A Dark and Twisting Path Read online

  Finally he said, “Who was that woman?”

  I narrowed my eyes. In the ten months I had known her, Camilla had never lost her composure in any situation. And no one had ever dared to speak to her in that tone. Now this Wyland woman, this stranger, in her grim black attire, had waltzed in and upset my mentor, my friend—my family. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”

  I ran out the front door and saw that she was just reaching her car—a long dark vehicle that seemed to emanate heat. I tore down the steps and met her as she was unlocking the door. “Miss Wyland,” I said. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Camilla is very upset . . . ”

  If I thought that confronting her would make her back down, I thought wrong. Her face looked almost triumphant when she heard about Camilla’s distress. “Oh, did I upset her? Well, that is a shame, isn’t it? For forty years this family hasn’t faced justice, and now that I try to hold them accountable, you take her side. They’ll all be on her side! That’s why I am taking a different route. She’ll want to keep the family pride intact, won’t she? So now I have my chance. Now I can stand up for my family, and for once, people will listen. You can count on it.” She climbed into her car and slammed the door.

  I was too shocked to do anything but watch her drive away.

  * * *

  * * *

  ADAM WAS CONCERNED when I called but promised to wait until he heard from Camilla before he came over.

  Sam went home, promising to check in on me later. “Give her some space,” he advised. “She’ll open up eventually.”

  I did just that. I cleaned up the beer glasses and recycled the bottles; I went to the store and bought some ingredients for dinner salads (Camilla’s chef, Rhonda, was in Italy for two weeks with her family, so we were in charge of our meals); I walked the dogs briefly, until I couldn’t stand the heat anymore; I took a brief, cooling shower and donned a T-shirt and some shorts; and I ruffled the fur of my cat, Lestrade, who lay stretched out to his full length on my bed, letting the new stream of chilled air cool his belly.

  Then I went to see Camilla. Her room was a space I did not normally enter, although I’d ventured in once or twice if called there. It was a wide airy room that looked down on the driveway, the start of the path down the bluff, and the forest vista behind it. Camilla’s bedspread was a lovely European-looking blend of garden colors, and above it hung a framed reproduction of Pierre Bonard’s Woman Writing, given to her as a gift by her late husband, James. He told Camilla that it reminded him of her when they first met. On a table near the window sat a vase of flowers and an antique typewriter that had belonged to Camilla’s grandmother. There was a blotter there, too, so that Camilla could write her correspondence or jot ideas for books if they came to her while she lounged.

  She sat at this table now, looking out the two panes of the window that didn’t hold the new air conditioner. I had already opened the door to peer in at her, but I knocked on it. “Camilla? I waited a few hours, but I wanted to check on you.”

  “Come in, Lena,” she said.

  I moved into the room, which felt cool and smelled subtly like Camilla’s perfume. “Are you all right?” I asked, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “I’m better now, thank you.”

  “I—I don’t understand what that woman wanted.”

  She turned to face me for the first time. Her eyes were dry now, and her color looked better, but she still looked distressed. “I don’t understand, either. I confess I am at a loss. I need to ask for your help.”

  “Of course! Anything, Camilla. You know that.”

  She nodded. “You are such a sweet girl.” She got up and came to sit next to me. I put an arm around her.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “I only met Jane Wyland a few times, when James and I were first married. He was working near Blue Lake, and we came to live here for a time. His mother had died, and his father was ailing, so James and I essentially ran the house. He had a brother, Allan, but he had moved to Philadelphia.”

  “You’ve mentioned Allan,” I said, my tone encouraging.

  “William Graham was an influential man here in Blue Lake. His family, for generations, had owned businesses in the town. James’s great-grandfather ran the sawmill, and his uncle had a stake in what is now Schuler’s ice cream. His father was on the School Board and had his own law practice in Blue Lake. It no longer exists.”

  “Ah.”

  “Back to Jane,” she said. “When James and I first arrived, he gave me a tour of the town. He was a proud local boy; he loved Blue Lake and was happy to have me here. We ran across Jane at a pub in town called The Lumberjack. It’s no longer there, either, but it was a favorite haunt of the locals. James introduced me to Jane, and everyone was very polite, but there was palpable tension. Jane taught at the local grade school—“

  “She taught children?”

  “She was very good, and very popular. The parents and children loved her, from what I heard. I thought, at the time, that my children might one day end up in her class, and I said something of the sort to her.”

  This made me sad. I knew that Camilla found, not long after arriving in Blue Lake, that she could not have children. “So you were all—friends?”

  She shook her head. “No—Jane was friendly, or at least polite. But there was something stiff about her even then. Something felt off with the encounter, and when I mentioned that she might one day teach my children, she stood up quite abruptly, although she’d been there dining with some friends, and said she had to go. And she left, to the surprise of her friends and the consternation of James. He was quite upset about the scene, as I recall.”

  “That must have been, what, 1970?”

  “1971. Just after our wedding, when we came to Blue Lake for the first time.”

  “What did James say after that?”

  She shrugged. “I asked him about it when we returned home. Here,” she said, gesturing around us. “He said he didn’t know what would have caused her to react that way, but that he felt badly about it. He said she was a nice woman, and that they had always gotten on well. He had gone to school with her.”

  “How strange—the whole encounter.”

  “Yes. After that I saw her now and again in town, and she was polite, but rather—cold. Then a couple years later she moved out of Blue Lake, although I think she still taught at the grade school. I never ran across her again. Until today.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “What did she want?”

  “She said she wanted to ‘finally make things right.’ I had no idea what she meant, and told her so. She said she felt sorry for me, because I was ignorant of the Graham family’s biggest secret.”

  “Maybe she just always resented them. They were powerful, and rather wealthy, right? Living in this big house on the bluff. Maybe life disappointed her, and . . .”

  “I don’t think so. The Wylands were a nice family. Well respected, well educated, although James did say they had some unlucky investments and were always at a loss for money. In fact, Jane had a sister who once worked for James’s family. James said she was very sweet, and did a good job. She came every day to clean and cook; it was especially helpful because his father needed looking after, which took James’s time when he wasn’t working. He really didn’t have anything bad to say about the Wylands.”

  “But this Jane is insisting that the family has a secret?”

  Camilla nodded. “Yes. And normally I would dismiss it as nonsense, but she’s given me a bit of an ultimatum.”

  “She what?”

  “Yes. She said that I should tell the truth to the press about my husband James, or she will.”

  “What truth is she referring to?”

  Camilla looked into my eyes, and I saw the worry in hers. “I have no idea,” she said.

  About the Author
r />   Julia Buckley is the author of the Undercover Dish Mysteries and the Writer's Apprentice Mysteries. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Chicago Writer's Association. She has taught high school English for twenty-nine years.

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