“I’ll be right back,” Gregory said. “I’ll save Maggie the chore of coming by to take our order. What would you like, Daphne?”
“Nothing, thank you,” she said.
“Nothing at all?”
She suppressed a shiver. Even with the fire, Daphne hadn’t been able to shake off the chill of the damp, cold night.
“A cup of tea would be nice,” she said.
Gregory smiled and headed toward the kitchen.
She would pay for the tea herself. She did not want to be in this man’s debt. More than ever, she wished she had waited at the station. This was not a good way to start her new life here in Point Woebegone, to be sitting in a dark inn with a man her new employers didn’t like, didn’t trust. The “new misses”—Daphne assumed that was Mr. Witherspoon’s wife—was probably sitting at the station right now, wondering where she was, and when Daphne failed to show up, she’d report back to her husband that their new governess must have missed the train. Oh, this wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.
She glanced around the room. There were only a few other diners. A man and a woman, probably in their sixties, eating what looked like fried fish and mashed potatoes, not speaking, not even looking at each other. A large man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, his arms adorned with tattoos of anchors and swordfish, hulking over a very frosty mug of beer. And, way in back, in the shadows, another man that Daphne strained to see—
She made a small gasp.
It wasn’t a man.
It was ... a
clown
.
How very odd. Who would come to a place like this, dressed like a clown, with big orange hair and a bulbous red nose and a polka-dotted shirt, and sit all by himself in the very last booth? He didn’t seem to be eating or drinking anything either, just sitting there, the glow of the fire picking out his hair and nose and clammy white face from the shadows. His mouth was painted in a crazy blue grin.
And he was looking at her.
Daphne shuddered, dropping her eyes to the table. She’d always been scared of clowns, ever since Mother Angela had thrown a birthday party for her when she turned five, marking the day not of her birth, of course, but the day her bassinet had been left at the sisters’ door. In had trundled a man with hair as bright as this clown’s, and feet as big and floppy as she was sure rested under that table. The little five-year-old Daphne had screamed when the clown’s unearthly white face had come toward her. The poor man hadn’t meant to frighten her, but he had, nonetheless—and she’d spent the rest of her party on Mother Angela’s lap, her face buried in the brown cloth of the nun’s habit.
“Here you go,” came Gregory’s voice as he set a teacup steaming with hot water down on the table in front of her. With his other hand he set down a basket of tea bags. “You can have your choice.”
She smiled and chose chamomile, tearing open the paper wrapping and pressing the tea bag down into the water with her spoon.
Gregory took his seat. “I don’t know where Maggie is. The cook said she took a quick break for a cigarette and hasn’t come back.”
The tea tasted good, warming her as she drank it.
“Will he let me know when the cab is here?” Daphne asked.
“Oh, sure. But in the meantime, if I can give you just a bit of advice, just relax a bit.” Gregory smiled. “You might as well, because you won’t have much chance to relax once you get to Witherswood. I can tell you that much.”
Daphne kept her eyes on Gregory. She didn’t want to have to look at the clown sitting in the booth again.
“You keep talking as if I’m headed to Castle Dracula or something.”
He laughed, showing those dimples again. “The comparison isn’t so far off.”
It was Daphne’s turn to laugh. “Ever since I’ve arrived, it’s seemed like there was some big mystery to this town. I must admit, it’s quite the place.”
“Point Woebegone? If you mean the weather, you haven’t seen anything yet, Daphne. Wait until the winter rolls in.”
She held Gregory’s gaze and lowered her voice. “Well, is it common for clowns to walk around and come in here and sit in the booths?”
He looked at her strangely. “Clowns?”
“Look behind you.”
As she said it, she moved her eyes back to the booth. But the booth was empty. The clown was gone.
“I don’t see any clowns,” Gregory remarked.
“He was there just a moment ago. He must have left—”
Gregory was looking at her with a strange look on his face. “You mean a clown with makeup and—”
“Yes! He had orange hair and a red nose—”
Gregory shook his head. “Can’t see how somebody looking like that could come in and out of here without being noticed.”
Daphne stood and took a few steps so she could see the booth more clearly. It was definitely empty.
“I swear I saw a clown sitting there,” she said, retaking her seat.
“Maybe you did. Or maybe ...” Gregory’s voice trailed off. “This place—this town—sometimes does things to a person’s imagination.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s so isolated and all. Popular in the tourist season. But off-season ... it can be pretty lonely.”
“Why do you live here then?”
His eyes turned to fix on her. “My father was born here, and his before him. I went away for a while, but I came back. My father was a groundskeeper. Now I own half the town.”
“You’ve mentioned that,” Daphne said, wondering why it was a fact that seemed so important to him.
