Maud had the day off, and she and Emma were home alone. Emma suggested they walk over to Spirit Lake, as she had been thinking about the Devereau house, lately. She wondered if anyone had been there since Ben Queen left the area. Maude was ready.
As they walked, Emma had been talking about regaining her memories, and reconciling some of the things "Andi" did with what she felt "Emma" would have done.
"There are a few things that make absolutely no sense to me, like rescuing one pig when millions were going to be slaughtered. I can't even see that as symbolic of anything. With most of the rest, I can see 'me' doing the same things - maybe not always so dramatically - although I think Sam might disagree with that - but, you know, in general...
"The only things I really wonder about are the two killings I was involved in - me shooting Harry Wine, and my assassin friend killing the mysterious Wayans. As 'Andi,' I didn't seem to feel anything in particular, afterward. As 'Emma,' I still don't. But they were human lives, and both were pretty bloody. Shouldn't I feel something? Like remembering the rape, is there maybe more to come?"
Maud took some time before responding. "I don't know, Em. They both must have been pretty awful at the time but, as I recall our previous talks, you had pretty well put the Wine killing to rest. You don't think it was really self-defense at the time, but you felt it needed doing. That's vigilante justice, I guess, but it didn't look like there was any legal way that Wine was going to pay for his crimes. I don't think you'll have any more problems with that one.
"The other killing wasn't anything you really had anything to do with. Your friend clearly saved your life. You didn't know he was going to do it. It must have been pretty traumatic at the moment, but you seem to have weathered it just fine.
"Did you know I killed a man, once?"
"Maud!"
They found a convenient wall, and sat on it. "It was probably about a year before I knew you. He was a serial killer - somebody we all knew, who had decided he needed to punish any woman who wasn't a good mother. His definition of that was pretty screwy, of course. He had me trapped on my pier, and there was no question he intended to kill me. I just did what I had to do to save myself."
Emma stared at her. "What did you do?"
"I couldn't get by him, so I pushed him into the water, holding on to my plugged-in light. He was electrocuted."
"And you were all alone?"
"Sam arrived just too late, and took care of me. I was obviously in shock, which he recognized, but he was also mad at himself for not being there for me, so his 'help' was a little scattered. We made it through, but I had nightmares for quite a while afterward. I probably should have seen a specialist, but I didn't. I still get flashbacks about it.
"I don't know why I brought it up, now. It's nothing to do with your stories. I guess it's just that we find ourselves in situations, and we end up doing what we have to do."
They started walking, again. Emma was thinking of something else. "Sheriff McKibbon was very upset with me that I wouldn't tell him who the assassin was. I really couldn't tell him much. I think I knew his real name, but he had a dozen aliases, and a dozen stories about where he lived and what he did. I doubt knowing his name would have helped find him. I could have given a physical description, but even that probably changed regularly. Besides, he'd just saved my life. I didn't want to help bring him to justice for that.
"Still, I do think he should have to pay for his crimes. He saved me out of love - or a strong feeling of friendship - but that may have been the only good thing he did in his entire adult life. He was a hired killer - killing anybody somebody wanted dead, for money! He didn't know any of his victims, he didn't care who they were. He saw me just the same way - a target - until he missed - probably for the first time in his life - and the tables got turned. There should be justice for all his victims. I just haven't been able to convince myself to help, after he'd shared one bit of human caring with me."
***
From the hotel, they walked the old road down toward the boathouse. They stopped at the spring, and got a drink of cold, fresh water. "I came here first with my father," Emma offered. "He used to come down here to fish, usually by himself, but sometimes he'd walk down here with Will and me."
"You must have been pretty young when he died. Do you remember a lot about him?"
"Not really. Just things like him fishing here. My mother told me that he was run over by a train."
Maud gasped. "That isn't how he died, is it?"
Emma laughed. "No. I'm not even sure the story is true, but it's what my mother told us. He was walking on the train tracks, she said, and got his foot caught just as a train was coming. Supposedly, he lay down flat in the middle of the tracks, and the train passed over him, without hitting him. Is that even possible? It never sounded real to me."
Maud just shook her head. "I don't know. Would your mother have said it if it wasn't true?"
"I have no idea."
"So, Em, other than for the walk, why are we going to the Devereau house?"
Emma stood up, and motioned Maud to follow her along what was now just wheel ruts going into the forest. "I just wondered if anybody had been going in here. It's been five years since I knew that anybody has been in the house." She didn't want to mention that the "anybody" had been Ben Queen. "There were a lot of the Devereau belongings left, and I just wondered if they are still there, and if they're still all right."
