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After 211 Nights Slept in a Cargo Van, She Paid $42 for a Mossy Cottage — Under the Floor Was... — Transcript

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0:0028 years ago, a girl was killed on this
0:02road, and the man who did it is still
0:05signing bills in Washington.
0:07Snow slides off a mossy roof somewhere
0:10above a dormer or window. A green digit
0:13on a dashboard blinking 447.
0:16Night number 211 in a parking lot that
0:19forgets your name. 300 m north, the roof
0:23of an abandoned cottage has grown its
0:25own weather. Moss so thick it looks like
0:28something was buried under velvet and
0:30left to breathe. A porch where three
0:33columns have snapped and lie across the
0:36deck like fallen soldiers. Birches with
0:38no leaves. Oak leaves the color of
0:41strong tea. Inside a wood stove waits
0:44with a fire already laid. A row of
0:48carved birds on a mantle, one of them
0:51heavier than the others. A young woman
0:53stands at the top of the slope. olive
0:56khaki backpack, red leather skirt, $42
1:00in her pocket, and a key she does not
1:03yet understand.
1:05Behind the stove and pencil, almost gone
1:08two words.
1:10The hand that wrote them has been dead
1:12since 1998. The windshield had a map of
1:16frost on it when Marley opened her eyes.
1:204:47 in the morning, the dashboard said.
1:23The green digits throbbed through a
1:25layer of condensation like a heartbeat.
1:28Somebody had buried under wet gauze.
1:32Chelmsford Walmart, row 12, night number
1:36211. She didn't move at first, just lay
1:40there in the myar blanket, breathing
1:42shallow, counting the pattern of her own
1:45exhale as it bloomed and faded against
1:47the glass above her face.
1:49The van was cold the way only February
1:52in Massachusetts could be cold. A cold
1:55with teeth, not opinions. The kind that
1:58got into the metal frame of the
2:00Econoline and sang behind her under a
2:03blue tarp secured with ratchet straps.
2:06The barber chair weighed 68 kilos.
2:10Cast iron base, chrome hydraulic post,
2:13cracked ox blood vinyl seat.
2:17Her grandmother had hauled that chair
2:19into the apartment above the Duncan on
2:21Marramac Street in 1976
2:24and never moved it since
2:27until Marley moved it,
2:30which was the first thing she did after
2:31the fire. Before she even picked up a
2:34change of clothes, the Japanese thinning
2:36shears were in her left boot. She slept
2:39with them there, not because she was
2:42afraid, because they were the only clean
2:45thing she owned.
2:48Her phone buzzed on the dash.
2:50Ro tansel, clear horizons.
2:55Six words.
2:57Austster job0800 Brattleboro. Bring big.
3:02She stared at the message.
3:05Bring big meant bring the full van, not
3:07the pickup.
3:08Big load, full house. Marley sat up,
3:13rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with
3:15the heel of her palm, checked the
3:18overhead cabinet where she kept the
3:20things that mattered. The envelope with
3:22the insurance denial letter inside,
3:25laminated at the staples on Route 3, so
3:28Coffee couldn't finish what Vince
3:30Delicort's dryer outlet had started. The
3:33folder from attorney Yousef Kemp, whose
3:36contingency fee contract was slimmer
3:39than a prayer. The spiral notebook where
3:42she wrote names of clients she still
3:44owed appointments to. The notebook was 6
3:47months old. She had written in it three
3:50times total. She looked at her Venmo
3:52balance, $127.
3:56The gas tank half the job today. 300
4:01cash if Ro said so. And Ro always always
4:04said so.
4:06Okay. She could keep breathing. She
4:10pulled the myar blanket off and swung
4:12her legs down into the galley space
4:14between the mattress platform and the
4:17driver's seat. Pulled on her black
4:19boots. The red leather skirt was on the
4:22hook above the second battery. She
4:25stepped into it, pulled it up, zip, slid
4:30the denim jacket on over the tank top.
4:33The jacket cropped at the hipbone,
4:35washed about 300 times, soft as a
4:38prayer. Her hair, she just finger
4:41combed. There was no mirror in the van.
4:44There had not been a mirror in the van
4:46since the first week when she realized
4:48she did not want to see herself without
4:50the salon lights behind her shoulder.
4:53Marley climbed into the driver's seat.
4:55The engine turned over on the fourth
4:57try. She let it idle 5 minutes, which
5:01was 5 minutes of listening to the thing
5:03she had made her bedroom. The ticking
5:06under the hood, the hum of the fuel pump
5:08she had replaced in September with a
5:10rebuilt one from a scrapyard in
5:12Lawrence, the whisper of air through the
5:15heater core, which still smelled faintly
5:17of mildew because she had never figured
5:19out how to flush it. She touched the
5:21dashboard once, flat palm.
5:263 seconds,
5:27a habit from her grandmother's
5:29apartment.
5:31You thank the house. You thank the
5:33truck. You thank the chair. Then she put
5:37it in drive and rolled out of row 12
5:39past the pallets of road salt. Past the
5:42orange construction barrels nobody had
5:43moved since Thanksgiving out onto Route
5:46110, heading north toward 495.
5:50The sky above Lel was the specific gray
5:53of old pigeon feathers. Marley had grown
5:56up under that sky. She knew the way the
5:59clouds pressed low in February. The way
6:02they held the smell of the Marramac
6:04River against the brick mills until you
6:06couldn't tell what was fog and what was
6:08factory ghost.
6:10She had cut hair in that gray for 8
6:13years. Started at 17.
6:16apprenticed with her grandmother for
6:18three years, took over the shop when the
6:21cancer finished its slow work in 2022,
6:25and ran it alone for just under four
6:27more years before Vincent Delicort
6:30decided that a licensed electrician was
6:32a luxury he could skip on a Saturday.
6:35Vince was 68. He had owned the two-story
6:38brick on Marramac since 1991.
6:42His grandson Nikki was supposed to
6:44inherit it. Vince had told Marley this
6:47on three separate occasions, usually
6:50while she was midcut on one of his
6:52nephews, usually in a tone that
6:54suggested she should be grateful he had
6:57not already evicted her to make the
7:00first floor retail bay into a vape shop.
7:03The dryer outlet in the back of the shop
7:05had been throwing sparks since August.
7:08Marley had emailed Vince about it twice.
7:11He had replied once, taking care of it.
7:14He took care of it on September 3rd at 7
7:17in the morning before the shop opened
7:20with a roll of residential grade wire
7:23from the Home Depot on the low connector
7:26and a pair of pliers. By 7:40, the back
7:30wall was on fire. By 7:52, the two
7:34engines from Lowel Fire had the hydrant
7:36open. By 9:15, the inspector was walking
7:39Marley through the ash and saying the
7:42words, "Ooperator error." like it was a
7:45flavor of ice cream. By November 7th,
7:48Hanley Mutual had sent the denial
7:50letter. By December, Marley had sold the
7:53washer and dryer, the three styling
7:55stations, the back bar, the curig, the
7:58mini fridge, the two-frame Vidal Sassoon
8:01posters her grandmother had put up in
8:031983. She had kept the chair, the
8:06shears, the license, the empty
8:09appointment book, and the van she bought
8:12with the last of her 401k.
8:15Because attorney Yousef Kemp said the
8:18lawsuit against Vince and Hanley might
8:20take two years. Three, four, nobody
8:23could promise. which was how a
8:2626-year-old cosmetologist with a
8:28Massachusetts license in a dead
8:30grandmother ended up living out of a
8:321998 Ford Econoline cargo van in a
8:37Walmart parking lot in Chelmsford.
8:39She merged onto 495. The sun came up
8:43somewhere behind the clouds, which meant
8:45the gray turned a slightly warmer shade
8:48of gray.
8:49She passed Lawrence, then Havill, then
8:54the New Hampshire line, where a
8:55billboard for a casino and a billboard
8:58for Jesus faced each other across six
9:01lanes of asphalt
9:03like two salesmen at a county fair who
9:06hadn't talked in years.
9:09Her phone buzzed again. Row
9:13painting in upstairs sitting room. Flag
9:16it before you move it. Three churches
9:20split the artwork. Marley frowned. Ro
9:23never mentioned specific items. He
9:26trusted her to catalog on site. She
9:29wrote back. Why? The reply came back
9:33fast in his usual compressed way. The
9:36lady's family lawyer called this
9:38morning. Said one of the paintings might
9:40not be hers to give. Wants me to flag
9:43anything with an address or signature on
9:45the back. Marley read it twice.
9:49Copy. She tossed the phone on the
9:51passenger seat and watched the mile
9:54markers slip by. Her chest did a thing
9:57she didn't have a word for. Not nerves,
10:00not excitement. Something older than
10:03both.
10:04Something that felt like a door being
10:06pushed open in a house she had never
10:09been inside before.
10:11She told herself to stop.
10:14Flagging a painting was flagging a
10:16painting. People's great ants owned
10:19things that got complicated.
10:22That was 90% of estate work. Except
10:27Except she couldn't stop the feeling. So
10:30she turned up the heater and drove. The
10:33house was on Lynden Street in
10:34Brattleboro, three blocks off Maine.
10:37White Queen Anne, two and a half stories
10:40slate roof. wraparound porch where the
10:43paint had gone to pieces in the shaded
10:45places near the dentals. A ginko in the
10:48front yard bare for winter standing like
10:51a woman with her arms up asking somebody
10:53to please stop pretending they hadn't
10:55seen her. Ro Tansel's F250 was in the
10:59driveway. The Clear Horizon's decal on
11:02the door panel was his cousin's
11:03handwork. A hemlock sprig over the words
11:07in a muted sage that looked like
11:09something you'd want to touch.
11:11Marley pulled the Econoline in behind
11:14the pickup, killed the engine, sat a
11:17second, feeling the heater fade.
11:20She climbed out. Ro was on the porch,
11:23clipboard in one hand, Thermos in the
11:25other. 29, built like a man who had done
11:29roofing until his knees quit dark eyes.
11:32A beard trimmed to maybe 1 millimeter
11:34past stubble. He wore the same canvas
11:38Carheart jacket every day she had known
11:40him. And he had a way of looking at a
11:42room the way other people looked at a
11:44chessboard.
11:46He nodded at her. He didn't smile. Ro
11:50didn't smile much. It wasn't about
11:53warmth. It was about the economy of his
11:55face. The painting was upstairs. He told
11:58her second floor sitting room wall
12:02opposite the window.
12:04She would know it.
12:06Marley asked him how.
12:09Ro took a sip from the thermos. The
12:12pause before he answered was longer than
12:14the answer itself, which came out as the
12:16sort of certainty that did not want
12:18examining. She stepped past him into the
12:21house. The smell hit her the way a state
12:24houses always hit her. Old paper,
12:27lavender from a sache somebody had
12:29tucked into a linen cupboard 20 years
12:31ago. wood smoke that had soaked into the
12:34wallpaper over four or five decades.
12:37And underneath all of it, that specific
12:40absence that empty houses carry. The
12:43smell of a person who used to warm the
12:45air with their breath and now did not.
12:48The entryway had a coat tree, three
12:51coats on it, still a wool trench, a
12:55yellow raincoat,
12:57and a corduroy barn coat with a name tag
13:00on the lapel that read Wifred.
13:03Marley touched the sleeve of the yellow
13:05raincoat with two fingers, lifted them
13:08away. She climbed the stairs. The second
13:12floor landing opened onto four doors.
13:15Ro had taped a letter to each one.
13:18A BC D. Marley walked to the one marked
13:22C and pushed it open. Sitting room bay
13:25window looking into the ginko. A green
13:29velvet reading chair worn to the
13:30stuffing on the right armrest. Floor
13:33lamp with a stained glass shade. A
13:36ladder bookshelf along the inside wall.
13:38Every shelf crowded with field guides
13:40and library discards. And three issues
13:43of National Geographic from the summer
13:45of 1983.
13:47and the wall opposite the window.
13:49Paintings maybe 30 hung closed. No
13:53breathing room like a Parisian salon
13:55curated by somebody who did not care
13:57what Paris thought. Mostly amateur oils
14:01and watercolors. Vermont landscapes, a
14:05pond with a lon, a barn in snow, a dog
14:09that looked arthritic even in the
14:11painting. Marley's eye went to one small
14:168 by 10 oil on panel lower right corner
14:20almost hidden by a larger watercolor of
14:23a Jersey cow a cottage two stories
14:28cedar shingles gone almost black with
14:30age steep pitched roof under a thick
14:33coat of green moss that was almost its
14:36own weather system
14:38one dormer window with divided panes a
14:41wrap around porch where three columns
14:43had splintered and were lying diagonal
14:46across the floorboards.
14:48A patch of pale pinewood on the lower
14:50roof slope square the color of a scar.
14:53Birches around it, dry oak leaves on the
14:56ground.
14:58Marley stopped breathing for a second.
15:00She didn't know why. something about the
15:03moss, the particular green, the way the
15:07painter had let the paint pile up
15:09slightly in the ridges where the
15:10shingles had warped. Whoever painted
15:13this had stood at that cottage with the
15:15thing in front of them long enough to
15:17notice the small, cheerful horror of
15:20what time had done to the roof. She
15:23lifted the painting off the wall. Light,
15:26lighter than it looked. She turned it
15:29over. The back of the panel was raw
15:32wood. Someone had written on it in black
15:34fountain pen ink, now a tired brown.
15:39Four lines.
