Viola Avenue Read online

  “Well, don’t drive like a crazy person,” Hannah said. “Get here in one piece.”

  “I’m glad you still care.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Hannah said, and ended the call.

  When Claire got home from dropping Sammy off to his Papaw Curtis at Fitzpatrick’s Service Station, she retrieved her phone from her bedroom dresser to check for messages. There was a long back-and-forth texting session between Hannah and Maggie that had started before the sun came up and was still active. She deleted it rather than try to catch up.

  ‘Honestly,’ she thought, ‘those two are connected at the brain by cellular waves, and I don’t have the time or inclination to join in all the damn day.’

  She checked her voicemail and was surprised to find one from the Human Resources Department of Eldridge College, the private college located at the end of the small downtown area on Rose Hill Avenue. She quickly called back.

  “Yes, Ms. Fitzpatrick, thank you for returning my call,” the woman who had called said. “Sorry for the short notice, but we have an urgent need for an interim adjunct instructor for the Theatrical Hair and Makeup class and we wondered if you were still available and interested?”

  “What happened to the current instructor?”

  There was a pause.

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” the woman said.

  Claire’s mind whirled.

  She had applied for the position back in the summer. A filthy rich family, the Buttercombes, had underwritten the renovations to and the expansion of Rose Hill’s old Bijou Theater, with the intentions of creating the Buttercombe Center for the Performing Arts. The unwritten part of the deal was that their daughter, Cressida, an alumnus of Eldridge, be given a teaching position. Although her only experience was one year of trying and failing to retain a part in an off-Broadway show, she got what Claire thought of as her job.

  Claire, who had worked in theater and film for more than twenty years doing hair and makeup, who had actually earned a degree at a prestigious theatrical hair and makeup school in California, who had been nominated for (but didn’t win) an Oscar for hair and makeup, had developed an entire curriculum and was excited to teach it. She had been devastated when she lost the opportunity. Now, it was being dropped back into her lap.

  “It’s only interim, you understand,” the woman said. “There are no benefits included.”

  Claire’s feet came back to earth with a thud.

  “And the pay?”

  “You would be paid at the same rate as the other adjunct professors.”

  “Which is?”

  The woman named an amount that made Claire’s eyes water because it was so pitiful. She could ring up groceries at the IGA and make more money. She started to say, of course, she would take it, when her former employer’s voice rang out loud and clear in her head.

  “It’s not personal, it’s business,” star of stage and screen Sloan Merryweather always said. “If they’re desperate to hire you, they’ll pay through the nose.”

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said, channeling Sloan. “Maybe you haven’t thoroughly read my CV. I’m overqualified for this position by a factor of about a thousand. I would be doing your school, and its students, a favor to teach there. If you could offer me a year contract, at the rate of pay I initially asked for, only then would I be interested.”

  There was long silence, and Claire thought, ‘Well, I blew it.’

  “I’ll have to talk to the Provost,” the woman said. “It being Wednesday afternoon, he’s in meetings. I can get to him first thing tomorrow morning and then call you.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Claire said.

  Claire ended the call, her heart beating fast.

  Where were all the notes she’d made, the syllabus she’d prepared?

  She immediately called Professor Richmond and left him a message. He was the Fine Arts dean and Drama Department chair, and had been trying to help her get the job until the Buttercombes had interfered. Idly she wondered what had happened to Cressida, and then she decided she didn’t care.

  She was getting her job!

  Their weekly Wednesday board game was held in Professor Richmond’s apartment, which was over the garage behind the Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast, owned by Claire’s widowed cousin-in-law, Ava. She lived there with her teenage daughter, Charlotte, her nine-year-old son, Timmy, and an adopted toddler son, whom they all called Fitz. Her cousins Hannah and Maggie had contentious relationships with the beautiful Ava, but Claire didn’t have anything to hold against her.

  Claire walked up the alley behind the B&B and found the two professors standing on the landing at the top of the stairs to the apartment. Torby, a gentle, Scandinavian giant of a man, taught philosophy, and Ned, a short, bald, bearded Swiss man, taught physics.

  “What’s up, guys?” Claire called up to them from the bottom of the stairs.

  “It appears that he is not at home,” Torby said.

  “The lights are on,” Ned said. “I can see there are food and drinks prepared for our consumption.”

  Claire took out her cell phone and called Alan, but after several rings it went to voicemail.

  “Richmond, here. Leave a message if you must,” was his voicemail message, spoken in his best British upper-class accent.

  “Hey, where are you?” Claire said. “We’re ready to play. Call me.”

  To Torby and Ned she said, “Maybe he’s in the bathroom.”

  “We shall wait, then,” Ned said. “After an appropriate interval of time we will again attempt to alert him of our presence.”

  Claire tried the door but it was locked.

  “I can get the key from Ava,” Claire said. “Maybe he’s ill or fell or something.”

  “That is an alarming possibility,” Ned said. “We are none of us as young as we used to be, and Alan is known to imbibe a bit too heavily at times. Perhaps you should.”

  Claire went to the back door of the B&B and knocked. When Ava answered the door, Claire was aghast at how pale her face was. Her large brown eyes were set in dark hollows, her forehead was creased with worry, and her lips were turned down in a tense frown.

