10
EFFIE
May 1901
Shepherd, Iowa
THE RESIDENCE of 322 Predicament Avenue had become a carnival of sorts. It seemed nearly all of Shepherd had traversed through the house, touring the crime scene either in utter awe or complete horror.
“They may as well sell tickets.” Bethany tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear.
Effie held Bethany’s arm, looped through her elbow, close to her side. The stares from those who passed them made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the murder but rather with their curiosity about what Euphemia James’s relationship was to the enigmatic Englishman, who had yet to leave town on the claim that the blood of his wife stained the floor of the house on Predicament Avenue. That had been made clear as recently as this morning, with the newspaper monopolizing on the continued saga by making it a front-page story:
Mr. Lewis Anderson from London, England, announces his intention to work alongside Shepherd’s constable in the investigation of the recent findings at 322 Predicament Avenue. If anyone has any information regarding the presumed victim, one Isabelle Addington, it is requested that they be forthcoming in contacting the Shepherd police. Efforts have been made to reach out to the Opperman Trust, deed holder of the Predicament Avenue property. Meanwhile, Miss Euphemia James, linked to the initial declaration of misdeeds at the house, has not been seen in the company of Mr. Anderson. It is believed that her sister, Miss Polly James, is still suffering from a severe state of shock and therefore has been unable to answer any questions.
The two friends’ stroll downtown was their attempt at bringing a bit of calm and normality to a volatile situation, one that had the potential not only to ruin Effie’s future but also to tarnish the reputations of her siblings.
“It will all pass in time,” Bethany assured Effie with a bright smile. Her skin was porcelain pale, her lips a bright pink, and her effervescence was enough to almost make Effie believe her. “Just think of the adventure you can share with your children someday.”
“I hardly think someone’s murder should be considered ‘adventure.’” Effie’s gentle chiding went unnoticed by Bethany.
“Has Mr. Anderson been to visit you?” Bethany inquired, likely in an attempt to make conversation. Yet it only exacerbated the issue.
Effie flushed. She had begun to think of him as merely Anderson. The direction of her unseemly thoughts made conquering the current circumstances all the more difficult. “He has no reason to, Bethany, you know this.”
“Do we know why Isabelle Addington was even here in Shepherd? It’s so far from England, and with no connection whatsoever? And why does she have a different last name than Mr. Anderson?” Bethany stopped to admire a display of hats in the millinery window, her sudden halt causing Effie to pause as well, their arms still linked. Bethany continued, “She must mean so much to Mr. Anderson for him to be so faithful to search for her. And why did she go missing in the first place?” Bethany sucked in a gasp. “What if she ran away from him? What if she didn’t want to be with—?”
“Please stop,” Effie interrupted. She hadn’t the heart nor the stomach for such things. It would be ages before she would forget the blood congealing on the floor beneath the dresser. Months before she could look at a full-length mirror and not think of blood spattering its back as though someone had whipped a knife up through the air, only to bring it down in a vicious thrust, over and over again.
“I’m sorry, Effie.” Bethany turned, concern on her face. “It’s just all so confusing. There are so many questions that remain unanswered. And here you are wrapped up in the middle of it—you and Polly.”
Effie stared through the millinery window at the hats with their laces and ribbons and feathers, all of it holding little interest for her. She couldn’t blame Bethany for asking the questions she did. Effie had the same questions and more! But just this morning the gravity of what had happened replayed in her mind as she sat beside Polly. Her sister’s eyes were sunken, her cheeks growing hollow. Every now and then, a whimper would release from her dry lips. A frightened whimper as if in her unconscious state she, too, was replaying what she’d seen. Her frail body had refused to bear the shock of it, instead taking to her bed and finding safety in the recesses of her mind.
Bethany straightened as she studied Effie, and Effie could sense the well-meaning worry in her friend’s gaze.
“All will be well,” Bethany encouraged, yet her words sounded hollow to Effie’s ears.
It seemed as if a nightmare, and it acted like one too. Effie lay in her bed, sleep as elusive as the feeling of security. What her family—what Anderson—didn’t comprehend was the way the woman’s screams were as fresh in her mind as the night she’d heard them. The woman’s cries of “no” and the pleading for her life—it was nauseating. It was petrifying. One did not simply go about her normal life after hearing such a thing, let alone having it followed up with the discovery of the evidence that almost guaranteed there’d been a killing.
What had happened to the peaceful days she’d spent reading beneath the weeping willow? Or the sweet and tender anticipation of dinners and conversing with potential matches for a future of quiet wifely duties? She remembered the dinner party at the Charlemagnes’ just a few nights before. The stark difference between Patrick Charlemagne—whom she hadn’t even had the opportunity to speak with—and the darkness of Anderson was blatant. Effie longed for the predictability of a good Methodist man like Patrick, not Anderson and the way he had swooped in and brooded like a vampire from the novel Dracula that her mother swore Effie should never read, but she had anyway.
The floor outside Effie’s door creaked, bringing her wandering thoughts into the present with a jolt. She rose up on her elbows, staring at the crack beneath the door. If it was Father, there would be the flickering light from his lantern as he made his way to the lavatory. Only Father moved about the house at night, with the exception of her sixteen-year-old brother Ezekiel, whose penchant for sneaking out at night was somehow unquestioned and not concerning since he was a young man.
She held her breath to listen. Father often cleared his throat as if it were dry from sleeping. Effie heard nothing. There was no light.
The floor creaked again.