15:41The hand was neat, slightly
15:42backwardleaning, the way left-handers
15:44write when they have been corrected too
15:46young.
15:48Hemlock Hollow Road, Jamaica.
15:51If you see this, come.
15:54The door still opens.
15:57WO203.
16:01Marley read it three times.
16:04Her first thought was somebody's lover.
16:07Her second thought was somebody's child.
16:11Her third thought was somebody's regret.
16:14She did not have a fourth thought
16:16because her hands were shaking. She set
16:19the painting on the velvet chair
16:22face up the cottage looking at her. Then
16:26she went downstairs and told Ro. Ro
16:28listened without a word. Took the
16:31painting from her, turned it over, read
16:34the inscription, and let out a breath
16:36that was not surprise. It was the breath
16:39of a man confirming a thing he had
16:41already half suspected.
16:43He said one word, which was the word
16:45okay, and then he was pulling his phone
16:48from his back pocket and walking out
16:50onto the porch. Marley stayed in the
16:53entryway, looked at the yellow raincoat
16:55again, then at the barn coat with
16:58Wifred's name on it, then at the
17:00painting on the velvet chair visible
17:02through the open door of sitting room C.
17:05She was still looking when Ro came back.
17:0912:30 he told her. Elliot Street, Devo
17:13Mendler,
17:14Winnie's estate attorney. There was row
17:18added a clause, the kind the attorney
17:20had been waiting 25 years to use. Marley
17:24lifted her chin at that, but did not
17:27answer. Devo Mendler's office was in the
17:30back of a strip mall on Elliot Street
17:32between a vape shop with the lights off
17:34and a tax preparer with a cardboard
17:36eagle in the window. The sign on the
17:39door read Mendler Law, estate probate
17:43small business in the kind of sirif font
17:46that had not been fashionable since
17:481994,
17:50but had refused to be redone out of
17:52principle. Mendler was 48, thinning
17:55hair, pink cheeks,
17:58eyeglasses on a chain. He wore a
18:02cardigan the color of cream of mushroom
18:04soup, and he smelled faintly of corn
18:07beef.
18:08which was a specific smell that Marley
18:10had only ever encountered at law offices
18:13in southern Vermont and could not
18:15explain.
18:17He waved her into the chair across from
18:19his desk without standing.
18:22He confirmed her name and confirmed that
18:25Ro had told him she had found the panel.
18:27He opened a drawer, pulled out a manila
18:30folder, set it on the desk, flipped it
18:34open, turned it so she could read the
18:37top page, a trust document, dated
18:41October 1st, 2001.
18:44The settler was listed as Wifred Janine
18:47Auster. The trustee was Mendler Law
18:50successor trustees to be appointed by
18:52law firm. The trust corpus listed one
18:55asset parcel
18:57a-427
19:00hemlock hollow road town of Jamaica
19:05Windham County Vermont
19:070.4 and 4 acres. Dwelling structure one
19:12status resident deceased. No claim held
19:15pending condition.
19:18Marley read it slow. Mendler tapped a
19:22line 2 in down the page. Clause 7, he
19:25said. She looked upon the death of the
19:29settler the trustee shall convey the
19:31property in fee simple to the first
19:34natural person who presents at the
19:36trustes office and requests the property
19:38by its complete postal address spoken
19:40aloud provided one no family member or
19:44heir of the settler shall be eligible
19:46too. The person shall remit a nominal
19:49administrative fee of $42,
19:51$42 in certified funds, and three, the
19:55request shall be made within 50/50 years
19:58of the settller's death. Marley looked
20:00up and said,
20:02"The one thing a woman says when a piece
20:05of paper on an attorney's desk has
20:07started to breathe." She asked whether
20:10this was legal. Mendler closed the
20:12folder. He walked her through the small
20:15history of it in the slow patient voice
20:17attorneys use when they are explaining a
20:20thing they are proud of having drafted.
20:22Conditional dispositions in trust had
20:25been upheld in Vermont as long as the
20:28condition was lawful, definite, and not
20:30against public policy. Clause 7 met all
20:33three. Winnie had paid him an annual
20:36retainer of $40 for 25 years to keep the
20:40trust alive and waiting. He had filed
20:43the probate reservation every January.
20:46She had been his first client. She had
20:48signed him up before he had put a
20:50shingle outside.
20:52She had told him in her way that she had
20:54something to put somewhere and that she
20:56needed a boy young enough to still be
20:58alive when the right person came. Marley
21:01asked if Winnie had ever said who.
21:03Mendler smiled a tiny smile once. She
21:08had told him he would know her the day
21:09she walked in and said the whole address
21:12Jamaica Vermont and all which he added
21:15Marley had just done in the hallway
21:20to row
21:21who had called him. Marley swallowed.
21:25She wanted to know how Winnie could have
21:27known somebody would walk in. Mendler
21:30shrugged.
21:32She didn't. He told her. She hoped there
21:35was a difference. He pushed a card
21:37reader across the desk. "$42," he said
21:42in what the trust called certified
21:44funds, which in her case meant a debit
21:47card and him running it through Square.
21:51He had a line in the trust that treated
21:53that as equivalent to a cashier's check.
21:56Because Winnie had trusted him to write
21:58her clauses in a way they would not get
22:00killed on technicality, Marley pulled
22:03out her visa, tapped it. the reader
22:06chirped. Mendler took the card, slid out
22:09a sheet of paper, flipped it to the page
22:12with the signature line, and handed her
22:14a pen. She signed Marley Joe Hollandbeck
22:18in the loose cursive her grandmother had
22:20drilled into her at the kitchen table in
22:221998.
22:24Mendler stamped a notary seal onto a
22:27second page.
22:29Date, time, signature,
22:33his own.
22:35He opened another drawer, removed a
22:38small manila envelope, slid it across to
22:41her. Inside was a key, brass, old, tied
22:46to a strip of pale blue grog grain
22:48ribbon that had gone the color of a
22:50dove's wing. He also slid across a
22:54photocopy of a handdrawn map.
22:57North Arrow, the town of Jamaica.
23:02A thin squiggle marked Hemlock Hollow
23:04Road. A dot at the end of the squiggle
23:07with the words, "The door still opens
23:10written next to it." In the same
23:12backwardleaning hand, that had signed
23:14the back of the painting. Marley stared.
23:18The question was already in her face
23:20before she said it. Mendler took off his
23:22glasses and polished them against the
23:24sleeve of his cardigan.
23:27In 25 years, he told her he had had
23:29seven people walk into this office and
23:32ask about that property. Two of them had
23:35been developers who had seen it on the
23:37county plat.
23:38Three had been antique scouts. One had
23:42been a cousin of Winnie's by marriage
23:44who had gotten nothing in the main will
23:46and had wanted to see if there was
23:47leverage.
23:49All six of them had tried to buy the
23:51parcel. None of them had said the
23:53address. Marley asked about the seventh.
23:57A journalist Mendler told her four years
24:00ago. She had come close. She had said
24:03the Oster place in Jamaica, which was
24:06not the clause. He had told her no. She
24:10had shaken his hand and left.
24:13He put his glasses back on and said that
24:15Marley had said Hemlock Hollow Road,
24:18Jamaica, Vermont
24:20in the hallway to Row,
24:24who had called him. That was the full
24:27address. That was the clause. She won.
24:32Marley did not think it felt like
24:34winning. Mendler did not disagree. He
24:37stood and extended his hand. He told her
24:40it was the beginning of something.
24:42Winnie, he said, had been very specific
24:45about that distinction.
24:48Marley shook his hand. Mandler walked
24:51her to the door. He paused with his hand
24:54on the knob and said one more thing. She
24:57was going to want to clear her
24:59afternoon. The road did not like being
25:02driven in the dark. And if she could,
25:05she should not go alone.
25:07Marley looked at him and told him she
25:09was always alone. He opened the door. He
25:13said he was telling her anyway. The
25:15route from Elliot Street to Hemlock
25:16Hollow Road was 52 minutes. If the road
25:20to Jamaica was clear, which in late
25:22February was never a safe bet.
25:26Marley took Route 30 west out of
25:29Brattlebar, climbed through West, hit
25:32the four corners at Rosenville, and bore
25:34left onto Route 100, past the Jamaica
25:38State Park entrance.
25:41The ski traffic from Stratton had
25:43already thinned by 2 in the afternoon.
25:46The sky above the valley kept its pigeon
25:48feather gray, but the clouds dropped
25:51lower as she climbed. And by the time
25:53she pulled off the paved road onto the
25:55dirt track with the handmade sign nailed
25:58to a birch trunk, Hemlockk Hollow Road,
26:03residence only,
26:05no winter maintenance.
26:08The first flakes had started. The
26:10Econoline was not a vehicle built for
26:13Vermont dirt in winter. Marley knew
26:16this. She drove it anyway, slow in low
26:21gear.
26:22Both hands on the wheel, watching the
26:25tire tracks of whoever had been up here
26:27last.
26:29A single set, maybe a weak old snow
26:31filled in the ruts. Nobody drove up here
26:34regularly. The road climbed a quarter
26:37mile, then forked. The left branch had a
26:40chain across it with a posted sign. The
26:43right branch had no chain and no sign.
26:46Marley took the right. The road
26:49narrowed. Birch gave way to hemlock.
26:52Gave way to more birch. The ruts became
26:55two parallel scratches in the ground and
26:58then just one scratch and then just a
27:00clearing. She parked, killed the engine,
27:05sat. The quiet was the kind of quiet
27:08that had weight. The kind of quiet that
27:10made a city person's eardrums hum
27:13because they couldn't locate it. Marley
27:16was not a city person. Lel was not a
27:19city in that sense. But she had never
27:22been in woods this still. And she sat
27:25for a full minute listening to the
27:26ticking of the econoline's cooling block
27:29and the small faroff tap of a woodpecker
27:32somewhere she could not see. She got
27:36out, changed into her boots, zipped the
27:39denim jacket to her collarbone, pulled
27:42the olive khaki canvas backpack onto one
27:44shoulder. In the backpack, she had the
27:47painting wrapped in a flannel, the key
27:50in her front pocket, her phone, a
27:53granola bar, and the laminated denial
27:56letter because she always carried it the
27:59way other people carried a lucky coin or
28:01a saint medal. She walked. The map
28:05Mendler had copied for her showed about
28:07300 m of trail from the end of the road
28:09to the cottage.
28:11There was no trail. There was just a
28:14line between the birches where the
28:16undergrowth was lower, where a path
28:19might have been 30 years ago and had not
28:22been maintained since.
28:24Marley followed it. Her boots crunched
28:27through a layer of dry oak leaves that
28:29had somehow blown this far up a hillside
28:32of birch.
28:34Snow began to stick on her shoulders.
28:36She tightened her backpack strap. She
28:39came over a slight rise and stopped. The
28:43cottage was down the slope from her
28:44maybe 40 m set in a bowl of forest where
28:47the trees open just enough to let the
28:50slate gray sky touch the top of the
28:52roof. The roof.
28:56She had seen the roof in the painting.
28:58She was seeing it now. A thick blanket
29:01of moss, bright green under the gray
29:03afternoon, so dense it looked less like
29:06growth, and more like somebody had
29:08thrown a bolt of velvet across the cedar
29:10shingles and left it there for 40 years.
29:14The dormer window jutted out of the moss
29:17like a small, determined face peering
29:20out of a hood.
29:22The main roof pitched steeply down to
29:24the lower porch roof, which pitched
29:26again, and both were under moss, and the
29:29moss was uninterrupted except for one
29:31square patch of pale pine. On the lower
29:34slope, the color of healing skin. The
29:36walls of the cottage were cedar shingle
29:39gone almost black. In places, the
29:41shingles had curled and fallen, leaving
29:44bare l.
29:45The wraparound porch extended across the
29:48front and down the near side.
29:52Three of the peeled log columns had
29:54broken. One lay diagonally across the
29:57porch deck. One had splintered in half
30:00and the top half dangled from the porch
30:02roof by a single rusted bolt. One had
30:05collapsed entirely and was lying in the
30:07oak leaves below the porch slowly
30:09becoming soil. The porch floorboards had
30:12warped. Two had rotted through. The
30:16birch trees around the cottage had no
30:18leaves. They were white and black and
30:22the color of bone china that had been
30:24left on a window sill too long. The oak
30:27leaves on the ground were the color of
30:29strong tea. Marley stood with her back
30:32to the trail and looked at it. The light
30:34was almost gone. The flakes were
30:37falling. Her olive khaki backpack hung
30:40on her right shoulder. Her denim jacket
30:42was zipped.
30:44The red of her leather skirt was the
30:46only warm color in the whole clearing.
30:50She stood like that for a long time.
30:53Later, when she tried to describe this
30:56moment to Kit or Lauren, she would say
30:59it felt like the house had been waiting
31:01for her the way a dog waits for the
31:03sound of a specific car.
