“Hello, you’ve reached Dana Whitlock. I’m sorry but I’m unable to come to the phone, right now. Please leave your name and number after the beep and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thanks.”
Beep.
“Hello, Ms. Whitlock. My name is Daniel Price … I know this might sound crazy, but I’m actually calling to see if I could talk to your grandfather, Benjamin. I, uh, I live in Kingsbrook, in the Nightingale House where his grandfather used to work, and … I had some questions about Katherine Car … Well, I’ll be able to explain better if I could speak to him.”
I leave my contact info and hang up. I got their number by doing a ton of research on my phone and also paying some money to one of those ‘stalker-services’ online.
I try to do more research online, scrolling through the various links that lead to nothing of value.
I toss the phone onto the passenger seat.
This is infuriating. I need my computer but that’s at the house, so it’s out of the question, and unlike every other author I’ve ever seen at Starbucks, I don’t own a laptop. I’ll have to go to the library or a Kinko’s or some other place that has computers that you can rent for an hour.
I start the car, put it in drive, and begin rolling forward, but slam the brakes.
What am I doing? I’ve got something so much better than the internet. Something that should be able to tell me everything I want to know, and he’s right here in Kingsbrook.
*
“Mr. Price!” Mr. Howard waves cheerily from the porch of the Kingsbrook Historical Society as I walk up the path.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I reply, shaking his hand.
“My pleasure.” He leans in. “Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I got a phone call, asking me if I was open this late. It sounded urgent.”
“It is. I need your help.”
“Of course. What can I do for you?”
“I need to know everything you can tell me about the Nightingale House.”
*
He leads me through the first floor, past the display cases, to what was once the kitchen, but has started morphing into an office/storage room. Boxes rest on the counters, while papers and binders sit by the sink.
“Please, have a seat,” he says, motioning to the small table by the window, overlooking the perfectly manicured backyard. “Would you care for some coffee?”
“Thank you. That’d be great.”
He opens a cabinet and takes out two coffee cups.
“So, what is it you’d like to know?” he asks, taking a pot from a coffee machine that’s so old, it looks like it would be perfectly at home with the displays out front and pours two cups.
“I’m trying to find out everything I can about the Carrington family. Specifically, about the disappearance of their daughter, Katherine.”
His face lights up as he sets a cup in front of me and has a seat at the table. “Quite possibly Kingsbrook’s darkest hour.”
“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it when we were here that day.”
He looks offended. “I wasn’t sure you knew, and you were here with your daughter. I didn’t want to upset her. Besides, why would I bring it up?”
I can respect that. “Okay, but I really need to know, now.”
“Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?” He’s about to take a sip but stops. “Are you writing a book about it?”
I could tell him “no” and that my reason for asking is that last night, I saw a girl who has probably been dead for over a hundred years in my basement.
“Yep. Writing a book.”
It’s so much easier to lie when the person you’re lying to offers the perfect cover.
His smile lets me know that I’ve come to the right place.
“Now, there’s not a whole lot out there,” I say. “I’ve found some newspaper articles online but they don’t offer much beyond the fact that she disappeared from the train platform, no one found her, and then Thomas Carrington died of some sudden illness in the Nightingale House shortly after.”
He gives me an amused, almost smug smile. “Well, that was the story that was printed. They would never publish what really happened.”
“I’m sorry … What ‘really happened’?”
“Thomas Carrington killed himself; he shot himself through the head in the bedroom of his home. Well, I guess it is now your home.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “That was the rumor.”
“It was a hundred and twenty years ago. How could you possibly know that?”
“Mr. Price,” he says, setting his cup down and regarding me as if I’ve now truly insulted his honor in some way. “My family is as old as Kingsbrook, itself. They’ve lived here since the beginning. However, since I don’t have a family, I’m afraid the line stops here, which is why I started the Kingsbrook Historical Society.” He holds out his hands to indicate the entire house. “My family has been witness to everything that has happened in Kingsbrook and that history has been my obsession for decades. I used to beg my grandparents, and especially my great-grandmother, Patricia Fleming, to tell me stories about the town, and in her lifetime, the disappearance of Katherine Carrington and the death of her father were the story of the town.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I apologize. I had no idea.”
