The Girl at the End of the Line Page 4

  “I can’t believe I’m being so paranoid,” muttered Molly to herself, glancing out the window again. The road was empty. The afternoon heat rose off the pavement in waves, making the trees across the street shimmer like a mirage.

  “Where’s that program you found?” Molly asked, walking over to her sister. “The one with Grandma’s picture?”

  Nell nodded toward the counter. She had finished her repair and was bracing the creamer with pieces of Styrofoam so it could dry. Her hands were sure and steady.

  Molly reached under the counter for the “Playbill,” wishing she had her sister’s patience, and stared at the picture of the young Margaret Jellinek on the cover.

  “I’ve got to do something to get my mind off Mercury Sables,” she announced. “I need a project, something to do with my idle little brain, or I’m going to crack up. What do you say we find out about Grandma? About the ring, maybe, and about her being on the stage?”

  Nell rolled her eyes. She’d been down this road with Molly’s projects before. Once they had spent an entire day mixing snails, quicklime, and Gruyère cheese to test out a glass-mending recipe that Molly had found in an old book. Another time Molly had dragged Nell off in the middle of lunch and driven all the way to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just to learn more about the Amish name, Zook, which she had found impressed on a spoon.

  “You know who might know something? Clyde, that’s who. I’m going to call him.”

  Calling Clyde was just the sort of mad, impulsive thing that would make her feel better, more in control. Nell, however, scrambled off her chair and intercepted Molly before she could pick up the receiver. She shook her head furiously.

  “It’s okay,” said Molly. “He can’t do anything to hurt us anymore.”

  Nell shook her head again and clenched her fingers around Molly’s hand. Molly had to pry them off.

  “Will you cut it out? You’re just being silly. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I can handle Clyde, I promise. You want to find out about Grandma, don’t you?”

  Nell stared at Molly for a few more seconds, then returned to her chair. The fear was still evident in Nell’s face, mixed with unconcealed anger at Molly, who paid it no mind. Sometimes you just had to act, and this was one of those times. She looked up Clyde’s work number in the phone book and dialed.

  “Pelletreau Fuel and Lumber,” answered a voice on the seventh ring.

  “Clyde Cole, please,” said Molly. Did he still work there? Was he even still alive? She hadn’t spoken with Clyde for years.

  “Who wants him?”

  “His stepdaughter. Molly O’Hara.”

  A few minutes later a gruff, too-familiar voice came on the line.

  “Well, if it ain’t little miss antique dealer. To what do I owe this honor?”

  The palm of Molly’s hand was suddenly damp against the telephone receiver. She fought down a wave of disgust. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.

  “Hello, Clyde. How have you been?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m just being polite,” she said.

  “Save it. What do you want?”

  Clyde had been the main suspect that terrible Saturday afternoon seventeen years ago. Molly had come home from the movies and had found her mother sprawled on their living room floor, a thirty-eight-caliber hole in the center of her forehead.

  Clyde’s alibi was unshakable, however: he had been at Cousin Hecker’s American Tarheel Bar and Grill, drinking with the boys. Six drunkards and Cousin Hecker himself had sworn to it. So had a pair of off-duty cops who had gone to the bar to watch a baseball game on TV.

  Hearing the perpetual sneer in his voice, Molly once again felt the same revulsion and helplessness she had experienced as a child. When she asked him to turn down the television so she could study, he would laugh and order her to fetch him another beer or just blow cigarette smoke in her face. If she ever expressed excitement over anything, he would make fun of her and call her names.

  Clyde had been the girl’s legal guardian after their mother’s death. Until Nell turned sixteen and Molly was able to get them their own place he had insisted on “raising” them himself. That he hadn’t any talent or feeling for the job didn’t matter—all he knew was that Molly and Nell were his property.

  “Grandma died,” she said simply.

  “Yeah, I heard. Can’t say I’m really sorry. She was always a mean old bat. You gonna tell me what you want?”

  “I wanted to ask you some questions about her,” said Molly, ignoring the insult.