31:06Not any car. One car, the one it
31:11recognized without being told. She
31:13started down the slope. The porch
31:16creaked under her boots and did not
31:18give. She tested each board before
31:21putting her full weight on it. The front
31:24door was oak weathered to silver with a
31:26cast iron thumb latch and a mortise lock
31:29below the latch. The lock plate was
31:32green with age. The keyhole was shaped
31:35like an old-fashioned skeleton pattern,
31:38a round shaft with a flat bit at the
31:41bottom. The key in Marley's pocket
31:43matched. She slid it in. It resisted at
31:47first. Then, with a small, gritty slide,
31:50it turned. The door swung inward. She
31:54stepped inside. The smell hit her before
31:57her eyes adjusted. cedar, clean paper,
32:02cold ash,
32:04and underneath something warmer,
32:07something human that she could not place
32:10and would not place for another two
32:12days. She stood in the open doorway and
32:15let her eyes work. parlor, low ceiling,
32:20a braided rug on wide plank floors, a
32:23wood stove in the center of the room,
32:26cast iron, yo brand, black as
32:30riverstones,
32:32a split basket of kindling to the right
32:34of the stove, drystacked crosshatch,
32:38a single armchair by the window,
32:39upholstered in a faded green wool, a
32:43pine table with two chairs on a mantle
32:46over the stove, a line of carved wooden
32:49birds, maybe 12 of them, varying sizes,
32:52chickade and jay and nuthatch and
32:54sparrow, arranged from smallest on the
32:56left to largest on the right. Marley
32:59stepped inside,
33:01closed the door behind her. The storm
33:04sounds of the forest went quiet. She
33:07breathed.
33:08She walked slowly. The floor did not
33:11creek the way she expected. Someone had
33:14kept this floor in a condition it had no
33:17right to be in. The planks fit tight.
33:21The gaps had been filled with hemp cord,
33:23old but intact. She crossed to the
33:26mantle. The birds were beautifully made.
33:30Not master level, not folk crude.
33:34Somewhere in the middle, a patient hand.
33:38a hand that had taken a very long time
33:41with each piece and had not been in a
33:43hurry. She touched the smallest
33:46chickity. It did not move.
33:49She turned. The kitchen was through a
33:52doorway to the left.
33:54She stepped into it. A cast iron sink. A
33:58hand pump at the counter. A rainwater
34:01jar in the corner litted half full
34:04clean. A gas-fed Humphrey lamp bolted to
34:07a crossbeam. No gas line visible,
34:10probably decorative. A cupboard.
34:14She opened it. Mason jars. All empty,
34:18but clean. One jar had a strip of
34:21masking tape with a word written on it
34:23in pencil.
34:25Patience.
34:27Marley did not touch the jar. She closed
34:30the cupboard. She went back into the
34:32parlor. There was a staircase at the
34:35back of the room, narrow, almost ladder
34:39steep, leading up to the dormer attic.
34:42She climbed. The attic was one room,
34:45just one. A single cot with a wool
34:48blanket folded at the foot. A writing
34:52desk under the dormer or window. A
34:55kerosene lamp on the desk. A bookshelf
34:58against the sloped wall holding
35:00Peterson's field guides to about seven
35:02things, plus a row of ledger- sized
35:04hardcover journals, maybe 30 of them
35:07bound in dark cloth. No titles on the
35:10spines.
35:12Marley crossed to the desk. She sat down
35:15in the small wooden chair. She did not
35:18touch the journals. Not yet. She looked
35:22out the dormer window. The forest was
35:24turning from gray to blue. Snow was
35:28collecting on the sill outside the
35:30glass.
35:31From up here, she could see the
35:33collapsed porch column lying in the oak
35:35leaves. She could see the ruts where her
35:38van was parked. She could see no road
35:41beyond that. No lights, no other roof.
35:46No sign of any other human being who had
35:48ever been in this stretch of hemlock
35:50woods. She breathed out. She was alone.
35:55She had bought a house for $42. She
35:58climbed back down the ladder stairs. She
36:00crossed to the wood stove. She opened
36:03the firebox.
36:04Inside, somebody had laid a fire.
36:08Kindling birch bark. Three split pieces
36:12of hard maple
36:14already arranged,
36:16already waiting.
36:18All it needed was a match. Marley found
36:21the matches on a shelf above the stove
36:24in a tin that had once held throat
36:26lozenes.
36:27She struck one. She touched it to the
36:30birch bark. The bark caught. Fire
36:34bloomed in the dark iron belly of the
36:36stove. She closed the firebox door. She
36:39stood up and realized she was crying.
36:42Not the way she had cried in September
36:44when the inspector said operator error.
36:47Not the way she had cried in November
36:49when attorney Kemp said this might take
36:522 years. Not the way she had cried in
36:55the Walmart lot in December when a man
36:57in his 70s tapped on her window and
36:59handed her a chemical hand warmer and
37:02asked if she needed anything else. This
37:05was a different crying. It had a
37:07different weight. She wiped her face
37:09with the back of her wrist and looked
37:12around the parlor. Her backpack was by
37:15the door. She picked it up,
37:18set it on the pine table, opened it,
37:22took out the painting, still wrapped in
37:24flannel,
37:26unwrapped it. She set the painting on
37:29the mantle in front of the row of carved
37:31birds facing out.
37:34The painted cottage looked at the real
37:36cottage. They matched.
37:40She stepped back. The fire light was
37:42warming the room by degrees. The
37:44kerosene lamp upstairs would be useful
37:47for the night, but she needed something
37:49to light it with. That was not a hearth
37:52match. She remembered the kitchen
37:55cupboard, the jars. There had been a
37:58drawer under the counter. She went back
38:01into the kitchen, opened the drawer.
38:04Inside a strip of candle stubs, a pack
38:07of waterproof matches, a folded dish
38:10towel, a small ring of three keys she
38:14did not recognize, and underneath all of
38:16it, a single piece of paper sealed
38:19inside a laminator sleeve the way she
38:21had sealed her denial letter. The
38:24lamination was yellowed at the edges,
38:26but intact.
38:27She lifted it out. A photocopy of a
38:31newspaper clipping. Windham County
38:33Register. Thursday, May 14th, 1998.
38:39Local waitress found dead near Jamaica
38:41cabin. Marley's eyes moved down the
38:44column. Deline Marie Yearwood, 23, of
38:47Townsend was found deceased Tuesday
38:50morning in a culvert off Hemlock Hollow
38:52Road in the town of Jamaica. Yearwood
38:54was last seen Monday evening at
38:56approximately 10:40 p.m. leaving her
38:59shift at the Grace and How Diner on
39:01Route 100. The Windham County Sheriff's
39:05Department has stated the cause of death
39:07is under investigation,
39:09but a department spokesman confirmed
39:11foul play has not been ruled out.
39:15Yearwood is survived by her mother, two
39:17sisters, and a four-year-old daughter.
39:19Marley read it twice, then a third time.
39:23She looked up from the clipping. She
39:26looked at the kitchen, the hand pump,
39:29the rainwater jar, the jar on the shelf
39:32with the pencil word patience on the
39:34tape.
39:36She looked past the kitchen doorway at
39:38the parlor, the fire, the painting on
39:42the mantle, the row of birds. The
39:45cottage had a history. The cottage was
39:48not just quiet. The cottage was made
39:52quiet.
39:53Somebody had kept this place in
39:55condition.
39:57Somebody had laid a fire.
40:00Somebody had left a laminated newspaper
40:02clipping about a dead 23-year-old
40:04waitress in a kitchen drawer with the
40:06candles and the matches. Marley put the
40:09clipping on the pine table beside the
40:11painting. She stood very still. She
40:14wasn't scared. That was the strange
40:16part. She was something else. something
40:20that had no name in English and probably
40:22had names in languages she did not
40:25speak.
40:26She walked back to the mantle. She
40:29looked at the row of birds, 12 of them.
40:33Chickity, blue jay, nuthatch,
40:37house ren, barn swallow,
40:41two sparrows,
40:43a thrush, a kingfisher,
40:47a kinglet,
40:49a junko,
40:51a phoebe,
40:53the sparrows, two of them side by side.
40:57The one on the left was pale pine grain
41:00visible light to lift. The one on the
41:02right, darker wood, walnut, maybe or
41:07black cherry,
41:09heavier looking.
41:11Marley picked it up. It was heavy. She
41:15tilted it. Something inside shifted. A
41:19small metallic click. Her stomach did a
41:23thing. She examined the sparrow in her
41:25hands. The base was flat. The grain of
41:29the wood ran down the body and continued
41:31across the base without interruption,
41:34which meant somebody had turned the base
41:36from the same billet.
41:39But there on the underside, almost
41:41invisible, was a line,
41:44a hairline seam,
41:46a circular joint.
41:49Marley set the sparrow upright on the
41:51pine table beside the clipping.
41:54She tried to twist the base. It did not
41:57move. She tried the other direction.
42:00With a small gritty resistance, it
42:02moved. A quarter turn, then a half. Then
42:07the base came loose in her hand.
42:10Something fell onto the pine table with
42:13a tiny chiming sound. A silver key.
42:18Not brass this time. Silver.
42:22Smaller than the brass front door key.
42:25the size of a padlock key or a jewelry
42:27box key or the key to an old military
42:29foot locker.
42:31Marley stared at it. Then she looked
42:34around the parlor. Her eye went to the
42:37wood stove, the stove pipe, the brick
42:41hearth, the wall behind the stove. The
42:44wall behind the stove was pegboard.
42:47Dark oil stained pegboard hung with
42:50hooks that had at some point held tools.
42:53A hatchet, a poker, a bellows,
42:58a small handbrush for ash.
43:01The tools were gone.
43:04Only the hooks remained,
43:06and one small nail with nothing on it.
43:10Above that nail in pencil, so faint it
43:13was almost invisible in a hand that was
43:15fast and angled, somebody had written
43:18two words, "Keep going." Marley read
43:21them twice. She did not recognize the
43:23handwriting from the back of the
43:25painting. The WO handwriting leaned
43:28backward, slow, neat, left-hander
43:32corrected young. This hand leaned
43:35forward, quick, almost brash, like
43:39somebody who had been riding fast
43:40because they were listening to someone
43:42else and wanted to catch the thing
43:44before it vanished.
43:46Marley did not know yet that she was
43:49looking at the handwriting of Deline
43:51Marie Yearwood,
43:53age 23, dead in a culvert since the
43:56second week of May 1998. For now, Marley
44:00only knew that someone at some point had
44:03written two words on a pegboard in a
44:06cottage with a mossy roof and had meant
44:09them.
44:10She looked at the silver key in her
44:12palm.
44:14She looked at the laminated clipping on
44:16the table.
44:18She looked at the pencil marks above the
44:20nail.
44:21She looked at the mantle where the
44:23painted cottage faced the real cottage
44:25and the row of birds stood in its line.
44:28And one of the birds, the sparrow, was
44:30now hollow and open and quiet. The
44:32firebox ticked as the maple caught.
44:35Somewhere in the walls of the cottage,
44:37in a space she could not yet see. A
44:41different wood began to warm. The snow
44:44outside the dormer window had turned the
44:46clearing white. Her van was already half
44:49covered. The way out had already started
44:52to close. Marley closed her fist around
44:56the silver key. She said one word out
44:59loud,
45:00to nobody.
45:02To the room, to the woman who had hung
45:05the painting in Brattleboro 23 years
45:08before and died alone on a Tuesday in
45:11February.
45:13to the 23-year-old waitress who had
45:15written, "Keep going." on a pegboard
45:17above a wood stove and had not lived to
45:19see Summer.
45:22Okay. She did not say it the way a
45:24person says yes to a question. She said
45:28it the way a person says yes to a weight
45:30she had agreed to carry.
45:33Outside, the snow kept falling, and the
45:35painted cottage on the mantle lit now by
45:38the first fire light the room had seen
45:40in a long time, looked exactly like the
45:43real one, which looked exactly like
45:46itself,
45:48which was finally no longer waiting.
45:52Marley did not sleep. She sat on the
45:54braided rug with her back against the
45:56wood stove's warm side and her knees
45:59drawn up and the silver key balanced on
46:02her palm. The fire had settled into the
46:05slow heartbeat phase, the one her
46:07grandmother used to call the breathing
46:09coals. Outside the dormer window,
46:12somewhere beyond the walls, the snow
46:14kept its work. By 3:00 in the morning,
46:17the clearing was 8 in deep. By 5, it was
46:2110.
46:22She knew because she climbed the ladder
46:24stairs twice to check, not because she
46:27was afraid of being snowed in, because
46:30she was afraid of leaving, which was a
46:33thing she had not expected to feel about
46:35a house she had owned for 9 hours. At 6,
46:38the gray came. Not sunlight, just the
46:42lifting of dark into something you could
46:44see your hand in. Marley stood up. Her
46:48hip joints complained.
46:50The denim crop top had ridden up in her
46:53sleep, and her lower back felt the chill
46:55where it had rested against the stove
46:57tiles. She tugged the jacket down, fixed
47:01her hair with her fingers, walked a slow
47:04circle around the parlor. The silver key
47:07was still in her palm. She had been
47:10avoiding the thing all night. She knew
47:12where it fit. She had known since the
47:15fire light first warmed the floor
47:16planks, and she had seen under the pine
47:19table in the shadow near the stair
47:21risers a dark rectangle set into the
47:23floor, not quite flush.
47:26The kind of seam a careful carpenter
47:29leaves because they want it findable
47:30later. She crossed the room and knelt.
47:34She slid the pine table aside. The
47:36rectangle in the floor was about the
47:38size of a bread box, four plank widths.
47:43The planks had been cut carefully
47:45refitted with a thin backer frame
47:47underneath, and the whole thing was
47:49pinned shut by a flush brass haspone
47:53carefully set below the surface of the
47:55wood so you would not see it unless you
47:58were looking. She was looking. The hasp
48:02had a padlock the size of her thumb.
