Who Killed Mona Lisa? Read online

  But now Meredith lapsed into silence, staring out the window at the dimming sunlight. Claire glanced at her watch. It was only three-thirty, but already it was getting dark. She knew that many people were depressed by the approach of fall, followed as it is inevitably by winter, but she had always felt there was something thrilling in the gradual dimming of daylight, the snap in the air that replaces the oppressive heat of summer. Her blood ran more briskly and her pulse quickened at the thought of crisp fall days, the sun-shot brilliance of leaves as they turned from green to rust, vermillion, cadmium.

  As the car sliced through the cool air, Claire experienced the feeling that driving in the countryside always produced: freedom. She loved the sensation of hurtling forward through space, the exhilaration that rushed through her when she galloped her horse across a field, the motion of the horse under her combining with the forward momentum to produce a trancelike state of ecstasy she otherwise experienced only during . . .

  As if reading her thoughts, Meredith broke into her reverie. “When’s Wally coming?”

  “Tomorrow evening, after work.”

  Meredith nodded and looked out the window. “Do you love him?” she said after a minute.

  Claire’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” she replied carefully.

  Meredith turned to look at her. “You do—you love him. And he loves you,” she added with a sigh.

  “You think?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  The temperature outside was dropping rapidly now, and tiny frost crystals were gathering on the windows. Meredith sketched a pattern of hearts on the frosted car window with her finger. “It’s really quite nauseating to watch, you know,” she remarked.

  Claire laughed. “Well, I’m sorry to put you through such pain and suffering.”

  Meredith stopped drawing and looked at her. “What’s so funny?”

  “You are,” said Claire. “You’re what’s so funny.”

  Chapter 2

  By the time they pulled into South Sudbury it was almost five o’clock, and the sun was sinking behind the nearby hills. Claire stopped at a quickie mart in town to ask for directions to the Wayside Inn. The words were hardly out of her mouth when the short blond woman behind the counter nodded; it was clear this was a question she was used to answering.

  “Just continue along east on Route Twenty and you’ll see the turnoff to your right. There’s a sign that points you to the inn.” The woman’s accent was very New England; she pronounced “there” as “theyah,” stretching her vowels out as if reluctant to let go of them.

  “Thank you.” Claire was thrilled by the sound of her accent, shaped by what she imagined to be the woman’s seafaring ancestors. South Sudbury was only about forty miles west of Boston, and though it was securely landlocked, Claire thought she could hear the New England seaside drawl in the voices of the people coming in and out of the quickie mart.

  “Well?” said Meredith when Claire returned to the car. “Did she know where it was?”

  Meredith was irritated because Claire had made her stay in the car. Meredith was a compulsive browser, and when in a store she often had to examine every aisle before she was willing to leave. Usually Claire was patient about this—a friend of hers who was a child psychologist told her that children often outgrow such behavior—but now she was tired and hungry, and anxious to get to the inn as quickly as possible.

  “We’re almost there,” she said, backing the old car out into the side street before turning back onto Route 20. After less than a mile she saw a white sign with an arrow pointing off to the right:WAYSIDE INN. She turned down the road, and after passing a small stone cottage on the left, she saw the inn ahead.

  “Look.” Meredith pointed to a tall, square stone building across from the hotel. “That must be the gristmill I read about.”

  “And there’s the chapel,” said Claire, indicating another stone building just beyond the inn.

  The Wayside Inn was built of wood, old-fashioned clapboard painted red. Smoke drifted out of a pair of thick stone chimneys, and Claire smelled the sweet, tangy aroma of burning pine. A broad circular drive swept up to the front door, and there was a parking lot behind the building for guests.

  Claire pulled around the drive and parked next to a long black Cadillac. She and Meredith got out and hurried over the hard frozen ground, their breath coming in frosty little gusts. They were greeted at the front door by a good-looking ruddy-faced man dressed in eighteenth-century garb, complete with yellow breeches and maroon waistcoat.

