PENNY SILENTLY repeated the information to herself, over and over like an incantation. Not dead, your mother's not dead, only injured. She stood outside the boarding house and waved goodbye to Ruby and Mrs. Swenson while Dr. Lovell put her suitcase in the back of his Durant sedan.
"You better get inside the car, Hazel," Mrs. Swenson said. "You're shivering."
When Penny climbed into the back seat, Mrs. Lovell turned around to give her a funny look. "Why did that lady call you Hazel?"
Penny could only shake her head.
Mrs. Lovell shrugged. "Well, I s'pose it's hard to keep track of everyone's name if you run a boarding house. She must see new faces every day."
Dr. Lovell got into the driver's seat and started the car. "Your mother will be so happy to know you're safe." His voice seemed to come from miles away.
The Lovells had explained that her mother had been staying in their guest room since the day of the shooting. In less than an hour, Penny thought, she would be with her again. Yet whenever she tried to recapture the dream of her mother opening her arms and calling her name, she only saw Irene's bone-white face. As soon as she reached the Lovells' house and saw her mother, she hoped those ugly visions would disappear.
***
When they reached Minerva, Main Street was reduced to a bottleneck with all the automobiles parked in front of the Commercial Hotel. "Folks from out of town coming in for the funeral," Mrs. Lovell said. "His sister Blanche came over from New Hampshire yesterday. Took the whole top floor. She has Ina and Isobel staying there with her. After the funeral, she's taking them back east."
Those poor girls, Penny thought. If this hadn't seemed so unreal, she would have said those words aloud.
"Never seen so much traffic," Mrs. Lovell mused. "The whole town will be out for the funeral." She nearly sounded excited. "This will be the biggest funeral we've ever seen."
The Lovells lived on Elm Street, two blocks from the Hamiltons' residence, but Dr. Lovell made an elaborate detour to avoid driving past that house. "Your mother's been very upset," he said after he had parked the car. "She's really fragile. Keep that in mind."
Penny nodded, although even now she couldn't imagine her mother being fragile. Anything but fragile.
He unlocked the front door and carried Penny's suitcase inside while his wife trotted up the stairs ahead of him. "Oh Mrs. Niebeck!" she called. "Guess who's here?"
Penny followed her into a narrow room with a slanted ceiling, a single dormer window, and a collection of garishly mismatched furniture and ornaments. The guest room was where Mrs. Lovell stuck the things that had grown old but that she wasn't quite willing to part with. There was a watercolor painting of a cactus outlined against a desert sky. An old pincushion shaped like a giant tomato. But nothing of her mother's in sight.
"Well, where can she be?" Mrs. Lovell turned around in a circle. "Maybe she's downstairs."
"No." Dr. Lovell set Penny's suitcase down. He nodded toward the empty closet with its wide-open door. "Her things are gone."
Penny's stomach clenched in a hollow ache.
"Let's look downstairs," he said. "See if she left a note."
A thin girl appeared in the doorway. "I think she left because of the news, sir. She was in the kitchen with me, listening to the radio."
"What news?" Dr. Lovell asked.
"The business at the Maagdenbergh farm," the girl said with a nervous blush. It was Ruth Zimmer, the Lovells' housekeeper, two years older than Penny. Once they had played together at a Fourth of July picnic in the Civic Park, Ruth pushing Penny on a swing. But now Ruth didn't seem to recognize her.
"Well, she knew all about that," Dr. Lovell said. "That's been in the paper for days."
Penny's eyes wandered to a dusty yellow vase filled with faded strawflowers.
"But they say her girl's gone missing." Ruth stared at her shoes. "Sheriff says that Maagdenbergh woman probably shot her, too."
Penny's legs caved in.
Mrs. Lovell caught her before she could hit the floor. "Oh, honey."
Fighting to regain her balance, Penny wriggled out of Mrs. Lovell's arms.