48:05Silver,
48:07unmarked.
48:08The keyhole was the right size. She slid
48:12the key in. She turned. The lock sprang
48:15open with a bright metallic chirp that
48:18bounced off the kitchen tiles and made
48:20her flinch.
48:22She lifted the set it aside.
48:26The floor section lifted on a leather
48:28hinge somebody had sewn by hand.
48:32The underside of the lid was unfinished
48:34pine, lightly stained from decades of
48:37use.
48:39Below the lid in the cavity under the
48:41floor was a military foot locker. Olive
48:44drab steel
48:47the size of a small suitcase.
48:50Latches on the front not padlock just
48:52closed. Marley lifted it out. Set it on
48:56the pine table. Open the latches. Lifted
48:59the lid.
49:01The first thing she saw was money.
49:04Bundles of it. Not stacks the way banks
49:08stack. Rolls. Each one bound with a dark
49:12rubber band that had gone the color of
49:14dried blood.
49:1620s mostly. Some 50s. A few hundreds.
49:21She did not count. She was looking at
49:23the other things. Cassette tapes. 23 of
49:27them. TDK Maxel Sony. Clear plastic
49:32cases. labels in neat small hand.
49:36Numbers from 1 to 23.
49:39Beside each number a letter. Beside each
49:43letter a date.
49:45One
49:47on November 4th, 1991.
49:502B February 19th, 1992 3
49:56a May 6th, 1992.
50:00Marley did not understand the lettering
50:03yet. She would in about 40 minutes.
50:06Beside the stacked cassette cases was a
50:08notebook, leather bound, chocolate
50:12brown,
50:13tied shut with a cord of waxed hemp. The
50:17cord had been retied often enough that
50:19the knot had its own habits. Beneath the
50:22notebook, an envelope, cream colored,
50:26thick. The flap sealed with a disc of
50:29dark red ceiling wax pressed with the
50:31shape of a tiny bird.
50:34The front of the envelope said in the
50:36same backwardleaning hand that had
50:38written the inscription on the painting
50:40to whoever finds this. Marley did not
50:43open the envelope first.
50:45She did a thing her grandmother had
50:47taught her at a kitchen table in 1996
50:50when they had opened the box of Marley's
50:52mother's belongings for the first time
50:54together. You go slow. You lay things
50:58out. You do not read the letter first.
51:02You look at the room the person left
51:04behind and you let it tell you who they
51:07were. Then you open the letter. Then the
51:10letter is a voice you can place. So
51:13Marley laid the cassettes out, 23 of
51:16them, in a line along the pine table.
51:19She laid the notebook beside them. She
51:22left the envelope at the end. She sat
51:25down in one of the kitchen chairs and
51:27she looked at it all. The cottage
51:30breathed around her. The firebox ticked.
51:34Snow slid off the moss roof in a soft
51:37avalanche somewhere above the dormer.
51:40She picked up the notebook, untied the
51:43cord, opened it to the first page. The
51:46handwriting was the backwardleaning hand
51:48again. Wo the writer she had already
51:51started without her consent to call
51:53Winnie. If you have found this the first
51:56page read, then I did my waiting right.
51:59My name is Wifred Janine Oster. I was
52:03born in Brattleboro in 1932.
52:06I worked for 41 years as the children's
52:08and reference librarian at the Brooks
52:11Memorial Library on Main Street.
52:14I never married. I never had children of
52:17my own. I had a brother who died at
52:20Chosen and a mother who died of grief 6
52:22months after and a father who lived to
52:25be 92 and never once said my brother's
52:28name again after the Marines came to the
52:30door. I bought this cottage in 1974.
52:35with the money my father left me when he
52:37died. I was 42 years old. I came up here
52:41on weekends for 20 years by myself with
52:44a thermos of coffee and whatever woman
52:46had asked for my help that week. Marley
52:49stopped reading. She read the last line
52:52again. Whatever woman had asked for my
52:54help that week. She turned the page.
52:58Starting in the spring of 1991, the
53:00notebook went on. I began to make
53:03recordings.
53:05I used a Sony cassette recorder that I
53:07bought at Calder and Keen. The women
53:10knew. They always knew. None of them was
53:14ever recorded without their yes. If a
53:17woman said no, I turned the machine off
53:20and we only talked. If a woman said yes,
53:24I turned it on and I asked her to begin
53:26with her first name. And the first week,
53:28she remembered feeling afraid of a
53:30person. she did not want to be afraid
53:32of. I did not do this because I am a
53:35journalist. I am not a journalist. I did
53:38this because I was a children's
53:40librarian for 41 years and I know what
53:44it does to a child when the thing that
53:47happened to them is a thing nobody will
53:49say out loud.
53:51I did it because grown women are often
53:54children who were not allowed to say the
53:56thing out loud. And if the thing stays
53:59in them, it rots. The tape is the only
54:02thing I knew how to give them that would
54:04not rot. The number on each tape is the
54:06chronological order I recorded it. The
54:09letter means the category.
54:12A assault by a person in authority,
54:15doctor, teacher, pastor, officer of the
54:18law elected official. B. Assault by a
54:21family member. C. Assault by a spouse or
54:25partner. D. witnessing of a crime by a
54:28person in authority against another
54:30person. I kept them here because this
54:32cottage is the only property I owned
54:34where no man had ever had a key. I did
54:38not want them stored anywhere a
54:39locksmith might one day be called by
54:42somebody with a court order. If you have
54:44found this, I need you to understand
54:46three things. One, these voices belong
54:50to the women who gave them to me. They
54:52are not my voices. I was only the woman
54:56with the machine. If you ever share any
54:59of them, you must contact the woman
55:01first. Her name and her way of being
55:04reached is in the ledger I kept inside
55:06the lid of the foot locker. Two, if you
55:09cannot find the woman because she is
55:11dead, you may share her voice with her
55:14permission already given, which is
55:16marked beside her name with the word yes
55:19in capital letters. The women who said
55:23no are also marked. Please do not break
55:26their nose. Three. There is one tape in
55:29this collection tape 19 that I kept for
55:32a different reason. I kept it because
55:34the person speaking on tape 19 is the
55:37man I was waiting for. He is the man who
55:40in the spring of 2001 drove up to this
55:43cottage in a dark sedan and knocked on
55:46this door and offered me a sum of money
55:48I will not name to let him have the
55:50tapes.
55:51He did not get them. He got my boot heel
55:54across the top of his hand on his way
55:57out the door, which I am not proud of,
56:00and which is why he never came back.
56:04He told me his name at that door.
56:07I did not record it that day. I recorded
56:11it later in his own voice from a public
56:13radio appearance he gave in 2008.
56:17The tape of his own voice is tape 19.
56:20The transcript is in the ledger. You
56:22will know what to do when you hear him.
56:25The money in this chest was mine. It was
56:28small inheritance my father never knew
56:31about.
56:32Kept outside the bank and the earnings
56:35from 30 years of estate sales.
56:38I ran out of the house in Brattleboro.
56:42It is yours now. It will not solve the
56:45thing it needs to solve,
56:48but it will buy you time to be careful.
56:51And careful is what the women on these
56:54tapes need. My lawyer, Devo Mendler, is
56:56paid for the next 10 years. If you need
56:59him, he answers to you now. I am sorry I
57:03did not know you. I am very glad you
57:05came. Wifred Janine Oster,
57:10October 1st, 2015.
57:13Marley read the whole thing without
57:15lifting her head. Then she read it
57:18again.
57:19The second time through, she read it out
57:21loud softly.
57:24Her own voice shaking at yes in capital
57:27letters and again it break their nose
57:29and once more at I am very glad you
57:32came. She closed the notebook. She
57:34retied the hemp cord. She did not cry.
57:38She had done her crying the night before
57:40at the firebox when a stranger's cottage
57:44had warmed to her hand.
57:46She had used it up. The thing she felt
57:49now was something else. A kind of
57:52alertness that reached from the back of
57:54her skull to the tips of her fingers.
57:58She felt for the first time since
58:00September 3rd at 7 in the morning like a
58:03person who had something to do that was
58:06bigger than her own survival.
58:08She picked up the envelope. She broke
58:10the ceiling wax disc. Inside the
58:13envelope, three pages, different paper.
58:18Winnie's hand. The pages were titled in
58:21Winnie's small, careful print at the top
58:23of the first page. What I need you to
58:26do, Marley read. You do not need to be a
58:30hero. You need to be a careful listener.
58:33If you can do the second, you may become
58:35the first by accident. which is the only
58:38honest way it ever happens. First listen
58:41to tape one, not any other tape. Tape
58:45one. The woman who speaks on tape one is
58:48me. I made it the day I made the first
58:51recording of another woman. And I made
58:53it so that whoever finally opened this
58:56chest would hear my voice before any of
58:58theirs. It is the only tape of me in the
59:02collection. It is 3 minutes long.
59:06Second, read the ledger.
59:08It is in the inside lid of the foot
59:10locker. You will find who said yes, who
59:14said no, who is alive, and who to call.
59:17Third, listen to tape 19 in private with
59:21the doors locked alone.
59:25Fourth, do what your conscience tells
59:27you to do in the order it tells you. If
59:30your conscience is quiet, wait. The
59:34right order will come.
59:37It took me 24 years to understand that
59:39waiting is also a form of work.
59:43Fifth and only when you are ready.
59:48He will know the next three steps.
59:50Winnie Marley refolded the pages. She
59:54stood up. The cottage creaked around her
59:57as she moved. She needed a cassette
59:59player. She closed her eyes. in the
1:00:02econol line under the mattress platform
1:00:04in a milk crate she had packed in
1:00:06September. With the last of her shop
1:00:09supplies was a Sony sports Walkman, the
1:00:12color of old mustard, which her
1:00:14grandmother had used in the back bar for
1:00:1620 years to play Billy Holiday during
1:00:18slow afternoons.
1:00:20The headphones were missing. The deck
1:00:23still worked. Marley had tested it in
1:00:26October.
1:00:27After she realized she might someday
1:00:29want to hear something she could not
1:00:31stream, she pulled her coat on, her
1:00:34boots, opened the front door. The snow
1:00:37had stopped. The clearing was blue in
1:00:40the dawn. Every tree outlined in white.
1:00:43Her footprints from the day before were
1:00:45gone. The van was a hump of snow with a
1:00:49windshield. She waited out, dug the door
1:00:52open, climbed into the back, found the
1:00:56milk crate, found the Walkman, found a
1:00:59pair of foam pad headphones from a 2003
1:01:03CVS clearance sale she had bought
1:01:05because they were $7.
1:01:08She brought it all back inside, set it
1:01:10on the pine table, plugged the
1:01:13headphones in, took tape one out of its
1:01:16clear case. Her hands did not shake.
1:01:20Marley was aware they did not shake and
1:01:22the awareness was its own small shock.
1:01:26She put the tape in, closed the deck,
1:01:29pressed play.
1:01:31Hiss first, the soft gray hiss of a 1991
1:01:36cassette. Then a woman's voice, older,
1:01:41measured,
1:01:43a librarian's voice, a voice that had
1:01:46been read aloud, trained in a children's
1:01:49room since 1954,
1:01:52and knew how to shape a sentence so a
1:01:55seven-year-old could hold it in both
1:01:57hands. My name is Wifred Janine Oster.
1:02:01Today is the 11th of April, 1991.
1:02:05I am sitting in my kitchen in a town in
1:02:08Vermont.
1:02:09I'm about to go pick up a woman at a
1:02:11diner on Route 100. She has asked me to
1:02:15listen to her tell me a thing that was
1:02:17done to her. I have told her I will
1:02:19record what she says if she allows it,
1:02:22and I will keep the recording safe
1:02:24forever. I'm recording this before I
1:02:26meet her because I want the first voice
1:02:29on the first tape to be mine, not hers.
1:02:33So that whoever one day finds these
1:02:36tapes understands that what they are
1:02:38about to hear was given freely by women
1:02:41to a librarian who did not know what
1:02:44else to do with the weight of what she
1:02:46was being told.
1:02:48A pause to the person who is listening
1:02:52to this now.
1:02:54Hello. I made this collection because I
1:02:56believe that someday somebody who was
1:02:59not me, somebody younger and braver and
1:03:02tired in a different way than I am tired
1:03:04would hear these women and know what to
1:03:07do.
1:03:09You are that somebody.
1:03:11Please do not be afraid.
1:03:14You are not alone in this room. I am
1:03:17here.
1:03:19All of them are here.
1:03:22We have been waiting. Click.
1:03:25End of side. A.
1:03:28Marley sat very still. She did not take
1:03:32the headphones off. The wood stove
1:03:35ticked. A hunk of snow slid off the moss
1:03:38roof somewhere above her head and landed
1:03:40in the clearing with a soft, dense thud,
1:03:43like a book being closed.
1:03:46She did not move for maybe 3 minutes.
1:03:49Then she rewound the tape,
1:03:53pressed play, listened to the whole
1:03:56thing again.
1:03:58She rewound,
1:04:00played again.
1:04:02The third time she took the headphones
1:04:04off and let it play out loud into the
1:04:07parlor because she wanted the wood stove
1:04:10and the painted cottage and the birds on
1:04:12the mantle to hear it, too. When the
1:04:14click came again, she sat with her head
1:04:17bowed and her hands flat on her knees
1:04:20and she listened to the quiet after.