  “Good evening,” he said, swinging open the heavy oak door, ushering them into the warmth of the front hallway. “Two for dinner?”

  “Yes, please,” said Meredith, and he led them down the long, narrow hallway. Claire noticed the dining areas off to either side as they approached the hotel’s main desk, which was snuggled under the eaves at the end of the hallway, next to the gift shop. The aroma of broiled scrod in lemon butter mixed with the tangy smell of grilled lamb and rosemary. Claire suddenly felt light-headed. She was ravenous, having eaten nothing all day but a fried egg sandwich for breakfast.

  The ruddy-faced gentleman in period dress stood at the front desk, which seemed to serve both as check-in for the hotel and cash register for the restaurant. The place was quite busy; waiters and waitresses scurried by with trays of food and drinks. They, too, were dressed in period costumes, the women in white ruffled low-cut blouses and bodices, the men in vests and breeches.

  “Someone will be right with you,” said their host. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to return to my post. Have a pleasant stay,” he added, tipping his three-cornered hat. As he retreated down the hall, Claire couldn’t help noticing how well formed his calves were in the tight-fitting silk stockings. She liked a shapely leg on a man; she thought of Wally Jackson’s nicely rounded calves and a little shot of warmth traveled through her body.

  Claire and Meredith stood off to one side, out of the way of all the commotion, and looked around. Off to the left of the front desk was a narrow staircase that Claire supposed led up to the guest rooms. Just then, a stocky, authoritative-looking man emerged from the gift shop, a ledger book in his hand. When he saw Claire and Meredith he smiled. “Two for dinner?”

  “Yes, please,” Meredith replied.

  “We’re also staying the night,” Claire added.

  The man consulted his ledger book. “Oh, are you—”

  “Claire Rawlings,” said Meredith, trying to peer over his shoulder at the book.

  “Ah . . . welcome!” he said, smiling broadly. “I’m Frank Wilson.”

  Frank Wilson was not a big man, but he was muscular and hearty, with a friendly Irish face. “And this is my wife, Paula,” he said as a thin woman emerged from the gift shop. She was a rail of a thing, slim as a whippet, with frightened eyes. She might have been pretty except for a hardness around the mouth; the muscles of her face were tensed, as if poised for battle. She smiled wanly at them, whispered something to her husband, and slipped quietly back into the gift shop.

  If Frank Wilson thought his wife’s behavior peculiar, he gave no sign of it. Claire thought they were an odd match. She knew that sometimes opposites attract, but even so, they struck her as a strange couple.

  “You will be having dinner with us tonight, then?” Frank Wilson said as Claire signed the guest book.

  “Yes—that is, if you have room,” she replied. “We didn’t make a reservation, and it looks like you’re pretty busy.”

  Frank Wilson smiled, showing his big, even teeth. “Oh, this is nothing; wait until you see the Sunday-morning rush. Now, that’s busy!” He led them through the hall to a large dining room. “This is our largest dining room,” he said. “I see a seat there by the fire. Would you like that?”

  “Yes, please!” Meredith chirped, bouncing up and down on her toes. She loved fireplaces.

  “That would be wonderful,” Claire said.

  “We’ll get you settled in your room
later,” he added, pulling the chair out so that Claire could sit. “Just come up to the front desk when you’re ready. It’s room number six.”

  “Cool!” said Meredith. “Six is my lucky number.”

  “Thank you,” said Claire.

  “Thank you!” Meredith added.

  Frank Wilson gave them another of his big broad smiles and withdrew.

  “Great guy,” said Meredith, unfolding her napkin. “Wonder what he’s doing with that straight-backed chair of a woman?”

  “What?” Claire was immersed in the menu, which featured such eighteenth-century fare as bay scallops in cream sauce and Indian pudding.