He was still looking at her. “Are you sure you know nothing about Witherswood or the people who live there?”
“Nothing.”
“So what brings you here? If I’m being too nosy, tell me to butt out.”
“It’s all right.” Daphne took another sip of tea. “One of the benefactors of my school recommended me for the governess position, and Mr. Witherspoon wrote offering me the job.”
Gregory’s brow wrinkled. “He offered you the job without even meeting you?”
“That’s right.”
“And you accepted it without meeting him?”
Daphne set down her teacup. She was warm all of a sudden. She felt uneasy, frightened. She wished she were back at Our Lady. She wished she and Katie and Ann Marie were sitting around, watching television, or playing Ping-Pong, or preparing Sunday’s liturgy with Mother Angela.
“Excuse me,” she said suddenly. “The ladies’ room?”
Gregory gave her that sympathetic smile again. “Right over there, through those doors.”
Daphne stood and hurried across the wide, warped floorboards. She passed the couple eating their fish and potatoes. Neither looked up at her.
Her heart was beating in her ears. Gregory’s questions had disturbed her. They pointed out just how crazy she was for coming here. Accepting a job from a man she’d never met? Moving hundreds of miles away from everyone she knew and loved? If Mother Angela hadn’t advised her to do it, she would never have done so. She wanted to believe that Mother was right, wiser than she—but right now, as she heard the rain start beating on the roof of the inn again, she couldn’t shake her doubts.
She headed down a short hallway that led to two doors. The sign on the first read BUOYS. The second read GULLS. She pushed open the latter.
She could see someone’s feet in the lavatory’s only stall. The feet were wearing white shoes. Waitress shoes, maybe? What was her name ... Maggie? Taking her cigarette break in the lav? She appeared to be sitting on the toilet.
Daphne steadied herself at the sink, splashing some cold water on her face. Why was she so suddenly so frightened? It was more than just Gregory’s questions. Was it that clown? Daphne just felt so odd, so peculiar. She felt out of time and place. Her reflection in the mirror told her that she looked the same as she had that morning. Her hair was still long, auburn, and parted in the middle. Her eyes were still green. But she was different somehow. She felt as if the moment she had stepped off that train, she had become a different person.
A sound from the stall made her turn.
A thud.
The woman sitting on the toilet had leaned—fallen?—against the side of the stall.
Daphne’s eyes dropped to the floor.
A small stream of dark blood was running across the tiles from under the stall, and had nearly reached Daphne’s feet.
“Dear God,” she gasped.
She rushed around to the front of the stall. The door was not locked. She quickly pushed it open.
There, on the toilet, fully dressed in a white waitress uniform, slumped a woman who must have been Maggie.
This was why she hadn’t been around to take their order.
Someone had slit her throat.
Maggie’s eyes stared at Daphne with the glassy sheen of death.
Daphne screamed.
TWO
The police were asking Daphne all sorts of questions. What was her name? What was she doing here? How long had she been in the bathroom? Had she seen anyone leave? Had she ever seen Maggie before in her life?
Daphne’s mind was reeling. She answered the questions as best she could, then suddenly felt faint. She struggled to hold on to consciousness but lost the battle. If not for Gregory catching her, she would have fallen flat onto the wooden floor.
When she came to, she was in a booth. The same one, she was certain, where she’d seen the clown.
“The clown,” she said suddenly.
“Take it easy, Daphne,” Gregory was telling her. “It’s okay. Damn, what a terrible way for you to start your life here in Point Woebegone.”
“No, please,” she said. “Please, you must tell the police officers I need to talk to them again. The clown I saw ...”
“The clown you thought you saw ...”
“I
did
see him!” Daphne stood, thankful that her knees didn’t buckle again. “I saw a clown! He was here, in this booth, and then he was gone. Slipped out without anyone noticing! Right before I found the body!”
A police officer had overheard her, and strolled over to the booth. “Evenin’, Greg,” he said, and Gregory nodded to him. The officer looked about seventy, with a craggy face and a thick white walrus moustache. “Miss May, do you want to add something to your statement?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
She told him about the clown. As she spoke, she noticed the cold, hard stare he gave her. The policeman didn’t say anything. He wrote nothing down. But his mustache twitched several times.
“What has Mr. Winston been telling you about Point Woebegone, Miss May?” the policeman finally asked her.
“I told her nothing about any of that,” Gregory said, impatient at the implication.
“About any of what?” Daphne asked.
“She’s tired,” Gregory said. “She had a very long train ride here from Boston, and then Pete stands her up at the station.”
“
I saw that clown
!” Daphne insisted.
