“Nobody would find our bodies for weeks,” Jane muttered.
“Relax, Detective Poirot. Let’s keep going.”
Ruth left the room, and Jane took a moment to replace the pen in its case. When she stepped out of the office, her mother had already disappeared. Jane shrugged and went left, toward the back of the house. The smell of roses was overwhelming now; how did Ruth not notice it?
The hallway ended in a little mudroom. There were hooks on the wall for coats and a shoe rack by the door. A pair of galoshes; a pair of house slippers; a pair of old, dirty white sneakers.
Jane had the feeling, again, that the house was like a time capsule—like a glimpse into the last hours and days of her grandmother’s life. Emilia Banks North had passed away in her sleep, found the next day by the nurse who visited every morning. Jane imagined nurses were trained for things like that. Maybe it was nothing more than a gentle shock: finding your employer dead.
Emilia had left everything to Ruth, her only heir.
And then Greer had lost it all.
Well—except for this house.
Jane looked at the mudroom door. It had a window in it that was cracked but not broken through. It was as if something had been thrown at it—there was a small point of impact with splinters spreading out around it like a spiderweb.
She opened the door and the cold hit her at once—a big blast of it that chilled her completely. The backyard was in the same state of disrepair as the front yard, but Jane could tell just by looking at it how beautiful it had been once, when it had been maintained. There was a great fountain in the middle of a large expanse of grass, with different stone paths branching out from it in a wagon-wheel pattern. There were little patches of garden—now overrun and dead with the cold—that at one time must have been lush and flourishing.
Jane walked out to the fountain. It was bone-dry now, the stone covered with a thin fuzz of old moss. She looked back to the house and saw a light turn on in a second-floor room. So the power must have finally kicked on. She gave a little wave to the shadow that passed in front of the window and checked her phone again. Still no service.
It must have been all the trees; the backyard was completely surrounded by them.
Jane had never been one to be easily spooked—she spent most of her free time reading mystery books and watching horror movies—but she couldn’t help feeling just the tiniest bit creeped-out in this place. Maybe it was because everything was so brown and brittle. Maybe it was the rustle of fallen leaves blowing against stone walkways in the breeze. Maybe it was the smell of roses. The smell and… Wait a minute. There were roses. She could just make out the bright spots of red and pink and orange at the far end of the lawn. She knew it! It felt nice knowing something could survive out here. Jane started walking toward them.
Ruth had said it wasn’t the season for roses, but she had never had much of a green thumb—they hadn’t even had a grass lawn back in California; instead, their property was filled with succulents and mulch and little patches of small rocks. Greer had called the style drought-tolerant ; Ruth had called it low-maintenance.
Maybe roses were low-maintenance, too, and that was why they were the only thing, besides the shin-high grass, that had survived the years without tending.
But they weren’t just surviving, Jane noted as she got closer, they were thriving—lush, green plants that vined up white arbors to form a covered walkway. Up close, the smell was thick and heavy and made Jane a little dizzy. She sat on a white bench and took the closest blossom in her hand. It was a deep, vibrant red. So bright she felt like she could eat it.
The wind whistled outside the arbor and eventually she realized she could hear something else—Ruth, calling her name.
She stepped out of the protection of the rosebushes and waved at her mother. Ruth hurried over, hugging her arms across her chest for warmth.
“I told you I smelled roses,” Jane said excitedly, pointing.
“These should be dead already,” Ruth replied. “Jesus, it really is freezing. Let’s go get a few things for dinner.”
“And s’mores.”
“And s’mores.” Ruth took Jane’s hand and pulled her back toward the house.
“You didn’t even look at the roses,” Jane whined.
“Honey, my toes are going to fall off. You were right about the roses. Would you like a medal?”
“Rude.”
“Freezing,” Ruth retorted.
Jane looked up at the house. It was dark again. The light in the upstairs window was off.
“Well, at least the electricity’s finally on,” she said.
“Not yet. I just checked,” Ruth replied. They reached the mudroom door and stepped into the house. Ruth flicked a light switch on and off. Nothing happened.
“But I saw a light upstairs,” Jane said.
“Are you trying to scare me? I think the fear part of my brain is frozen solid.”
“No, I’m not trying to scare you. I saw a light. And I saw you at the window.”
“I didn’t even go upstairs. There might have been an electric surge or something.” Ruth shrugged. “I didn’t notice anything.”
“A surge?”
“These old houses have old wiring. Old everything. I’ll call the electric company from the car.”
“Old wiring sounds like a fire hazard,” Jane said.
“Not everything is going to cause your imminent demise, my love.”
Jane wasn’t so sure of that.
There was only one grocery store in town, a tiny co-op with low ceilings and poor lighting but plenty of organic produce. They got tomato soup for dinner; bread, butter, and cheese to make grilled cheese sandwiches; and stuff for s’mores. Ruth made a fire and assembled the sandwiches on a cast-iron skillet, which she put over the embers. She heated up the soup in a saucepan next to it.
“You are a true mountain man,” Jane observed.
“My father made me go to Girl Scouts,” Ruth replied. “He was afraid if I didn’t do something outdoorsy, I’d turn into one of my mother’s society ladies. Or even worse—I’d turn into my mother herself.”
“Emilia wasn’t that bad, was she?”
“She was on her best behavior when you saw her. She could be a proper pain in the ass, though. I was sent to my room once for not remembering which of my many forks was for salad.”
“And yet you slid down the staircase on a trash-can lid.”
Ruth smiled proudly. “That was my dad’s influence.”
“I wish I had met him,” Jane said.
“Yeah, I wish you had met him, too. He was a good guy.”
“Like Dad?”
“Couldn’t be more different.” Ruth laughed. “Chester was always a little… I don’t know. Hesitant. Reserved. I think it maybe came from living with my mom all those years. But still, every now and then, when she wasn’t looking, I think I got a glimpse of who he might have been.”
“Honestly, Emilia sounds like a real piece of work.”
“My dad once compared this house to a mousetrap,” Ruth said conspiratorially. “You let your guard down and all of a sudden you’re trapped for life.”
“But you left.”
“Yeah. I left. And look at me—right back where I started.”