And Then They Were Doomed Read online

  Zoe had no more questions. Nothing that would tell her anything she didn’t know: a woman in charge named Emily Brent; a woman who hadn’t read And Then There Were None, one of Christie’s most famous books. And a woman who didn’t know one of the invitations was trimmed in black.

  “God bless you too, Emily Brent,” Zoe whispered to herself. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  * * *

  She waited until after lunch to call Christopher Morley. He usually didn’t get into his office at the publishing house until afternoon.

  She asked what he knew about the event in Upper Michigan.

  “Not a lot.” His voice warmed when he recognized who was calling. “Sounded solid. Good credit for you—could call it a keynoter. Get you more reviews when the new book comes out. Did I do something wrong?”

  A good friend. A tall, thin man with long, gray hair that touched his collar. Gentle—for an editor. Understanding—when Zoe called him in a snit because she regretted ever starting this “damn book about the dullest of writers,” which she did on almost every one of her books.

  He asked if she wanted him to call up there and get more information, but there was no reason to get him trapped in the middle of this very personal thing she was facing.

  “Just spoke to Emily Brent. She’s the chair, I think. Recognize the name?”

  “Of course, I do. Is this some kind of a costume thing?”

  “If it is, I wasn’t told. There’s something odd about the whole thing.”

  “Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel right.”

  “It doesn’t feel right, Christopher. It feels so wrong. But I’m going. If I didn’t, I’d never know for sure.”

  “Now, Zoe—”

  She put the phone down.

  Chapter 9

  It didn’t take Jenny long to get out of the house after Dora left. She couldn’t go to Zoe’s. Not if her mom was there. Anyway, taking her problems to Zoe seemed like a form of treachery. Dora and Zoe had been friends since Zoe moved to Bear Falls. One woman didn’t take over another woman’s friend just because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

  And after that morning, with Zoe’s sad confession, she wasn’t sure she had any of the right words to help anybody.

  * * *

  Traverse City was only twenty miles or so from Bear Falls. There were fine restaurants. There was the State Theatre. She hadn’t been to a show in ages—so much of her life taken up with Tony and Mom and even Zoe. She could easily move into Traverse City, find a nice little condo—maybe facing the lake. Could be fun. New friends. No one demanding things she couldn’t give.

  She thought about Lisa, her older sister, close enough to visit for a change. “Come on up, Jenny. Bring mom. Or that guy you’re going to marry. I’d like you to see what I’m doing and meet the women especially. I’m always talking about you to Janne, my cameraman and man-of-all-things film. Say, he’d be a good guy for you to—oops, you’ve already got one. Anyway, it’s not fancy—how I’m living—but it always feels … important.”

  Lisa was a possibility. She might go up there—just to get away and think. Nothing but trees and bear and moose and wolves … and Lisa.

  * * *

  In Traverse, Jenny bought a latte and a three-cheese sandwich at The Brew, sitting at the front counter to eat.

  As soon as her sandwich came, a man moved to the stool next to hers.

  There was a tap on her arm. No way not to look around. He probably wanted the salt passed or a napkin from the holder. She could have groaned but smiled instead.

  “You’re Jenny Weston.” The man was almost good-looking. Maybe the smirk wasn’t pleasant. But his face was tanned, though it was only June. He had a set of very bright white teeth, and a big smile. His eyes were the kind of blue that make a woman think of a warm beach—maybe in Barbados, a couple of swaying palms, a big conch shell, and her looking absolutely beautiful in a teeny-tiny bikini.

  All of this happened in the minute it took to frown at him, trying to place the face and the body and the smile.

  “Matthew Foster. Remember? We were in the same English class in high school.”

  “Matt!” The word popped out of her—too loud.

  He laughed. “That’s me. Been awhile.”

  “Forever!” She settled herself better on the stool, moving around to partially face him. “What are you doing back in T.C.?”