The forest ahead of them looked pretty forbidding, but Emma knew the way, and found that it hadn't really changed in the five years since she'd been in. Just before reaching the house, they came out of the woods into a clearing. Everything looked quiet and undisturbed.
There were no locks on the doors to the house, but everything was shut up tight. Emma took them in through the kitchen. She noted that the screen door wasn't sagging like it had been. (Ben must have repaired it.) Nothing seemed to have changed in the kitchen, except that all the dishes were put away. The living room was the same, also, with the sofa, two overstuffed chairs, the piano, and the record player. The photograph of the Devereau women still hung on the wall, the only personal item downstairs.
Upstairs, they looked in all the rooms, but spent most of their time in Mary-Evelyn's bedroom, with its blue-painted furniture and its closet full of lovely, hand-sewn dresses. They spread the eight dresses out on the bed, and took photos of each with Sam's camera. Maud marveled at the workmanship of the dresses, each one unique.
"It was Iris, the youngest of the three sisters, who was the seamstress," Emma explained. "She made all these clothes for Mary-Evelyn, Elizabeth's child, who Elizabeth killed - probably in anger, rather than meaning to. Iris died fairly young, I guess."
"The daughter - that was the one that drowned in the lake?"
"Yes, except she didn't drown. Isabel told me - as she was just about to kill me! - that Elizabeth had strangled Mary-Evelyn, then the sisters had put her body in the boat to make it look like an accident."
"That's really horrible, isn't it?"
"Well, if you remember my 'Tragedy Town' stories, all the Devereau story is pretty horrible." Emma had gone back to handling the dresses. "It's amazing how well-preserved everything is in the house. I noticed in the past that there's almost no mouse damage, and no mold or other signs of water getting inside. I doubt anybody would want to use the mattresses, after they've been rolled up in mothballs for over 40 years, but they still look okay."
Emma sat in the rocking chair across the room. "I've wondered if somebody should preserve these dresses, and anything else worth saving. Maybe the piano, or some of the old-time records. It is amazing that they're in as good a shape as they are, but that could all change if somebody came in and left a window open, or damaged things on purpose.
"I don't know who owns this property, now. We know that Isabel and Iris are dead. If Elizabeth is still alive, she would be well up in her 'nineties.' None of the three girls married, and Mary-Evelyn was their only descendant. There's nobody left to inherit, unless Elizabeth named someone. Well, there's Rose Queen, the half-sister - dead, of course - and Alice, Rose's mother. If Mr. Devereau died before Rose's mother - his wife - she might have been named in a will. However, Alice's only descendants would have been Rose - oh, and I guess Morris Slate. Maybe if Rose had inherited, then Ben Queen - her husband - might have some claim. Well, it wouldn't be complicated like the Hotel Paradise - with a dozen heirs - but it might be tricky.
"It seems like there must be somebody who owns the house and land, unless it reverted to the Government because there were no heirs, and no one to pay the taxes."
"You could probably determine the ownership by looking at the county records," Maud suggested. "Jeff, the historian, or the museum people might have some ideas about the clothes and furniture."
"Those are good ideas. I'm going to see Jeff next week about the hotel. I'll ask him about this place, then."
They hung the dresses back in the wardrobe, and went back downstairs. Maud paused to glance at the phonograph records, and found - as Emma already knew - that most were in French. They made sure everything was shut up tight before leaving.
Outside, Emma couldn't stop herself for looking around the clearing for any sign of The Girl. Obviously, she wouldn't be there, but... She had been thinking about Dwayne's solution to The Girl's identity - one of Morris' amorous additions to the local population. It was a lovely deus ex machina, to "solve" the apparently unsolvable, but she had decided it didn't work, after all. First, The Girl didn't look "sort of" like Rose Queen - Emma was pretty sure that, at the same age, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Morris, being Rose's son, certainly had the look, but wouldn't any child have some of the characteristics of the other parent? Emma didn't know a lot about genetics, but she was pretty sure a "dead ringer" would be pretty unusual.
Maybe more important is that she had seen The Girl here at the Devereau house, twice. Morris had no connection to the Devereaus. There would be absolutely no reason a product of one of his casual liaisons would know the Devereau name, let alone make her way - at least twice - to this isolated, abandoned house. No, sorry, Dwayne. Thanks for your help, but there has to be something we still don't know about the Devereaus, Souders or Queens. Emma felt pretty sure that Ben Queen knew the answer, but Ben was gone - probably forever.
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