1:04:23Then she got up. She lifted the inner
1:04:26lid of the foot locker. The ledger was
1:04:29there. She opened it. 23 women, 23
1:04:33names, 23 dates, 23 current contact
1:04:38notes, yes, no, or deceased in capital
1:04:42letters at the top of each entry. Phone
1:04:45numbers last known addresses, updates in
1:04:48Winnie's hand all the way to September
1:04:51of 2015. When the writing changed,
1:04:54character slightly became shakier. And
1:04:57the final page was dated October 29th,
1:05:002015, three weeks before Winnie's death.
1:05:05Marley skimmed
1:05:0712 yes, six no, five deceased. Then she
1:05:12flipped to the back of the ledger where
1:05:14Winnie had written one entry in a hand
1:05:16that was different from the rest. Not
1:05:19shakier, harder. Pressed down. Tape 19.
1:05:25Subject speaks of himself, not a victim
1:05:28statement. A perpetrator identifying
1:05:31himself. Name: Everheart heart
1:05:34apprentice. At time of 1998, events
1:05:38assistant district attorney Windham
1:05:40County, age 32. At time of 2001 cottage
1:05:45incident, associate apprentice and Doyle
1:05:48Montelier, age 35, running for state
1:05:52senate. As of this writing, United
1:05:55States Senator Vermont second term, age
1:05:5860. Transcript of relevant 114 segment
1:06:02taped off WVPR broadcast August 11th,
1:06:072008.
1:06:09Panel titled Women in Vermont Jurist
1:06:11Prudence. Begin transcript.
1:06:15Host.
1:06:16Senator. In your years as an assistant
1:06:19DA in Windham County, is there a case
1:06:21that still haunts you? Apprentice? Oh,
1:06:23I'd say the one that haunts me most is
1:06:25the Yearwood case. You remember? Girl
1:06:29was found off a dirt road in Jamaica
1:06:31spring of 98.
1:06:34We got a conviction eventually.
1:06:36A drifter named Teddy Ras died in
1:06:40Southern State before his appeal. But
1:06:43what haunts me is how close we came to
1:06:45not getting him.
1:06:47There was a witness, an older woman up
1:06:50on that hill. Librarian type.
1:06:54She saw things that night. I believe she
1:06:57just was not willing to come forward. If
1:07:00she had, Teddy Ras would have gone away
1:07:02cleaner and faster. Instead, we had
1:07:05three years of chasing a weak case.
1:07:08Host, did you ever learn why she
1:07:10wouldn't talk? Apprentice. My own
1:07:12theory. She was protecting someone.
1:07:15People do strange things in small towns.
1:07:18We'll never know.
1:07:21End transcript.
1:07:23Marley read the transcript twice. She
1:07:26set the ledger down. Her hand was
1:07:29perfectly steady. And she noticed this
1:07:32because the rest of her was not steady,
1:07:35which was the first time in her life she
1:07:37had felt a split like that in her own
1:07:39body. She stood up. She walked to the
1:07:43front door. She opened it. She stepped
1:07:46out onto the porch. The cold hit her
1:07:49face hard. She stood there in the dawn
1:07:52with her denim jacket open and the red
1:07:54leather skirt bright against the white
1:07:57clearing and her breath pluming in front
1:07:59of her. She said one word to the forest.
1:08:03No. She said it quiet. She said it again
1:08:07louder.
1:08:09No. The hemlocks held it. The birches
1:08:13held it.
1:08:14Somewhere above the clearing, a raven
1:08:16lifted off a branch, and the snow it
1:08:18dislodged fell in a slow curtain. Marley
1:08:21stood on the porch for maybe 2 minutes.
1:08:24Then she turned and went back inside.
1:08:27She put tape 19 in the Walkman. She
1:08:30closed the parlor door. She sat down.
1:08:33She pressed play. She listened to
1:08:36Everheart Apprentice, United States
1:08:38Senator from the state of Vermont, lie
1:08:41about Deline Marie Yearwood on a public
1:08:43radio station in August of 2008. She
1:08:48listened all the way to the end. She
1:08:50rewound.
1:08:52She listened again. When she was done,
1:08:54she took the headphones off and she
1:08:56looked at the row of 12 carved birds on
1:08:59the mantle. and she thought about Winnie
1:09:02Oster, who had been a children's
1:09:03librarian for 41 years, and had
1:09:07understood that a child who is not
1:09:08allowed to say the thing out loud,
1:09:11becomes an adult who rots. And she
1:09:14thought about Deline Yearwood, who had
1:09:18been 23 years old and had written, "Keep
1:09:21going in pencil on a pegboard above a
1:09:23stove." And she thought about Pepper
1:09:26Axton, whose name was on the ledger
1:09:28under Yes. with a phone number from 2015
1:09:31that might not be good anymore. She
1:09:34thought about her grandmother. She
1:09:36thought about the barber chair under the
1:09:38blue tarp in the back of the Econoline.
1:09:41She thought about the shears in her left
1:09:43boot. Then she picked up her phone. She
1:09:46had one bar of signal. She did not know
1:09:49how. She did not question it. She opened
1:09:53the camera. She filmed a 47 second video
1:09:57of her own face. She did not do her
1:09:59makeup. She did not fix her hair. She
1:10:03let the fire light behind her shoulder
1:10:05catch what it caught. She looked
1:10:07straight into the lens. She did not say
1:10:10any names. She spoke slow and clear. 28
1:10:15years ago, a 23-year-old waitress named
1:10:17Deline Yearwood was killed off a dirt
1:10:20road in Jamaica, Vermont.
1:10:22The man who was convicted died in prison
1:10:25before his appeal.
1:10:27The case was closed.
1:10:29The case was wrong.
1:10:32There is evidence that it was wrong.
1:10:35There is evidence that other women were
1:10:36hurt by the same person who hurt Deline.
1:10:40I am not a journalist. I am not a cop. I
1:10:44am a woman who inherited a tape
1:10:46collection from another woman who did
1:10:48the right thing for 24 years in silence.
1:10:52I am going to stop being silent.
1:10:55If you knew Deline, if you worked at the
1:10:57Grayson How Diner in 1998,
1:11:00if you worked at the Windham County
1:11:02Courthouse that spring, if you were a
1:11:05woman in Vermont between 1990 and 2010
1:11:08and you knew a man in power who scared
1:11:10you, please message me.
1:11:14My handle is on the screen. My name is
1:11:17Marley. I will listen. I will believe
1:11:21you. She stopped recording. She watched
1:11:24it once. She posted it to Tik Tok. Then
1:11:28to Instagram reels,
1:11:30then she turned the phone off. She slid
1:11:33the Walkman and the ledger and the
1:11:35notebook and the envelope back into the
1:11:37foot locker. She did not put the money
1:11:40back. The money she wrapped in the
1:11:42flannel she had used for the painting,
1:11:44and she carried it up the ladder stairs,
1:11:47and she tucked it under the cod
1:11:49upstairs, under the wool blanket, where
1:11:51no stranger looking in a window would
1:11:54see it. She came back down. She slid the
1:11:57foot locker back into the floor cavity.
1:12:00She closed the lid. She set the HSP. She
1:12:04put the padlock through the hasp. She
1:12:07clicked it shut.
1:12:09She slid the pine table back over it.
1:12:12She was done for one day. The video was
1:12:16already live by the time she drove back
1:12:19down Hemlock Hollow Road the next
1:12:20morning. The plow had been through once
1:12:24and the ruts were passable. Her phone,
1:12:26when she brought it back to life at the
1:12:28four corners in Rosenville, buzzed for
1:12:3141 straight seconds. The video had hit
1:12:35190,000 views. She pulled into the lot
1:12:38of a Duncan in Wilmington and sat with
1:12:40the engine running and watched the
1:12:42numbers climb while her coffee got cold.
1:12:45By 10 in the morning, 240,000.
1:12:49By noon, 310.
1:12:51The messages came in waves. Most were
1:12:55kind. A lot were weird. Four were people
1:12:59claiming to be Deline's cousin. Two were
1:13:02men explaining to her at length how she
1:13:04was ruining a dead cop's reputation,
1:13:08which was interesting because she had
1:13:10not mentioned any cop. Among the
1:13:12thousand odd messages, three mattered.
1:13:14One was from a woman in Townsend named
1:13:17Francine Delv, who said she had worked
1:13:20the second shift at the Grayson Hal
1:13:22Diner from 1996 to 2001,
1:13:26and that she had something to say, but
1:13:28not on the internet. and could Marley
1:13:31meet her at the Towns Hen Common Gazebo
1:13:34on Thursday at 2. One was from a man who
1:13:37signed his name just TV. His message was
1:13:41friendly in the practiced way. Friendly
1:13:44messages are when their purpose is to
1:13:46open a door the writer has already
1:13:48decided to walk through. He introduced
1:13:51himself as Trent Vossberg.
1:13:54He hosted a podcast called Cold Water.
1:13:58He wanted to talk to her about the
1:13:59Yearwood case. He believed they could do
1:14:02powerful work together. He thought he
1:14:05could help her tell this story in a way
1:14:07that reached the audience it deserved.
1:14:10The third was from a woman who signed
1:14:12her name Kit Oolaren.
1:14:15Kit's note did not sell anything. It
1:14:18said she had been reporting on Everheart
1:14:20Apprentice for 4 years. Three outlets
1:14:23had killed the story. She was not asking
1:14:26for a scoop. She was asking if they
1:14:29could meet. She would come to Marley.
1:14:32She would not record anything without
1:14:34consent. She would not publish anything
1:14:37that was not already Marley's to
1:14:39publish. If Marley wanted to ignore the
1:14:42message, Kit would understand. If Marley
1:14:45wanted to meet Kit was 90 minutes from
1:14:48wherever she was, Marley read all three.
1:14:52She read Kits twice.
1:14:54She did not reply yet. She drove east,
1:14:58back toward Brattleboro.
1:15:00She needed to go to the house on Lynen
1:15:02Street, finish the Clear Horizon's job,
1:15:06give Ro his notes, cash the check, buy
1:15:09groceries, fuel the van, and figure out
1:15:12where she was going to sleep tonight.
1:15:15She did not know yet.
1:15:17driving down Route 30 that both the
1:15:19Duncan coffee in her cup holder and the
1:15:22message from Trent Vossberg had been
1:15:24timed. She would learn that later. The
1:15:27podcaster drove a white Rivian truck. He
1:15:31drove it badly. He got stuck in the ruts
1:15:34coming up Hemlock Hollow Road the next
1:15:36afternoon and he spent 11 minutes
1:15:38rocking the vehicle before he got
1:15:40himself unstuck.
1:15:43Marley watched from the kitchen window.
1:15:45She did not go out to help. When he
1:15:48finally made the clearing and parked, he
1:15:50got out slowly, looked around,
1:15:53took a long moment to appreciate the
1:15:55moss roof, took his phone out and
1:15:58photographed it, then put the phone away
1:16:01like a man who had just remembered he
1:16:03was supposed to be a professional.
1:16:06He crossed the clearing to the porch. He
1:16:10wore a tan shearling jacket that had
1:16:12never been outside before. dark jeans
1:16:15that had been pressed. Boots that cost
1:16:18$900 and were about to be ruined. He
1:16:22knocked. Marley opened the door 6 in.
1:16:26She looked at him. He gave his name. She
1:16:30told him she knew. He asked if he could
1:16:33come in. She told him no. He smiled. The
1:16:38smile was good. It had been earned by a
1:16:41100,000 podcast interviews and it was
1:16:44deployed now like a wellpracticed tool.
1:16:48He was fine with talking out there, he
1:16:50said. She stepped onto the porch, closed
1:16:53the door behind her. She did not offer
1:16:56him a chair. There were no chairs. She
1:17:00stood with her back to the door and her
1:17:02hands in the pockets of her denim
1:17:03jacket, and she waited. E. He looked at
1:17:06her a long second, took her in, the red
1:17:11leather skirt, the crop top, the hair,
1:17:15the way she stood.
1:17:18He adjusted something in his face.
1:17:21Later, Marley would realize what he had
1:17:24come up here expecting a different kind
1:17:27of woman. The woman in the Tik Tok video
1:17:30he had decided was quieter,
1:17:33more country,
1:17:34more easy.
1:17:37The woman on the porch was not any of
1:17:39those things. And he was recalibrating
1:17:42in real time. At the end of the day,
1:17:44Trent began. And they both wanted the
1:17:48same thing. They both wanted this story
1:17:50to be told.
1:17:52Marley shook her head once. They did not
1:17:55want the same thing. He raised his hands
1:17:58and said that was fine. And then he put
1:18:00a number on the table.
1:18:03$85,000
1:18:05cash for exclusive rights to the
1:18:08Yearwood case. Six episodes shoot on
1:18:12site. A producer credit for her. A third
1:18:16of merch. Her name in every episode. A
1:18:20book deal. Honestly, probably a Hulu
1:18:23limited series. Marley did not answer.
1:18:26He told her he knew she needed the
1:18:28money. She told him he did not know
1:18:31anything about what she needed.
1:18:34He corrected gently.
1:18:36He said he knew she was living in a van
1:18:38Marley.
1:18:40Her face did not change, but something
1:18:43inside her chest did a thing that felt
1:18:45like a stovepipe damper being closed by
1:18:48a careful hand.
1:18:50She asked him how.
1:18:52He smiled again, softer this time, fake,
1:18:57sympathetic.
1:18:58He explained that he was a reporter.