  “About the old lady? What would I know?”

  “Did she ever say anything to you about her career on the stage?”

  “Her what?”

  “Her stage career,” said Molly. “She was a big Broadway actress.”

  “Yeah, right,” snickered Clyde. “What are you, nuts?”

  “No, really. Did she ever—”

  “Come on,” barked the cruel voice. “That worthless old lady never did nothin’ in her whole life. I’m in the middle of a job here, for Crissakes. Anything else you want to know?”

  “No, that’s all,” whispered Molly.

  The line went dead.

  Molly slowly placed the phone back in the cradle. Nell shot her a look that at the same time said both, “I told you so” and “what now?”

  Molly knew that she deserved the I told you so, and she already had an answer to the what now?

  “We’re going to see Daddy,” she said simply.

  Molly’s mother had thrown Tim O’Hara out of the house shortly before Nell’s fourth birthday. A month after the divorce became final he had married a woman whose family owned a candy company in the Moorehaven suburb on the east side of Pelletreau.

  Molly had not seen her father since then, but she knew where he lived. Moorehaven was the wealthiest part of town, and Molly often came here to yard and garage sales—rich people were the ones most likely to be selling quality things, and surprisingly often they didn’t understand the value of what they had. Molly had made it a point to find his big white house on Daisy Hill Lane long ago. She and Nell had driven past many times, but had never had the courage to knock on the door.

  Today was different.

  Even Nell, normally so shy, didn’t hesitate to get out after Molly drove up the long driveway and parked the van in front of the big, beautiful house.

  Molly straightened her clothes. Nell reached into her pocket for a comb, which she ran nonchalantly through her hair, as if she did so on a regular basis. They looked briefly at each other and shared a pair of nervous smiles. Then Molly knocked three times on the frame of the screen door at the same time that Nell pressed the bell.

  After a moment a woman came out.

  She was about Nell’s height, an attractive brunette with full lips and an athletic figure. She wore spotless tennis whites and two-hundred-dollar running shoes. Her wristwatch was a gold Rolex.

  “Yes?” she asked with a smile perfect enough to persuade people to change their brand of toothpaste to hers.

  “Hi,” said Molly. “I’m Molly O’Hara. This is my sister, Nell. We’d like to speak with our father, please.”

  The woman stepped back as if hit in the face. Her smile never wavered, however. It seemed actually to grow even wider if that were possible. And whiter.

  “Certainly,” she said after a moment, barely moving her lips. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  The woman went back inside. After a moment Molly could hear raised voices, sounds of a man and woman arguing. After another moment a man came out and closed the front door behind him.

  He looked almost exactly as he did in her memories and in the snapshots of a smiling teenager that Molly had found in a shoebox after Evangeline O’Hara Cole had been murdered: a thin man, about five feet ten inches tall, with a weak chin and a scraggly mustache. He was dressed in khaki pants, a yellow polo shirt, and brown loafers without socks. He didn’t look exactly thrilled to see them.<
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  “Hi,” he said in a cautious tenor, his eyes darting from Molly to Nell. Then he glanced over his shoulder back at the house. “I’m Tim O’Hara.”

  “I’m Molly. This is Nell.”

  “Yeah, my wife told me. You’re Angie’s girls.”

  “That’s right,” said Molly softly, too proud to point out the fact that he had had something to do with their existence as well.

  “So what can I do for you?” he said, trying to find a suitable place to park his hands. He tried several combinations of under his armpits and behind his neck before settling for the pockets of his pants. “I’m sorry I can’t invite you in, but Susan is just making dinner now. That’s my wife. Susan.”

  “Of course,” said Molly, struggling to contain her disappointment. “I understand.”

  Making dinner—what a great excuse not to invite in your daughters whom you haven’t seen in over twenty years. Nell just stared wide-eyed at Tim O’Hara, her expression a blend of uncertainty and startled recognition.

  “Look,” said Molly, coming to her sister’s rescue, “we don’t want to take up too much of your time. There are just a few things I thought you might be able to help us clear up about Grandma. You know she died.”