  She stepped outside rather than invite Claire in, and closed the door behind her. Before she did so, Claire could hear what sounded like Charlotte, sobbing loudly.

  “Hi,” Ava said, struggling to seem more cheerful than she obviously was. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is everyone all right?” Claire asked. “Is there something wrong with Charlotte?”

  Ava shook her head.

  “Her boyfriend broke up with her,” she said. “Around here it’s just another day full of teenage drama.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Claire said. “I remember how heartbreaking that can feel at that age. You think you’ll never recover.”

  Ava flashed an irritated look at Claire that surprised her. Ava was never anything but gracious and accommodating to everyone. Amazingly so, some might say. Or it was all fake, which was what Hannah and Maggie believed.

  “She’s pretty miserable right now, and she’s making the rest of us miserable as well,” Ava said. “So, if I can help you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Claire said. “We can’t get Professor Richmond to answer the door, and we were expected tonight.”

  Ava looked up at the garage apartment, at the waiting professors, and then seemed to drift into a reverie for a few moments, while frowning at the trees that bordered her property.

  “Have you seen him lately?” Claire asked. “Ava?”

  Ava turned to look at Claire as if she had just mentally returned from a great distance, and smiled her professional innkeeper smile.

  “I went up there Sunday evening to see about the refrigerator,” Ava said. “He had complained that it had stopped working but it had just come unplugged from the outlet. He seemed all right then.”

  “Can’t you just go in?” Claire asked. “You are the landlord.”

  “Not without giving him notice first,�
� Ava said. “He appreciates his privacy and he’s a good tenant. I would hate to lose him.”

  “What if there’s something wrong?” Claire asked. “Shouldn’t we check on him?”

  “He’s probably at the Rose and Thorn,” Ava said, “or he’s forgotten the time. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the key.”

  Claire was again surprised by Ava’s lack of accommodation.

  “His friends are here, and they’re very concerned,” Claire said. “We’re not just being nosy. I don’t think he’d mind when we’re worried something has happened to him.”

  Ava looked back up at the two professors standing on the apartment porch. She then looked back at Claire as if she was irritated beyond her ability to hide it. It was probably because her bawling teenager was leaning on her last nerve, but it was a new look on Ava.

  “Wait here,” she said, and went back inside.

  As she opened the door, Claire could hear Charlotte screaming, “It’s not fair!”

  Ava came back out with the key and mustered a smile for Claire.

  “Just put it under the doormat when you’re done with it,” Ava said. “I really need to deal with Charlotte right now.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Claire said.

  Claire unlocked the door and they crept inside the apartment.

  “Alan,” Claire called out.

  “There is no one here,” Ned said. “At least it feels as if there is no one about.”

  Torby went down the hallway, and soon thereafter they heard him cry out.

  “Oh, no,” he moaned. “No, no, no.”

  Claire hurried down the hallway with Ned on her heels.

  In the bedroom, Torby was kneeling next to the bed, with his head on Alan’s chest, as if he was listening for a heartbeat. Alan was lying on the bed, fully clothed, with an empty gin bottle on the bed beside him. The air reeked of gin and something else, something unpleasant.

  The skin of his face and arms was mottled gray. When Claire picked up his wrist to check his pulse, the skin looked darker on the underside, where the blood had pooled. His arm was cold and lifeless, but limp, not stiff.

  Claire didn’t consider herself an expert, but she was a recently experienced amateur when it came to alcoholics and dead people.

  This alcoholic was dead.

  Torby sat on the edge of the bed and sobbed while Claire called 911. Ned went outside to wait for the ambulance, in case they couldn’t find the address.

  For nervous lack of anything to do, Claire looked around the bedroom, and noticed a large, shallow cardboard box sticking out from under the bed. She hooked it with her toe, pulled it out, and took the lid off; it was empty. She got down on all fours and looked under the bed. Way back, beyond her reach, was something, a piece of paper or card. She went around to the other side of the bed, knelt down, and pulled it out.

  It was a photo of a naked young man, and from the proud way he was displaying his physique it appeared he was not only well aware he was being photographed, he was thrilled about it. He had long, curling dark hair, a full beard, and hairy chest, arms and legs. Claire estimated he was college age or at least mid-twenties, which wouldn’t surprise her, having heard the local gossip about Alan. There was nothing written on the back of the photo.

  ‘He looks familiar,’ Claire thought to herself, but she couldn’t place him.

  She heard sirens, and without hesitating, she stuck the photo in her back pocket.

  ‘No sense in embarrassing the young man,’ she thought. ‘What consenting adults get up to in private is no one’s business but their own.’

  Torby stood up and looked at Claire with such grief and despair that she was moved by his tears. She was fond of the professor, and she was sorry he was dead, but she wasn’t overcome with grief. Maybe because she volunteered at a hospice she was getting used to death, or maybe her antidepressant meds were zombifying her, but for whatever reason, it just hadn’t shocked her.

  “I can’t believe he is dead,” Torby said.

  Tears streamed down his face.

  “Oh, honey,” Claire said, and went around the bed to give him a hug. “I think he just drank himself to death. It happens.”