"Her daughter is right here." Impatience crept into Dr. Lovell's voice. "Did Mrs. Niebeck tell you where she was going?"
"She didn't tell me anything, sir. Just went upstairs after the news. Said she wanted to be alone. Then I had to go to Renfew's. When I came back, she was gone."
Through blurred eyes, Penny stared at a picture of an insipid angel guiding two children over a bridge.
"We should never have left her alone," Mrs. Lovell murmured.
"But she has nowhere to go." Penny looked bleakly around the room. "Where would she go?" Outside the dormer window, snow was coming down, darkness falling. Somewhere out there her mother was all alone, thinking Cora had done her in.
"She couldn't have gone far." Dr. Lovell laid his hand on Penny's shoulder. "The funeral service is tomorrow at two o'clock. You'll see her then, if not before."
"I'm going for a walk," she told him. Before anyone could stop her, she was down the stairs and out the door, dashing along sidewalks made treacherous with new snow concealing glassy ice. On the corner of Elm and Madison, she fell and banged her knee. But she didn't feel any pain, merely emptiness as she picked herself up and dragged herself on to the Hamiltons' house, cordoned off with rope. On the front gate, a sign was posted, the big red letters still visible in the twilight: NO ENTRY BY ORDER OF THE SHERIFF.
She had always imagined that the house and her mother were somehow inseparable, her mother as permanent a fixture as the Hamiltons themselves. But who would live in that house now? The door was locked, no way back. A new pain in her belly burrowed so deeply it hurt to breathe, hurt to look at that abandoned shell of a house with its ice-glazed rose bushes.
When she returned, the Lovells were waiting for her in the kitchen. A place had been set for her at the table. There was a pot of tea, a basket of bread. Ruth filled her bowl with navy bean and bacon soup that tasted like her mother's. It was so hot, it burned her tongue.
"You have to eat, dear." Mrs. Lovell watched her closely until her bowl was empty. Only when Ruth had cleared the dishes away did they show Penny the evening's Minerva Reporter.
"I'm surprised they printed it," Dr. Lovell said. "Thought they'd at least wait until after the funeral. We've had enough trouble as it is."
So this was what her mother had heard on the radio. What startled Penny most was the photograph printed alongside the article. A young woman posed in a tiered white dress, loose and flowing like the Greek robes Penny had seen in her illustrated copy of The Odyssey. The woman hardly seemed familiar. A slender ribbon was tied around her brow. Her hair fell in waves over her shoulders, and her bodice was cut low enough to reveal the shadow between her breasts. The only part of her face that she even faintly recognized was the tilt of her chin. Mrs. Cora Egan, 1921. It must have been the only picture they had been able to dredge up on such short notice, probably supplied by her Chicago in-laws.
Nov. 30—Sheriff E. S. Tanner issued an all-points bulletin yesterday for Mrs. Cora Egan for the brutal shooting death of her husband, Dr. Adam Egan, of Evanston, Illinois.
Estranged from her husband, Mrs. Egan had been living on the Van den Maagdenbergh farm outside Minerva with her infant daughter. She was known to local residents for her antisocial temperament and her habit of wearing male attire.
The slain body of Dr. Egan was discovered in the farmhouse by postman Ed Magnusson when he came to deliver registered mail. Dr. Everett Lovell, who examined the body, attested that Dr. Egan had been shot with a rifle at close range and had been dead for at least five days before discovery.
In a letter dated November 20, written and signed by Mrs. Egan and left at the crime scene, Mrs. Egan claims full culpability for the shooting. She also states that she drugged her brother, Mr. Jacob Viney, who accompanied Dr. Egan on his visit. A wine bottle and a wine glass with traces of sleeping powder were found in the kitchen.
No trace could be found of either Jacob Viney or Miss Penelope Niebeck, Mrs. Egan's hired girl. "It is possible that Mrs. Egan might have harmed or killed these two people," Sheriff Tanner told the Reporter. Mrs. Egan's 1920 Dodge pickup was missing from the scene. It is believed that she fled the state.