  “If she were a piece of furniture, she would be a straight-backed chair,” Meredith explained, “with no seat cushion.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Claire wanted a glass of wine very much, something red and dusky, with an aftertaste of blackberries. She wanted to drink until she was filled with a feeling of peace and goodwill. She settled back in her chair, a reproduction of an eighteenth-century chair, complete with armrests, and looked around the room. The fireplace was made of chunky grey river stone, and the ceiling low and cream-colored, with heavy dark wooden beams that hung over the room. Reminders of the past were everywhere, from the pewter pitcher on the windowsill to the brass candlesticks over the fireplace mantel. The smell of burning pine logs mingled with the faint odor of vanilla and sage. To step inside this place, Claire thought, was to leave the present outside and enter the past of a country that was still deciding how to interpret its own history.

  Claire loved old buildings. They gave her a sense of being part of a continuum of human affairs. Places with a past excited her in ways she didn’t fully understand, spoke to a deeply ingrained romanticism. She felt a kind of kinship with those who had gone before, felt their presence in the halls, the rooms, even in the woods. When she rode her horse up in Garrison, tracing the paths used by British and American soldiers during the Revolution, she felt the power of those turbulent days, and shivered a little every time she passed the site of the Anderson House, Benedict Arnold’s headquarters during his treasonous sojourn at West Point.

  “Look, there she is,” said Meredith.

  “Who?”

  “Mrs. Wilson—there!” Meredith whispered.

  Claire looked out into the hallway and saw Paula Wilson talking to a small boy of about ten. The boy was thin and pale, with nervous eyes. She held him by the arm, and was bending over whispering something in his ear, but whatever it was the boy evidently didn’t want to hear it, because he kept trying to wrest himself from her grasp. Finally he wrenched free and took a few steps, but instead of continuing to walk away, he stopped. The boy and the woman both stood there, looking at each other, and in that moment Claire knew they were mother and son. Something about the way their bodies sculpted the space separating them expressed the link that bound them, willing or not, to each other.

  The boy looked at his mother sulkily for another moment and then turned and walked away. Paula Wilson’s thin shoulders drooped as she watched him go; her right hand twitched as if she wanted to call him back but was too proud. It was a brief moment, an aborted gesture, but Claire understood it all clearly. She looked at Meredith to see if she was watching the little drama, but the girl was studying her menu.

  “Look,” she said, “it says here they have Indian pudding. That’s so cool! Can we get some? Can we?”

  “For dessert, maybe, if we still have room,” Claire answered.

  Meredith put the menu down decisively. “Oh, I’ll have room all right! No need to worry about that!”

  Claire laughed. Meredith could get on anyone’s nerves; with her intensity, her certainty, and her restless energy, she could be a lot to take, but usually Claire found her amusing.

  “Okay,” she said, “I believe you. We’ll get the Indian pudding.”

  “What’s so funny?” said Meredith.

  “You are.”

  Meredith scrunched up her long thin nose. “Why am I so funny all of a sudden?”

  Claire shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. Just take it as a compliment.”

  They did have Indian pudding, after the duckling with orange sauce and roasted potatoes. Claire was starving; she had spent the morning packing, making phone calls, and dropping her cat, Ralph, off with her friend Sarah, and was too busy to stop for lunch. There always seemed to be so many errands to do before leaving town, even only for a few days, and she was anxious to get on the road before it was too late. Usually she would have brought a tote bag full of manuscripts to read, but this time Wally had talked her out of it.

  Now, sitting in the dining room of the Wayside Inn, basking in the glow of the firelight, filled with roast duckling and a rather insouciant Merlot, Claire felt her shoulders relaxing, the tension of the week dissolving. She looked across the table at Meredith, who was busy scooping out the last bit of Indian pudding from her dessert cup. Meredith mistrusted most cuisines, but she loved dessert, and would try anything sweet.

  “Well, that was just great!” she said, leaning back in her chair, a yellow spot of pudding clinging to her chin. Claire was about to say something about it when the sound of voices in the hallway caught her attention. She looked over to see their waitress arguing with one of the waiters, a striking young man with curly black hair and a long Gallic jaw. Though the girl had her back to them, Claire recognized her light brown hair, pulled into a bun at the back of her neck. She was long and lean, maybe even a little taller than he was. Though they were speaking softly, Claire could hear them clearly. She had inherited her mother’s sensitive ears, and often heard things other people missed.

