And Then They Were Doomed Read online

  “And Jenny, you’ll get to meet my amazing women. Women making their way up here all these years. Very few men. A lot of babies—which I don’t quite understand. ‘As good here as anywhere,’ they keep telling me. A different breed of woman. Oh, just think, and I’ll get to see Zoe Zola.”

  “She might be busy with this event.”

  “If she can’t come here, I’ll go there. What the heck—on Sunday Janne’s taking the day off for a concert in Marquette. He won’t be here. The cinematographer isn’t coming for weeks. No editors. Nobody but me. My favorite time on every one of my films. Tell her, okay? See if that works. What a genius! And you too.”

  “Not a genius.”

  “Well, almost. Can’t wait to see you, Sis. Wish Mom could have come up, but I’ll be down before winter.”

  When Lisa stopped for breath, Jenny got muddled directions to where her trailer was parked back in the woods, where she and Janne were getting establishing shots, learning the terrain, and getting to know the women and their stories. All of it told in Lisa’s breathless way of talking.

  Jenny was certain Lisa followed roads inside her head as she described the trip through the woods, being precise with some things and wildly off with others.

  “A left into the woods before Copper Harbor, then about twenty miles. Hmmm, a right down a narrow road with a green arrow at the end or near the end, another right—about eight miles, and then a long drive on a dirt driveway with the name ‘Martine’ on the sign. Really wild. You’ll probably see bears, but don’t stop—they don’t like people much. Keep going until you see two small trailers under a tall stand of maple trees.”

  Zoe woke as Jenny talked: “Lisa’s off tomorrow. She wants to see you,”

  Zoe yawned. “First day there. There might be events.”

  “Then we won’t come. Call us.”

  “What time?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I want to see Lisa. I’ll work it out.”

  * * *

  They drove through town after town of old mine houses and small businesses trying to make a go of it, most not surviving—badly weathered signs and weeds, the opposite of a welcome.

  “I hope you’re going to be okay up here,” Jenny said after a while. “Can’t imagine a more remote place to hold an academic event. After all, your Agatha’s an English writer.”

  “Supposed to be experts, the lot of us,” Zoe said. “We won’t agree on anything. Every one of us will be there to be crowned the ultimate Christie critic. The webinar will be wrecked. People will get into fistfights. Everyone will be embarrassed—worldwide.” She laughed. “Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to all the mumbling and disagreeing—if that’s what this turns into. Five days of wrangling and flipping pages of articles under each other’s nose. Or we’ll agree on everything and be bored to death. Maybe we’ll have a splendid time together in Michigan’s great North Woods, where we’ll be chased by moose and go home with tall tales of harrowing exploits.”

  Her face said how possible she thought that was.

  “I hope they’re not all like your Emily Brent. Harridans.”

  “Harridans.” Zoe leaned against the seat and sighed. “Harridans. Actually, the word comes down to Hairy Dan, doesn’t it? Not right in this situation. Don’t you wonder who thought it up? That word? What does it really mean—at its heart? Which language? Can’t you just see it? Two arguing women, say in the Middle Ages, going at it over … oh, say, a fish.”

  “Then the word would be fishwife.”

  “But, instead, they’re fighting over a very hairy Daniel, who is the enemy of the barber in town.”

  “Stop it! I’m serious. I’m not sure I should drop you off at that place where you’ve never been, to be with people you don’t know. I’m really, really serious, Zoe. You have to call me if you catch even a tiny whiff of trouble.”

  “Might turn out to be fun.”

  Jenny looked around at her. “You really mean that?”

  Zoe made a face. “No. Somebody wants me up here. Somebody knows about me and Evelyn. Somebody’s out to settle an old score. Maybe not everybody up here will know about it, but I will.”

  She looked out, through the rain, at a sign welcoming them to Calumet.

  Chapter 12

  The outer edge of the town was a half-circle of fast-food places, grocery stores, and tourist stops, seen through a film of rain. Beyond—from what Zoe could see when they stopped at a Burger King on US 41 for lunch—were tall red spires and the tops of blood-red cathedrals. Red Square was all she could think of.

