Mark Edward Hall

Chapter 14

Annie stood at the window hugging the rag doll from her childhood to her bosom, watching Doug make his way up from the beach. She saw him stop in the garden among the life-size figures of David, the Thinker and so many others of her father’s fancy. For a moment Doug looked as if he belonged there with them, forever frozen in some weird and classical time warp.

The thought left her empty. As a child she had grown to hate those solemn, unyielding figures. And at night she would lie in bed and imagine them coming to life and roaming the house in search of a lonely little girl that wept for the arms of a mother who did not love her.

After Annie had gotten back from the beach she’d searched the house for occupants finding not a servant or a security person in sight. Strange, she thought, considering what happened just last night. Daddy seemed to be absent as well.

In the kitchen she found Greta, the flight attendant sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other. “Oh it’s you,” Annie said with little interest.

“Would you like some?” Greta said motioning toward the cup.

Annie shook her head in irritation. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “And where’s my father?”

“You’re father had business elsewhere,” Greta replied. “And I am here at his appeal.” Greta drew on the cigarette. “I wonder if you realize what sort of trouble you’ve caused him.”

Annie’s temper flared. “You have no right—”

“Maybe not. But I only have your father’s interests at heart.”

“He can take care of himself.”

Greta Glared at Annie. “You’ve been away far too long. You don’t realize…”

“What don’t I realize?”

“Things here have changed, and not for the better.”

“No shit. My mother was murdered.”

“A terrible tragedy, yes, but not what I was referring to.”

“What could be worse than that?”

“You have no idea.”

“He’s afraid, I can tell.”

Greta crushed her cigarette out in an ashtray. “His empire is crumbling around him,” she said. “There are holes in his defenses. Your mother’s murder is proof of that. He has enemies. Lots of them.”

“Who’s fault is that?”

“I don’t think you’re qualified to lay blame.”

“Who then?”

Greta glared. “Perhaps his own ambition.”

“Why is he throwing this insane dinner party tonight?”

“Who knows? It’s not my place to question his decisions. Perhaps out of some morbid need to push the envelope of his influence. Or maybe it’s an attempt to . . . confront the murderer.”

Annie was horrified. “You think he knows who it is?”

Greta shrugged. “I told you, he has enemies, some very close to his inner circle. You’re his only hope, you know.”

“Me? I don’t know how I can help him.”

“He needs you here.”

“He’s already made that clear. But I don’t see what I can do.”

“Just be here for him, that’s all.”

Annie glared at the woman. “And what business is it of yours anyway?”

“Your father and I have been  . . . close for quite some time.”

“Close?” Annie’s eyes drew down on the woman. “How do you mean?”

“I take care of things.”

“Things?” Annie took an angry step toward the woman. Suddenly she did not like Greta in the least. “What sort of things?”

Greta stood and faced Annie defiantly. “I’m your father’s personal assistant.”

“Since when?”

“For quite some time now, my dear, I can assure you. Don’t forget, you’ve been out of his life. You broke his heart.”

“He was a bastard.”

“He was only trying to protect you.”

“From what?”

Greta gave a short laugh. “If you don’t know by now you’re naïve.”

Annie stared at the woman, too tired to pursue demons. “I want to know what you do for him.”

Greta sighed as if this line of questioning bored her.

“Well?”

“Ordinary things, that’s all. I hire and fire the domestic help. I see that his clothes are taken to the cleaners, make sure his ties are straight and his shoes are shined. I assist him in many ways. I do the menial day to day tasks that he doesn’t have time for.”

“Speaking of, where is all the help?”

“Considering what happened last night, well, I told them not to come in today.”

“And security?”

“That’s Theo’s department. They’re here, I can assure you. You just don’t see them.”

Annie glanced around the kitchen, thinking she might see cameras. There were none visible, of course. Her father had always been discrete. “What about the dinner party?” she asked. “Who will do the cooking, and the serving?”

“He’s having it catered.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry, security will be tight.”

“Where were they last night when my mother was murdered?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Yes, you’ve already said that. Please explain.”

“He’s very excited at the prospect of a grandchild,” Greta said, once again changing the subject. She took a quick glance at Annie’s belly and Annie thought she saw greed in the look.

