Scarlet Nights: An Edilean Novel Read online

  “I’m sure you know every course I took and all my grades. Why don’t you tell me what made your grandmother leave Edilean and why she hated the McDowells so much?” She said it as a joke and never for a moment thought he’d tell her. It was the Big Secret among the Oldies in Edilean.

  “She claimed she was raped by Alexander McDowell.”

  Sara looked at him in astonishment. “Aunt Lissie’s husband? Rape?!”

  “That’s the story Grans told. And, yes, it was that Alex McDowell.”

  “He wasn’t prosecuted or I’d have heard about it. But then, the Oldies love to keep secrets.”

  “Oldies?” Mike asked. “From the way you talk of retirement and me, I think I’m one of them.”

  “All four times we made love this morning I thought, Mike sure is an old man.”

  He grinned. “Yeah?”

  “I heard a lot of complaints about Uncle Alex’s grumpiness, but I never heard of any violence against women.”

  “I don’t think it existed. After Tess moved there and got to know some townspeople, she started asking questions.”

  Sara waited for more, but Mike was silent. It wasn’t easy hearing that all this time Tess had known the full story. “Tell it to me from the beginning,” Sara said.

  Mike hesitated for a moment. “My grandmother told us that one afternoon in 1941, she was riding on her bicycle down the old road by Merlin’s Farm. Someone threw something at her wheels and she fell, hit her head on a rock, and was knocked out. When she woke up, Alex McDowell was raping her. She lost consciousness again, and when she came to, she made her way to the farm, and Brewster Lang called the police.”

  “And she identified Uncle Alex as her rapist?”

  “Yes, but Edi Harcourt swore that Alex was at her house that day, so the charges were dropped.”

  “That must have been hard on your grandmother. To have reported a rape but nothing was done about it must have been awful. Do you think Miss Edi lied?”

  “Probably, but then my grandmother never had a firm grip on honesty.”

  “Are you saying she wasn’t attacked?”

  “I don’t know. But I do think it was wishful thinking on her part that Alex McDowell was the culprit.”

  “She liked him?”

  “When Tess and I were kids, we were told that Alex adored her, sent her flowers, wrote her poems. It made sense that when she turned him down he got angry enough to commit a crime of violence against her. But when Tess came here, she was told it was the other way around. Grans pursued Alex. Wherever the poor guy went, there she was. She used to tell people she was meeting him when he was actually trying to get away from her. She told us that even though back then he was really poor, she saw potential in him.”

  “She was right; Uncle Alex made millions,” Sara said. “So when she was … had sex that night, she wanted it to be Alex?”

  “That’s what Tess and I think. But whatever the truth is, every year we were all subjected to a period of deathly mourning centered around the fourteenth of November.”

  “The fourteenth of November?” Sara asked in surprise.

  “Is that date important to you?”

  “Oh, dear. I forgot to tell you something.”

  “Sara, if Vandlo—”

  “No, not him. Did … Was there any chance that her molester was wearing a kilt?”

  Mike turned his head so abruptly, the car swerved. “Yes! That’s how she identified him. She said that only the McDowells wore that blue and gray plaid, but how do you know that?”

  “Brewster Lang did it.”

  “What?”

  “He was the one with your grandmother.”

  “Tell me what you know.” There was a muscle working in his jaw.

  “Don’t you dare get angry at me! If you’d told me this story a week ago I could have told you about Mr. Lang.”

  “Sara …” he said in warning.

  “When Luke and Ramsey were teenagers, one night they sneaked onto Merlin’s Farm. They said it was because they saw a fire, but I happen to know that they often sneaked around there.”

  “What did they see?” Mike asked.

  “Mr. Lang was wearing an old kilt and a big white shirt, and he and his dogs were dancing around a huge bonfire. Luke and Rams said it was all wild and primitive-looking. It was the fourteenth of November.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes. That’s my father’s birthday.”

  “Lang didn’t see them?”

  “No, but the next day he must have seen the weeds knocked down because after that he was worse about trespassers.”

  “It could have been a coincidence,” Mike said. “That was a long time after 1941, and—”

  “He does it every year on the same day.”

  Mike glanced at her.

  “The next year on my father’s birthday, Luke and Rams went back, and they could see the firelight. They tried to get near, but the dogs were guarding the area. Mike,” she said softly, “you don’t think Mr. Lang celebrates raping a woman, do you? He couldn’t be that … that horrible.”

  “You want the truth? I’m not sure she was assaulted. Her facts changed constantly, and that Lang wears a McDowell kilt makes me doubt her even more. And he was in the vicinity and Grans always said he was her friend. Maybe …”

  “What?”

  “I wonder if she and Lang had sex that night and she used it as a chance to blame your uncle Alex?”

  “Wow! Not very PC of her, was it?” Sara was silent for a moment. “And now Mr. Lang celebrates that night every year.”

  Mike shrugged. “People do a lot of strange things in the privacy of their own homes. And even if it happened the way my grandmother said, I doubt if Lang sees it as a rape. Remember that my grandmother was only semiconscious, and the kilt made her think it was the man she believed she loved. I doubt that she made much of a protest.”

  “If she welcomed him, Mr. Lang might not have realized she thought he was someone else.”

  For a while, Mike was silent as he thought about all the hatred and anger that had emanated from his grandmother—but it had been directed toward the wrong people. “You know what Grans tried to get the police to do? Make Alex McDowell marry her. She even told the pastor and the church members what had happened and tried to get them to force the marriage.”

  “Poor Uncle Alex. No wonder he was so bad tempered. No one could understand why sweet Aunt Lissie married him.”

  “Miss Edi did it,” Mike said. “That’s why Grans hated her so much. Lissie’s family was about to marry her off to some aspiring young politician, but then Miss Edi stepped in and arranged an elopement.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone less suited for the campaign trail than my aunt Lissie.”

  “She was like you,” Mike said. “You’d hate dealing with strangers.”

  “I wouldn’t. I like to meet people. I—” She saw Mike’s look. “Okay, so I like family better. So Miss Edi saved Alex from going to jail and gave him the beautiful Lissie for a wife? I guess that’s why he was so grateful to Miss Edi after she retired.”

  “I would imagine so. It took Tess years of digging to ferret out all the information. But from what I heard, Alex and Lissie were a good match. Alex was a poor man from a good family, while Lissie’s family was newly wealthy and from redneck stock.”

  “That explains a lot,” Sara said. “I always wondered about them because Aunt Lissie was careful to be very proper, while Uncle Alex belched at the table.”

  “The right of kings,” Mike said.

  Sara was thinking about all he’d told her. “Your grandmother was filled with hatred because she believed she’d been raped by Uncle Alex, but he wasn’t punished in any way.”

  “Grans hated the people of Edilean because they wouldn’t help her in her attempt to force him to marry her.”

  “Do you think people knew that Miss Edi lied when she gave Alex an alibi?” Sara asked.

  “You grew up here, so what do