“I didn’t say I disbelieved you, Miss May.” The policeman handed her his card. “I’m Sheriff Joseph Patterson. I’ve been sheriff here in this town for a very long time. I’ve seen an awful lot, so I’m not apt to disbelieve anything. Do me a favor, however. When you get up to Witherswood tonight, you tell Pete what you saw here.
Everything
you saw here. And you call me later and tell me what he says.”
“Joe,” Gregory said. “What are you trying to do? Get the kid fired on her first day on the job?”
“I just find it interesting that a girl hired to work at Witherswood starts talking about clowns after finding Maggie with her throat cut open.”
“I don’t understand,” Daphne said.
“You just go on and get up to Witherswood, little girl,” the sheriff said. “In fact, I think Tony’s waiting for you out in his cab right now.”
She picked up her suitcase. Gregory placed a hand on her forearm.
“Are you all right?”
“The sisters taught me never to lie,” she replied, managing a small smile. “So I’ll tell you the truth. No, I’m not all right. But give me some time, and I’ll be fine.”
“I wish I could drive you... .”
Daphne shook her head. “I think my arrival is going to be stressful enough. I don’t know what Mr. Witherspoon has against you, Mr. Winston, but I shouldn’t stir things up any more than they already are.” She smiled at him. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.” She took a few steps toward the door. “Oh, I didn’t pay you for the tea—”
“Please,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.”
She sighed. “Thank you.” She turned the sheriff. “I hope you find whoever did that to that poor girl. It’s horrible. My heart aches for her family.”
“She had none,” Sheriff Patterson said. “Nobody really—since she came up here with that—” He broke off his sentence, seeming not to want to say any more.
Daphne held his gaze. She wanted to ask him what he had been about to say, but then decided against it. She hurried out to the taxi.
One more mystery about the place she would now call home.
And she hadn’t even gotten there yet.
Tony was a pudgy little dark-haired man, leaning against his old yellow Mercedes. “Terrible thing about Maggie,” he said. “She was a good girl. Good heart. Been through a lot, poor Maggie has. I heard you found the body.”
Daphne shuddered. “Please. I’m sure you understand. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sure, sure,” he said, smiling sympathetically at her. He opened the back door and she slid in. Then he clambered into the front seat. “You should just go home and take a nice long hot bath. Just relax and put it outta your mind.”
She managed a small smile but made no reply.
Tony started up the cab. Daphne inhaled the acrid odor of diesel fumes. “Now where am I taking you, miss?”
“Oh, the innkeeper didn’t tell you?” Daphne asked.
“No, miss, he did not.”
“It’s Cliff Road. Do you know it?”
“I sure do, miss. I know every road and alleyway in Woebegone. What number Cliff Road, miss?”
“It’s a place called ... Witherswood.”
Daphne saw Tony’s eyes widen in the rearview mirror as he stared at her.
“Witherswood? You’re going to ... Witherswood?”
“Yes,” she said.
Tony arched a bushy eyebrow at her in the mirror, but said nothing more. He drove off into the night, and she felt strangely as if all of the sympathy he’d shown her had suddenly evaporated in the last few seconds.
The rain had eased up. The wipers needed to flick only every few minutes. The moon slipped out from beneath the dark clouds, making Daphne think of a shy child peeking around a corner past his bedtime. She wondered if little Christopher Witherspoon was shy. When she’d asked Mother Angela why the boy wasn’t in regular school, the nun had replied that she did not know. All Mr. Witherspoon had said was that he wanted his son homeschooled.
Daphne rested her head against the window. The moon’s light was hesitant, but it was enough to illuminate the jagged wet rocks on the side of the road and the crashing sea beyond. The white caps of the waves seemed unbearably cold to Daphne. She listened as they crashed on the beach far below.
She had never seen anything like what she had seen in that bathroom. The only dead person she had ever seen in her life had been old Sister Agnes, and she had died at age ninety-two peacefully in her bed, clutching her Rosary beads. Daphne closed her eyes, afraid she might faint again, as the image of Maggie’s bloody body came back into her mind. So sheltered she had been at Our Lady. She had always feared what was out there in the big wide world. Now, just hours after leaving her safe little cocoon, her fears had been realized.
She tried to focus on the road on which they were traveling. Cliff Road was exactly what its name promised: a long, winding route that ran from the village along the cliffs, becoming narrower and narrower as it made its way higher and higher. Finally, up ahead, Daphne could see a house at the very precipice of the cliff, silhouetted against the moon. It seemed less of a house than a painted backdrop for one of the stage productions she and her friends had put on at Our Lady.
“Look, miss,” Tony said, breaking the silence, “I don’t usually pry into my customers’ business. In fact, I never do. But tonight, I’m going to give you a tip.”