1:19:01It was what he did. She told him he was
1:19:04not a reporter.
1:19:06He was a podcaster.
1:19:08Those were different. He waved it off as
1:19:11semantics.
1:19:12The point he went on was that he knew
1:19:14her situation and he was offering her a
1:19:17way out of it. Not a handout, a deal.
1:19:22She owned the story. He packaged it.
1:19:26They split the win. That was what good
1:19:28partnerships look like. Marley stayed
1:19:32quiet. Trent took her silence as a
1:19:34signal to keep talking, which was the
1:19:36first mistake he made that afternoon.
1:19:39The second mistake was reaching into his
1:19:41jacket and taking out a folded contract
1:19:44and extending it to her like a man
1:19:46offering a glass of water to a thirsty
1:19:48woman.
1:19:50She did not take it. He let his hand
1:19:52hover for a second. Then he dropped it.
1:19:55He had done this before he told her. The
1:19:58L clerk case in Michigan. The Assorio
1:20:01case in Bakersfield.
1:20:03He knew how to protect a story. He knew
1:20:07how to protect a source.
1:20:09And frankly, she was going to need
1:20:11protection.
1:20:13She had gone public yesterday.
1:20:16she was going to have five more
1:20:17podcasters knocking on this door by the
1:20:20end of the week. And most of them were
1:20:22not him.
1:20:24That she told him was not a threat she
1:20:26was supposed to feel. He said it was not
1:20:29a threat. She said it had sounded like
1:20:32one. He laughed.
1:20:34He had a laugh for this exact moment and
1:20:37he had used it a hundred times.
1:20:40At the end of the day, he told her this
1:20:42story was going to get told. The only
1:20:45question was whether she was in the room
1:20:47when it happened.
1:20:49Marley looked at him. She did not raise
1:20:52her voice. He already had a thesis, she
1:20:55told him. He had already decided it was
1:20:57the Drifter. He had said the Yearwood
1:21:00case in his DM, which meant he had
1:21:03already looked it up, which meant he had
1:21:05already read the one Wikipedia paragraph
1:21:08about Teddy Rasque. and he had already
1:21:10decided Teddy Ras was the sympathetic
1:21:13twist in episode 5.
1:21:16He had come up here to see if she was
1:21:17going to make him change the thesis or
1:21:20let him keep it. The answer was that she
1:21:23was going to make him change it and he
1:21:25was going to decide she was too
1:21:27difficult, which was fine because he was
1:21:30never going to say the real name anyway.
1:21:33He stared at her. He wanted to know who
1:21:36had told her about Teddy Ras.
1:21:39Winnie Oster Marley told him. He pointed
1:21:42out that Winnie Oster was dead. She
1:21:46confirmed that she was.
1:21:48The silence held.
1:21:51Trent Vossberg adjusted his jaw. He put
1:21:54the folded contract back in his jacket.
1:21:58He said he had offered and she had said
1:22:00no.
1:22:01He glanced up at the moss roof and
1:22:03remarked in a tone that was trying to be
1:22:05light. That this was a hell of a piece
1:22:08of real estate. Not for sale, Marley
1:22:11told him. He said he had not asked. She
1:22:14said he had been about to. He smiled a
1:22:17smaller smile.
1:22:19He turned to go. He walked three steps
1:22:22toward his Rivian and stopped and turned
1:22:25back. He wanted her to know he was going
1:22:28to do the series anyway. He wanted her
1:22:31to know his episode on her was going to
1:22:33be the pilot. She told him she had
1:22:35figured. He nodded once and got in the
1:22:38truck. He backed up carefully this time.
1:22:42He turned around in the clearing without
1:22:44hitting any trees. He drove down Hemlock
1:22:47Hollow Road in a slow, careful line.
1:22:51Marley watched his tail lights disappear
1:22:53around the first bend. Then she turned
1:22:56and went back into the cottage and
1:22:58closed the door and leaned against it
1:23:00and let herself breathe out for the
1:23:02first time in 12 minutes. She had bought
1:23:05herself maybe 3 days, maybe four.
1:23:09Kit Oaren did not drive up the road. Kit
1:23:12called first from a landline,
1:23:16which was interesting enough that Marley
1:23:18answered. The voice on the other end was
1:23:21steady, low, measured, not warm, not
1:23:26cold. The voice of a person who had
1:23:29decided early in life to never make her
1:23:32first impression on anyone with volume.
1:23:35Kit confirmed Marley's full name,
1:23:38introduced herself again briefly.
1:23:41She was sitting in the parking lot of
1:23:43the Jamaica country store. She said she
1:23:46would like to come up and meet her. She
1:23:48would not record anything. She would
1:23:50leave if asked to leave. If Marley told
1:23:54her no, she would drive back to
1:23:56Brattleboroough and would not contact
1:23:59her again unless Marley reached out
1:24:01first. Marley was quiet.
1:24:05She asked why. Kid answered without
1:24:07hesitation. The thing nobody had printed
1:24:10about the Yearwood case was that there
1:24:12had never been a serious investigation
1:24:15of anyone except Teddy Rasque.
1:24:18Kit had the court file, the autopsy,
1:24:23four weeks of county logs,
1:24:26a theory,
1:24:28no proof.
1:24:30She had been looking for a woman like
1:24:32Marley for 4 years. Marley had posted a
1:24:35video.
1:24:37Kit was out asking to listen.
1:24:40Marley waited a long moment. Then she
1:24:43told her to come up. Drive slow, she
1:24:46added. There was a chain on the left
1:24:48fork. Take the right click. Kid Oaren
1:24:53drove a 2011 Honda Element the color of
1:24:55wet moss, which was not lost on Marley
1:24:59when the car pulled into the clearing 22
1:25:01minutes later. The paint had faded. The
1:25:05driver got out in a navy wool coat and
1:25:07brown bloodstones and glasses with
1:25:09tortoise shell frames and short twisted
1:25:12hair. and she was taller than Marley by
1:25:153 in. And she carried a leather
1:25:17portfolio under one arm and she looked
1:25:20at the cottage for exactly 4 seconds
1:25:23before she looked at Marley. Kid
1:25:25observed without preamble that the porch
1:25:27was losing a column. Marley agreed that
1:25:30she knew. Kid added that she had grown
1:25:33up in a house like this in New Jersey.
1:25:37Her father had spent 20 years fixing
1:25:40one. Marley asked whether he had
1:25:42finished. He had died.
1:25:46Marley said she was sorry. Kit thanked
1:25:49her. They stood there in the clearing.
1:25:52The late sun had broken through for
1:25:54about 10 minutes. The light was yellow
1:25:57and slanted and it made the moss roof
1:26:00look lit from inside. Kit shifted the
1:26:03portfolio under her arm and asked if she
1:26:05could come inside.
1:26:07Marley nodded.
1:26:09They went in.
1:26:11Marley closed the door. The parlor had
1:26:14been swept. The painted cottage on the
1:26:17mantle. The row of birds. The fire low
1:26:22in the stove.
1:26:24Marley gestured to a kitchen chair. Kit
1:26:28sat, set the portfolio flat on the pine
1:26:31table, did not open it, folded her hands
1:26:35on top of it. She repeated her promise
1:26:38about not recording. She said she meant
1:26:41it. Marley acknowledged it. Kit then
1:26:44laid out the terms as she saw them. She
1:26:47would tell Marley what she had. Marley
1:26:50would tell her what she had or she would
1:26:52not. Either way, when Kit left today,
1:26:55she would have given Marley more than
1:26:57Marley gave her. Marley asked why.
1:27:00Because Kit said if she asked Marley to
1:27:02trust her. First, Marley would be right
1:27:05to say no, so she would trust Marley
1:27:08first. Marley looked at her for a long
1:27:11moment. Then she got up and walked to
1:27:14the pine table and she slid the table
1:27:16aside and she lifted the floorboard and
1:27:19she brought out the foot locker and she
1:27:22set it on the table next to Kit's
1:27:24portfolio.
1:27:26She did not open it. She sat down across
1:27:29from Kit. 23 cassette tapes, Marley told
1:27:32her, recorded between 1991 and 2015
1:27:37by a woman named Wifred Oster. Each tape
1:27:41a different woman's statement about
1:27:42being hurt by a person in power. 12 of
1:27:46them had given written permission to
1:27:47share. Six had said no. Five were dead.
1:27:54The tapes were theirs. The permission
1:27:56was binding.
1:27:58Kit's face did not move for a long
1:28:01moment. Then she took her glasses off
1:28:03and she pressed her thumb to the inside
1:28:06corner of her left eye for the length of
1:28:09one breath. The sound she made was not
1:28:12quite a word. Marley waited. Kit put her
1:28:16glasses back on and offered what she had
1:28:18in return.
1:28:20The thing nobody had printed, she said,
1:28:22was that in 1998, Everheart Apprentice
1:28:26had been named in an internal complaint
1:28:28at the Windham County DA's office by a
1:28:32parallegal who later resigned and moved
1:28:34out of state.
1:28:36The complaint had been buried. The
1:28:39parallegal was dead now. Car accident in
1:28:42Ohio, 2004.
1:28:45Her sister still had the carbon copy.
1:28:48Marley breathed out. That kit went on
1:28:50was one of 22 threads she had been
1:28:53pulling for four years. None of them
1:28:55landed by themselves. They needed a
1:28:58center. The tapes were a center. Marley
1:29:03said she knew if they did this right,
1:29:06Kid told her they could take him down.
1:29:09If they did it wrong, they would hurt
1:29:11the women on those tapes and he would
1:29:13survive.
1:29:15The margin was small.
1:29:17Marley said she knew that too.
1:29:21Kit looked at the foot locker. She
1:29:23looked at Marley. She would not touch
1:29:26it. She said until Marley told her to.
1:29:30Marley reached across and set her hand
1:29:33on top of the foot locker. She asked
1:29:36when. When Marley was ready, Kid
1:29:38answered. Marley said that was not a
1:29:41date. No. Kid agreed. It was a stance.
1:29:46Marley held the moment. Then she got up
1:29:48and she put the kettle on the wood stove
1:29:51and she took down two mugs from the
1:29:52cupboard where the jar labeled patience
1:29:55was. And she made two cups of lapsang
1:29:58such chong from a tin Winnie had left
1:30:00behind. And she set one in front of Kit,
1:30:04and the smell of it filled the parlor
1:30:06like smoke and old Pete.
1:30:09They did not open the foot locker that
1:30:11afternoon. They talked about Kit's
1:30:13father in New Jersey. They talked about
1:30:16Marley's grandmother in Lel. They talked
1:30:19about the barber chair under the tarp in
1:30:21the van and the way the porch column was
1:30:24losing hope and the way the moss on the
1:30:27roof was so thick that it had developed
1:30:30its own small ecosystem of winter
1:30:33spiders. They did not talk about.
1:30:37They did not play any tapes. They did
1:30:40not open the ledger. By the time Kit
1:30:42left, the sun was down. The clearing was
1:30:46blue. She paused at the top step of the
1:30:48porch. There was something she needed to
1:30:51say. Marley could see it before Kit said
1:30:54it. He would come for her, Kit told her.
1:30:58Not legally. Legally, he could not do
1:31:01anything. He would come for her
1:31:04reputation,
1:31:05her finances,
1:31:07her family if she had any, her lawsuit
1:31:11back home if she had one. Marley thought
1:31:14of attorney Yousef Kemp, of Hanley
1:31:17Mutual, of Vincent Delicort.
1:31:21Her stomach did a small cold turn. She
1:31:25told Kid she had a lawsuit back home.
1:31:28Kid asked where. Lowel. What kind?
1:31:33Insurance denial.
1:31:35Fire.
1:31:37Her salon.
1:31:39Kid asked for the attorney's name.
1:31:43Marley gave it.
1:31:45Yousef Kemp
1:31:47solo practice draut.
1:31:51Kit nodded. She filed the names in her
1:31:54head the way a person files things they
1:31:56will remember without writing down. She
1:31:59told Marley to keep him close to watch
1:32:02for sudden changes. Marley acknowledged
1:32:05it. Kit said she would come back when
1:32:08she was called. She stepped off the
1:32:10porch, walked across the clearing, got
1:32:13into her mossy Honda element. The engine
1:32:17turned over clean. She waved once
1:32:19through the windshield as she turned.
1:32:22The red tail lights crossed the
1:32:23clearing, turned into the trees, were
1:32:27gone. Marley stood on the porch alone.
1:32:31The hemlocks darkened. The birches went
1:32:34silver.
1:32:36A single owl called twice from somewhere
1:32:38ups slope.
1:32:40Marley had never heard a barred owl
1:32:42before. She did not know yet that she
1:32:45was listening to one. She only knew it
1:32:48was the loneliest and most companionable
1:32:50sound she had ever stood under. She went
1:32:53back inside. She closed the door.
1:32:57She fed the stove. She boiled water
1:33:00again. She was back in the kitchen when
1:33:02her phone rang. The number was a Boston
1:33:05area code. She answered. A voice she did
1:33:08not recognize said her name as a
1:33:10question. The caller introduced herself
1:33:13as Priscilla Vain Hollister, associate
1:33:16at Thgate Spence in Boston. They had
1:33:19just been retained by Hanley Mutual on
1:33:22her matter. The woman wanted to
1:33:24introduce herself and set up a time to
1:33:26discuss the pending claim with her
1:33:28attorney. Marley's hand tightened on the
1:33:30phone. Thate Spence was a 60 lawyer
1:33:33defense firm with offices in Boston,
1:33:36Hartford, and New York. Hanley Mutual
1:33:40had for the entire pendency of her case
1:33:42been represented by a two attorney shop
1:33:44in Chelmsford that cost them maybe $250
1:33:48an hour. Thate Spence cost $1,200.