Annie turned away from the woman’s scrutiny, feeling a fierce over-protectiveness for her unborn child. She felt suddenly very sick.

“Your father has asked me to look after you.”

“I don’t need a baby sitter.”

“You need to eat,”

“I’m not hungry.”

“At least let me fix you a sandwich,” the woman insisted, going to the refrigerator. “I know you haven’t eaten all day, and dinner won’t be until eight. You must think of the child.”

“Okay,” Annie said, willing to do almost anything to get away from this repulsive woman. Without washing the cigarette residue from her hands, Greta constructed some sort of sandwich from fixings in the refrigerator. She handed the plate to Annie.

“I’ll take it to my room,” Annie said, accepting the offering and turning to leave.

“Make sure you eat it all,” Greta said with a dark smile. “Think of the baby.”

Annie marched from the room without replying.

As she climbed the stairs to her room she had the unsettling feeling that she wasn’t alone. It was a familiar feeling that did not frighten her much. She’d spent half her youth here and she was used to the odd paradoxes of this place. In a way it seemed oddly alive, often menacing, as if the very fabric of it was constructed of lost souls.

In her room she locked the door behind her, grateful to be away from Greta. She sat the repulsive sandwich on her dressing table where it remained untouched.

Picking her rag doll out of its cradle she stood at the window rocking it gently in her arms, pretending it was the baby she carried inside her, Doug’s baby, the child they’d been dreaming about for so many years but had been afraid to make. Why had Doug been so afraid? And why had he never confided his fears in her? And the most vexing question of all: why had she never pressed him?

Something stirred behind her. She whirled, afraid that Greta had somehow gained access to her inner sanctum.

Her mother stood by the door.

“Mama?” Annie cried, dumfounded and frozen in place. “Oh my God. How did you . . .?”

The woman did not reply.

Before Annie could get herself under control tears had overwhelmed her. “What happened to me in this room, Mama?” she cried. “What did that awful . . . thing do to me? What did it want, and why didn’t you help me? Why didn’t Daddy help me? Why did I have to run away?”

Rachael De Roché did not answer her daughter’s urgent pleas; instead she opened her arms and offered her an embrace she had rarely offered in life. In death had she discovered the capacity to love as well as be loved? No, never. Annie understood that Mama wasn’t really here, she was in a morgue somewhere downtown waiting to be placed forever into the womb of the earth, and if those questions were ever going to be answered Annie knew that she would have to look inside herself.

Her heart nearly breaking, she forced herself to look away from the surreal image of her mother and back to the statue of her husband in the rain-shrouded garden.

Doug had been right. Her soul was lost. Long ago something she did not understand had taken it. Coming back here only reminded her of the truth of her condition, and that nothing had changed. That nothing ever would. Her pleasant life with Doug in the Maine countryside was an illusion. The real Annie, the soulless person beneath the shallow skin, would always belong here with the ghosts of a thousand terrible deeds and memories, and now, it seemed, a new ghost had taken up residence.

There was nothing left inside her that could be shared, everything that had once held promise was now gone, gouged out of her long ago as if by some terrible surgical instrument. She did not understand how a good man such as Douglas McArthur could be fooled for so long. She was so empty and he was so filled with goodness.

Annie dropped the rag doll and curled her hands into fists, placing them against her mouth in a compulsive attempt to stifle the helpless sobs that were escaping her. There would have to be an excavation, she knew. It was long overdue. But she was unsure as to whether she had the skills or the courage for such an undertaking. There was so much here that she did not understand, so much that she feared, enough to make her wonder if she had the courage to go on.

“Doug!” she cried, lifting a listless hand to the rain-smeared window, hoping that he would peer up at her and smile that big beautiful Douglas McArthur smile of his. Whenever Doug smiled things were always okay. He was her rock, her breath, her life. He did look up; he met her eyes directly, but he did not acknowledge her existence. Was she now just a shadow, a ghost, standing here amongst all the other ghosts of her past? Doug walked on and disappeared under the overhanging porch roof that jutted from the house just below Annie’s bedroom window.

Night was chasing the rain down, obscuring all things around Antoinette De Roché McArthur, and Doug seemed to be fading into that obscurity, just as each and every good thing had, falling back, farther and farther from the illusion of the life they’d come to know and love.

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