After his wife's desertion of him in November, 1922, Dr. Egan had employed private detective Vernon Ward, who over the past year had collected a significant amount of evidence proving that Mrs. Egan was unlawful, antisocial, and thus unfit for motherhood. Elliot Baxter, Dr. Egan's attorney, had drawn up a summons to take Mrs. Egan to court. The charges Dr. Egan intended to bring against her include aiming a firearm at him and threatening to kill him on November 3, 1922; concealing the existence and whereabouts of Dr. Egan's daughter, Phoebe; and lying about the child's paternity on the birth certificate.
Attorney Baxter believes that Mrs. Egan deliberately drugged her brother before proceeding to murder her husband with both malice and premeditation.
The warrant for Mrs. Egan's arrest was issued yesterday by Sandborn County Judge Charles Flint. Mrs. Egan is believed to be armed, dangerous, and mentally disturbed. In the interest of the safety of her infant daughter, she must be approached with extreme caution.
Mr. Paul Egan of Chicago, brother of the slain man, has offered a $5,000 reward for any information or assistance leading to the arrest of Cora Egan and the safe return of his niece.
Description: age, 25 years; height, 5 feet 7 inches; green eyes; auburn hair cut very short; light complexion. She was last seen wearing overalls, a flannel shirt, and heavy work boots. Her daughter, Phoebe, is five months old.
Wire all information to E. S. Tanner, Sheriff, Sandborn County, Sandborn, Minnesota.
After supper, Dr. Lovell called the sheriff's office. Penny sat at the kitchen table and stared at Cora's picture while she listened to him talk on the telephone.
"...I want to let you know that Penny Niebeck is safe and unharmed. She's staying with me and my wife at the moment. Yes ... yes, of course ... Look, I know you want to question her, but give it a few days," he said quietly. "Now her mother's missing, and we don't know where to find her. Miss Niebeck is in no state to give evidence right now."
***
There was nothing left to do but climb the stairs to the cluttered guest room and lie down on the bed where her mother had slept the past few nights. Penny drew back the covers hoping to find some trace of her, if only a forgotten handkerchief. Under the pillow she discovered a small wooden statue she vaguely remembered seeing before, long ago, when she was very young. A stern-faced woman with a dark blue mande. In her outstretched hand she held a miniature tower with three windows. Penny turned the statue over and found the name Barbara carved on the bottom in clumsy letters.
She was turning into a child again, the way she cried for her mother and cradled that statue. She remembered her mother's smell of sweat and vinegar with something else underneath it, some baking scent. For the first time in half a year, she began to pray, stroking the saint's black wooden hair with her finger. Bring her back, please bring her back.
The next morning, they dressed for the funeral. Since Penny didn't own anything black, Mrs. Lovell lent her a black cloche that completely covered her short hair and shaded her eyes. She imagined that if her mother saw her now, she wouldn't recognize her. She would remember her as a girl with a long braid, dressed in Irene's castoffc.
It felt strange to follow the Lovells into the Presbyterian church. The walls were so plain, the altar so bare, it hardly seemed like a church at all. There were no statues of saints, there wasn't even the smell of frankincense, but it was packed to bursting with the best families of Minerva. She spotted Miss Ellison and the Fisks. Everyone from the Jaycees and the Rotary Club had turned out. A stout woman done up like a battleship in rippling black veils led Ina and Isobel down the aisle to the front of the church. Aunt Blanche, the girls' new guardian—Penny had met her once before and hated her—talked as if she had mothballs glued to her tongue. Decked out in matching black hats and coats, Ina and Isobel looked like grim little china dolls. Workers from the Hamilton Creamery and Pop Factory squeezed into the outer aisles. Some of them wept openly. With Mr. Hamilton dead, they didn't know what the future of the factory would be, or if they would still have jobs.
