The Good Sister Read online

  Just find out where the notebook was hidden, and how much Sandra Lutz knows about what’s written in it.

  Down they go, descending another steep flight to the second floor.

  Here, the hallway is much wider than the one above, with high ceilings, crown moldings, and broad windowed nooks on either end. A dark green floral runner stretches along the oak floor and the wallpapered walls are studded with elaborate sconces that were, like most light fixtures throughout the house, converted from gas to electricity after the turn of the last century.

  “The same thing was probably done in my house,” Sandra comments as they walk along the hall, “but I’d love to go back to gaslights. Of course, the inspector who checked it out before I got the mortgage approval nearly had a heart attack when I mentioned that. He said the place is a firetrap as it is. Old wiring, you know—the whole thing needs to be upgraded. It’s the same in this house, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  The mid-segment of the hall opens up with an elaborately carved wooden railing along one side. This is the balcony of the grand staircase—that’s what Sandra likes to call it, anyway—that leads down to the entrance hall. Or foyer. (Pronounced foy-yay by Sandra-sounds-like-Sondra.)

  The master bedroom at the far end of the hallway isn’t large by today’s standards. And it isn’t a suite by any stretch of the imagination, lacking a private bath, dressing room, walk-in closet . . .

  But that, of course, is what Sandra Lutz calls it as she opens the door for the second time today: the master suite.

  The room does look bigger and brighter than it did years ago, when it was filled with dark, heavy furniture and long draperies shielding the windows. Now bright summer sunlight floods the room, dappled by the leafy branches of a towering maple in the front yard.

  A faint hint of Mother’s cloying talcum powder and Father’s forbidden pipe tobacco seems to waft in the air, but it might very well be imagined.

  The lone floor lamp, plugged into an electronic timer that will turn it on for a few hours every evening, was Sandra’s idea. There’s one downstairs in the living room, too.

  “You don’t want to advertise that the house is empty,” she said.

  “Why not? There’s nothing here to steal.”

  “Yes, but you don’t want to tempt kids or vandals to break in.”

  I really don’t care.

  “Here.” Sandra walks over to the far end of the room, indicating the decorative paneling on the lower wall adjacent to the bay window. “This is what I was talking about. See how this wainscot doesn’t match the rest of the house? Everywhere else, it’s more formal, with raised panels, curved moldings, beaded scrolls. But this is a recessed panel—Mission style, not Victorian. Much more modern. The wood is thinner.”

  She’s right. It is.

  “And this”—she knocks on the maroon brocade wallpaper above it, exactly the same pattern but noticeably less faded than it is elsewhere in the room—“isn’t plaster like the other walls in the house. It’s drywall. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  There wasn’t even wainscoting on that end of the room years ago. Obviously, someone—Father?—rebuilt the wall and added the wainscoting, then repapered it using one of the matching rolls stored years ago on a shelf in the dirt-floored cellar.

  “There’s a spot along here . . .” Sandra reaches toward the panels, running her fingertips along the molding of the one in the middle. She presses down, and it swings open. “There. There it is. See?”

  Dust particles from the gaping dark hole behind the panel dance like glitter into sunbeams falling through the bay windows.

  “Like I said, it’s about two feet deep. I wish I had a flashlight so that I could show you, but . . . see the floor in there? It’s refinished, exactly like this.”

  She points to the hardwoods beneath their feet. “In the rest of the house, the hidden compartments have rough, unfinished wood. So obviously, this cubby space was added in recent years—it must have been while your family owned the house, because as I said, the room was two feet longer when it was listed by the previous owner.”

  “When you opened the panel, was there . . . was this all that was inside?”

  “The notebook?” Sandra nods. “That was it. It was just sitting on the floor in there, wrapped in the rosary. I gave it to you just the way I found it. I figured it might be some kind of diary or maybe a prayer journal . . . ?”

  The question hangs like the dust particles in the air between them and then falls away, answered only by the distant whistle of a passing freight train.

  Predictably, Sandra waits only a few seconds before filling the awkward pause. “I just love old houses. So much character. So many secrets.”

  Sandra, you have no idea. Absolutely no idea.

  “Is there anything else you wanted to ask about this or . . . anything?”

  “No. Thank you for showing me.”

  “You’re welcome. Should I . . . ?” She gestures at the wainscot panel.

  “Please.”

  Sandra pushes the panel back into place, and the hidden compartment is obscured—but not forgotten, by any means.

  Does the fact that the Realtor speculated whether the notebook is a diary or prayer journal mean she really didn’t remove the rosary beads and read it when she found it?

  Or is she trying to cover up the fact that she did?

  Either way . . .

  I can’t take any chances. Sorry, Sandra. You know “exactly” where I live . . . now it’s my turn to find out the same about you.

  That shouldn’t be hard.

  An online search of recent real estate transactions on Wayside Avenue should be sufficient.

  How ironic that Sandra Lutz had brought up Sacred Sisters’ proximity to her new house before the contents of the notebook had been revealed. In that moment, the mention of Sacred Sisters had elicited nothing more than a vaguely unpleasant memory of an imposing neighborhood landmark.