  “But he wasn’t depressed about anything,” Torby said. “He would have told me. I confide in him all my secrets; I know he would tell me if he were considering anything as terrible as this.”

  “I’m sure it was an accident,” Claire said. “Sometimes people drink more than their bodies can tolerate, and they die. It’s nobody’s fault, least of all yours.”

  “Maybe if we had broken in as soon as we got here,” Torby said. “Maybe we wouldn’t have been too late.”

  “I think he’s been here a while,” Claire said. “Come outside with me and we’ll let the EMTs do their work.”

  Torby was openly crying now. Claire led him down the hall like a child.

  “He was my first friend here,” he said. “He was so kind to me.”

  The Alan that Claire had come to know was acerbic, snobbish, sharp-tongued, and touchy. Claire thought maybe the fact that Torby was a handsome blonde giant might have had something to do with that kindness. It would be tactless to ask him right now if they were more than friends, but based on his reaction, Claire thought it was certainly possible.

  Chief of Police Scott Gordon arrived ahead of the ambulance. He nodded to Torby and tilted his head at Claire.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “He’s a friend,” Claire said. “This was our game night.”

  She left Torby crying on Ned’s shoulder and led Scott back to the bedroom. Scott looked over the scene and sighed.

  “Looks like he drank himself to death,” Claire said.

  Scott didn’t answer. He was scanning the room. His eyes fell on the cardboard box. Claire confessed what she had done and showed him the picture.

  “Since it’s you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want it to fall in the wrong hands.”

  “Did you know who this is?” he asked.

  “He looks familiar,” Claire said, and then she knew. “I’ll be right back.”

  Scott put the photograph in a plastic bag, stuck it in his shirt pocket, and went back to looking around.

  Claire went to the kitchen where Alan’s refrigerator had been covered with photos of students in the college productions he directed.

  It was bare.

  Claire met Scott coming down the hallway. The EMTs had arrived and were carrying a gurney in. Scott directed them back to the bedroom.

  “Look at this,” Claire said, showed him the refrigerator, and explained about the photos.

  “I could swear that the young man in that photo was also in one of these photos,” she said. “They’ve been up here since I’ve known him. Why are they all gone now?”

  Scott considered her for a moment, and then went back down the hall, saying, “Hey, guys, wait a minute.”

  Claire remembered the photo albums Alan had, full of his career and then the careers of his students. There was a gaping empty space where they had been perched on a bookshelf.

  ‘What else is missing?’ she asked herself.

  She looked around the room and then found herself back at the refrigerator. On top there had always been a plaster bust of Shakespeare wearing a red Turkish fez.

  It was gone.

  Chapter Four

  The next day, Thursday, Claire, Hannah, and Maggie pulled boxes of donated goods out of the garage behind Sacred Heart Church, carried them to the entrance to the church basement, and lugged them to the fellowship hall, where multiple tables were set up.

  Sister Mary Margrethe, clipboard in hand, was directing volunteers as to the placement of the rummage.

  “Girls,” she addressed the cousins, “Anything filthy or smelly goes in the trash bin out back; we may be a charity but we do have standards.”

  Claire wrinkled up her nose as she considered the box she was carrying.

  “Hey, priss pot,” Hannah said, “There a
re some rubber gloves in the kitchen.”

  Claire dropped her box and went to look. She came back with a box of them and handed them out.

  Sister directed them into an assembly line. The three cousins opened and sorted, and the other volunteers ferried items to the appropriate places, designated by black marker on index cards that Sister had placed on each table.

  “What about stuffed animals?” Claire asked.

  Sister didn’t even turn around.

  “If it’s a child’s toy, toss it; too many germs. If it’s an actual animal that has been stuffed, put it on the front table with the valuables. From past experience I can tell you taxidermy items sell for top dollar.”

  Claire curled her lip and dropped the well-loved teddy into the trash bin.

  “So, when does the new preschool start?” Maggie asked Hannah.

  “Father Stephen is working with someone he knows at the county board to get the paperwork expedited,” Hannah said. “If all goes well, and we raise enough money, next Monday.”

  “How many kids will there be?” Claire asked.

  “The triplets, the twins, Calliope, and ten others from their class,” Hannah said. “With Sammy that’s seventeen, and that’s plenty.”

  “Mrs. Meyers refused to come back even though they begged,” Maggie said. “Sister has agreed to teach if Delia will be her teaching assistant.”

  “Sammy is scared to death of Sister,” Hannah said. “That may help.”

  “So am I,” Maggie said.

  “I have continually embarrassed myself in front of her ever since I came back,” Claire said. “She has a way of turning up at the worst possible moments.”

  “It’s her super power,” Maggie said.

  “She’s Sister M Squared,” Hannah said. “She sees all and hears all.”

  “Less talking and more sorting, please,” Sister said.

  The cousins, instantly reduced by her tone to age seven, snickered to each other but quit talking.

  After the sale prep was completed, Sister Mary Margrethe supervised the cousins as they broke down every box and carried them to the recycling bin, and then swept the garage floor. Afterward, the cousins had recovered their maturity enough to go unsupervised to the Dairy Chef.