Blue Moon Read online

  Dedication

  For my beautiful sister, Lisa Rae Corsi Koellner, on her fiftieth birthday.

  And my guys, Mark, Morgan, and Brody.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Peace on Earth

  Map

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Prologue

  PART I Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 1

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 2

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 3

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 4

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 5

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 6

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 7

  PART II From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 8

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 9

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 10

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 11

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 12

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 13

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 14

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 15

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 16

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 17

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 18

  Holmes’s Case Notes

  Chapter 19

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from Bone White Prologue

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  By Wendy Corsi Staub

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Peace on Earth

  The Archer is wake!

  The Swan is flying!

  Gold against blue

  An Arrow is lying.

  There is hunting in heaven—

  Sleep safe till tomorrow.

  The Bears are abroad!

  The Eagle is screaming!

  Gold against blue

  Their eyes are gleaming!

  Sleep!

  Sleep safe till tomorrow.

  The Sisters lie

  With their arms intertwining;

  Gold against blue

  Their hair is shining!

  The Serpent writhes!

  Orion is listening!

  Gold against blue

  His sword is glistening!

  Sleep!

  There is hunting in heaven—

  Sleep safe till tomorrow.

  —William Carlos Williams, 1913

  From the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s Diary

  August 1, 1893

  Perched, as I am in this moment, between childhood and adulthood, I have decided it might be wise to keep a journal over the course of my trip. One day, I will surely reflect upon this adventure with fond nostalgia. Perhaps, from that distant vantage, I shall even peer through the gray mists of age and time to view this very day as a pivotal crossroads in what I dearly hope will be a long and prosperous life.

  I pen this entry from the famed Richelieu Hotel in Chicago, where I have taken up residence for the next two weeks. Too restless with excitement to adjourn to my room just yet, I sit in a conservatory that connects the front and rear wings of this massive building. Above my head is a skylight that allows me to see the waning moon above Michigan Avenue.

  It has been a long day. I disembarked at Central Station just before dawn, thus concluding a liberating solo journey that began on my birthday last week, when Father transported me to the rail station in Hudson to board the New York Central.

  He was reluctant to be left alone in the house so soon after the funeral, and I again encouraged him to accompany me as initially planned. He in turn begged me to reconsider. But despite the sad circumstances, I had no intention of forfeiting the opportunity to see the World’s Fair. If truth be told, I welcomed the opportunity to escape the house—always oppressive but now unbearably so.

  As we stood waiting upon the platform, I clutched my favorite book, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, in my left hand. Father pressed several bills into my right. It was indeed an unexpected gesture, what with our recent loss, and the country itself in the midst of the worst depression ever seen. He bade me to return home safely and on schedule to resume my studies in September. Of course I promised that I shall, and he was pleased, I know. Yet he remains critical and I, in turn, found myself more resentful with every mile that fell between us.

  The bitterness dissolved, however, when I received my first glimpse of the splendid midway, with the inventor George Ferris’s enormous rotating wheel as its centerpiece. I contentedly roamed among strangers until darkness fell.

  An audible gasp went up in the crowd as the landscape was illuminated in a brilliant and instantaneous flash. There were at least two hundred thousand electric bulbs, enough to outline every manmade structure in the vicinity. The resplendent moon and all the stars in the heavens could scarcely compete with the shimmering White City.

  I returned to the hotel for a late dinner in the sumptuous café, settling into a leather-upholstered mahogany seat surrounded by fellow fairgoers. Many were alone, as am I. A curious camaraderie sprang amongst those of us who had traveled for days to witness this modern marvel. Lacking familiar companionship, the others shared with me their day’s adventures, and some included tales of the lives they’d left behind. I refrained, unwilling to solicit sympathy, curiosity, or attention. It felt rather as if I were hiding in plain sight, a refreshing change from my stifling existence of late.

  As I prepare to make my way up to bed, I shall close with a fitting quote from the great Whitman:

  This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

  Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

  Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,

  Night, sleep, death and the stars.

  Prologue

  Sunday, October 25, 2015

  Mundy’s Landing, New York

  “Here we are,” the Realtor, Lynda Carlotta, announces as she slows the car in front of 46 Bridge Street. “It really is magnificent, isn’t it?”

  The Second Empire Victorian presides over neighboring stucco bungalows and pastel Queen Anne cottages with the aplomb of a grand dame crashing a coffee klatch. There’s a full third story tucked behind the scalloped slate shingles, topped by a black iron grillwork crown. A square cupola rises to a lofty crest against the gloomy Sunday morning sky. Twin cornices perch atop its paired windows like the meticulously arched, perpetually raised eyebrows of a proper aristocratic lady.