  Tim O’Hara stared back blankly.

  “Margaret Jellinek,” said Molly. “Our grandmother. She died last week.”

  “Oh, Maggie,” he said, looking almost relieved. “Yeah, right. Dead, huh? Sorry about that. My condolences.”

  “There are some things we don’t understand, and we thought you might remember.”

  “Well, I was sort of persona non grata with Maggie,” he said. “She was pretty pissed when Angie and I eloped. I don’t know that I can tell you much.”

  “Did you know that she was once an actress?”

  “Yeah? I never heard anything about that.”

  “Do you know where Grandma lived or what she might have been doing before she came to Pelletreau?”

  “No,” answered O’Hara. “You really would do better asking somebody else.”

  “What about Grandma’s marriage?” asked Molly in a measured drawl. “Did she ever talk about that?”

  O’Hara broke into a strange, unpleasant chuckle.

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “That was the whole problem. Between Maggie and me, I mean. Maggie ran off with a guy her family didn’t approve of when she was a teenager, see? Dick Jellinek was his name. Richard Jellinek. He walked out on Maggie when Angie was just a baby. Deserted them.”

  “I never knew that,” said Molly, surprised.

  To her Richard Jellinek had always been just “Bride’s Father” on the yellowing copy of Angie O’Hara’s marriage license that Molly kept in the safe-deposit box. Grandma had never even mentioned her ex-husband’s name, let alone that she had fallen out with her family because of him or that he had deserted her. At last they were finally getting somewhere.

  “That was why Maggie was so furious when Angie and I eloped, I guess,” O’Hara went on. “The old lady had wrecked her life by running off with a man, and she thought that Angie was going to do the same with me.”

  Obviously Grandma had been right.

  Tim O’Hara smiled guiltily, like a taxpayer who had just admitted too much to an IRS agent. Molly glanced over at Nell, who seemed confused and uncomfortable. She alternated staring at the ground and stealing peeks at her father, as if she expected he might suddenly give her a hug or break into song the way he used to when they were little.

  “Did you ever hear anything about Grandma’s family?” Molly asked, trying not to let her feelings show on her face.

  “Well, they were rich, I know,” said O’Hara.

  “Excuse me?” said Molly.

  “Yeah, the old lady got a little tipsy one night right after Angie and I got married, and let slip her folks were loaded. She claimed they owned a castle or something.”

  Molly couldn’t speak for a moment. The notion that her grandmother had grown up wealthy was like hearing that an umbrella had once been a rose.

  “Why didn’t she go to them when her marriage broke up?” she said finally.

  “Yeah, that’s what Angie wanted to know,” said O’Hara. “But the old lady wouldn’t say. She was too proud, I guess. Too stubborn.”

  Molly shook her head with disbelief. Had Grandma really lived in a castle? She had always told Molly that all of her family was dead. Were there still relatives somewhere, wondering where she was? Molly looked over at Nell, but couldn’t catch her eye.

  “The more Angie thought about it, the angrier she got,” continued Tim O’Hara. “‘You mean, I could have grown up rich in a castle instead of dirt poor in Pelletreau?’ she hollered at Maggie once. ‘You wouldn’t have been happy, believe me,’ Maggie yelled back. Angie barely spoke to the old lady for a year after that, she was so pissed.”

  “Poor mom,” said Molly softly.

  “Yeah,” said O’Hara sympathetically—or was it pity? “It would have been just as well if she had never written to them.”

  “Mom wrote to Grandma’s family?” asked Molly, amazed. “How did she find out who they were, where they lived?”

  “Right before we split up Angie was over at her mother’s and found an insurance policy in some old book,” answered O’Hara. “It listed Maggie’s father as next of kin: Mr. Something-or-other Gale and his address. So Angie wrote him a letter and poured her heart out.”

  “Gale,” repeated Molly, turning the unfamiliar name over in her mind. “You can’t remember his first name?”

  O’Hara shook his head.

  “Hey, this was a long time ago.”

