ARROW

10

STANDING ON OLIVER’S DOORSTEP, Hetty lifted her hand to knock. It only took a moment for her to realize there was no need for such action, as it would not be heard.

“For the last time!” Marianne’s voice rang out through the open door. “I want to see my husband! And if you protest even a word more, I’ll take him out of here on my own, and you can’t stop me!”

Hetty coughed, stopping the argument in its tracks.

Using the surprise to skirt around Marianne, Oliver greeted her as if they had parted many moons ago. “Hetty, I need to talk to you!”

“You will not!” Marianne stomped her foot on the polished wooden floor. “I want to see my husband!”

Oliver turned pleading eyes to Hetty.

Hetty did her best not to sigh.

She should have turned around at the first sign of yelling. Because she hadn’t, she was now required to do something or risk the situation going further off the rails.

“Would you like some tea?” Hetty said, and without waiting for a word of protest, she ushered Marianne into the kitchen.

Thankfully, there was no congealed stew on the stove, or muddy shoes lying around. The surfaces were clear, the papers stacked tidily, and there were even clean mugs waiting in the cupboard.

Penelope must have visited. In the first weeks after Thomas’s departure, Hetty and Penelope had taken pity on Oliver and cleaned up the house when they could. Hetty lost patience with him around January, but Penelope still came by.

The prospect of tea appeared to soothe Marianne, and as Hetty placed a steaming cup in front of her, her old friend sat there as if she hadn’t been screaming at Oliver mere moments before.

Their last conversation hung in the air between them. Hetty sat there sipping her tea unable to find the right words to keep the calm. Anger, after all, was an endless resource. Forgiveness was not.

In the end, she kept things simple.

“I’m surprised to see you here.”

“The funeral is tomorrow and I need to make sure everything is in place.”

“That is quite soon,” Hetty admitted. Seeing how Marianne’s gaze sharpened, Hetty added, “Do you need any assistance with arrangements?”

“Oh, no need for your help—Eunice has taken care of matters. Although, there is something you can do for me.”

From her pocket, Marianne pulled out a watch.

“I was going through Charlie’s things, putting them away, seeing what could be left aside for Junior, and I found this in the drawer. He always had it with him. First thing he bought after gaining his freedom. When I found it, I began to wonder . . .”

“About what?”

Marianne’s voice was almost a whisper. “What was he up to that night?”

Hetty glanced at the watch, uncertain if there was any residual magic that could tell her a tale. “All from a pocket watch?”

“Not just the pocket watch. From the man who came to leave a wilting bouquet of flowers.” Marianne placed the watch on the scratched table, her hand shaking just a bit as she did. “I never seen that man before this morning. He said he came to pay respects to Charlie, but I suspect he’d come about gambling debts.”

This would be the first Hetty heard of such a thing, but she was hardly surprised. Charlie was the one that taught her how to play various card games, and he always upped the stakes by adding money into the mix.

“I didn’t know he gambled,” Hetty said, deciding to take a lighter approach this time around. “Was it on horses?”

“Why would I know? Gambling is such an ugly pastime. Filled with nothing but lazy men and loose women.”

“Do you have money to pay the debts?” Hetty asked.

“My husband took care of me!” Marianne slammed her hand on the table, and Hetty quickly changed course.

“I meant”—Hetty swallowed a few choice words—“if someone like that shows up again—”

“He won’t.”

“But if he does, please be careful. This business might have caused Charlie’s death. If he had debts, you’ll be the one to pay now.”

“I told you—wrong time, wrong place.”

“You only hope that.” Hetty spread her hands. “If he’s tied to gambling, it might mean more trouble for you and your children. It won’t go away if you pretend otherwise.”

Marianne met Hetty’s gaze, but instead of anger there were tears in her eyes. “None of this will ever go away.”

As Hetty reached to comfort her old friend, Oliver rapped his knuckles against the door frame.

“Would you like to see him?” he asked.

Marianne closed her eyes and placed the teacup firmly on the table.

She held her head up high as she went down into the cellar, Oliver following closely behind.

Content to remain where she was, Hetty reached for the watch Marianne had left behind.