  Fittingly, the house—rather, the events that transpired within its plaster walls—raised many an eyebrow a hundred years ago.

  Annabelle Bingham grew up right around the corner, but she stares from the leather passenger’s seat as if seeing the house for the first time. She’d never imagined that she might actually live beneath that mansard roof, in the shadow of the century-old unsolved crimes that unfolded there.

  For the past few days, she and her husband, Trib, have taken turns talking each other into—and out of—coming to see this place. They’re running out of options.

  Real estate values have soared in this picturesque village, perched on the eastern bank of the Hudson River midway bet
ween New York City and Albany. The Binghams’ income has done quite the opposite. The only homes in their price range are small, undesirable fixer-uppers off the highway. They visited seven such properties yesterday and another this morning, a forlorn little seventies ranch that smelled of must and mothballs. Eau d’old man, according to Trib.

  “Magnificent isn’t exactly the word that springs to mind when I look at this house,” he tells Lynda from the backseat.

  She smiles at him in the rearview mirror. “Well, I’m not the professional wordsmith you are. I’m sure you can come up with a more creative adjective.”

  Annabelle can. She’s been trying to keep it out of her head, but everything—even the tolling steeple bells from nearby Holy Angels Church—is a grim reminder.

  “Monolithic,” pronounces the backseat wordsmith. “That’s one way to describe it.”

  Murder House, Annabelle thinks. That’s another.

  “There’s certainly plenty of room for a large family,” Lynda points out cheerily.

  Optimism might be her strong suit, but tact is not. Doesn’t she realize there are plenty of families that don’t care to grow larger? And there are many that, for one heartbreaking reason or another, couldn’t expand even if they wanted to; and still others, like the Binghams, whose numbers are sadly dwindling.

  Annabelle was an only child, as is their son, Oliver. Trib lost his older brother in a tragic accident when they were kids. Until a few months ago, Trib’s father, the last of their four parents to pass away, had been a vital part of their lives. He’d left them the small inheritance they plan to use as a down payment on a home of their own—a bittersweet prospect for all of them.

  “I just want Grandpa Charlie back,” Oliver said tearfully last night. “I’d rather have him than a new house.”

  “We all would, sweetheart. But you know he can’t come back, and wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice big bedroom and live on a street with sidewalks and other kids?”

  “No,” Oliver said, predictably. “I like it here.”

  They’re living in what had once been the gardener’s cottage on a grand Hudson River estate out on Battlefield Road. The grounds are lovely but isolated, and they’ve long since outgrown the tiny rental space.

  Still . . . are they really prepared to go from dollhouse to mansion?

  “There are fourteen rooms,” Lynda waxes on, “including the third-floor ballroom, observatory, and servants’ quarters. Over thirty-five hundred square feet of living space—although I have to check the listing sheet, so don’t quote me on it.”

  That, Annabelle has noticed, is one of her favorite catchphrases. Don’t quote me on it.

  “Is she saying it because you’re a reporter?” she’d asked Trib after their first outing with Lynda. “Does she think you’re working on an article that’s going to blow the lid off . . . I don’t know, sump pump function?”

  He laughed. “That’s headline fodder if I ever heard it.”

  Lynda starts to pull the Lexus into the rutted driveway. After a few bumps, she thinks better of it and backs out onto the street. “Let’s start out front so that we can get the full curb appeal, shall we?”

  They shall.

  “Would you mind handing me that file folder on the floor back there, Charles?” Lynda asks Trib, whose lanky form is folded into the seat behind her.

  He’d been born Charles Bingham IV, but as one of several Charlies in kindergarten, was rechristened courtesy of his family’s longtime ownership of the Mundy’s Landing Tribune. The childhood nickname stuck with him and proved prophetic: he took over as editor and publisher after his dad retired a decade ago.

  But Lynda wouldn’t know that. She’s relatively new in town, having arrived sometime in the last decade. Nor would she remember the era when the grand homes in The Heights had fallen into shabby disrepair and shuttered nineteenth-century storefronts lined the Common. She’d missed the dawning renaissance as they reopened, one by one, to form the bustling business district that exists today.

  “Let’s see . . . I was wrong,” she says, consulting the file Trib passes to the front seat. “The house is only thirty-three hundred square feet.”

  Can we quote you on it? Annabelle wants to ask.

  “I can’t imagine what it cost to heat this place last winter,” Trib comments, “with all those below-zero days we had.”

  “You’ll see here that there’s a fairly new furnace.” Lynda hands them each a sheet of paper. “Much more energy efficient than you’ll find in most old houses in the neighborhood.”

  Annabelle holds the paper at arm’s length—courtesy of advancing farsightedness—and looks over the list of specs. The “new” furnace was installed about fifteen years ago, around the turn of this century. The wiring and plumbing most likely date to the turn of the last one.