Ezekiel. That rascal brother of hers.
Effie swept off her blankets and swung her legs over the side of her bed, her nightdress falling around her ankles. This was not the time to add more trouble to the James household. She had no idea what Ezekiel did at night with his pals, but if he were caught—especially now—the James family might not recover from more scandal.
Tugging her door open, Effie looked both ways down the hall. Her parents’ doorway was a short jaunt from her own. The door was firmly closed, and while there wasn’t much light except that which came in through the window at the end of the passage, Effie could tell there was no movement from within. There were no shadows. Only stillness.
She took a few hurried steps to the top of the winding stairwell that traversed downward to the main floor. If Ezekiel were sneaking out, chances were he’d go the main route. The furniture pieces below were dark masses in the night, reminding Effie of monsters, crouching, ready to pounce. Teeth poised to sink into her neck, to drain the blood from . . . Oh, she should have listened to her mother and never read that awful book Dracula. She guessed that if she were married to Patrick Charlemagne, that would be a confession he’d find unseemly for a good Christian wife. If she were married to someone like Anderson, then maybe he’d merely be inspiration for the darkness.
Effie spun around. Another creak came from behind her. She squinted, making out the framed pictures on the walls, the corner table with the potted fern, and the narrow carpet runner. Darkness swallowed everything else.
Her breathing had become shallow, faster. A sense of foreboding entered Effie’s being, and she questioned the reality of the supposed innocence of the night. The James manor was safe. It wasn’t Predicament Avenue with its stories of transients and its graveyard. The manor was the home of a stable family, a strong father, security, and . . .
No. She was not alone. Effie could feel it as strongly as she could feel the banister at the top of the stairs beneath her palm.
“Ezekiel?” she whispered. A quick glance toward her bedroom told her nothing had altered. Effie shifted her attention to the far end of the landing, past the mauve velvet settee nestled into a corner surrounded by more potted greenery. Her brothers’ rooms were near there. Both doors were closed. Just around the corner was Polly’s room.
Effie tiptoed in that direction. She would check on Polly. Though her sister was eighteen and a woman, Effie had not lost her sense of duty to her younger sister. Besides, tonight someone would be with Polly, keeping vigil by her side.
As she passed her brothers’ rooms, Effie stopped. If it was Ezekiel or even fourteen-year-old Charles . . . She twisted the knob on Charles’s door, opened it a crack, and peeked inside. The boy lay still beneath his bedding, his chest rising and falling slowly. She quietly closed the door and turned to the door opposite.
Ezekiel the troublemaker. A thick fear gripped her throat with no good explanation as she took note of Ezekiel in his bed, soft snores proving it was really him and not a pile of pillows.
The floor creaked again. This time it was distinct and in the direction of Polly’s room. The hired nurse perhaps? Effie shut Ezekiel’s door. She knew the floors creaked only due to the weight of someone traversing them. What bothered her was the fact that each creak she’d heard had long pauses between them. As if some person were sneaking through the house and stopping after each noise, hoping not to be detected.
Effie continued tiptoeing toward Polly’s room. She held her breath as she rounded the corner and saw the door partly open. She hugged the wall as she neared Polly’s room. Another creak alerted her senses further, and Effie stilled. It had to be the nurse moving about the room.
Effie peeked around the doorframe. Surely she would find her sister curled in her bed, and she would once again be assured of how ridiculous her imagination could be. She would not witness someone pressing a pillow against her sister’s face, smothering her cries. Nor would there be anyone wielding a knife, stabbing the prone body of her sister as she pled for her life like the woman at 322 Predicament Avenue had. There wouldn’t be—
Hands clawed at Effie’s neck, shoving her back into the door. The knob ground into the small of her back as thumbs squeezed into the hollow of her throat. The moon was wicked on this side of the house and lent very little light to the room. Effie gargled, straining for breath, her fingers raking at the hands that clutched her neck. She could smell peppermint. A whiff of peppermint and then even her ability to smell dissipated as oxygen was withheld from her lungs. The man’s thumbs dug into her throat with an insistence that intended her death.
“Miss James!” The night nurse’s scream ripped through the eerie silence of her struggle against a man whose features remained hidden by a hat pulled low and his face covered with a kerchief.
Effie’s assailant dropped his hands at the nurse’s horrified scream as she approached from the hallway carrying a pitcher of water. In an instant, Effie’s assailant ran back into Polly’s room toward her window, which was open allowing in the cool May night air. The man slipped through the window, wrestling with the trellis outside until the thump of his feet and the sound of his fleeing across the gravel drive persuaded Effie that he was gone.
She sank to the floor, grabbing at her throat, gasping for air that refused to make its way into her lungs. The nurse was beside her, her cries for help echoing in Effie’s ears.
A door slammed.
Footsteps thundered toward them.
Her father’s bellows filled the hallway.
Her mother’s cries soon followed.
Ezekiel and Charles entered the room and hauled her up from the floor to lie beside Polly per their father’s command. Effie grappled for Ezekiel’s hand only because the feel of his familiarity brought comfort amid the terror that had wrapped itself around her.
The nurse hovered over her.
“Call for the doctor!” Effie heard her father shouting.
And then came the dreadful realization that although it had been she who had been strangled, it was Polly’s room the intruder had entered.
Effie struggled to grab on to her sister. No one was connecting these important pieces. In her semi-aware state, Effie desperately tried to speak, to choke out that they needed to protect Polly.
But no one was listening.