  “Designing a building.” He smiled a wide smile that could move her in ways she shouldn’t be moving.

  “Are you back to stay?” She had the urge to reach out and brush a stray lock of his black hair from his forehead.

  “Morley’s hired me to design their new building. I’m drawing up plans. Thought I’d spend the whole afternoon working on it, but now …”

  He tipped his head closer to hers, still smiling. “Want to take a walk?”

  It wasn’t Barbados. She still wore a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt that said “Woman Power,” but she walked to Open Space on the lakefront with Matt. The whole of West Bay was next to them as they talked about the people they’d seen from school and how they were doing.

  They sat on the seawall and talked some more.

  Well, mostly Matthew talked while she listened.

  “Yes, I was ready for this divorce,” he was saying. “Seems like after a while we both got bored. But you must know the feeling. I heard you’re back in Bear Falls. My mom still lives there. Guess you had a bad breakup, eh? My mom said the guy was cheating on you. That right?”

  He reached over to take her hand in his. “Happens. Like I said, after a while you just get bored.”

  “That wasn’t it at all,” she began to say and inched her hand back to her lap.

  “I just got my papers.” He stopped as a pair of teenage girls rode by on their bikes. He watched their rear-ends hike one way and then the other; watched for a long time and then brought himself back to her. “So, I’m free, I guess. And looking forward to it. How about you?”

  “It’s been quite a while now and I—”

  “Not remarried, though, I hear.”

  She shook her head and wiped her hand unconsciously on her jeans.

  “You have kids?” she asked, giving him her brightest smile.

  He made a face, ran a hand slowly over his hair, and nodded. “Two girls. They’re with their mom.”

  “You mean your wife?”

  “Not anymore.” He threw his arms out toward the lake and laughed. “I hear you never had any. Kids, I mean.”

  “Your mom tell you?”

  He nodded and laughed. “Mom keeps me up on my old friends, whether I want to know or not. Most of them are … you know, kind of dreary. Can you imagine Katy Dunn with five kids? Remember how her dogs were always getting hit by cars? Poor kids.”

  She looked out at Power Island, down the coast, and thought about a day when she and Lisa had gone there with their father, when he’d had his powerboat. They’d swum off the little island. Her father had worn a patch over his eye, made out of a handkerchief. He was the pirate captain.

  A good man, her father. A man who would never be snide about a woman with five children.

  “Maybe we could get together.” The look he gave her made her skin crawl, gave her the urge to jump from the wall into the lake and swim away from everything and everybody. Maybe as far as Power Island.

  “I think we could have a lot of fun, Jenny Weston. You never knew it, but I had this thing for you in high school.” His eyes watered slightly. “I’ve got a suite over at the—”

  She coughed and pointed to her throat as she slid off the wall. “Think I’m going to be sick,” she choked out and ran as fast as she could back out to Front Street. She turned to make sure he wasn’t behind her. He still sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty came to mind.

  She found her car—with a parking ticket because she’d been gone too long. She snapped the ticket off the windshield.

  “When life starts handing you a barrel full of shit”—sh
e whispered the words just under her breath—“better get out of the outhouse.”

  * * *

  Her cell kept ringing on the way back to Bear Falls. Twice it was Tony. Three times it was Dora. She didn’t answer either of them. There was nothing to say. She’d just had a glimpse of what her life could be like and it scared her all over again. Losing Tony was the other end of this mess she’d made for herself. But marrying him wasn’t fair to anybody. She didn’t want to become the kind of person she’d already divorced. And not a lonely old lady with ten cats either.

  * * *

  Jenny turned down Elderberry Street and pulled up Zoe’s drive, stepping out among the flower beds of peonies and budding roses, with foot-high fairies watching from beneath some of the bushes.

  Zoe lived in her own world, like Lisa did. She lived in a world of books—where she made up her own truth.

  Lisa lived in a world of indignation.

