, and heavy-lidded eyes, resembled a proud Egyptian princess painted on the wall of a tomb. You’ve stirred up a nest of vipers. Don’t come back.

Abigail’s voice was curt. I’ll be back to complete the interview as soon as my client feels up to the stress. Belle yanked the door open and moved forward, forcing Abigail to retreat onto the front step, but she was determined not to go quietly. Tell me, how did Rosemary die?

She was run over and killed walking home from a dance.

The door slammed and Abigail gazed at the solid oak panels, blind to the rich brown wood and the brass door knocker shaped in an A. A scene flashed before her inner eye, flaring into black-and-white life, of a girl standing motionless in the center of a dusty street.

A breeze playfully tugged at the girl’s skirt, blew a lock of hair across her eyes, and plastered a crumpled page of newspaper against the curb, but the girl’s attention was fixed on the black sedan speeding toward her. She raised her hands in a futile plea for mercy. A sickening thud. The car roared down the street and left in its murderous wake the twisted, broken body of a man. A man with the sensitive, lean fingers of a musician, lying slack against the pavement…

Stumbling to her car, Abigail was dimly aware that Quincy had come around the corner of the house and was staring at her. Light winked off metal as he tossed the trowel into the air, catching the sharp implement as casually as a flipped coin. Abigail yanked the door open, almost fell into the front seat, and twisted the key with the shaking hands of a junkie injecting a fix.

The drive home was a blur of automatic responses to stop signs and stoplights, the laughter of children playing in a park was a shrill obscenity piercing her numbed state, until she parked the sedan in the narrow attached garage.

Switching off the engine, Abigail remained motionless behind the wheel. Instead of the prosaic garden tools hanging on nails, she saw through the windshield a newspaper with a headline printed in letters of fire.

February 10. Local Man Killed By Hit-and-Run Driver.

Abigail put her head down on the unyielding rim of the steering wheel and wept.

Chapter 2

Abigail rolled over and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, the neutral oyster color scheme of her surroundings reminding her, as always, of the comforting interior of a cocoon. But cocoons symbolized new life—and all she could think about was death.

It had been raining seventeen months ago, that afternoon when the most important things on her mind were the annoying squeak in the springs of her chair and a missing file. She was sorting through a pile of manila folders for the third time in hopes of discovering Mrs. Baker’s divorce papers when Sylvia and a man in a dusty brown suit walked into her office.

One glimpse at her law partner was enough to still Abigail’s hands. Sylvia’s face was muddy and bruised, ripples of shock disturbing the placid surface, like a puddle after a child has stomped in it. Then the world had compressed around Abigail, squeezing her down to the size of the head of a pin as words seemed to appear below the two intruders, subtitles in a foreign film.

Sylvia: Abby, I’m so sorry…

The police officer: An apparent hit-and-run…crossing in the middle of the street…no suspect in custody at this time…

Those three words swished back and forth through her mind, like windshield wipers stuck on high speed: hit-and-run, hit-and-run, hit-and-run.

Abigail opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling again. Her body felt strangely detached from her mind, as though someone had siphoned out all muscle, bone, and blood, leaving only a limp shell of skin lying on the bed. With an effort, she rose, stripped off her dress, and went into the bathroom.

Michael James had been no saint. He left dirty socks balled up in the corners of their bedroom like giant fuzzy dust bunnies, had a fondness for an occasional night out with the boys, and the annoying habit of becoming distracted while in midsentence if a pretty girl appeared on the horizon.

But despite his forgetting to mail important letters and leaving her waiting for him in a restaurant more than once because he was absorbed in an architectural project, three years of marriage hadn’t revealed any major cracks in their relationship—nothing that couldn’t be patched up with a candlelight dinner and an evening spent before the fire as their bodies moved in the familiar rhythms of love.

Abigail came back to reality as shampoo overflowed her cupped hand and dribbled down to the bottom of the tub. The shampoo bottle was almost empty and the drain was obscured by a sea of foam.

Toweling off, she reflected that the next phase of her life, Abigail the coward, had begun almost immediately. Selling her house on the first offer, letting Sylvia buy her out of the partnership, and then, with the desperation of a cavalryman whose horse has been shot out from under him, she applied for a position with Paul Faber’s firm far away in Lincoln City, Illinois.

Tonight, however, she missed their house and the grand piano, where Michael had composed romantic ballads, and the carved statue that he’d given her on their first anniversary, a teak woman with impossibly long legs, pert breasts, and flowing hair cloaking her nakedness. Abigail had left the statue on the piano and told the woman that both items were included in the purchase price of the house.

