Page 25 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Norah prayed for some sort of supernatural grace to know what to say. She had no words. She wasn’t upset, she wasn’t judgmental, she was just ... what did a person say to a young woman who was carrying a child and whose parents didn’t know? The world today was more understanding of such things, so she assumed parents would be too. This stuff happened. It was a matter of figuring it out. But the experience had to be traumatic all the same. Having a baby was life-changing—no, life-altering.
Harper swiped at another tear. “I was dating this guy, and then we broke up two months ago. I just figured it out—I don’t think I’m more than ten weeks along. I came here ’cause Mom, frankly, won’t give ... well, and I can’t tell Grandma and Grandpa. They’reold-fashioned, churchgoing and all that.” Harper sucked in a wobbly breath. “I am too. Not old-fashioned, but I have faith and grew up going to church ’cause of Grandma and Grandpa, and I vowed I’d not do anything until I was married...”
Norah really had nothing to say now. Not that faith and church were foreign to her. She’d grown up much the same way. But when Naomi had died, the idea of faith seemed so distant, so much like a fairy tale.
“I figure Dad will be the most understanding—which sounds weird, I know. But I have to get up the guts to tell him.” Harper jammed her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie. “But he flies solo. He always has. Mom said he didn’t stick around much after I was born, and ... I don’t know. A girl needs her dad, right? Is that too much to ask?”
Harper leveled large expectant eyes on Norah, as if she had some sort of monumental wisdom to offer from her thirty-two years of life. But her life hadn’t been like most. Her dad had always been there, sure, but after Naomi’s death, Norah became an additional burden because of her own emotional terrors. And now that she was over thirty and finally standing on her own? Mom and Dad had hightailed it out of Shepherd for a much-needed time of restoration in a place that didn’t scream of Naomi’s memory.
Norah realized Harper was still waiting, watching for a response. She cleared her throat. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
Harper smiled. “Thanks.”
Norah gave her a confused look.
“For listening.” Harper nodded. “You’re the first person I’ve told, and I didn’t really want advice so much as someone to listen and not look like they were going to pass out at the news.” She laughed nervously, then nudged the flat-top grave marker with her shoe. “Why is it easier to tell strangers things?”
Norah squeezed her eyes closed for a long moment and then opened them to reflect back the question Harper had just asked.“I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask if you want to feel better about things. I can barely leave my own house.”
Harper reached out to squeeze Norah’s elbow in a gentle show of camaraderie. “Sometimes life is scary, isn’t it?”
Norah grimaced but nodded. “Sometimes I envy the people buried here. The stillness. The peace.”
“But death is scary too,” Harper said.
Norah nodded in agreement.
“So, how do we not be afraid?”
It was a question Norah had been trying to answer for thirteen years.
9
EFFIE
1901
Shepherd, Iowa
THENEWSPAPERSCREAMEDthe headlineMurder at 322 Predicament Avenuethe following morning, even though by then it wasn’t news to anyone. The rumors of death and mayhem at the abandoned house had revitalized within hours of Mr. Anderson’s reporting of their findings to the local magistrate. Of course, the lure of his own story became fodder for gossip as well. An Englishman, his missing wife—Isabelle Addington—and now this discovery? A lurid and macabre ending to his search perhaps? Or was it a secret and torrid affair that had ended in murder? A missing body? Perhaps Mr. Anderson wasn’t as innocent as he made himself out to be. Tongues wagged behind closed doors and gloved hands.
Effie shrank into the settee in the sitting room of the manor and wished it all to go away. Her mother snapped the newspaperin her hands and whimpered as she read it. Effie exchanged looks with her friend Bethany, who sat opposite her, the most apologetic look on her pretty face that Effie had ever seen.
“I’m so sorry,” Bethany said, rushing to amend the snap of the newspaper. “I saw it this morning and felt you should see it as soon as possible.”
“Of course we should!” The paper rustled as their mother folded it and tossed it with a dramatic flair onto a side table. Katherine James smoothed back the grays of her otherwise dark hair, then made an absentminded gesture to pick off imaginary lint from her sleeve—all while eyeing Effie with a motherly censure that left Effie unsure if she should feel more chastised than she actually did.
“You accompaniedthat manunchaperoned to investigate the murder of hiswife?” Katherine was unable to modulate the trembling in her voice.
Yes, she had, and her intention was that no one would ever know. Only Bethany, who of course could not be held responsible for leaking it to the gossipy newspaper that masqueraded as local news. No. Effie was certain it was the moment she’d rushed from 322 Predicament Avenue after Mr. Anderson had brandished the blood-coated butcher knife and she in turn had lost her breakfast in the bushes. Passersby had seen her, the police knew she had been in attendance, and it was a small town. Such exciting news!
Effie bit back her cynicism and reminded herself that she’d done it for Polly. For Polly! Now no one dared claim Polly was manipulating circumstances for attention or brazenly crying wolf. Nor was Polly acting, as she lay in a wretchedly afflicted position of shock and whimpers in her bed upstairs.
Effie glanced at Bethany. She had dreaded this confrontation, prayed that it wouldn’t be necessary. But now the paper had splashed her name beside Mr. Lewis Anderson’s for the entire town of Shepherd and surrounding communities to see.
Mr. L. Anderson, accompanied solely by Miss Euphemia James of Shepherd, Iowa, daughter of the president of the First National Bank of Shepherd, were the first two to uncover evidence that supports Miss Polly James’s claim of witnessing a gruesome and most horrific slaying last week at 322 Predicament Avenue. What they were doing at the address, aside from investigating prior suspicions, is unclear. However, a source states there may be some unknown relations between the couple, and we are certain that will also be investigated.
The implications the paper was making was pure gossip fodder, a way of taking stunning news and making it even more extraordinary by crafting rumors and scandal. Married man, bank president’s unmarried daughter, and the alleged murder victim was the married man’s wife?