  Both of them busy in their lives. If she went up there, to Lisa, maybe Zoe would go too, and the two of them would leave her alone to walk in the woods and think and straighten out a life she couldn’t seem to untangle.

  Maybe, with enough time, Dora would forgive her.

  Maybe, with enough time, she’d learn to make good choices.

  Part 2

  Saturday in Netherworld

  Chapter 10

  “What did Dora say?” Zoe asked from her side of Jenny’s car, looking at the morning dark, the black trees beside the road, and the rain on the windshield falling faster than the wipers could clear.

  “Not much.”

  “What about Tony?”

  Jenny shook her head. “I didn’t talk to him. The ring is still on the counter. Dora can give it to him.”

  Zoe shivered. “A ghost from a life that never was—”

  “Stop it!” Jenny ordered. “I don’t want to hear about this for four hundred miles.”

  “Me either. So, what should we talk about for four hundred miles?”

  “Let’s talk about you. This Emily Brent knows you’re coming, right?”

  “She told God to bless me.” Zoe made a noise in her throat.

  “What’s wrong with that? She could have wished you worse things.”

  “‘God bless you.’ Just what that awful character in Agatha’s novel would have said. She told me she was happy I’d decided to come to Netherworld. I just bet she is—whatever they’ve got planned for me. Maybe the whole lousy family will wipe me off their crap list. Maybe it will be something like the Salem witch trials.”

  “You checked out the academics. They’re legit?”

  Zoe nodded. “I think they’re all involved with Christie somehow. They teach where it says they do and have published work on her novels.”

  “So? I don’t get what you’re worried about. All sounds okay to me. Who are these people?”

  “Which people?”

  “You know, the people taking part.”

  “Anthony Gliese? I didn’t bother. Too many editors. Too many publishing houses.”

  “Think you should’ve.”

  “Betty Bertram—nothing on her. A graduate of McGill. And somebody called Gewel Sharp. Michigan State University. Let’s see. Oh, Mary Reid, owner of the Ulysses Bookstore in Houghton. I didn’t call, though. And Anna Tow. Looks like Tollance Press is a two-book press, so I don’t know about her.

  “Then there is Louise Trainer. Professor. Teaches at Amherst. Looks solid.”

  She thought a while. “Aaron Kennedy from USC. A Nigel Pileser. Leon Armstrong. There are exactly ten of us.”

  She sat quietly for a while.

  “It isn’t these people I’m worried about. It’s that black trim thing that started it. Nobody else knows what the Jokelas did to my mother. Nobody. The first time I told anybody anything about that life was when I told you and Dora.”

  “And that’s all you’ve got?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One thing—a black-trimmed envelope. Maybe somebody with that Christie group, at the last minute, thought it might be mysterious to add the black.”

  “And not mention it to the woman in charge? You really think that’s the way these literary things go? Everybody winging it?”

  Jenny shrugged, then stomped hard on the brake as a deer leaped across in front of them.

  After a while, when she could take a deep breath again, Zoe said, “You know I’m the ‘stain’ on that family. My mom warned me they might turn on me next. Her whole life—without knowing it was coming—then they’d rub it in: another family member who should have loved us, dead. No forgiveness for our sins. My mother lived with a man without marriage. She had a baby. God smote her with a dwarf. I think they’ll come after me. I don’t know when, but I sure as hell think it might start with a letter trimmed in black.”

  Overhead, in front of them, lightning flashed across the sky, showing the deep woods on either side of the road. The rain fell as if a faucet opened overhead. Jenny could hardly see to drive. She slowed and put the wipers on as fast as they could go. For a while, she crept along under forty; then, when she could see again, she pulled over to wait out the rain.

  They sat there, not a word between them, until the rain slowed and Jenny dared to get back on the road, slower this time, watching for places covered with deep water.

  For the next fifty miles, the rain was slow and steady. There were few cars to worry about, but somehow that sudden downpour had quieted them both, as if they’d been shown a sign.