“What’s that?” Daphne asked.
“You take care of whatever business you have up at that house and then you hightail it outta there,” the cab driver said. “Don’t ask no questions of anybody. Don’t look any of them too long in the eyes. Just do what you came to do and then get the heck out.”
Daphne kept her eyes on the dark house. As they drew nearer, she could see that it was huge. There had to be at least fifty rooms. Only a few windows were lit, however. Most of the place seemed to squat in darkness. From the west end of the house rose a tower that seemed to pierce the heavy gray clouds that still drifted across the sky.
“I’m going to live there,” she told Tony in a small, frightened voice.
The driver shook his head. “Well, I feel sorry for you, miss. I really do. I worked for Pete Witherspoon once, on one of his boats. He owns most of the town’s fishing fleets, and he thought he owned me. Don’t let him do that to you.”
Daphne made no reply. They pulled up in front of the house, and she stepped out of the car. She handed Tony five dollars. The ride had only cost three.
“I shouldn’t even take a tip from you,” Tony said, but made no effort to give Daphne any change.
The cab made a screeching U-turn on the wet road and then headed back down into the village. Daphne was left alone in the dark, a light mist on her face. Below, the monotonous crash of the waves nearly drowned out the sound of a far-off foghorn.
Daphne knocked on the door.
It was a great oak door, carved with an intricate design of flowers and leaves. In the center of the door was engraved the image of a swallow, its long tail reaching toward the knob. Elaborately intertwined with the swallowtail in great effusive curlicues was the letter
W
.
No one appeared to have heard her knock.
Daphne grabbed hold of the large brass knocker that hung above the W and pounded as loudly as she could.
A horrible thought occurred to her.
What if no one was home?
What if the reason no one had picked her up at the station was because they had gone away? What if she was up here at the top of this cliff all by herself?
All by herself—with a killer running on the loose who liked to slice the throats of young women?
Again the image of Maggie’s dead, bloody body, her glassy, staring eyes, overpowered her, and Daphne felt as if she might get sick
She knocked again, more frantically this time, and called out, “Hello? Please! Is anyone home?”
At last she heard movement from inside the house. She breathed a sigh of relief.
The door began to open. It creaked, as doors always did in scary movies. And it opened slowly, just like in the movies, too, and Daphne half expected to see Lurch, the ghoulish butler from
The Addams Family
, one of the occasional movies Mother Angela would permit the girls to watch on Netflix.
But instead Daphne saw a young woman, probably only a few years older than she was, pretty and blond with large breasts.
“Are you Daphne?” the young woman asked.
“Yes, I’m Daphne May.”
“Oh, welcome to Witherswood!”
The young woman practically leapt at Daphne, throwing her thin arms around her and pulling her into the house. “I’ve been waiting all day to meet you! Welcome, welcome, welcome!”
Daphne managed to say, “Thank you,” before the young woman was hugging her again. Her impressive breasts crushed between them. Daphne realized her new friend wore no bra under her thin pink T-shirt. Having spent her life in a convent, Daphne couldn’t help but be a bit embarrassed.
“I’m Ashlee,” the young woman declared. “What a miserable night for you to arrive. All this rain and wind! But then again, they don’t call it Point Woebegone for nothing!”
“No,” Daphne said, trying to smile. “I guess they don’t.”
Ashlee was looking out the door. “Where’s the car? Did Axel just drop you off then pull around back?”
“I came by cab,” Daphne explained.
The young woman’s eyes widened. “Cab? You took a cab from the train station? Whatever for?”
“There was no one at the station waiting to meet me.”
“No one waiting? But that’s crazy. Axel went out to get you. It was in his daily assignment book. I know, because I wrote it in there.”
“I’m sorry,” Daphne told her. “But no one was there.”
“Well, that’s inexcusable!” Ashlee’s pretty face was twisting into a deep frown, the blood rising to her cheeks. “You come all the way up here from Boston, taking a job here without even knowing anything about this place, and no one meets you when you arrive. That’s simply inexcusable.”
“It’s all right,” Daphne sad.
Ashlee was shaking her head. “It is
not
all right! Things need to start changing around here. I don’t like the way this house is run. Not at all!”
Daphne didn’t know quite what to say. She agreed that it was pretty lousy to leave her stranded at the train station on her very first night in town. But she couldn’t start criticizing her employer right off the bat. Besides, maybe this Axel, whoever he was, had car trouble. Maybe there was a perfectly logical explanation.
“I’m sure there’s a reason,” Daphne said. “I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate. Just an oversight.”
“Even if so,” Ashlee said, “it’s still unacceptable. I tell you, if I were the one making decisions in this house, an awful lot of heads would roll around here.”