Everyone in Minerva seemed to be here—except her mother. Penny clasped her hands over her belly as the pain returned, much worse than it had been the day before. Numbly she sat back and regarded the coffin. Barely visible under its load of hothouse flowers and ribbons, it looked like some morbid carnival float. A few minutes later a red-eyed Miss Ellison began to play the organ. Everyone sang the spare Protestant hymns, then the service began, the minister going on and on about what a good man Mr. Hamilton had been, a shining example for the community. Maybe that's why her mother wasn't here—someone had warned her to stay away. But what if something had happened to her? What if she had lost her, after all? It was all her fault for being so hard and unforgiving. By now the pain was so bad, Penny doubled over, her forehead pressed to her knees.
"What's the matter?" Mrs. Lovell stroked her neck in a motherly fashion. Penny swallowed a cry.
"I need air." Stumbling over Dr. Lovell's feet, she squeezed her way through the crowded aisle and out the door.
Shivering, she made her way across the adjoining cemetery and climbed the artificial hill made over the years with earth dug up from the graves—or at least that was the story Irene had told her once. As the pain racked her, she imagined leaving her body behind, rising weightlessly like a ghost. The pain sank in so deep, she wondered if this was the way Irene had felt, the unspeakable wretchedness that had made her reach for her father's rifle.
When the service came to an end, men from the Rotary Club carried out the coffin and set it down beside the freshly excavated pit. From where she stood on the hill, Penny could see the entire crowd. Aunt Blanche looked so staunch and severe that Penny could imagine her happily murdering her mother, finishing off Irene's botched attempt. Ina and Isobel huddled to one side of her. On her other side stood Miss Ellison, her face nearly disfigured from crying. If her mother was here, Penny imagined that she was watching from a distance, her face hidden behind a black veil.
As the minister began to read the last rites, a commotion started at the back of the crowd. With an air of astonishment, the pop factory workers moved aside, allowing Barbara Niebeck to step forward, her unveiled face exposed to everyone. Penny's breath caught. The tight cluster of family and friends refused to surrender an inch. Her mother forged on, fighting her way forward, making a path between their unbudging bodies. When they elbowed her, she pushed back. Miss Ellison raised a hand to her mother's face. For a moment, Penny thought Miss Ellison was going to smack her. Dr. Lovell took her mother's uninjured arm and tried to shield her from the crowd, but her mother yanked free. Before anyone knew what to do, before even Aunt Blanche could block her way, Barbara had emerged at the front and taken her place beside the coffin. She reached into her black overcoat and drew out a single white lily. With infinite tenderness, she laid it on top of all the other gaudy flowers that smothered her lover's coffin. As the sobs shook her, she held herself steadfast, taking her place beside him like a widow, not a mistress.
When they lowered the coffin into the pit, she threw down the first handful of earth, then clutched her handkerchief to her mouth and wept. The ceremony came to a close. Still she would not move from the grave. Eventually even the Hamilton relatives retreated, heading for the funeral dinner in the church banquet hall. But her mother remained, as though she had become a part of that dead winter landscape. Penny's insides throbbed with a pain that made her dizzy. Hands thrust into her coat pockets, she made her way down the hill and around the headstones until she stood by her side. Her mother's eyes were so clouded, she didn't seem to notice Penny was there. Penny reached for her hands, blindly kissed her salty cheek.
"Penny?" Her mother's eyes moved over her face as though Penny weren't real anymore. "I thought I lost you, too." Then she hugged her so fiercely that Penny started crying with her, hiding her face in her collar. "I heard on the radio..."
"That's all lies. She would never do that to me."
"I know. I didn't believe it when I heard it."
She looked at her mother in amazement.
