Letters like the ones he began to write his love in later life, I thought. Letters like the ones he began to write the gorgeous, unmarried Sterling Harper. Letters she was kind enough to burn before she committed suicide, because she did not wish to shatter the heart and memories of his widow.
“You found them, then,” she barely said.
“Found letters to her?”
“Yes. His letters.”
“No.”
It was, perhaps, the most merciful half truth I had ever told. “No, I can’t say that we found anything like that, Mrs. McTigue. The police found no correspondence from your husband among the Harpers’ personal effects, no stationery with your husband’s letterhead, nothing of an intimate nature addressed to Sterling Harper.”
Her face relaxed as denial was blessedly reinforced.
“Did you ever spend any time with the Harpers? Socially, for example?” I asked.
“Why, yes. Twice that I remember. Once Mr. Harper came for a dinner party. And on one other occasion the Harpers and Beryl Madison were overnight guests.”
This piqued my interest. “When were they your overnight guests?”
“Mere months before Joe passed on. I ‘spect that would have been the first of the year, just a month or two after Beryl spoke to our group. In fact, I’m sure it was because the Christmas tree was still up. I remember that. It was such a treat to have her.”
“To have Beryl?”
“Oh, yes! I was so pleased. It seems the three of them had been in New York on business. They were seeing Beryl’s agent, I believe. They flew into Richmond on their way home and were generous enough to stay the night with us. Or at least the Harpers stayed the night. Beryl lived here, you see. Late in the evening Joe gave her a ride back to her home. Then he took the Harpers back to Williamsburg the following morning.”
“What do you remember about that night?” I asked.
“Let me see … I remember I fixed leg of lamb and they were late coming in from the airport because the airline lost Mr. Harper’s bags.”
Almost a year ago, I considered. This would have been before Beryl had begun receiving the threats–based on the information we had gotten.
“They were rather tired from the trip,” Mrs. McTigue continued. “But Joe was so good. He was the most charming host you’d ever want to meet.”
Could Mrs. McTigue tell? Did she know by the way her husband looked at Miss Harper that he was in love with her?
I remembered the distant look in Mark’s eyes during those final days so long ago when we were together. When I knew. It was instinct. I knew he was not thinking about me, and yet I would not believe he was in love with someone else until he finally told me.
“Kay, I’m sorry,” he said as we drank Irish coffee for the last time in our favorite bar in Georgetown while tiny flakes of snow spiraled down from gray skies and beautiful couples walked by bundled in winter coats and brightly knitted scarves. “You know I love you, Kay.”
“But not the same way I love you,” I said, my heart gripped by the worst pain I ever remember feeling.
He looked down at the table. “I never intended to hurt you.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I knew he was. He really and truly was. And it didn’t change a goddamn thing.
I never knew her name because I did not want to know it, and she was not the woman he said he had later married. Janet, who had died. But then, maybe that was a lie, too.
“… he had quite a temper.”
“Who did?” I asked, my eyes focusing on Mrs. McTigue again.
“Mr. Harper,” she replied, and she was beginning to look very tired. “He was so irritable about his luggage. Fortunately, it came in on the very next flight.” She paused. “Goodness. That seems so long ago, and it really wasn’t that long ago a’tall.”
“What about Beryl?” I asked. “What do you remember about her that night?”
“All of them gone, now.”
Her hands went still in her lap as she faced that dark, empty mirror. Everyone was dead but her, the guests from that cherished and frightful dinner party, ghosts.