  “Where did they live?”

  Tim O’Hara waved a manicured hand, and smiled his lopsided smile.

  “The address was up North somewhere. New England, I think. I never knew exactly. All I remember is that their name was Gale.”

  Molly looked over at Nell. Her sister was staring at the ground, her face without expression. Hadn’t she understood a word that Tim O’Hara had said? Their mother had reached back and touched the past, had connected with Grandma’s parents, the family that none of them had ever known existed—the Gales!

  Tim O’Hara glanced again at his watch, not noticing the tears that had welled up inexplicably in Molly’s eyes.

  “What happened then?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” said O’Hara with a shrug. “Maggie’s father never answered. Your mom wrote a few more times. Never heard from anyone.”

  He looked over his shoulder at the closed front door of the beautiful house and shifted his weight from side to side.

  “So. Is there anything else I can help you with or is that about it?”

  “That’s about it,” murmured Molly. “Oh, one last thing. Do you know if Grandma had any good jewelry? We’ve been looking around but haven’t found anything.”

  “Fat chance,” he said with a laugh. “Rich parents or not, Maggie didn’t have diddly-squat. Why would you think she had any jewelry?”

  “Oh, it’s just that most women have a little jewelry. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t invite the two of you in for dinner,” said O’Hara. “We just … well, we weren’t expecting company.”

  “Oh, we have to run anyway,” said Molly with an artificial smile. “But thanks. You’ve been a lot of help.”

  “If you’d like some candy, I’ve got a few boxes of samples in the front closet that I can let you have.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, extending his hand. “Thanks for stopping by.”

  Molly awkwardly shook his hand. When he offered it to Nell, she turned and ran back to the van. Tim O’Hara grinned weakly, opened the door and scuttled back into his big white house.

  Molly walked slowly back to the van. Nell was already sitting there in the passenger seat, her chin propped up between her hands. Her eyes were wet with tears.

  “Oh, Nellie,” said Molly reaching over to try to comfort
her. “Don’t do that. He’s just an idiot.”

  Nell pushed Molly’s hand away again and sobbed soundlessly.

  “Some family, we’ve got, huh?” said Molly, starting the engine. “Daddy’s a jerk. Clyde’s a Neanderthal. Our long-lost grandfather, Richard Jellinek, was a rat, and our rich Yankee relatives, the Gales, were so mean that they wouldn’t even answer Mom’s letters.”

  Nell slumped in the seat and rubbed her eyes, but didn’t look over.

  “You know,” said Molly, “the more I think about this, the madder I’m getting. Why couldn’t Grandma just go back home after her marriage broke up and give Mom a chance to have a life? Would it really have been so hard to admit she made a mistake? We didn’t know her at all, Nell. Not at all.”

  The van began making the grinding noises it did when it was unhappy. Molly slowed down. Nell wiped her eyes, slumped in her seat and stared out unhappily at the wealthy suburb’s big landscaped houses. They drove for a minute in silence, then Molly started talking again, as if she had never left off.

  “The Gales must have loved Grandma once,” she declared. “She was their daughter, after all. And they were rich, so they were probably the ones who gave her the ring. Maybe Grandma still has brothers and sisters or nieces and nephews who would want to know what happened to her. To Mom. To us even, if they knew we were alive.”

  Nell looked over at Molly for the first time, her questioning eyes reflecting a lifetime of pain and hurt and helplessness.

  “It would be nice to have a real family, wouldn’t it?” said Molly.

  Nell’s upper lip trembled. She reached over and touched Molly on the arm.

  “I’m getting an idea,” said Molly with a familiar look in her eye.

  Nell pulled back her hand. The last time Molly had had that look in her eye they had wound up driving a hundred miles to buy a player piano from a lady in a shopping mall.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be a such a chicken,” said Molly. “You know it makes sense. There must be some Gales left up in New England somewhere, and there’s no reason why we can’t find them. Grandma was a big Broadway actress. There must still be records that can tell us where she came from originally. All we have to do is get to New York and do a little research.”