1:33:52Nobody in Massachusetts hired Thgate
1:33:55Spence for a $38,000 fire claim. Nobody.
1:33:59unless somebody else was paying. Marley
1:34:01kept her voice flat and said she would
1:34:04have attorney Kemp reach out.
1:34:07Priscilla's reply was cheerful in the
1:34:10specific way that lawyers from large
1:34:12firms are cheerful when they are about
1:34:14to apply pressure. They would like to
1:34:17set up discussions early next week. They
1:34:20thought there might be room for a quick
1:34:22resolution. They would very much like to
1:34:25put this behind everyone. behind
1:34:28everyone, which was the exact phrase a
1:34:31United States senator from Vermont would
1:34:33use if he were explaining to a donor
1:34:36that he needed a small local problem in
1:34:39Massachusetts closed quietly. Marley
1:34:41hung up. She stood in the kitchen with
1:34:44her hands still on the phone, listening
1:34:46to the stove tick, listening to the owl
1:34:49outside, listening to the small living
1:34:52hush of the cottage she had owned for
1:34:53exactly 4 days.
1:34:56She crossed back to the parlor. She
1:34:59knelt by the pine table. She slid it
1:35:02aside. She opened the floor cavity. She
1:35:05lifted the foot locker again. She set it
1:35:08on the table. She opened it. She took
1:35:12out the ledger. She turned to the page
1:35:15where Pepper Axton's name was written in
1:35:18Winnie's hand under the capital letters.
1:35:21Yes. with a phone number from 2015 and
1:35:25an address in Lel, Massachusetts that
1:35:28Marley had cut hair across the street
1:35:30from for three years without knowing a
1:35:32single thing about the woman who lived
1:35:34at that number.
1:35:36She picked up her phone. She dialed. The
1:35:39phone rang four times. A woman answered.
1:35:44Her voice was tired, weary. a woman who
1:35:48got maybe one real phone call a week and
1:35:51did not expect this one to be it.
1:35:54Marley held the ledger open under her
1:35:56thumb.
1:35:57She closed her eyes. She spoke slow and
1:36:00careful.
1:36:02She was Marley Hollandbeck. She said she
1:36:05was calling from a cottage in Jamaica,
1:36:07Vermont.
1:36:09She believed a woman named Winnie Oster
1:36:11had recorded this listener here in 1998.
1:36:15She believed she was the woman Winnie
1:36:17had left her tapes to.
1:36:20She would like to ask one question if
1:36:22the woman had one minute.
1:36:25A long silence on the other end. Marley
1:36:28could hear the hum of a refrigerator.
1:36:31The click of a cuckoo clock. A dog
1:36:33somewhere tagging its own name tag
1:36:35against a water bowl. Then Pepper Axton
1:36:39exhaled a breath that she had been
1:36:41holding Marley understood for 28 years.
1:36:44She had known somebody would call.
1:36:47Someday Pepper told her. Marley opened
1:36:50her eyes. The fire light was warm
1:36:52against the pine table. The ledger was
1:36:55open under her hand. Outside in the
1:36:57hemlock dark, the owl called again,
1:37:00twice, then once, then nothing. Pepper
1:37:04Axton arrived on a Tuesday. She came up
1:37:07Hemlock Hollow Road in a 2009 silver
1:37:10Hyundai Elantre with a rosary on the
1:37:13rear view and a low spinner sticker on
1:37:15the back bumper. She parked beside
1:37:18Marley's econoline. She sat in the car
1:37:21for a full 3 minutes before she opened
1:37:24the door. Marley watched from the
1:37:26kitchen window and did not go out. You
1:37:30do not go out, you wait.
1:37:33That was another thing her grandmother
1:37:35had taught her. When a woman has
1:37:38traveled across state lines to tell you
1:37:40a thing she has been carrying for 28
1:37:42years, you do not meet her at the car.
1:37:46You let her come to the door on her own
1:37:48feet. The door opened. Peppa stepped
1:37:51out. She was 54.
1:37:54She wore a wine colored barn coat over a
1:37:56cream turtleneck. Her hair was ash
1:37:59blonde with the roots coming in silver
1:38:01cut in a layered bob. Marley herself had
1:38:04done maybe six times in the last three
1:38:07years at the low shop. She stood in the
1:38:10clearing with her hands shoved deep in
1:38:12her coat pockets and she looked up at
1:38:14the moss roof and she started to laugh
1:38:18then stopped then started again.
1:38:22Then she pressed one hand to her mouth
1:38:24and shook her head. She crossed the
1:38:27clearing. She climbed the porch steps.
1:38:30Marley opened the door before she could
1:38:32knock. They stood looking at each other.
1:38:35Pepper's eyes were already wet.
1:38:38She thought she knew her from somewhere.
1:38:40She said Marley nodded. The shop pepper
1:38:45said on Marramac
1:38:48every 6 weeks for 3 years. Marley had
1:38:52never upcharged her when she came in
1:38:54with her daughter. She had never told
1:38:56Marley her last name, Marley
1:38:59acknowledged all of it with a small lift
1:39:01of her chin.
1:39:02Letting Pepper arrange the memory
1:39:04herself,
1:39:06letting the weight of the recognition
1:39:08settle without hurrying it.
1:39:11Pepper laughed once more, quiet a small,
1:39:14astonished sound.
1:39:17Of course, it had been her.
1:39:19Marley stepped back from the doorway,
1:39:21and Pepper came in, and the cottage
1:39:23closed around them both.
1:39:25the way it had closed around Marley that
1:39:27first night. Pepper did not speak for a
1:39:30long time. She walked the parlor slowly.
1:39:34She touched the mantle. She looked at
1:39:37the row of carved birds.
1:39:40She stopped at the painted cottage. She
1:39:42lifted her hand toward it and then
1:39:44stopped herself and lowered the hand and
1:39:47put it back in her pocket. She turned.
1:39:51Winnie had done this one. she said.
1:39:54Marley confirmed it. Pepper told her
1:39:57Winnie had painted her a crocus in 1999.
1:40:01One single purple crocus on a piece of
1:40:03birch panel. It still hung in her
1:40:06hallway. Marley's chest did a thing.
1:40:09Pepper walked over to the pine table
1:40:11where the kettle was and sat down
1:40:13without being asked. She put both hands
1:40:16flat on the wood and told Marley she was
1:40:19ready to say it out loud. for the
1:40:21record. However, that record worked.
1:40:25Marley did not answer right away.
1:40:28Instead, she went to the kitchen
1:40:30cupboard, took down two mugs,
1:40:34boiled water from the hand pump, spooned
1:40:37loose lapsang such chong into a small
1:40:39pot,
1:40:41steeped,
1:40:42strained,
1:40:44poured,
1:40:46set one mug in front of Pepper. She sat
1:40:49down across from her. She would not ask
1:40:52Pepper any question she had not warned
1:40:54her about. Marley told her if Pepper
1:40:57wanted to stop at any point, she would
1:40:59stop. The tape would stay Peppers. The
1:41:02transcript would stay Peppers. The
1:41:05decision to publish would stay Peppers.
1:41:08Pepper understood all of that. Pepper
1:41:11said she did. Marley walked her through
1:41:14what she knew. Winnie had recorded
1:41:17Pepper on a Sunday in October 1998,
1:41:216 months after Deline had died. Pepper
1:41:25had been 26 years old. She had lived in
1:41:28a studio apartment above a locksmith on
1:41:30Pine Street in Lel. She had been the
1:41:3313th woman Winnie had recorded. Her tape
1:41:37was marked yes. Her release was on file.
1:41:42That meant Marley could play the tape
1:41:43for Kit Oilaren who was a journalist.
1:41:47For the Vermont State Senate Judiciary
1:41:49Committee if they took testimony,
1:41:51for a federal prosecutor if one opened a
1:41:55case. Nothing beyond that. Not for Trent
1:41:58Vossberg.
1:42:00Not for any podcast. Not for any Hulu.
1:42:04Not for anything that monetized. Pepper
1:42:06nodded. She needed Marley added a verbal
1:42:10confirmation today. A short recording of
1:42:13Pepper giving a current consent with
1:42:15today's date so there was no gap.
1:42:18Pepper said yes. Marley took out her
1:42:21phone, set it on the table. She did not
1:42:25press record yet. She looked at Pepper
1:42:28across the mug of tea and gave her the
1:42:30last warning. The man they were talking
1:42:32about was a United States senator. He
1:42:35had power. Money. Lawyers in Boston
1:42:40already touching Marley's own lawsuit,
1:42:42which was a $38,000 fire claim. No one
1:42:46at that firm had any business handling.
1:42:49He would come at Pepper, at her
1:42:51daughter, at her job if she had one, at
1:42:55her past. Marley was telling her this
1:42:58because Winnie had not told any of the
1:43:00women on these tapes that this was
1:43:02coming. Winnie had thought she would be
1:43:04the one to carry it. She had died before
1:43:07she could. Marley was telling her now
1:43:10out loud so Pepper could walk back out
1:43:13that door and get in her Elantra and go
1:43:16home and say no. Pepper's hands had gone
1:43:19very still around her mug.
1:43:22A long moment. Her daughter was 29,
1:43:25Pepper said finally. Last fall, her
1:43:28daughter had told her she was pregnant.
1:43:30Her daughter had asked her what she
1:43:32wanted to be called. Pepper had said
1:43:35grandma. Her daughter had asked her what
1:43:38she would tell her child about Pepper.
1:43:41About the kind of life Pepper had lived.
1:43:44Pepper had not had an answer. She had
1:43:47lain awake that whole night. She had
1:43:50lain awake every night that week because
1:43:53the thing she would have wanted to say
1:43:54about herself was a thing she had never
1:43:57been allowed to say. Marley did not
1:44:00move. Pepper went on. What had finally
1:44:04gotten her out of bed, she said, was
1:44:06Marley's face in a 47 second video. She
1:44:10had not recognized her. She had not
1:44:13known Marley was the girl who cut her
1:44:15hair. She had only known a woman in
1:44:17Vermont was asking other women to stop
1:44:20being quiet. She had booked a day off
1:44:22work. She had driven up here. Pepper
1:44:26took a breath. She was done being
1:44:28careful about herself. She said she was
1:44:31going to be careful about her grandchild
1:44:33instead. Those she added were different
1:44:36things. Marley pressed record. Pepper
1:44:40gave her name, her date of birth, the
1:44:44date, the city. She spoke slow, clear.
1:44:48She gave her ongoing consent to Marley
1:44:51Hollandbeck as custodian of the tape
1:44:53recorded by Wifford Oster on October
1:44:564th, 1998
1:44:59to use that tape in its entirety and
1:45:01without edit in any preceding
1:45:04publication or testimony she deemed
1:45:06appropriate subject only to the
1:45:09limitation that it not be sold or
1:45:11licensed to any commercial entertainment
1:45:13production without her written consent
1:45:15provided separately. She paused. She
1:45:19wanted this on the record, too. She said
1:45:22the man who had heard her had been
1:45:23Everheart apprentice. In the spring of
1:45:261996, when he had been an assistant
1:45:29district attorney in Windham County,
1:45:31Vermont, and she had been a 24year-old
1:45:34waitress at a diner on Route 9 in
1:45:36Brattleboro,
1:45:38he had known what he was doing. She knew
1:45:41what he had done. She was no longer
1:45:44afraid of saying his name. If he came
1:45:47after her family, she would say it
1:45:48louder. She stopped. Marley stopped the
1:45:52recording. They sat in the quiet. The
1:45:55firebox ticked. Pepper lifted her mug
1:45:59and drank the tea in two long swallows
1:46:01and set it down and spoke in a voice
1:46:04that had gone back to her ordinary
1:46:06voice, the low voice, the voice of a
1:46:09woman who had carried four grocery bags
1:46:11up two flights of stairs for 20 years.
1:46:15She had not known this cottage existed.
1:46:17She said, "All these years."
1:46:21She had thought Winnie had recorded her
1:46:23in her car. Marley told her the car had
1:46:26been borrowed. "Of course it had been,"
1:46:29Pepper said. She looked around the
1:46:32parlor again, at the mantle, at the
1:46:35painted cottage, at the stove.
1:46:40Her eyes landed on the ladder stairs to
1:46:42the attic. She asked if she could see
1:46:44the room where Winnie had written.
1:46:47Marley stood up. They climbed. The
1:46:51dormer attic was afternoon lit. The row
1:46:54of leather journals on the shelf, the
1:46:57desk, the kerosene lamp, the small cot
1:47:01with the wool blanket folded at the
1:47:03foot. Pepper walked to the desk and set
1:47:06her palm flat on it for a long moment.
1:47:09She did not cry. She just stood there
1:47:12with her hand on the wood where Winnie's
1:47:15hand had been. Then she turned and
1:47:17walked back toward the stairs. They went
1:47:20back down. By Friday, there were four of
1:47:23them. Francine Deloff, who had worked
1:47:26the second shift at the Grayson Howal
1:47:28Diner from 1996
1:47:30to 2001, and who had seen a dark sedan
1:47:33parked behind the dumpster the night
1:47:35Deline did not come back for her apron.