Two separate counselors had insisted she’d get over Michael, as if he’d been merely a persistent head cold. Yet grief seemed to be an endless sea: some days she could swim a few strokes, on other days only tread water. Days like today, however, the waves kept crashing over her head, forcing her under, the solid ground of the shoreline only a faint memory. Turning Flora back over to Paul would be abandoning a fellow struggler in fathomless black water.

In the bedroom, Abigail eased open a bureau drawer with exaggerated care and studied its contents: their wedding photo album, a jeweler’s box containing her engagement and wedding rings, and the object Michael had been gripping in his right hand when he died.

A valentine. Her husband had been crossing the street to mail her Valentine’s Day card when a black sedan ended their marriage with a screeching of tires.

Abigail studied the illustration of intertwining hearts strewn instead of shells across a moonlit beach. She opened it to read the love poem inside that Michael had composed for the occasion, pledging undying love.

Undying? With shaking fingers, she shredded the card into pastel flakes, wishing memories could be destroyed as easily.

Chapter 3

An envelope containing the pieces of Michael’s valentine was tucked in Abigail’s purse to give her courage as she raised the brass door knocker. Flora’s luncheon invitation had taken the decision out of Abigail’s hands; she found herself unable to refuse the unspoken plea for help.

Waiting for Belle to answer the door, Abigail inhaled the sweet, wistful scent of the lavender growing in the nearby redwood tubs. She glanced back to where the swans were stretching their necks to touch orange and black bills like lovers, the water sparkling in the bright sun.

Quincy was not in sight and she felt nothing but relief at his absence. The man’s appraising stare conjured up the memory of a sixteen-year-old Abigail, proud of her new bikini, emerging from the pool to a chorus of whistles, catcalls, and the horrific discovery that the sleek material became transparent when wet.

Her cheeks burned with remembered humiliation as Belle opened the door; the housekeeper’s lips compressed into a line of displeasure at the sight of the visitor. Abigail followed her silent guide down the hall and wondered if the mention of Rosemary had angered the housekeeper or if she was merely being protective of the sick woman in her charge. Her attitude indicated an ignorance of Flora’s testamentary intentions—with $100,000 at stake, Belle should be anxious to get the will drafted and signed.

At the top of the stairs, Belle paused without turning around. Don’t upset her. She’s just calmed down from yesterday.

Abigail spoke to the woman’s rigid back. Show me an order appointing you Flora’s guardian and I’ll start listening.

A muscle in Belle’s jaw worked. If you keep yanking on the tiger’s tail, Ms. James, don’t be at all surprised when you get bit.

Abigail’s client was seated in the same chair, her eyes fixed on the lush colors of the herb garden where chalk-winged yellow and white butterflies played languid hopscotch over scented geraniums. Clad in a lilac bed jacket draped with a rope of pearls, Flora raised her hand in greeting and a marquise-cut diamond on her finger shot sun sparks.

Thank you for coming. I believe luncheon is ready.

Obedient to the nod of her hostess, the attorney took her place in the other chair drawn up to the piecrust table set for two. Belle reappeared carrying a heavy tray. The housekeeper enumerated the menu as she placed each dish on the table: lamb chops cooked with marjoram and dill, tomatoes stuffed with basil, glazed baby carrots with chervil and lemon balm tea. Dessert was rose-hip custard served in Spode bowls.

Flora surveyed the meal and, with a look of resignation, spoke to her guest. Lemon balm tea soothes the nerves. Belle’s been slipping natural tranquilizers into my food since yesterday’s little upset.

Despite Belle’s efforts to make the meal visually appealing, the invalid only sampled the food, and Abigail, too, had little appetite. Still silent, the housekeeper came forward to pour more tea and remove the plates. Each movement was graceful and controlled, her eyes black and watchful.

The door closed behind her with a click. Flora dabbed at her lips with a napkin, and the Georgian mirror stand across the room reflected the slight frown on her face.

Please bring me the picture on the table beside the bed.

The photograph, set in a deceptively simple platinum frame, was a black-and-white snapshot. When Abigail attempted to hand it to Flora, the older woman shook her head. I want you to hold Rosemary while I talk.

Abigail lowered her gaze to see a girl leaning against a man with pale hair and a sneering mouth. Clad in slacks cut off below the knee and a plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows, the young woman smiled, even though her companion cupped her left breast through the material of her shirt and clasped her waist with his other hand in a gesture of dominating possession. The couple stood beside a hulking automobile of the thirties. But despite the brazenness of the pose, a hint of brave wistfulness in the girl’s smile pierced Abigail with a pang of sadness. Rosemary was no longer just a name—she was a pretty girl soon to die a tragic death.

Flora’s gaze