  “Oh, and did I mention that this is the only privately owned indoor pool in town.”

  She did, several times. Some potential buyers might view that as a burden, but Lynda is well aware that it’s a luxury for Annabelle, an avid swimmer.

  Still, the house lacks plenty of key items on her wish list. There’s a ramshackle detached garage instead of the two-car garage she and Trib covet. There is no master suite. The lot is undersized, like many in this historic neighborhood.

  “You’re never going to find exactly what you want,” Lynda has been reminding her and Trib from day one. “You have to compromise.”

  They want a home that’s not too big, not too small, not too old, not too new, not too expensive, not a rock-bottom fixer-upper . . .

  Goldilocks syndrome—another of Lynda’s catchphrases.

  This house may be too old and too big, but it isn’t too expensive despite being located in The Heights, a sloping tree-lined enclave adjacent to the Village Common.

  Its owner, Augusta Purcell, died over a year ago, reportedly in the same room where she’d been born back in 1910. Her sole heir, her nephew Lester, could have sold it to the historical society for well above market value. But he refused to entertain a long-standing preemptive offer from the curator, Ora Abrams.

  “I’m not going to cash in on a tragedy like everyone else around here,” he grumbled, adamantly opposed to having his ancestral home exploited for its role in the notorious, unsolved Sleeping Beauty case.

  From late June through mid July of 1916, a series of grisly crimes unfurled in the relentless glare of both a brutal heat wave and the Sestercentennial Celebration for the village, founded in 1666.

  Forty-six Bridge Street was the second home to gain notoriety as a crime scene. The first was a gambrel-roofed fieldstone Dutch manor house just around the corner at 65 Prospect Street; the third, a granite Beaux Arts mansion at 19 Schuyler Place.

  No actual homicide took place inside any of the three so-called Murder Houses. But what had happened was profoundly disturbing. Several days and several blocks apart, three local families awakened to find the corpse of a young female stranger tucked into a spare bed under their roof.

  The bodies were all posed exactly the same way: lying on their backs beneath coverlets that were neatly folded beneath their arms. Their hands were peacefully clasped on top of the folded part of the covers. Their long hair—they all had long hair—was braided and arranged just so upon the pillows.

  All the girls’ throats had been neatly slit ear to ear. Beneath each pillow was a note penned on plain stationery in block lettering: Sleep safe till tomorrow. The line was taken from a William Carlos Williams poem published three years earlier.

  The victims hadn’t died where they lay, nor in the immediate vicinity. They’d been stealthily transported by someone who was never caught; someone who was never identified and whose motive remains utterly inexplicable to this day.

  Ghastly death portraits were printed in newspapers across the country in the futile hope that someone might recognize a sister, a daughter, a niece. In the end, their unidentified remains were buried in the graveyard behind Holy Angels Church.


  Is Annabelle really willing to move into a Murder House?

  A year ago, she’d have said no way.

  This morning, when she and Trib and Oliver were crashing into porcelain fixtures and one another in their tiny bathroom, she’d have said yes, absolutely.

  Now, staring up at the lofty bracketed eaves, ornately carved balustrades, and curve-topped couplets of tall, narrow windows, all framed against a blood red foliage canopy of an oppressive sky . . .

  I don’t know. I just don’t know.

  “Since you both grew up here, I don’t have to tell you about how wonderful this neighborhood is,” Lynda says as the three of them step out of the car and approach the tall black iron fence that mirrors the mansard crest.

  A brisk wind stirs overhead boughs. They creak and groan, as does the gate when Lynda pushes it open. The sound is straight out of a horror movie. A chill slips down Annabelle’s spine, and she shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her corduroy barn coat.

  The brick walkway between the gate and the house is strewn with damp fallen leaves. For all she knows, someone raked just yesterday. It’s that time of year, and an overnight storm brought down a fresh barrage of past-peak foliage.

  Yet the grounds exude the same forlorn, abandoned atmosphere as the house itself. It’s the only one on the block that lacks pumpkins on the porch steps and political signs posted in the yard.

  Election Day looms, with a heated mayoral race that reflects the pervasive insider versus outsider mentality. Most residents of The Heights back the incumbent, John Elsworth Ransom, whose roots extend to the first settlers of Mundy’s Landing. Support for his opponent, a real estate developer named Dean Cochran, is stronger on the other side of town, particularly in Mundy Estates, the upscale townhouse complex he built and now calls home.

  A Ransom for Mayor poster isn’t all that’s conspicuously missing from the leaf-blanketed yard. There’s no For Sale sign, either.

  Trib asks Lynda if she’s sure it’s on the market.