Four
“Nicholas!” Jane cried.
She ran across the grass toward the source of his scream, the other adults close behind her. She realized now that the children had been in the woods, presumably gathering items for their scavenger hunt. Jane could see neither Ginny nor any of the children through the trees, but as Jane neared them, she could hear children crying.
She was the first to enter the woods, by means of a path that bored into the shadows between two wide oak trunks. She had walked only a few feet when she nearly collided with Ginny, who stood on the path with her back toward Jane and was calling desperately to the children, whom Jane could see just beyond her.
“Kids, quickly! Come out, follow me!” Ginny, oblivious of Jane and the others behind her, moved quickly among the children, roughly shepherding them toward the path that led out of the woods. Jane spotted Nick. His face was sickly white and tears ran down his cheeks. Ginny grabbed his shoulder and pushed him after the other children. At that moment Nick saw Jane and ran to her, hugging her hard.
Jane felt someone bump her from behind and turned her head. It was Ernie, who was looking past her with a look of alarm.
“Ginny, what on earth is going on?” he demanded.
Ginny, having gotten all of the children headed out of the woods, spun around to look at him. Jane had never seen her like this. Her face was white, almost green, and she looked as if she was trying hard not to pass out. She said nothing, instead pointing with her eyes to something deeper in the woods.
“Oh, good Lord . . .” Doris whispered.
They could see only feet, grimy feet in sandals, dangling about a foot and a half off the ground. Foliage obstructed the rest, and Jane, followed by the others, moved slowly around.
Jane’s hands flew to her face. “My God.” It was a young woman, thin, in a simple pale blue cotton dress sprinkled with tiny white flowers. She hung by the neck from a noose at the end of a rope that had been thrown over a heavy branch; from the branch the rope extended straight and tight at a downward angle to where it was tied to the base of another tree’s trunk.
“Who is she?” Penny said softly.
Jane studied the woman. She didn’t think it was anyone she knew but it was impossible to know for sure because even in the dappled shade of the trees it was clear that the woman’s face was covered with garish makeup, almost like a clown: a red circle of blush, like old-fashioned rouge, on each cheek; scarlet lipstick applied so sloppily that it extended well past her lips to create a weird oval red mouth; deep blue eye shadow on her eyelids, which were, mercifully, closed. Her hair was an ordinary brown and shoulder length; it hung straight and limp—as if, it occurred to Jane, she’d had a bad haircut. Jane squinted, studying the woman’s face harder. Could she be faintly smiling? It seemed so, but this, too, was impossible to say for sure because of the lipstick. If not for the unnatural angle of her head, she might have been peacefully asleep, so relaxed was her face, so gently closed were her eyes. But that was how death often looked, Jane told herself. That was what death was—a kind of sleep.
The wind rose, rustling the leaves on the trees, playing with the girl’s hair. Goose bumps rose on Jane’s arms, and she shivered.
“Does anybody know her?” Ernie asked softly, and Jane jumped at the sound of his voice.
No one answered.
“Come on, let’s get away from her,” Louise said, taking control, and like automatons everyone turned and started back along the path.
Nick held Jane’s hand tightly. She realized now that she should have shepherded him out of the woods with the other children, that she’d allowed him to study the poor hanging woman along with the grown-ups.
“Mom?” Nick was crying. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know, darling,” was all Jane could say, wrapping her arm tightly around his shoulder. “I don’t know.”
They emerged into the bright sunshine. Ginny had the children on the patio in a cluster. A few feet from Jane and Nick, Louise was speaking softly to Ernie. “Nothing like this has ever happened at Hydrangea House,” Jane heard her say, an oddly accusatory note in her voice. Then, “I’ll call the police,” Louise said, and ran toward the inn.
Jane led Nick to the patio. Ginny was gone, Penny overseeing the children in her place. Jane gave her an inquiring look.
“Ginny’s calling their parents,” Penny explained.
Jane nodded.
“You should take Nick home,” Doris said. She was only now arriving at the edge of the patio from the woods. “Apparently he discovered her.”
Jane looked down at Nick in horror. He was no longer crying, but he was deathly white and very still, staring into nothingness, as if seeing an image of the hanging woman that was imprinted on his eyes.
“Yes, come on, Nick, we’re going home now.” She took his hand again and started for the inn.
Daniel and Laura stood together near the door. Daniel’s face was set in a frown she seldom saw, a frown that signified he was deeply upset. Beside him, Laura dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“We’re leaving,” Jane told them.
