An instinct alerted him to a human presence, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw her sitting on a wicker chair, observing him. She was dressed in black, and looked the model of Victorian grief, except—he realized as he drew near—for the addition of a swathe of fabric across her chest, forming a pouch within which slept her tiny babe. Dan was briefly taken aback: he had seen native women carrying their babies that way, but not ladies like Mrs. Turner-Bridges.
“I hear that you’ve been speaking to people in town about my family,” she said, as he made his approach. Her voice was dry and airy, and he guessed that she’d been crying.
“I have,” he agreed, and then offered nothing more, waiting instead to see if she’d continue. This was his preferred mode of interview: to let the subject lead.
She held his gaze longer than was usual, which gave him time to perceive what an extraordinary-looking person she was. A rare sort of beauty—pale skin, paler than it normally was, he guessed, with freckles sprinkled across her high, round cheekbones, as if an artist had drawn them using a fine, point-tipped brush. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?” she said.
“I’d like that very much, if it’s not a bother.”
He sat opposite her on the matching chair, looking out toward a tree house and a laundry line and the crest of a hill that sloped away, he knew, in the direction of the water hole.
Nora already had a tray set out with a jug and two glasses, and she reached around the sleeping baby to pour them each a long, cool drink. “You’re from New York City,” she said. “What’s it like? I’ve never been.”
Dan was surprised at first by the question, but then he recalled the learned politeness of his Southern relatives and their friends. He reminded himself that the meeting was hers to guide and started telling her about his home, painting a picture of a shimmering city of towering buildings and underground jazz bars, neon signs glistening in grease-streaked puddles and lovers strolling arm in arm through a park that stretched for miles. It was a version of New York City that people who hadn’t been there longed to imagine. The antithesis, he realized, of this place they were in now.
Nora listened, letting her eyes close, but she did not otherwise react, neither did she sip from her iced tea.
Finally, he ran out of things to say. As if on cue, a dog appeared on the sun-drenched concrete at the corner of the verandah, a big old golden retriever with a lion’s paws and a permanent smile. He loped over to Nora, gazing up at her imploringly, and she reached unthinkingly to stroke beneath his chin.
“Poor thing,” she said. “He keeps looking for them.” She tilted her head to consider Daniel. “I hear you’re planning to write about what happened.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you a good writer?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer that. If this were a job interview, he’d have said he liked to think he was, but in this instance, as she regarded him with her somber eyes, her delicate drawn face, promoting himself didn’t seem appropriate.
She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Has anything terrible ever happened to you, Mr. Miller?” she asked.
The question caught him off guard. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. And then he found himself telling her about his kid brother. It was the first time he’d spoken of Marty since he’d arrived in Australia. Even his uncle had known better than to probe him on the matter. But something in the dignified grief of the woman across from him, the direct way in which she’d asked him, her exquisite aloneness, sitting there dressed all in black like a widow in a Henry James novel, made him open up. He described their childhood, their matching haircuts, the times he had been unkind and regretted it. Things he had never told anyone else. Things he hadn’t known he felt or feared until he heard them coming from his own mouth that morning on the verandah of the Turner house.
She hadn’t offered platitudes or assured him that he’d be all right, or that his brother was smiling down on him, or—God forbid—that all things happened for a reason. She listened intently and gave the slightest nod before turning to gaze out over the chattering trees.
“That’s a sad story, Mr. Miller. I don’t know what would make a young man feel so hopeless. You have my sympathy for your loss.” Her words tapered off and she sat for a time, watching the leaves in the breeze, her hands moving gently across the mound of her baby. Dan was beginning to think she’d forgotten he was there, when she said, in a soft, almost musical voice, “I have heard what they’re saying in town, the rumors about Isabel... It isn’t true. Isabel would never have done that—never. She loved the children. She loved her life. She had frustrations, like everyone, but she would never—could never—have done a thinglike that.” She turned back to face him. “If you’re going to write about them, Mr. Miller, you must make sure to tell that truth.”
It was to become a common refrain, and Dan had to walk a cautious line. He couldn’t help but care for Nora. They were both outsiders, tied together by their recent personal losses and the Turner case itself. He looked forward to his visits with her, and he could sense the feeling was mutual. She was glad for news of the town, glad too for his company. But his duty was to his work. He believed in listening to all points of view, and telling a story that found its truth beyond the black-and-white details; he held wholeheartedly to the view that writers of nonfiction should have recourse to the same scene-setting tools as novelists. But he had to maintain his objectivity when it came to the facts of the case.
Nora was a smart woman. She heard the hesitation in his noises of support, and she didn’t like it. “I’m telling you: she wouldn’t do a thing like that. She wouldn’t have been capable of imagining it, let alone enacting it. If you’d only known Isabel, you would be as confident as I am.”
Dan promised that he’d keep an open mind, which was the best he could do, but her acceptance was grudging. He could see she wanted to prove it to him. And then one afternoon, when they had reached something of a stalemate, she excused herself and went inside. When she returned, she had a book in her hands. “I found it quite by chance.” She flushed. “I never would have read it, but for the circumstances. I didn’t read all of it, just enough to know it was important.”
He looked more closely and registered the soft scuffed leather of the book, the gilt wearing off on the sides from frequent use, the unraveling ribbon placeholder peeking out from the bottom. “Isabel’s journal,” he said.
A thread of vindication plucked at Nora’s lips as she noted his interest. “She used to write in it every day, sitting right here in these chairs.”
“Have you shown it to Duke?”
“I wantyouto read it,” she said. “I want you to hear from Issy. To see how funny, how kind, how alive she was. You’ll know then that she could never have done what they’re accusing her of.”
Dan’s mind was racing. By rights, he knew, the police should have the book, but what she was offering was irresistible.
“There’s nothing in there that would help Sergeant Duke. Quite the opposite, and that’s my point.”
Dan reached down and let his fingers graze the cover. “If there’s anything that Duke should know...”
“If you find something that would help the police, I’ll consider letting you show it to them.”
It was good enough. Dan took up the journal, letting it fall open naturally in his hands. The lines were covered with elegant handwriting. He ran his fingertip over a couple of torn stubs in the binding and glanced up at Nora.
