Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

It was cold in the spring house, damp. I resisted the urge to return to the house for a blanket to cover him with, or a shawl, because I knew better than to add or subtract anything from the scene before the police got there.

So I sat down near a rhododendron in a patch of sun, hugged my knees to my chin and wept. Barefooted and bare-legged, my torn gown and stained petticoats pooled around me, I must have looked like Cinderella, sulking in front of the fireplace long before her fairy godmother turned up to wave her magic wand.

In the time it took for the first emergency vehicle to arrive, I kept turning a single thought over and over in my mind. Back in Amy’s bedroom, when I didn’t know who had climbed into bed with me, I’d said his name: ‘Alex?’

Had I signed Alex Mueller’s death warrant that night?

‘I knew I’d miss safety razors and toilet paper, but you know what I really miss? RC Cola and Moon Pies.’

Michael Rainey, tutor

Historic Waterwitch Hook and Ladder #1 was, quite literally, just around the corner on East Street, but had been sold to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in the 1980s and converted into offices. I wasn’t sure how long it would take the Annapolis Fire Department to reach us from their firehouse in West Annapolis, considering that they had to navigate a labyrinth of circles and radiating one-way streets that had been all the rage in urban planning back in 1696. Ten minutes after I pulled the lever, however, with sirens screaming, they arrived. Seconds after that, a team of paramedics hustled down the promenade carrying stretchers, bags and boxes of equipment that I knew wouldn’t be needed.

After pointing out the spring house, I rocked back and did my best to fade into the shrubbery while the paramedics did what they were trained to do. After a few minutes, I heard a Nextel crackle to life, a sputtered reply. They were calling it in to the police.

‘Ma’am? Ma’am?’ Somebody had noticed me at last. I tried to focus on the paramedic’s face through a veil of tears. He was young, not more than twenty, and his face was open and sympathetic. ‘Do you know what happened here?’

I heaved a shuddering sigh. ‘No. I came out to the garden to… to…’ What had I come out to do? The vision of Alex lying dead in the spring house was driving everything else out of my mind. ‘I went for a walk,’ I managed at last. ‘I noticed a torn up patch of grass outside the spring house, a hat. I was curious, I looked inside. I tried to help him, but it was too late.

The young man extended his hand, I grasped it and he pulled me to my feet. ‘You’ve had a shock. Let’s get you into the house. Is there somebody here…?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I mean, yes. There are at least a dozen of us living here. We’ve been out today watching the burning of the Peggy Stewart .’

‘Ah, I know about that,’ he said as he escorted me to the promenade, made sure I was steady on my pins, not about to take a nose dive into the boxwood. ‘We had our fire boat out there to make sure it didn’t get out of control.’

While his colleagues were busy packing up, the young man walked alongside me as we mounted each of the three sets of stairs, catching my elbow once when I stumbled and steadying me, then accompanying me up the long flight that led up to the back porch. Once I was delivered safely inside the house, he seemed to relax. ‘Where would you like to sit, Mrs…?’

‘Ives. In the parlor, thanks.’

I’d just passed the main staircase when French and Michael rushed through the front door, grave-faced and out of breath. ‘My God! What’s with all the fire trucks?’

‘Parlor,’ I said, nodding my head in that direction.

Before I sat down on the loveseat, I pulled aside the parlor drapes and peered out the window. Fire trucks, indeed. In addition to the trucks from West Annapolis, the distinctive red units of the Eastport Volunteers had also responded to my call. I wondered if Paul had noticed all the hullabaloo, too, before remembering that he would be locked up in a meeting at the Academy.

The paramedic’s eyes ping-ponged between Michael and French, made an executive decision and took French aside. ‘She’s had a shock,’ he told her in a whisper that could have been heard round the world. ‘I think she could use something to drink.’

‘Brandy,’ I said. Then added quickly, ‘Please.’

After French left to fetch the brandy, Michael knelt at my feet like an ardent suitor, rested a hand on my knee. ‘Hannah, what’s happened?’

I told him.

I watched his face go white. ‘How…’ he began.

I flapped a hand, fresh tears coursing down my cheeks. ‘Give me a minute.’

Once French returned with the brandy and he saw that the snifter had been placed in my hand, the paramedic waited until I took a sip, then said, ‘I’ll be going now, but a detective will be here shortly. He’ll want to talk to you – all of you – so I wouldn’t go anywhere.’

I nodded dumbly, then took a second more generous sip of brandy, coughed, slapped my chest with the palm of my hand. ‘Smooooth,’ I croaked.

Michael filled French in, whereupon she burst into tears, which set me off on another crying jag. Michael blinked rapidly, trying to maintain control over his own emotions.

‘Where’s Amy?’ I asked, the brandy burning its way down my esophagus.

Michael answered. ‘Last time I saw her, she was with Melody and Gabe, watching a Punch and Judy show on the dock near the Alex Hailey memorial.’

‘Jack?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Middleton’s, I think.’

French wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘Karen took Dex to the memorial, too.’ She sniffed so hard that her nostrils slammed shut. ‘She was telling him the story of Alex Hailey and how he traced his ancestor, Kunta Kinte, to a slave ship that docked right here in Annapolis. I think Dex was more impressed with the statues, though. He kept posing next to the two little bronze kids as if Hailey was reading to him, too. The tourists were going bonkers.’

‘Michael,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay here with French. Will you go outside and wait for the others? Tell them what happened? I don’t think I can bear to do it again. When Karen returns, please ask her to make some tea and some sandwiches and bring them up here to the parlor. I have a feeling we’ll be needing them. Oh, as they come in, tell everyone else to join us here.’

When the detectives finally appeared, everyone had returned to Patriot House except Amy and the children. Jack Donovan was beside himself with worry and sent Jeffrey out to look for them.

The detective who introduced himself as Lt Pickett was string-bean tall and wore a dark blue business suit. A uniformed officer accompanied him whose sole purpose seemed to be to nod and take notes.

For the third time, I explained how I had happened to find Alex, and it didn’t get easier with the telling. ‘I tried to help him, Lieutenant, but it was too late.’

Lt Pickett eyed my soiled and torn gown. ‘Was there a scuffle?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘An argument.’

‘With me? No. Absolutely not. He was already dead when I got there.’

‘And what time would that have been?’

I stared at Lt Pickett’s well-tanned face, his bright blue eyes accented by minuscule wrinkles, like tiny cat’s whiskers. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.’

‘Will someone please explain what the hell is going on here?’ It was Jud Wilson, red-faced and wild, barging into the room like his hair was on fire. ‘The fire trucks. The goddamn police.’ Catching sight of the police officer, he screeched to a halt. ‘Uh, sorry, Officer.’