They nodded.
Rhoda approached Jane, gently touched her shoulder, and leaned over to whisper in Jane’s ear. “Jane, if Nick found her, the police may want to ask him some questions.”
Jane hadn’t thought of that. She felt a sudden surge of fierce protectiveness. She shook her head firmly. “No. He’s been through enough already.” She felt anger, though at whom she couldn’t say. And then she realized she was angry at the dead girl herself, for killing herself that way, for being so selfish, for letting innocent children find her like that, children who should never see such things. But I’m not being rational, she told herself.
She and Nick entered the inn’s cool back servants’ pantry. Louise emerged from the kitchen. “The police are coming.”
And at that moment they heard a siren. It grew louder and abruptly stopped with a yelp.
Jane wanted to speak with Louise. “Nick, darling, just wait here for a second. Mommy needs to speak to Mrs. Zabriskie for a minute.”
Hearing this, Louise followed Jane into the kitchen.
“Louise,” Jane said softly, “I don’t want the police questioning Nick and upsetting him. Don’t tell them he found the girl.”
Louise’s jaw dropped; her eyes widened. “How awful. I didn’t know. I thought Ginny found her.”
“No,” Jane said, already back in the pantry and grabbing Nick’s hand. “Come on, honey, this way.”
She hurried with him to the end of the pantry and out into the hallway that led to the foyer. Louise had no doubt told the police a dead woman had been found in the woods behind the inn. The police would park and walk around the inn. Jane would hurry Nick out the front to her car, which she’d parked on the gravel drive, and they would slip away before anyone could find Nick and upset him.
Reaching the end of the hallway, she could see straight across the foyer and through the windows to the front, where two police cars were parked.
“Let’s go,” she said softly to Nick, and pulled him briskly across the foyer as the dark outlines of three men loomed up against the shirred ivory-lace curtain on Louise’s front door, on which one of the men now knocked firmly.
Louise appeared from behind Jane, looking distraught. She started toward the door to open it, then stopped and looked helplessly at Jane. Thinking quickly, Jane pulled Nick back toward the hallway. She glanced over her shoulder at Louise, who was clearly waiting to answer the door. But to Jane’s horror, the doorknob turned and the door swung open before Louise had even reached it.
Jane froze, still holding Nick’s hand. One of the men, the one in front who had knocked, looked familiar to Jane. He wore plain clothes, a blue blazer over gray slacks, and was of medium height, with exceptionally broad shoulders. He had dark brown eyes and fine, straight sandy hair combed in a neat line across his forehead. Behind him stood two uniformed officers.
They strode into the foyer, the officers keeping respectfully back, the man in plain clothes approaching Louise. “Take me to her, please.”
Louise turned to lead him through the inn to the back. The man started to follow her, then noticed Jane and stopped. His lips curved in the tiniest, most professional of smiles.
“Mrs. Stuart,” he said, his tone respectful. “You probably don’t remember me.”
So she was right that he looked familiar. He was with the police, obviously, but when had she met him?
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “We met when you were looking for your nanny last fall. Greenberg,” he said, pointing to himself, “Detective Stanley Greenberg.”
She realized she’d blocked him out with as many of the other memories of that episode as she’d been able to block out. But she remembered him as having been kind to her, respectful and deferential, the way he was acting toward her now.
“Yes, of course,” she said, forcing a little smile of her own. “I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem. You’re leaving?”
“Yes . . . . My son is very upset. You’ll see—” She glanced at Louise, who stood nearby, silently waiting.
“All right,” Greenberg said to Jane. “I’ll call you if I have any questions. First I’d better have a look.” He gazed down at Nick and gave him a kind, almost sympathetic smile, though of course he couldn’t have known Nick had more reason than the others to be upset.
Jane walked with Nick between the two officers and out the front door. They hurried across the porch, down the steps, and across the drive to Jane’s car.
“Mommy,” Nick said, strangely calm, as Jane drove through the gate onto Plunkett Lane, “who was that woman in the woods?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Why was she there?” Tears crept into his voice. Jane found herself starting to cry, too.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
And then, though of course she’d known it all along, she remembered that the reason they had been at Hydrangea House in the first place, the reason for the party, was that today was Nick’s birthday. If only she could turn back time, make it that he hadn’t seen that horror in the woods. But of course she couldn’t. He’d seen it, couldn’t unsee it, and it occurred to her that the image of that poor girl hanging in the woods was no doubt one that would remain with him for the rest of his life.