  It was miles more before Zoe, as if she’d been thinking all the time, said, “What about Emily Brent?”

  It took Jenny a couple of seconds to connect what Zoe was saying with what they’d been talking about so many miles back. “So what?”

  “Convenient having a woman in charge who has an Agatha Christie name like Emily Brent. And—think about this—the novel she is in: And Then There Were None. Have you read it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It takes place on an island. A group of people are invited to a party—for all sorts of believable reasons. Sound familiar? Only, once they all get there, people begin to die, one by one, until no one is left but the murderer, and then the reason for the murders comes out.”

  Jenny ran a hand up one arm. “Wow. Weird. I see what you mean. Like, there’s something else going on.”

  “The Jokela family is all I can think of. People completely crazy enough to pull a stunt like this.”

  “You should’ve told them to go straight to hell and take their webinar with them. Now you’re driving all this way to the middle of nowhere. You probably won’t get any publicity out of it.”

  “I will if I’m dead.”

  “You know what I mean. There’s nothing for your upcoming book. You’ll spend all of your time hunting for murderers who don’t exist. All because of a letter trimmed in black. That’s probably what this whole thing is about—to screw with your head. We can still turn around, you know.”

  The look Zoe gave Jenny was long. “What about you? Five days with Lisa. You two fight like caged squirrels.”

  “We’re not alike, but we get along—really. She’s just not practical—all these docs of hers.”

  “She’s won awards.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Her work’s important to her. She’ll understand me. She’s forty—well almost—and doesn’t worry about getting married.”

  “You shouldn’t either! Just be honest about it.”

  Jenny said nothing. “Yeah, honesty. That’s something we both have trouble with, isn’t it?”

  Chapter 11

  It was hours later, after the sky had lightened as they crossed the Mackinaw Bridge, and then more hours later, as they drove the metal bridge over Portage Lake between Houghton and Hancock, that the dirty sky opened again.

  This time Jenny ignored the rain. It was. Nothing to do but ignore it and drive straight north, dead center up the wild Keweenaw Peninsula, on a two-lane road, through old villages of mostly abandoned houses
and businesses. And then bright banners and “Open” signs where somebody tried yet again.

  With her head resting back against the seat, Zoe watch the wipers for a while, then closed her eyes to imagine Evelyn and herself living up here. She couldn’t. And having family here? A family that would do the things to Evelyn that they did? Anas, a mother so vindictive she punished her own daughter, and a granddaughter, eternally. For what? A past based on not a mistake, but love.

  She wondered when it was ever okay to chase a daughter away, and then when women began punishing each other for sex, and not the men. And then when women turned on one another, greater punishers, vying with each other to see who could be the cruelest.

  Evelyn had once lived in Cheboygan—tip of the mitt—in her childhood, and then when she tried to go back with Zoe. No one had welcomed her. She had been driven away. Though Zoe didn’t remember being there exactly, she remembered a little girl. They had played together. It seemed Zoe remembered something like happiness connected to the child.

  Would something in her recognize that woman if she saw her again? Zoe wondered. Would some blood thing answer gene to gene?

  * * *

  After a while, the rain isolated them from each other. Jenny tried not to think too much. She was still unhappy about the mess she’d left behind her. Some of her own making, but that couldn’t be helped. She needed time to think without someone telling her what to think. She needed space to feel in a way she hadn’t felt in months. Maybe the person she needed was really Lisa.

  Lisa, with her eyes wide open but seeing only what she wanted to see. Lisa—excited that the amazing Zoe Zola was coming with her to an Agatha Christie event at a place called Netherworld Lodge.

  Jenny called her but got no answer. A few miles farther along the road, her phone rang. Lisa, out of breath. “I had to run into Copper Harbor to call you. Not much service in the woods.”

  And then she leaped on. “Zoe’s going to Netherworld Lodge? I’ve heard of the place. History and nature. A wonderful opportunity. Wonderful!