  “No, Philippe, I won’t!” the girl was saying.

  “But Mona, we talked about this and you said—”

  The young man’s tone was pleading. He attempted to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away.

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Philippe,” she whispered fiercely, looking around. Claire pretended to study the menu, and even Meredith knew enough to look away when Mona’s glance fell on them. Her deep-set eyes glowered, and her pretty face was flushed.

  But the young man would not be deterred. “When, then? When are we going to talk about it?”

  “I need time to think about it—I just need some time!” she answered, but just then their conversation was interrupted as Frank Wilson strode up to them and clamped a big hand on Mona’s shoulder.

  “Okay, kids, we got tables waiting,” he said in a friendly voice, giving no hint that he had heard them arguing.

  Without as so much acknowledging the innkeeper’s presence, Philippe turned and stalked off into one of the smaller dining rooms. Frank Wilson watched him go, then turned to Mona, who stood with her head lowered. There was something defiant in her pose, as though she were deliberately avoiding eye contact with her employer. Frank said something in a voice too soft for Claire to make out, then turned and went back in the direction of the front desk. Mona stood for a moment looking after him, then, jamming her hands into her apron pocket, strode off in the opposite direction.

  “Wow,” Meredith exclaimed softly when they had all gone. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know,” said Claire, “but something’s going on.”

  “I’ll say,” Meredith replied. “I’ll say something’s going on. But what, I’d like to know?”

  Claire’s curiosity was slowly being replaced by drowsiness, and as interesting as she found the little drama they had just witnessed, she was beginning to find the idea of bed even more appealing.

  “I’m getting sleepy,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  As the two of them climbed the staircase to the second floor, Claire thought about the centuries of footsteps that had come and gone on these same stairs: not only Longfellow, but others before him, and more to follow. Artists and writers and bankers and—the thought came to her unexpectedly, unbidden—maybe even murderers.

  At the top of the st
airs was a little drawing room, furnished with antiques and, Claire supposed, a few reproductions. To fill a place this size with antiques would be prohibitively expensive, she thought, as well as hazardous; even though the place allowed no pets, there were always small children capable of destroying a priceless heirloom with a single swipe of a plastic laser blaster.

  She followed Meredith to room number six, which turned out to be about halfway down the back hallway. Frank Wilson had sent their bags up earlier, and as Claire turned the big brass key in the old-fashioned lock, the smell of bayberry potpourri drifted out from the room.

  The room was even better than she had imagined. The bed was brass, covered by a handmade quilt coverlet, with squares of rich burgundy and deep blues. On the polished wood floor was a round hooked rug, the kind Claire remembered seeing in her grandmother’s living room as a child. The scent of bayberry mixed with the fresh smell of eucalyptus, which was in a brass pitcher on the windowsill. A handsome oak dresser complete with brass handles and a beveled mirror stood against the wall opposite the bed. Just as Peter had promised, there was no phone and no television in the room. The room was still and quiet and peaceful, and Claire felt like sinking onto the quilted bedspread right then and there.

  Meredith, however, had other plans. Evidently refreshed by her nap in the car, she started poking around the room. She began by opening the closet and sniffing the interior.

  “Cedar,” she said, wiping her nose, which, like a dog’s, always seemed to be wet in cold weather. She went into the bathroom and emerged a few moments later holding a small wicker basket of toiletries.

  “Not bad,” she said, pawing through the little plastic bottles of shampoo and hand lotion. “They even give you aloe vera gel . . . and a little sewing kit. Pretty good. Not as good as the Drake Hotel, of course, but pretty good.”

  “When did you stay at the Drake?” Claire asked as she unpacked her suitcase.

  Meredith flopped down on the bed and put her hands behind her head. “Oh, I’ve been around . . . I stayed there once with my mom when she was in Chicago.”