  “You know where Netherworld Lodge is?” Zoe asked the girl behind the counter as they ordered burgers. The girl frowned and chewed on a fingernail as she thought.

  “Why?” the girl asked.

  “Because we’re going there?”

  “What for? Old place. You won’t like it.”

  “But do you know how to get there? Is it far?

  The girl shrugged and narrowed her eyes at Zoe. “Never been. Swanky place for a while. Not my kind of thing.”

  Zoe gave up.

  “How long’s it been raining like this?” Jenny asked.

  “Seems like a week. We were just saying we feel moldy.” The girl smiled, took her finger out of her mouth, and changed her look to friendly. She turned to two people cooking in the back and asked for directions to Netherworld Lodge, which ended with an argument about which roads would get them there, and then a kid came out of the bathroom and told them to use their GPS.

  “Only way of getting there that I know of. Way back in the woods. Better watch yerselves.” The skinny kid warned.

  After lunch, with the warning in mind, they drove into the city, passed red-brick abandoned mine buildings and empty, decaying warehouses, all on little side roads going toward nothing. There were few people on the sidewalks. A few bent under large black umbrellas.

  There were businesses along the streets; almost no ‘Open’ signs.

  “Like a movie set.” Jenny shivered as she turned a corner. Zoe hunched down into herself. “I mean, not real, is it? More like an archeological dig.”

  * * *

  On Sixth Street, Zoe pointed to a theater building she’d read about online, more imposing than she could have imagined, huge palladium windows on the second floor, portholes on the first. A large portico covered the entrance. Squinting through the car windows, they could see the theater was still operating. There were what looked like recent playbills pasted in the door windows.

  “That’s encouraging.” Jenny nodded toward the theater. “People around somewhere. It’s just the rain, I’ll bet.”

  Jenny’s GPS said thirty miles to Netherworld Lodge Road—out Veterans Highway and then twenty more miles to go. Every road they passed was gravel or dirt, or a puddle-dotted two-track leading off into the bush.

  From time to time, they caught glimpses of Lake Superior through the heavy mist, and then the wide blue water would disappear, and there was nothing but dark trees, getting darker against the muddy sky.

  Jenny missed the first turn—all the roads looked alike by now. Nothing seemed important enough to be a turn. She had to go back—slowly—to a dirt road that didn’t have a sign. She turned in, though water ran over the road—from ditch to ditch—in places.

  The GPS said they had eight miles to go.

  Chapter 13

  Very few houses. A rundown horse ranch and then no houses at all. A dark, reed-filled swamp ran along the left side of the road shaded over by tall Jack pines. Spruce grew thick and lacy where the land curved up into the sandy hills. This was no manicured forest. Nothing parklike about it.

  Netherworld Lodge was in there somewhere.

  Zoe watched through the rain, beginning to realize what they’d come to. And what she’d taken on.

  Jenny stopped at every opening in the woods to look for a sign. The GPS took them in a straight line while the road they were on turned and twisted.

  They came on Crest Lake
Road, a narrow dirt road leading into deeper woods. Another hard ride. Many overflowing puddles, and Jenny swearing that her car would never make it.

  “How far do you think it is yet?” Jenny slowed, sliding through puddles.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who would have a conference this far from civilization? I mean, people do have to get there.”

  More miles than there should have been. A single wild lake where geese flew up and over the car. Then a larger lake and a sign they almost missed, hanging crookedly on a wire and post fence: “Netherworld Lodge. Guests Only.”

  Jenny turned slowly up the muddy two-track. Around curves and turns through ancient trees, leading to a place where tire tracks disappeared, and water washed across a low-lying wooden plank bridge leading over a bloated creek.

  Jenny stopped abruptly and got out to see how deep the water was, before she dared to drive through.

  “What do you think?” she asked when Zoe stood beside her. “Maybe you should call.”

  Zoe looked hard at the swollen creek. She shook her head.

  “Then give me the number and I’ll call her.”