"But they said you were missing. I thought you'd gone away with her." Her mother's words were so simple, and Penny saw that she understood everything. Then she doubled up in pain, rocking in her mother's arms beside Laurence Hamilton's grave. The cramping in her belly tore at her with a force that would have knocked her to her knees. Her mother's embrace was the only thing that kept her standing. "I know," her mother whispered. "Shh, I know. It hurts something awful, doesn't it? You really cared for her and that baby. Honey, I know." She held her, not like a child but a woman, her equal now. "I talked to her once. You weren't there. I knew right away she'd take care of you and not let you come to any harm. If there was one comfort, I knew she was making you happy." Then she broke off and held Penny by the elbows, looking her up and down. "You seem so grown up." Her expression changed. "She had to shoot him, didn't she?" Her mother pressed her lips together. "I'll bet he tried to take the baby away."
Penny struggled to find words, but her throat hurt too much.
"Come on." Barbara wrapped her good arm around Penny's shoulders and guided her over the dirty, trampled snow.
"Where are we going?"
"I rented a room at the Pig 'n' Whistle." Her mother couldn't stop staring at her. "You're so peaked-looking. I've never seen you like this."
"I had the flu pretty bad." It was the easiest thing to say and sounded like the truth, even though she couldn't name the thing that was tearing her insides to pieces.
Tucked in a side street on the other side of the railroad tracks, the Pig 'n' Whistle was a rickety three-story wood-frame building with a faded blue façade. Downstairs was the café, upstairs were the rooms, which could be rented for ten cents a night.
"Where's the bathroom?" Penny asked.
"Down off the second-floor landing. Knock on the door to make sure no one's inside."
When she sat on the toilet, she saw the blood on her underpants. So that's what it was. She gazed in the mirror to see if she looked any different. Her face was very pale, almost waxy, her eyes swollen from crying, an angry pimple in the middle of her chin. After washing her hands, she climbed the stairs to her mother's small, spare room.
"Do you have any old rags?" She tried to sound calm. "I'm bleeding." But then her voice caught.
"Your first time?" Her mother gave her a careful look before fishing through her suitcase. "Does it hurt? Dr. Lovell gave me a bottle of aspirin. Here, why don't you take some?" She got a few clean pieces of padded cotton and showed Penny what to do. When that was done, she lifted her daughter's cloche off her head and ran her fingers through her hair. "I see you got one of them bobs." Her voice was so gentle. "That's a nice sweater you're wearing."
"Cora gave it to me. The skirt, too."
"Well, she knows what suits you. Real angora." Barbara touched the soft wool. Penny closed her eyes as she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder, the warmth of her fingers seeping through to her skin. Bit by bit the pain in her belly eased as she imagined her mother's strength flowing into her.
A gold ring set with a ruby glinted on her mother's hand. She wore it in place of her old fake wedding band.
"What's that?" Shyly, Penny took her mother's hand.
"He gave it to me." For a moment her mother looked like a girl. Then her face twisted in grief. Penny caught her in her arms and held her until her mother pulled away and briskly dabbed her eyes with an already sodden handkerchief. "Why don't we go downstairs and get ourselves some dinner?"
They ate their supper of chicken a la king and coconut cream pie with grave discipline, even though neither of them was hungry. Penny glanced at the surrounding tables. The other customers were all men. She guessed that to have ended up at the Pig 'n' Whistle, they were probably hired men between jobs, traveling men down on their luck. She picked out a few hoboes, who must have traded chores for their meal. Her mother was staring at a slender man in the corner with thinning reddish hair. At least in the dim light, he looked like Laurence Hamilton. Her mother bunched her napkin in her fist and squeezed hard before she could pick up her fork again.
"There's going to be a trial in two weeks." Barbara spoke quietly. "For every murder, there has to be a trial." She sucked in her breath.
Then there would also be a trial for Dr. Egan's death. Of course, they couldn't bring Cora to trial until they found her, but if Penny stepped forward and made her confession...
