Page 64 of The Shape of Night

“We’re not here to see the museum. We’re here to speak with you. My friend Maeve and I are doing research on Brodie’s Watch for my book, and we have questions you might be able to answer. Since you’re the number one expert on the history of Tucker Cove.”

That makes Mrs. Dickens stand a little straighter. On my last visit here, there’d been almost no other visitors. How frustrating it must be for her to be so knowledgeable about a subject that few people care about.

She smiles and opens the door wide. “I wouldn’t call myself anexpert,exactly, but I’d be happy to tell you whatever I know.”

The house is even gloomier than I remembered, and the foyer smells of age and dust. The floor creaks as we follow Mrs. Dickens into the front parlor, where the logbook ofThe Raven,the ship formerly under the command of Captain Brodie, is displayed under glass.

“We keep many of our historical records in here.” She pulls a key ring from her pocket and unlocks the door to a glass-fronted bookcase. On the shelves are volumes of leather-bound books, some of them so old they look ready to crumble. “We hope to digitize all of these records eventually, but you know how hard it is to find funds to do anything these days. No one cares about the past. They only care about the future and the next hip new thing.” She scans the volumes. “Ah, here it is. The town records for 1861. That’s the year Brodie’s Watch was built.”

“Actually Mrs. Dickens, our question is about something that happened far more recently.”

“How recently?”

“It would be about twenty or so years ago, according to Ned Haskell.”

“Ned?” Startled, she turns to frown at me. “Oh, dear.”

“I guess you’ve heard the news about him.”

“I’ve heard what people are saying. But I grew up in this town, so I’ve learned to ignore half of what I hear.”

“Then you don’t believe he—”

“I see no point in speculation.” She slides the old book back on the shelf and claps dust from her hands. “If your question’s about something that happened only twenty years ago, we wouldn’t have that record here. You should try theTucker Cove Weekly.They have archives going back at least fifty years, and I think much of that is digitized.”

Maeve says, “I’ve already searched their archives for any articles mentioning Brodie’s Watch. I never found anything about the accident.”

“Accident?” Mrs. Dickens looks back and forth at us. “Something like that might not even make the news.”

“But it should have. Since a fifteen-year-old girl died,” I tell her.

Mrs. Dickens lifts her hand to her mouth. For a moment she doesn’t speak, but just stares at me.

“Ned told me it happened on a Halloween night,” I continue. “He said a group of teenagers broke into the empty house, and there may have been drinking involved. One of the girls went out onto the widow’s walk, and somehow she fell. I don’t recall her name, but I thought, if you remembered the incident, and which year it was, we might be able to track down the details.”

“Jessie,” Mrs. Dickens says softly.

“You remember her name?”

She nods. “Jessie Inman. She went to school with my niece. Such a pretty girl, but she had a wild streak.” She takes a deep breath. “I think I’d like to sit down.”

I’m alarmed by how pale she looks, and as Maeve takes her by the arm, I scurry across the room to fetch one of the antique chairs. Unsteady as she is, Mrs. Dickens hasn’t forgotten her responsibilities as a docent and she looks down in dismay at the worn velvet seat. “Oh dear, this chair is off-limits. No one’s supposed to sit in it.”

“No one’s here to complain, Mrs. Dickens,” I say gently. “And we’ll never tell.”

She manages a faint smile as she settles into the chair. “I do try to follow the rules.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“So did Jessie’s mother. That’s why it was such a shock to her when she learned what Jessie had been up to that night. They weren’t just trespassing. Those kids actually broke a window to get into the house. And probably do whatever kids with raging hormones do.”

“You said she was a pretty girl. What did she look like?” Maeve asks her.

Mrs. Dickens shakes her head, baffled by the question. “Does it really matter?”

“What color was her hair?”

I fully expect her to tell us that the girl’s hair was dark, and I’m surprised by her answer.

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