The first time Charlie had shown it to her she had thought it enchanted. While it certainly was accurate in telling time, it was also an astrolabe. It could point out stars and determine their location, which was useful for travelers and even practitioners hoping to increase their knowledge of the stars. It was an object of many ironies. Such a watch would have been invaluable in its assistance in escaping to freedom. But for a Freedman, it was just a pretty token.

Hetty opened the watch. The clock face’s hands were locked in place. Just like its owner, she couldn’t help but think, before her fingers moved to wind it up. But the knob nearly popped off when she met resistance from the gears.

“It needs to be fixed.” Marianne strode back into the kitchen. Her eyes weren’t red, but they shimmered with unspent tears. “Could Benjamin repair it? I won’t have it buried with Charlie, so he can take as long as he needs to make the fix. Charlie always said something worth doing is worth doing the right way.”

Behind her, Oliver nearly choked, making it doubly hard for Hetty to bite back a smile.

Said earnestly by his widow, Charlie’s words took on a regal air. Yet all Hetty could hear was Charlie yelling at them before jumping into a wagon with the horses flying at a full gallop, and other times the man went off and did something dangerous, unwise, or both.

“I’ll take my time then,” Hetty said, tucking the watch into her sewing kit.

“As for other business,” Oliver said, “I don’t wish to insist, but Charlie was my friend. The least I can do is his homegoing services.”

“You insist?” Marianne queried. “I already—”

“I’ll do it for no fees. It isn’t much, but I insist on the honor.”

Marianne nodded. “I’ll bring a set of clothes. Is there anything I need to do?”

“You’ve done enough. Let me take care of the rest.”

Marianne sniffed and threw her arms around Oliver.

Oliver stood as straight as a rod as Marianne sobbed into his collar. At Hetty’s beckoning, he lowered one arm and stiffly patted Marianne’s shoulder until she released him.

“Thank you,” she repeated, this time to Hetty. “Both of you.”

The moment Marianne slipped away, Oliver sighed loud enough to rattle pots.

“You insist on the honor,” Hetty echoed.

“Not out of the kindness of my heart. But it shouldn’t be too hard with the beneficial society ladies helping.”

“Do you need me and Benjy to—”

“No, I can handle it,” Oliver interrupted. “I’m well practiced. All these bodies you bring here for me to poke at. I end up burying a third of them!”

“You can refuse, you know.”

Oliver snorted. “If I did, you’d find someone else to hand off your dead bodies to. There are plenty of hospitals that will turn a blind eye to bodies as long as they are whole.”

His words sparked her interest, bringing her back to what Maybelle had told her.

“Have you heard of new cases of grave robbing?”

“No more than what Benjy told me. Why?”

“Just an odd word or two. From Maybelle.”

“That busybody,” he scoffed.

“You’re thinking of Jobelle,” Hetty said, “she’s the one that gleefully spills gossip. Maybelle’s the one with the shoe shop.”

“I thought she owned a cigar shop.”

“That’s Clarabelle. And it’s her husband’s shop.”

Oliver sank into a chair. “Penelope has too many cousins. No wonder she comes here to escape them.”

“She was here?” Hetty asked innocently.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.” Oliver nudged Marianne’s abandoned mug aside. “She stopped by to chat. I told her about Charlie. She got so upset, she started to clean. I left her alone because it would be my only chance to have a clean kitchen this week.”

“You are a terrible person.” Hetty shook her head.

“I’m an understanding one. You all have your quirks, and I know how to deal with each of them.” He studied his fingernails. “I’m not sure how you’d manage without me.”

“With great difficulty, I suppose.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asked. “Come to see the body and to admire my work?”

“I would like to,” Hetty said, spying the clock in the kitchen. Unlike the pocket watch, that one was still ticking away. “But I have to leave. I need to meet someone for a different case.”

“I’ll come with you,” Oliver suggested. The words seemed to surprise him as much as they did her. “I found a few interesting things I wanted to tell you in detail.”

“Did you notice if the knife wounds were different?”

“No.” He blinked. “They aren’t. Should they be?”

“Just a theory we can lay to rest.” Hetty stood up then. “That’s all I came to ask about.”

Oliver tried to hide it, but like a stormy sky brightened by lightning, an emotion buried under late nights and copious amounts of alcohol was revealed.

Loneliness.