Page 50 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
17
EFFIE
1901
Shepherd, Iowa
WHOWASIsabelle Addington?
Effie eyed the lock on Polly’s window. She noted the measures her father had taken around the manor to safeguard their home. Safeguard it against an unknown assailant whose fingerprints were only just now fading from Effie’s throat.
She turned to her sister, who lay in her bed, silent and resting in the blessedness of sleep. Polly was sinking further and further away from her. And in these moments when that should be all Effie considered, all she agonized over, instead she feared that someone would once again try to cut short what little time they had together.
Time that had been stolen from Anderson when Polly had witnessed Isabelle’s demise. A woman no one knew, only Andersoncould give testimony of, and Polly had seen but couldn’t speak about. It was a tornado of circumstances and assumptions that had brought them here, with only the strength of hands around Effie’s throat to confirm it was not over.
Effie moved to Polly’s bedside and eased slowly onto the mattress. She reached out and tenderly brushed away a strand of hair from her sister’s face. Time was not her friend.
A soft knock on the bedroom door alerted Effie to the fact that she was no longer alone with her sister. The door opened with a welcoming creak of its hinges. “Miss?” It was the nurse. She entered the room with an expression of empathy and kindness on her plain face. “It’s time for me to give your sister her medicine.”
“Yes.” Effie slipped off the bed from beside her still sister. “Yes, of course, Nurse Carlisle.” She moved away as the nurse came closer to Polly. She balanced a tray in her hands and rested it on the table beside the bed.
With a glance over her shoulder, Nurse Carlisle offered Effie a smile. “You should take a break, Miss James.”
Effie folded her arms over her chest, feeling the exhaustion, the weight of everything bearing down on them. She had not been a responsible older sister the night Polly’s surge of adventure and energy had led them to try to make a memory together. A memory that had turned into horror and spiraled Polly toward her final breath. “I need to be near her.” Effie’s words were choked. Hampered by emotion and the uncertainty of tomorrow.
Was it wrong that she was beginning to dislike Isabelle Addington? Dislike the woman—Anderson’s wife—who had left Anderson for whatever reason? Shown such disloyalty as to travel across the sea and then send her abandoned husband a letter with only a few self-centered lines about her need for forgiveness? And Anderson had come. Effie couldn’t erase that noble act from her mind, which had become more impressedon Effie since Anderson’s admission that he had not allowed himself to grieve for his wife. He had left his home to come retrieve Isabelle—a wayward woman for whatever reason and purpose—and he arrived only to be convinced of Isabelle’s violent end. And now he remained? To find her? To lay her to rest? Effie couldn’t comprehend the unanswered questions, pieces that made no sense. A man whose loyalty was remarkable but by his own admission had closed himself off from grieving.
Nurse Carlisle’s movements jarred Effie from her musings. She watched the nurse mixing powders into a glass of water.
“What are you giving her?” Effie inquired. If it was for pain, Polly appeared to be resting peacefully at the moment. Did she really need the medicine?
The spoon clinked against the glass as Nurse Carlisle mixed the medicine. “It’s for relief from pain.”
“Must we give her more?” Effie asked. “It makes her even more distant from us than she already is.” She wished for Polly to awaken again. She had only done so twice since the other day, yet both times she hadn’t been coherent enough to converse with her family.
Polly had taken such a severe turn since that night at 322 Predicament Avenue. When she and Polly had returned home, Father was furious. Effie replayed the scene in her mind. Polly, still in shock, had mumbled something about the woman she’d seen attacked. About the man hovering over the woman and then plunging a knife downward. The screams. The unidentifiable features of the assailant. The woman’s bloodied face as it had turned toward Polly and then ... Effie recalled Polly’s expression, her violent shaking. Nurse Carlisle hadn’t been there that night. There’d been no reason to have her in the James manor around the clock yet. Polly hadn’t been that bad. Not yet. She was sitting up doing her embroidery. She had been dreaming of what she wanted to do before she passed. She had been—Effie’s memories hitched. She frowned as she observed NurseCarlisle spooning the medicine into Polly’s mouth, dabbing at what dribbled down the side of her face.
Nurse Carlisle had arrived the following morning with new medicine. It was from Dr. Reginald, she’d said, to help calm Polly. To ease her discomfort from the shock of what she had witnessed the night before.
Polly hadn’t been the same since.
Effie launched herself toward Nurse Carlisle, batting the glass from the woman’s hand. The nurse cried out in stunned surprise and jumped backward.
“Get away from her!” Effie pushed herself between Nurse Carlisle and her sister.
“What is going on?” Effie’s mother rushed into the room, her eyes wide.
“She’s poisoning Polly!” Effie accused, pointing at Nurse Carlisle.
The nurse gasped, her mouth agape. “No! Absolutely not! I would never!”
Katherine James looked between her daughter and the nurse. “How? What makes you think this, Euphemia?”
Effie pointed at the jar of powders on the nurse’s tray. “Since she’s been giving those to Polly, Polly keeps getting worse.” Effie stalked toward Nurse Carlisle, and the nurse shrank into the wall behind her. “Who told you to poison her?”
“I’m not poisoning your sister!” Nurse Carlisle was crying. Panic and fear warred in her expression. She turned to Katherine. “You have to believe me. It’s for your daughter’s pain.”
“Did you let that man in the window the other night? To get to Polly?” Effie drew so close to Nurse Carlisle, there were mere inches between them. Fury surged through her. Whoever had attacked Isabelle Addington that night had hired Nurse Carlisle to keep Polly silent. “Who is paying you to do this?”