"I have to stand witness," her mother said. "Blanche Hamilton wants to hush it all up as much as she can. I don't think she'll let them drag me through the mud any more than they have to. It would just make her family look bad. As soon as the trial's over, we have to leave town. Both of us."
"We can't live here anymore." Penny warmed her hands on her cup of boiled coffee.
"I've got some money saved up to get us out of here."
"So do I," Penny said. Her mother looked at her questioningly, but didn't ask for details.
"I was thinking we could go to California," her mother said. "Once we're settled, you should go back to high school. I want you to get your diploma and go to college. You have to rise above this life."
At first Penny could not believe she was hearing this from her mother's mouth. When she looked into her eyes, she saw how much love and grief had changed her. There was more to her mother than she had ever guessed.
"You're pretty smart. I want you going places."
Penny began to cry, right there at the table, tears spilling onto the oilcloth. "But I can't. Not after what I did."
Her mother put down her fork. "What are you saying, Penny?"
"You heard the news. There's a reward out for her. Five thousand dollars. I can't let her go to jail for what I did. She has a baby."
"What do you mean, for what)‹?› did?"
Penny lowered her head over her plate. "Cora didn't shoot him," she whispered. "I did. She took the blame so I wouldn't have to go to jail."
Barbara scanned the room, as though to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "We better talk about this upstairs."
"Cora made me promise not to tell." Hunched on one of the narrow beds, Penny cried into a spare pillowcase that her mother had handed her. All their handkerchiefs were used up. Penny told her how she had picked up the rifle and hadn't believed the bullet would really hit him.
Her mother's skin was so drained of color, Penny thought she could look through it and see the skull beneath. Her mother's eyes shone with something like dread. She flinched, her hand automatically moving to her injured shoulder. It was as though her mother were looking at her and seeing Irene staring back.
"I'm sorry," Penny whispered. "Please don't hate me. I let him in the house. I wasn't supposed to, but he had me fooled. Then he started hurting her. I didn't mean to do it." She couldn't say anything more.
Her mother balled her white-knuckled hands in her lap. "You made a promise to Cora." Her voice was so quiet, Penny had to lean forward to hear. "Now I want you to make a promise to me."
Penny nodded. "Any promise you want."
"I never want you touching a rifle again, do you hear?" Her mother swallowed. "Not as long as I'm alive. I never want to see another gun in my life."
"I promise." Penny watched her mother's face change, the color flowing back into her skin.
Her mother took her hands and squeezed them. "But you did it to save your friend." Her voice broke when she said the word save.
"But I..."
"Listen up. Nobody ever tried to save me. I was your age and..." Her mother closed her eyes. "You know your grandpa tried to drown you."
Now it was Penny's turn to flinch. Whenever she heard this story, she felt as though insects were crawling over her skin.
"Nobody tried to stop him. Not even my ma. I had to run away." Barbara held fast to Penny's hands. "But you stood by your friend. I wish I'd had a friend like that. My life would have been so different if someone had stood by me the way you stood by her."
Penny looked closely at her mother's face. She imagined the worry lines melting away until her mother was a girl no older than she was. A hurting girl who was too pretty for her own good. The work-roughened hands that held her own were the same hands that had pulled her out of the rain barrel. Suddenly she saw her mother's long journey, all she had suffered just to keep her. Her mother's life was as heroic as anything she had read about in The Odyssey. Very few people did anything as courageous in their entire lives as what her mother had done when she was fifteen years old.
"Penny, why are you crying like that?" Her mother took her face in her hands.
"You saved me," she said. "You didn't let me drown."
Her mother embraced her. Penny closed her eyes. All at once, it was so overwhelming—the thought of being saved.
Her mother stroked her hair. "Always remember that you stood by your friend. You didn't let him hurt her." She spoke fiercely. "Now she wants to save you from going to jail." She took her daughter by the shoulders, pushing her slowly until Penny sat erect, her spine unbowed. "You saved her," Barbara said. "And now she wants to save you."