True Crime

The stone for the three story rock house had been quarried all the way from New England, it was said, and the stain glass windows had been custom made in North Carolina. The gardens which enclosed the the estate were tended daily. It was a house that didn't belong on the two lane dusty road any more than the sisters who lived in it, Miss Francine and Miss Genievive had traveled all the way from Quebec in search of a quiet countryside where they could live out their days and go unnoticed. The most repeated explanation was that they were running from some unspeakable family scandal although no one seemed able to support this in the slightest. They brought a full staff, two small terrier dogs, and a shiny black Mercedes with a convertible top that rarely left the grounds except on Sundays. Their only contact with the locals was when the chapel was erected, a small and minimalistic building of plain wood and white paint that seemed out of place next to the enormous three story house. After its completion, a bell was imported from Sweden and hung in the tower but it was never rung and the workmen who had built the chapel and installed the bell were equally as quiet about the goings on of the household. They had been given plans and blueprints and detailed instructions by way of an overseer of sorts and had never actually seen the sisters except as shadows passing by the misty gardens. Each day a hot lunch had been delivered on individual silver serving trays and they were paid cash wages at the end of every week - other than that, they knew nothing of the sisters but their names.

One late June morning, a Saturday, the shiny Mercedes rolled out of the gated drive and headed for the ferry dock in town where the Princess was due to arrive. Among her passengers was a young woman in a strapless, ankle length red dress, slit to the knee at each side, and a cream colored silk scarf wrapped around her dark hair - she descended the ramp as lightly as music, an armful of roses clasped against one bare shoulder, a straw bag dangling from the other. The morning sun caught and reflected off her jewelry sending crystal prisms around her. Once she reached the breakwater, she took the chauffeur's extended arm and allowed herself to be led to the Mercedes, entering with just a slight flash of nylon stocking'd calf and a brilliant smile before the car smoothly turned and rumbled away. Nana and I and Miss Clara, there to meet my cousin Elaine and her family, watched it drive off in silence - I remember thinking that I had just seen a movie star so close I might have touched her. Who was that? I asked my grandmother in a whisper, It's not polite to stare, child, she said shortly, And I have no idea.

But she did have an idea, in fact, pretty much everyone at the pier that morning had an idea, speculation about the so called "third sister" had been rampant for over a month. Young, beautiful, and recently discharged from a women's prison after a ten year incarceration, this perfect looking creature had tried to stab her only brother to death in what was called a homicidal rage - he was nineteen at the time and she just seventeen - after a four day binge of drugs and alcohol and no sleep, he had assaulted her with her a fire iron and in the following seconds, she had gone from writing unpublished poetry and boarding school to would be killer. Everyone meeting the boat that particular summer morning was there to catch a glimpse of this almost murderess and to see how she would be received by her family. The much talked about alleged scandal had been confirmed with the arrival of our only Quebec summer regulars, the Girards, an unpopular but wealthy family who moved into an entire wing of The Pines each June, bringing their own private domestic staff and generally making everyone who came into contact with them thoroughly miserable. The Girards themselves were above such tawdry matters as criminal trials but their servants were as happy to share - if not exaggerate, make up, and generously gossip - about the incident as they were about their employers' private lives. True crime made for a captive audience - Nothin' like a good scandal on the right side of the tracks to get people talkin' to each other, Miss Clara observed to my grandmother on the ride home, Folks just naturally like takin' sides.

Aside from her memorable entrance, the third sister melted into the landscape of the rock house like rain into dry earth. The curiosity and excitement died down by July and everyone picked up the ordinary threads of their ordinary lives and went about their business, once again proving the point that you can get used to anything, even the presence of an almost murderer in your midst.