  “No bars.” Zoe held her phone in the air. “I remember she said something about a low bridge. Something about rain. Water over the planks, but not to worry about it. ‘Very safe,’ she said.”

  “That’s very safe?” Jenny pointed to where water rippled slowly across the planks, their shapes distorted by the water. “She’s nuts.”

  “Let me walk it, see how deep it is.”

  “A six-inch wave will wash you away. I say we wait right here until someone comes along.”

  “Could be hours. I’m not waiting. I’m here now.”

  Zoe sat on the ground, feet in the air in front of her, and pulled off her sneakers. She rolled up her slacks, and before Jenny could stop her, she was in the water, walking carefully, slacks pulled to her knees. The water came to just above her ankles.

  “See?” she said over her bent shoulder as she made her way to the other side of the creek then turned around. “It’s not deep. It’s solid underneath.”

  She came back across the sunken bridge, carefully making her way to Jenny.

  “Things that start bad …” Zoe looked up to begin the quote. She was almost giddy now that they were here. And not to be stopped from making it to this mysterious lodge.

  “Only get worse,” Jenny said, finishing Zoe’s quote as she edged into the water.

  So close now. Zoe was happy she hadn’t been afraid to come. She was learning things about herself.

  They were back in the car, soon making small waves through the water and back on the trail, going uphill and around more curves until the road stopped abruptly. Just as Jenny’d begun to think there was no lodge this far back in the woods, on this ever-narrowing dirt road, a dark building, only a shadow of a building, appeared there, at the end of the road.

  Chapter 14

  The logs were painted a dark green, making the building a mossy thing that went on and on, getting lost at the far end in a stand of shaggy pines.

  There was the covered porch Zoe’d seen in the photo, logs sinking into the earth like a building that had been there forever.

  All of it was dark; no sun got through the trees. There was no grassy area, no flowers—nothing looked cared for. Just sand and spindly trees and another drizzle to greet them.

  Zoe caught her breath. A camp. Maybe once a summer camp. But if her family came here, it wasn’t with her. She was the hidden dwarf. The little person who shamed them. And doubly shamed by the dwarf’s mother: pregnant out of wedlock. The man hadn’t wanted her, nor the odd baby. Like something medieval followed them. Zoe felt Evelyn close by. Maybe that was why she’d come to her in the night. Maybe why the rocking chair. A sense of calm before what might be a terrible storm ahead.

  She sat straight and stiff as Jenny pulled into an area of gravel with an arrow designating parking. She turned off the car and turned to Zoe.

  “Well,” Jenny said. “Here you are. I’ll just drop you and get going. I …”

  A tear ran down Zoe’s flushed and angry face.

  “You will not leave me.” Zoe was serious. She looked at the building from the corners of her eyes. “You’re coming in or I don’t get out of the car.”

  “You wanted to come. Here you are. You want to know what’s going on—if all of this is really about Agatha Christie, or it’s your family coming after you. And I’m late. Lisa’s waiting.”

  “I don’t know who’s in that place.” She gestured toward the building. “They’ll know me right away. I stand out wherever I go. If you leave, I’ll be trapped.”

  “I don’t think that’s what this is about. Trapping you.”

  “Then what?”

  “I think it’s about Agatha Christie and a chance for you to puff up your ego.”

  “Take a look around you. Does this look like a place for academic events? Does it look like the halls of learning?”

  Jenny shrugged. “They can be strange people, academics. I don’t think they care where they are. As long as they get to talk endlessly on a favorite subject.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice if that’s all I had to worry about—people bickering over Agatha Christie?” Zoe shook her head. “Instead, I have to wonder who is related to me and who had something to do with my mother’s exile. And wonder why they’re after me now. And if …”

  She stared out the front window. The ‘ifs’ overtook her.

  “Okay.” Jenny wriggled behind the wheel. “Then forget this. Come with me to where Lisa’s staying. I guess her place is small, but we’ll find you a room. Maybe with one of her Finnish women.”

  “They would know I ran—this whole group.” She motioned toward the lodge. “They’d think they won. This little person must be afraid of them. Putting my tail between my legs and heading for cover. Like hell!”

