Page 27 of The Lady on Esplanade
As if the small bird actually understood, he nodded his head once before hopping over to the offered finger.Beau slowly opened his eyes to find the bird looking directly at him.“Can’t you just put him back in his cage?”
Zeus let out a long, pain-filled caw.
“Zeus doesn’t stay in a cage, except for when we leave the house,” Mrs.Wenzel explained, with what I thought sounded like an air of disdain.“He’s more like a pet cat than a bird, and he uses a litter tray in the kitchen and sleeps on his perch in Honey’s bedroom.”She led the way into a low-ceilinged foyer and then to a step-down living room.
After seeing the outdated, overly worn, and just plain ugly furnishings in the Esplanade house, I was pleasantly surprised by these simple and bright interiors.The floral upholstery, ruffled drapes, light-colored wicker furniture, and celery green wall-to-wall carpet gave offGolden Girlsvibes, but the hand-knit throws, the polished silver frames holding family photographs, and the stack of books next to the plush velvet armchair gave it a homey, almost cozy feeling.And the lack of dead animals’ body parts used as furniture legs made it all much more inviting.
“What a lovely home,” I said, sitting down on a palm frond–patterned sofa cushion.
“You sound surprised,” Mrs.Wenzel said as she picked up a teapot and filled a cup with steaming liquid.She handed it to me without asking if I wanted it.She filled another and handed it to Beau while Honey moved a tray of small pastries toward Beau and me on the sofa.
“I made these from scratch using my grandmother’s recipes,” Honey said.With a black-tipped fingernail she began identifying the sugary confections.“Brown-butter tart, chocolate ganache tart, kouign-amann, and, of course, cheese straws.”Cupping her hand to the side of her face, she whispered, “Those are store-bought.No matter how hard I try, I can’t make them any better.Just don’t tell Joan.”
Not wanting to disappoint, I accepted a plate and helped myself to a variety, belatedly noticing that everyone else had placed only a single pastry on their plates.After taking a bite of a decadent tart, I reluctantly placed it back on my plate.As I wiped my fingers on my napkin, I allowed my gaze to drift to the photographs covering every available flat surface.
The subject of most of them was a young girl with light brown hair and an almost elfin face with a pointy chin and wide blue eyes.The pictures started when she was a baby, continuing through toddlerhood, up to around age four.My perusal came to an abrupt stop when I spotted what I’d been hoping to see.I walked over to the mantel and picked up an oval silver frame containing a posed studio shot of a man seated in front of two women—one a generation older than the other—and a young girl.This photo stood out as the only one I saw that included the man—presumably Lynda’s father, and Joan and Honey’s half brother, Mark.Most of the rest of the photos showed the girl by herself or with the young woman I assumed to be her mother, Jessica.A handful depicted her with the older woman, who I guessed was the murder victim, Lynda’s grandmother Sybil.
But it was the doll the little girl clutched in the photograph that had caught my attention.It was undoubtedly the same doll that had been tormenting me, but in the picture it was dressed in a pale blue smocked dress with a white Peter Pan collar.
Honey stood next to me.“That was taken about a month before…before the incident.”
“They’re a beautiful family,” I said, my attention focused on thedoll.“And I’m pretty sure that’s the same doll I found in the armoire.Was it Lynda’s favorite?”
Honey took the frame from me, her fingertips gently brushing her niece’s image.“Unfortunately, yes.Mark bought it as an investment, expecting it to remain in the unopened box on a shelf and out of reach.Either he wasn’t clear about his intentions or Jessica couldn’t say no to sweet Lynda when she asked to play with it, but the doll became her favorite toy.She and her mother made clothes for it, and it went everywhere with her.”Honey replaced the frame on the mantel.“Mark was furious, and it was the source of many disagreements between Mark and Jessica.We loved him, of course—he was our brother.But Joan and I realized very early that he wasn’t the most forgiving person.He found fault with everything Jessica, Sybil, and even little Lynda did.It was hard to witness, but we did our best to stay out of their affairs.”
“Is that why there aren’t many photos of Mark?”I asked.
“It’s not for us to know what goes on in a marriage,” Joan said as she poured herself another cup of tea.“All we know is that Jessica and Lynda moved into the house on Esplanade with Sybil when Lynda was just a baby.We assumed Jessica needed her mother-in-law’s help caring for Lynda.Mark also owned a beautiful lakefront mansion, and he lived there most of the time, while Jessica and Lynda made their home on Esplanade.That at least allowed us to forge a relationship with our niece.And Sybil.That was when we understood that we’d been unfair to her.Our mother had been dead a long time, and Sybil had been a loving and loyal wife to our father.It was only right that she should inherit the house.”
Honey raised a tissue to her eyes and sniffed.“If only we hadn’t wasted so much time.But we didn’t know…”
“Of course not,” I said gently.
Beau stood to retrieve my backpack, which he’d slung over the back of his chair.“There’s one way to find out for sure if it’s the same doll.”He unzipped the top, then reached inside.He’d managed toreveal just the head of the doll before Zeus sprang from his perch and began hurtling through the air in excited spins and loop-de-loops as if he were riding on an invisible roller coaster.
“Zeus!”Joan lifted an arm in an invitation for him to land, only to have to duck as the bird made a good approximation of a death dive in her direction.He rose toward the ceiling before making a loop and preparing for another dive.
Joan grabbed a cable-knit throw from the back of the reading chair and tossed it over herself and her sister, both of them sinking to the floor beneath it as Beau stood in the middle of the room, holding the doll.The bird focused on him and the doll, making a beeline toward them with a sharp snap of wings, then doing a reconnaissance circle around Beau before landing on the doll’s head.
I dropped to my knees and crawled toward the backpack, which had fallen at Beau’s feet; I retrieved it before retreating a few steps.The room was filled with the staccato sound of continuous pecks at the doll’s blond curls.I held the backpack open and carefully approached Beau.
“Throw it in here!”
“Be careful not to hurt Zeus!”Honey shouted.
I could almost hear Beau gritting his teeth as he moved toward me, holding the doll with an outstretched hand and picking up a folded newspaper from a side table with the other.When the doll was positioned over the opening in the backpack, he dropped the doll inside while using the newspaper as a barrier so that I could zip the backpack closed without suffering an attack from Zeus.The bird, now apparently exhausted from what I could describe only as a demonic episode, collapsed on Honey’s extended arm and closed his eyes.
“What in the—” Beau began, then stopped himself before he offended any delicate sensibilities.“Is that what you meant when you said he wouldn’t hurt anyone?”
Joan and Honey had emerged from under the knit throw and were standing with their arms linked.Honey’s turban had slipped downthe side of her head, but not a hair on Joan’s head was out of place.I made a mental note to ask her later what hair spray she used so I could tell Jolene.
“He’s never acted that way before.Not as long as we’ve had him, anyway,” Honey said as she softly stroked the bird’s side with a bent knuckle.“I don’t know what got into him.”
“What are you going to do with the doll?”Joan asked.
“Hang on to it,” Beau said.
“Toss it into Manchac Swamp,” I said at the same time.