  Now, however . . .

  Now that I know what happened there . . .

  The mere thought of the old school brings a shudder, clenched fists, and a resolve for vengeance. That Sandra Lutz lives nearby seems to make her, by some twisted logic, an accessory to a crime that must not go unpunished any longer.

  They descend the so-called grand staircase to the first floor. Here, a faint mildewed smell permeates the musty air, courtesy of the damp cellar below. It’s always been prone to flooding thanks to a frequently clogged drain. Earlier, Sandra needlessly pointed out that a vapor barrier, French drain system, and even new roof gutters would help.

  I’m sure it would. But that’s somebody else’s problem.

  “Shall we go out the front door or the back?” Sandra asks.

  “Front.”

  It’s closer to the rental car. The need to get out of this old house with its unsettling secrets and lies is growing more urgent by the second.

  “I thought you might like to take a last look around before—”

  “No, thank you.”

  “All right, front door it is. I never really use it at my own house,” Sandra confides as she turns a key sticking out of the double-cylinder dead bolt and opens one of the glass-windowed double doors. “I have a detached garage and the back door is closer to it, so that’s how I come and go.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, who cares?

  “You know, your mother had these locks installed after your dad passed away. She was so afraid to be alone at night.”

  Mother? Upset that Father passed away?

  Mother, afraid to be alone?

  Mother, afraid of anything at all—other than the wrath of God or Satan?

  I don’t think so.

  “What makes you assume that?”

  “It’s not an assumption,” Sandra says defensively, stepp
ing out onto the stoop and holding the door open. “Bob Witkowski told me that’s what she said.”

  “Who?”

  “Bob Witkowski. You know Al Witkowski, the mover? He lives right around the corner now, on Redbud Street, in an apartment above the dry cleaner. His wife divorced him a while back and took him for everything he had.”

  Oh, for the love of . . .

  “Anyway, Bob is Al’s younger brother. He’s a locksmith. I had him install these same double-cylinder dead bolts in my house when I first moved in, because I have windows in my front door, too. You can’t be too careful when you’re a woman living alone—I’m sure your mother knew that.”

  “Yes.”

  The wheels are turning, turning, turning . . .

  Stomach churning, churning, churning at the memory of Mother.

  Mother, who constantly quoted the Ten Commandments, then broke the Eighth with a lie so mighty that surely she’d lived out the rest of her days terrified by the prospect of burning in hell for all eternity.

  “A lock like this is ideal for an old house with original glass-paned doors, because the only way to open it, even from the inside, is with a key,” Sandra is saying as she closes the door behind them and inserts the same key into the outside lock. “No one can just break the window on the door and reach inside to open it. Some people leave the key right in the lock so they can get out quickly in an emergency, but that defeats the purpose, don’t you think? I keep my own keys right up above my doors, sitting on the little ledges of molding. It would only take me an extra second to grab the key and get out if there was a fire.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  The place is a firetrap . . .

  “Of course, now that it’s summer, I keep my windows open anyway, so I guess that fancy lock doesn’t do much for me, does it? I really should at least fix the broken screen in the mudroom. Anyone could push through it and hop in.”

  It’s practically an invitation.

  Stupid, stupid woman.

  Sandra gives a little chuckle. “Good thing this is still such a safe neighborhood, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Yes, and thanks to Sandra’s incessant babble, a plan has taken shape.

  A plan that, if one were inclined to fret about breaking the Ten Commandments—which I most certainly am not—blatantly violates the Fifth.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  Oh, but I shall.

  It won’t be the first time.

  And surely, it won’t be the last.

  Entry from the marble notebook

  Tuesday, August 20, 1985

  Another bad day.

  Father visited my room again last night. I’ve decided to start writing it down whenever it happens, because I can’t keep it all inside anymore. I have no one to talk to other than Adrian, and he’s only five years old and I can’t burden him with it.

  So this is going to be my Bad Day Notebook from now on. And if I ever get brave enough to tell someone what goes on around here, this will be my evidence.

  Chapter 2

  On steamy nights like this, there’s something to be said for living in a solid old house.

  Sandra Lutz is certain that her ex-husband wouldn’t agree, but to hell with him and his newly built waterfront condo and his newly built—thanks to an expensive boob job the SOB denies having paid for—live-in girlfriend.

  The old box fan humming on the windowsill above the kitchen sink creates a pleasant, if warm, breeze as Sandra takes a carton of mango Häagen-Dazs sorbet from the freezer.

  Really, with all the windows open and the fans spinning, who needs air-conditioning?

  Heat waves like this occur maybe once a year in western New York, and even then, this property’s ancient maples shade the home’s gabled roof by day, and the thick plaster walls keep the warm air and humidity at bay.

  Plaster walls . . .

  That reminds Sandra of the conversation she had with her new client this afternoon in the Addams House.

  That’s what all the neighborhood kids used to call the magnificent Victorian over on Lilac Street.