He relaxes. “No. I suppose you’re right. It was only gossip.”
“Please, tell me.”
He runs his finger around the rim of his cup as he organizes his thoughts. “Well, as I was saying, my family has lived in Kingsbrook since the beginning. I was born here in 1952, well after all the era that Kingsbrook was a getaway from the wealthy came to an end, but I still loved Kingsbrook. I knew I never wanted to live anywhere else. The town, its people — even from a young age, I was obsessed.”
I desperately need him to get to the point, but I don’t want to interrupt. I wait for him to savor another sip of coffee before continuing.
“When I heard about The Carrington Affair—” he leans in “—that’s what Gran-Gran called it, I had to know everything and she was more than happy to tell me. She was Kingsbrook royalty in her day. She was the daughter of the Mayor … and an unrepentant gossip.” He smiles. “But that was fine with me. I loved hearing her stories.” He chuckles. “Ironic that hearing about Kingsbrook’s ghosts made the town come alive in my imagination.” He picks up his coffee.
“So … what happened?”
“Oh, right, right, right. I’m sorry. There I go, again,” he says, taking another quick sip before setting the cup down. “According to Gran-Gran, Thomas Carrington was not the most respected member of Kingsbrook society.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there were things that were looked down upon, such as the fact that his own family had cut him off due to his behavior. ‘Playing the field’ was the polite term for his behavior at the time. Some said that he charmed Abigail into marrying him because of her family’s wealth. That’s what supported them. Gran-Gran said he was rude, arrogant, and he could be ‘a very unpleasant fellow’, which were harsh words, coming from her. According to Gran-Gran, everyone knew that it was an unhappy marriage.”
“What about the daughter?”
“Gran-Gran never really knew her, but when she disappeared, the rumors swirled that he had something to do with it.”
“Why?”
He shrugs, again. “His past. He was known to be a little violent. Gran-Gran had heard that after he was drunk with a young woman, Abigail forbade liquor in the house. Anyway, Gran-Gran said it all seemed so strange. As I said, there were rumors that he had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance, but there was no proof.”
“What about the rumor that he killed himself?”
“That one, Gran-Gran sounded more certain about.”
“The paper said that he was found dead in his room.”
“Of course it did. Out of respect for Abigail, it would never print that Thomas Carrington shot himself. That sort of thing simply wasn’t done in those times. Afterwards, Abigail Carrington left Kingsbrook. She wanted nothing else to do with the town. She even left Nightingale House abandoned. She passed in 1927.”
“Did your great-grandmother—”
“Gran-Gran.”
“Yes, did your … Gran-Gran ever tell you if there were any rumors as to why Thomas Carrington killed himself?”
He rolls his eyes, not out of exasperation, but in a way I’m pretty sure his … Gran-Gran did while relating her narratives. “She sure did. The rumors ranged from a sense of guilt over killing his daughter to the absurd idea that he was murdered by a loan shark. Most of the people who believed he killed himself thought he did it out of grief.”
“What did your Gran-Gran think?”
“She was certain he did it because he was caught in an affair and Abigail was going to cut him off.”
“She was sure he was having an affair?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say who?”
“Well, once again, rumors, but there was a whisper that he was carrying on with a young woman. She was the daughter of a pharmacist. The whispers really started flying around when she and her father disappeared from Kingsbrook right after he died, never to be heard from again.”
“Did anyone know her name?”
He glances up at the ceiling as he searches his memory. “Gran-Gran told me once … Her last name was something like … ‘Walker’ or maybe ‘Hooper’, I think. I can’t really remember. I do remember that her first name was ‘Rebecca’.”
The blood drains from my face.
“Mr. Price? Are you well?”
I stand up. I have to get back to the house.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Howard.”
“Of course … Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. You’ve been a great help.”
*
The porch light of the Kingsbrook Historical Society goes dark as I get in the car and close the door.
I turn the key and the motor comes to life.
The Nightingale House is ten minutes away. I can do it in five.
I need to get to the Writing Room, because a whisper in that bookcase once told me, ‘Rebecca’s here’.
September 18th, 1900
No. Please. No.