  “Or maybe you go in there and keep smiling until you figure out what’s going on. Honestly, Zoe. What do you care about any of them? If they are your family and after you for some perverted religious reason, why would you give those monstrous women the time of day?”

  Zoe sighed. “Maybe I’m Evelyn. I’m the part of my mom that should have been strong but wasn’t allowed to be. Maybe I’m what she could have been—at last. I’m not going to betray that. I’m not going to betray my mother.”

  Jenny sighed and opened the door. “Okay, I’ll go in with you. If you don’t like what you see or hear. Or feel. We’ll leave.”

  Zoe looked around the parking area as she popped her umbrella up and slid out of the car. “Still nobody else here. What if it’s canceled, this whole thing, and they couldn’t get a hold of me?”

  Jenny shrugged as she pushed her door open, into a dirty mist. She grabbed Zoe’s suitcase from the back and handed Zoe a large brown paper bag and her computer to carry.

  “Guess you’ll find out.”

  They hurried up a path thick with the medicinal smell of wet pine. Jenny whispered over her shoulder. “You’re here ’til Thursday. Better be alive when I come back.”

  Zoe hooted at her. “Sometimes you are a miserable person, Jenny Weston. Just a miserable person.”

  When they put their feet on the canted, unpainted steps, the heavy front door opened. A woman waited, half shadowed, beyond the rusted screen. She wore a flowered dress with a narrow black belt that gave her the look of being cinched tight in the middle. It was the look of someone from a long time ago.

  The woman said nothing. She continued to stand behind the closed screen door and watch as Jenny and Zoe walked across the wooden porch toward her.

  “Wipe your feet.” The voice was nasal. Commanding. Less than welcoming as she held the door open for them. “All this rain and mud going to be tramped in hour after hour. I warned Bella we were gonna have a mess on our hands. Warned her. Try so hard, but this place is old, hard to keep up.”

  “You must be Emily Brent.” Zoe’s voice mimicked the woman’s, with
a quarrel buried behind every word.

  Emily Brent stood back as they entered a large reception room lit with soft light from lamps on many end tables. There were overstuffed chairs gathered in front of a low, burning fireplace and sofas and more chairs set in conversation groupings around the room. On all the walls, floor to ceiling, were bookshelves. The room was paneled in oak, each panel reflecting the lighted lamps and ceiling chandelier. Colorful Indian rugs covered the floor. An unexpectedly warm room despite the many stuffed deer and bear and moose heads on the walls.

  Jenny set Zoe’s suitcase down.

  “I take it you’re not Zoe Zola.” The woman raised her eyebrows as she glanced at Jenny. “I was told to expect a very short person.”

  Jenny steeled herself for sparks to fly between these two soon. The woman couldn’t seem to keep herself from being rude.

  “This is Zoe Zola, the Agatha Christie expert.” Jenny felt obliged to point Zoe’s way, as if there were a choice of others in the room.

  The screen door slammed behind Emily Brent. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she looked Zoe over from head to toe, her eyes suspicious.

  “You’re a little one, aren’t you? Pretty, though. I guess you’ll fit in well enough with the others. Academics are always kind of weird. Some here already. Some coming later. All to celebrate Christie with this fine webinar. Lots of excitement. Too bad about the rain. Not going to stop. That’s what we hear. Pity. We’ll just ignore it and have an illuminating time.” She grinned at Jenny and ignored Zoe as she came farther into the room. Standing with her hands folded across her stomach, getting a good look at her guests.

  “Yes, illuminating,” Zoe mocked.

  Emily Brent looked back around. “Yup, you sure are a little one. Hope you can hold your own with the important experts we’ve got coming. Going to be a fascinating week. Yes, ma’am. A fascinating week.”

  Emily Brent pushed Zoe’s suitcase across the room, leaving it in the archway to a hall.

  A small stick fire crackled on the hearth. Zoe went to stand in front of it and rub her cold hands together, but the fire didn’t give out much warmth.