  Addams, as in The Addams Family, an old sitcom that was popular in syndicated reruns back when Sandra was growing up. On the television show, the family lived in a Second Empire Victorian mansion that was strikingly similar to the one on Lilac Street, with its paired dormers and iron-crested cupola tower poking high above the mansard roof.

  The neighborhood streets were lined with old houses, but most of them had been built in the 1900s, not the 1850s. Conspicuous as a tiered butter-cream wedding cake perched on a platter of supermarket corn muffins, the Addams House was a magnet for kids with lively imaginations—especially during the two- or three-year period when the place stood empty after elderly Mr. and Mrs. Normand died without heirs.

  Sandra and her friends used to dare each other to sneak inside. As far as she can recall, no one ever went through with it, and eventually, they all became more interested in spin the bottle than in truth or dare—probably right around the time the new family moved in.

  Sandra vaguely remembers the parents, having occasionally crossed paths with them: the father worked at the local bank branch where she used to deposit her babysitting money in a savings account, the mother at Russo’s Drugstore where she picked up her asthma inhalers.

  The father is long dead and now the mother is, too; their son is an adult, and the Addams House stands empty once again.

  Empty, scrubbed clean, aired out, and ready to receive new owners.

  There are plenty of similar homes listed—homes that need a lot less work and don’t have the pall of tragedy hanging over them—but Sandra is guessing that the Addams House probably won’t be unoccupied for long this time. Regardless of the sagging market and rust belt location, property tends to move when you have an owner who’s open to lowball offers, eager to sell and move on.

  Sometimes that’s the case with an estate property, but just as often, Sandra encounters sellers who are reluctant to close the door on the past—particularly when there are several inheritors in the will. Typically, you have sentimental, nostalgic children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews, locking horns with their calculating, greedy cousins or siblings—or worse, siblings-in-law. Divvying up the contents of any house is always a potential issue, as is setting an asking price, and deciding whether to hold out for it.

  None of that here, though. The sole inheritor to the Addams House has been all business, if noticeably skittish—even before the stilted conversation about the rosary-wrapped notebook and the secret panel Sandra had found.

  That, clearly, was a touchy subject for him. Why?

  The old house certainly has its share of secrets. Most old houses do. In this case, so, apparently, did its final residents.

  What the heck was in that notebook and why was it wrapped in a rosary, as if to . . . to . . .

  To keep the devil at bay, maybe?

  Sandra wishes she’d taken the time to at least glance inside before she’d handed it over to him. She was naturally curious—who wouldn’t be?—and she’d fully intended to take a peek, but she hadn’t gotten around to it before he showed up for the walk-through.

  Oh well. For all she knows, the pages are full of prayers from a long ago CCD class, or they’re completely blank.

  Why would anyone have hidden it, then?

  And why bother to build a new secret compartment? The house is already full of them.

  Clearly, the elderly owners were pretty desperate to hide something. Most likely money or jewelry, and the notebook simply wound up there.

  Still, it doesn’t make sense. Why not just use one of the existing hidden cubbies?

  Because they wanted to keep whatever it was from someone who would already be familiar with the home’s existing nooks and crannies.

  Someone—like their own son?
<
br />   It had to be. The Normands and all other previous occupants of the house are long dead, and the most recent owners were hardly social butterflies who welcomed in flocks of friends or neighbors. Even Bob Witkowski, when he installed the new locks, said he never got past the front foyer.

  “The old lady watched me like a hawk through the doorway from the parlor the whole time,” he told Sandra, “just like she used to watch us from behind the counter at Russo’s when we were kids, like she thought we were trying to shoplift condoms or cigarettes.”

  “You probably were.”

  “Not always! Anyway, I’m not a kid anymore, but she had that same way of watching—it gave me the creeps. She just sat there in her rocking chair with her rosary beads, rocking and muttering her prayers and staring at me.”

  Rumor has it that the reclusive family was overtly religious—not unusual in this old Roman Catholic neighborhood, where small front yard grottos housing statues of the Virgin Mary are nearly as prevalent as lofty maples. But according to Bob’s brother Al, who owns the moving company that hauled away the contents of the house, the owners were ultra-conservative fanatics who kept to themselves even before the terrible tragedy years ago—a tragedy Sandra doesn’t even recall.

  “It was definitely in the paper,” Al said, “because I remember my mother reading the article out loud to my father, saying what a shame it was, and that we would all have to go to the wake. I was dreading that. Not that I was sad about it—I barely knew them, but I hated wearing a suit coat and tie and my mother would have made me. But then it turned out there wasn’t one, so I didn’t have to worry.”

  “No wake?”

  “No wake, no funeral. My mother thought that was strange.”

  Al’s mother, Sandra remembered now, had been the neighborhood busybody. One of many, actually. But Al always liked to talk as much as his mother did, which meant Sandra was privy to all the gossip he gleaned from his mother.

  “Mom thought it was even more strange,” he went on, “when the parishioners wanted to organize a volunteer circle to bring over meals for a while afterward, but the family didn’t want even that.”