1:47:38Francine had told the responding deputy
1:47:40about the sedan on May 13th, 1998
1:47:44and had been told, quote, "We're all set
1:47:46on vehicles, ma'am. Thank you." And had
1:47:49never been asked again. Loretta Mink
1:47:51Price, who had been the parallegal in
1:47:53the Windham County DA's office in 1998,
1:47:57and whose complaint about Apprentice had
1:47:59been buried.
1:48:01Loretta had moved to New Mexico in 2001,
1:48:05raised two sons, taught high school
1:48:07civics for 17 years, and had been until
1:48:11last Wednesday convinced that nobody in
1:48:13Vermont remembered she existed. The
1:48:16sister of Loretta's dead friend in Ohio
1:48:19had tracked her down and told her about
1:48:21Marley's video, Odal Boschin, who had
1:48:24been the registered nurse on duty at
1:48:26Brattleboroough Memorial. On the night
1:48:28Deline was brought in, Odal was 61. She
1:48:33had retired in 2022.
1:48:35She remembered everything about that
1:48:37night. She had been waiting, she said,
1:48:40for somebody to ask. And Pepper, four
1:48:44women, one kitchen table, four days. Kid
1:48:48Oeleran drove up each morning from
1:48:50Brattleboro in the mossy Honda element.
1:48:53She brought a small reporter's
1:48:55microphone and a laptop and her leather
1:48:58portfolio.
1:49:00She brought a legal pad. She brought
1:49:02nothing to drink because Marley had the
1:49:04stove and the kettle. She brought her
1:49:07father's steadiness, which Marley did
1:49:09not know yet was the exact quality that
1:49:12had made Kit the right person to listen.
1:49:14Kit did not run the sessions. Marley ran
1:49:17them. Kit sat beside her and took notes
1:49:20and occasionally asked a follow-up and
1:49:22otherwise did not speak. By Saturday
1:49:25afternoon, they had three verified
1:49:27voices on fresh recordings. They had
1:49:30Odal's shift log photocopy.
1:49:33They had Francine's handwritten
1:49:35statement from 1998.
1:49:37She had kept in a shoe box for 28 years
1:49:40because you never know. They had
1:49:42Loretta's carbon copy of the internal
1:49:45complaint. They had Pepper's 1998 tape
1:49:48redigitized through a stereo deck kid
1:49:50had borrowed from her uncle in Jersey
1:49:52City. And they had tape 19, Apprentice
1:49:57in his own voice, lying about Deline on
1:50:01a public radio broadcast from August
1:50:0411th, 2008.
1:50:07Kit listened to tape 19 twice.
1:50:10The second time she took her glasses off
1:50:13halfway through, pressed her thumb to
1:50:15her eye, the way she had the day she
1:50:17first met Marley and let a single word
1:50:20out under her breath. Finally,
1:50:24Trent Vossberg dropped his episode on
1:50:26Sunday morning. He did not warn Marley.
1:50:30He did not have to. The story broke the
1:50:33way those stories always break. Now, a
1:50:36friend of a friend of Row Tanel texted
1:50:39Ro at 7:40 in the morning. Ro texted
1:50:42Marley. Pull up cold water. Episode 147.
1:50:49Now
1:50:51Marley pulled it up on her phone. She
1:50:54stood on the porch in the morning gray
1:50:56with the phone speaker on and she
1:50:58listened. Trent's opening was good. He
1:51:01was a professional.
1:51:03The music was moody. The voice over was
1:51:06slow. The hook was built around a
1:51:09question.
1:51:11What happens when a hairdresser who's
1:51:13living out of a van finds a lost
1:51:15cassette collection and decides she's an
1:51:18investigator?
1:51:20He did not use her last name. He did not
1:51:23need to. He called her three separate
1:51:26times in the 46-inute episode, The
1:51:29Hairdresser Grifter. He said the word
1:51:31grifter in a way that made it sound like
1:51:34a diagnosis. He played a 6-second clip
1:51:37of her Tik Tok video cut just before the
1:51:39word deline.
1:51:41So it sounded like she was announcing a
1:51:43vague conspiracy about powerful men
1:51:46instead of naming a specific dead woman.
1:51:49He interviewed by phone a man named
1:51:51Craig Raskque who said he was Teddy
1:51:54Rask's half brother and who said that
1:51:56Teddy had been railroaded in 1998 and
1:51:59that Marley's video was retraumatizing
1:52:02his family. He interviewed a professor
1:52:04of media ethics at a college in New
1:52:06Hampshire who said that the citizen
1:52:08journalist moment we are living in is
1:52:10dangerous for everybody including the
1:52:13citizens doing the journalism.
1:52:16He did not name apprentice once. Not
1:52:19once.
1:52:21Marley listened to the whole thing. She
1:52:24turned the phone off. She stood on the
1:52:26porch for maybe 90 seconds.
1:52:29Then she went inside and she called Kit
1:52:32and told her he had gone. Kit had
1:52:34already heard. She said she was driving
1:52:37up now. Kit was there in 40 minutes. By
1:52:41noon, they had a plan. By 3, Pepper had
1:52:45called her daughter in Lel and asked her
1:52:47to come stay with her boyfriend's family
1:52:48for a week. By 4, Loretta had called her
1:52:52two sons in Albuquerque. By 5, Odal had
1:52:55unplugged her landline. By 6, Marley's
1:52:59phone had taken four death threats. By
1:53:027, she had taken two more. By 8, she had
1:53:05turned the phone off. She sat at the
1:53:07pine table with Kid across from her. The
1:53:10firebox was warm. The painted cottage
1:53:13was on the mantle. The row of carved
1:53:16birds held their line. Kit was riding on
1:53:19a legal pad in a hand so neat it looked
1:53:22typed. Marley watched her and finally
1:53:26spoke. She wanted Kit to publish. Not
1:53:30yet. Kit answered without looking up.
1:53:33Marley asked why. Kit set the pen down
1:53:37and explained. Trent's episode was
1:53:39already out and the news cycle was
1:53:41already moving. If they published
1:53:44tomorrow, they would be a response. If
1:53:46they published next Thursday, they would
1:53:48be an event.
1:53:50Marley pointed out that Thursday was 5
1:53:53days.
1:53:545 days of this house getting threats.
1:53:57Kit held her gaze. She knew she had done
1:54:01this before.
1:54:03This was the geometry.
1:54:06If they moved too fast, they would be
1:54:08covered as a reaction to Trent and
1:54:10Apprentice would survive by hiding
1:54:12behind the slop. If they waited, they
1:54:15could land clean.
1:54:17Marley rubbed her eyes. Kid watched her
1:54:20for a long moment, then said the thing
1:54:23she had promised herself she would say
1:54:25if it came to it. Marley could call it
1:54:28off. She could give Kid permission to
1:54:31publish what Kit had under Kit's by line
1:54:34without Marley's.
1:54:36Kit would take the hit. She would take
1:54:40the lawsuits.
1:54:41She had been ready to take the hit for 4
1:54:44years. Marley could stay out of it. She
1:54:48had already done the hardest part. She
1:54:51had found the box. Marley said no the
1:54:54first time Kid floated it. Said no again
1:54:57when Kid offered it a second time.
1:54:59The third no did not need words. Kit saw
1:55:04it in her shoulders. Kid picked the pen
1:55:06back up, wrote three more lines, then
1:55:09put the cap on and set the pad on the
1:55:11table and looked at Marley for a long,
1:55:14steady second. Thursday, Kit said.
1:55:18Marley repeated it back. Thursday.
1:55:22Monday brought the second blow. Attorney
1:55:24Ysef Kemp called at 9 in the morning.
1:55:27His voice was tight. He said he had just
1:55:30received a filing from Thgate Spence.
1:55:34They were requesting a continuence in
1:55:36the Hanley mutual matter citing newly
1:55:38discovered facts bearing on claimment's
1:55:41credibility,
1:55:42including recent public statements by
1:55:44claimment regarding unrelated matters in
1:55:47Vermont, which raised material concerns
1:55:50about claimment's judgment and veracity.
1:55:53Marley closed her eyes. She could feel
1:55:56the shape of it. The sentence had been
1:55:58constructed by somebody who had been
1:56:00constructing sentences like it for 20
1:56:03years. Yousef said he could oppose the
1:56:06continuence, but that the Lel housing
1:56:08court judge, Judge Bettingfield, was a
1:56:11man who did not like public drama in his
1:56:13cases. Marley asked him if there was any
1:56:16way Hanley would drop their denial
1:56:18faster if she withdrew the public
1:56:20statements.
1:56:21Yousef hesitated, then spoke slow.
1:56:25Marley, he told her, "The language in
1:56:28that filing was the kind of language
1:56:30somebody used when they wanted you to
1:56:32call them and ask that exact question."
1:56:36She acknowledged it. He went further.
1:56:39"He was her lawyer," he said. He was
1:56:42also a man who had grown up in a house
1:56:44his mother had built back from a fire in
1:56:461989.
1:56:48If she asked him what his mother would
1:56:50do, he would tell her.
1:56:52But he was not going to tell her what to
1:56:54do. The answer he said was not legal.
1:56:59It was personal.
1:57:01Marley was quiet for a long moment.
1:57:05Fight the continuence, she told him.
1:57:08Don't drop anything. Don't call them.
1:57:12And if they lost the fire claim, they
1:57:14lost the fire claim. Yousef heard her
1:57:16out and the silence afterward was the
1:57:18kind of silence that is in agreement.
1:57:21She hung up. She stood in the kitchen
1:57:24with her hands still on the phone. The
1:57:27jar labeled patience was on the shelf
1:57:29above her. She looked at it. She did not
1:57:33touch it. She had just told her lawyer
1:57:36she was willing to give up $38,000
1:57:39and a 2-year legal fight for a dead
1:57:4223-year-old waitress she had never met.
1:57:45The thing in her chest did not feel like
1:57:48heroism. It felt like something old
1:57:50finally finding its shape. Tuesday
1:57:53night, somebody tried to come up the
1:57:55road. Marley was asleep in the attic.
1:57:59She woke to a sound she did not
1:58:01immediately understand.
1:58:03Not a knock, a low, throaty growl that
1:58:07resolved as her brain caught up into the
1:58:09sound of a diesel engine idling at the
1:58:11base of the trail. She lay very still.
1:58:15She listened. The engine idled for maybe
1:58:18four minutes. Then it moved slow,
1:58:23creeping up the road. The headlights
1:58:26crawled across the dormer window as the
1:58:28vehicle rounded the last bend into the
1:58:30clearing. Marley did not look. She knew
1:58:34the clearing well enough by now to know
1:58:36that any vehicle in it would be visible
1:58:38from this angle and she did not want to
1:58:41see. The engine stopped. Two doors
1:58:45opened. Two doors closed. Boots on snow.
1:58:50Two men walking slow.
1:58:54They stopped at the porch. Marley's
1:58:56heart was in her throat, but her hands
1:58:59were steady. She reached under the cot.
1:59:03The thing she had put there was not the
1:59:06shears which were in her left boot by
1:59:08the stove. The thing under the cot was
1:59:11the Mossberg 500 that Ro Tansel had
1:59:14delivered to the cottage on Friday after
1:59:17she had told him about the first death
1:59:19threat. Ro had not asked permission. He
1:59:22had brought it in a canvas case loaded
1:59:25with a note taped to the handle that
1:59:26said grandma's.
1:59:29She wanted it to be useful. Call me if
1:59:32you need me. Marley had not loaded it
1:59:34herself. She had not needed to. The
1:59:38chamber was full. She did not pick it
1:59:41up. She lay in the dark and she
1:59:44listened.
1:59:46The men on the porch did not knock. They
1:59:49stood there for a long moment. Then one
1:59:52of them said something to the other in a
1:59:54voice too low to catch. The other one
1:59:57laughed once, not a cruel laugh, a tired
2:00:00laugh. A piece of paper was slid under
2:00:03the front door. She heard the whisk of
2:00:06it against the planks. The man turned,
2:00:09boots back across the porch, doors
2:00:12opened, closed. The diesel engine turned
2:00:16over, backed out, crawled back down the
2:00:20trail. Marley waited five full minutes
2:00:23after she could no longer hear it. Then
2:00:26she climbed down the ladder stairs. The
2:00:29piece of paper was lying face up on the
2:00:31floorboards.
2:00:32It was a photograph, a printed
2:00:35photograph of Marley's grandmother's
2:00:37gravestone at St. Patrick's Cemetery on
2:00:39Gorum Street in Lel. On the back,
2:00:42somebody had written in blue ballpoint.
2:00:45We know where she is, too. Marley stood
2:00:48with the photograph in her hand. The
2:00:50thing that happened inside her was not
2:00:53the thing anyone would have predicted.
2:00:56It was not fear. It was not even rage.
2:01:00It was clarity.
2:01:02A hard clean clarity. The kind of
2:01:06clarity that arrives in a woman only
2:01:08once or twice in her life. usually at a
2:01:11moment when she has been given exactly
2:01:13enough information to decide finally
2:01:15what she is willing to live with and
2:01:18what she is not. She walked to the pine
2:01:21table. She set the photograph down. She
2:01:24spoke out loud, to the parlor, to the
2:01:28stove,
2:01:30to the painted cottage, to the row of
2:01:33carved birds, to Winnie Auster, who had
2:01:37been dead 11 months and three days.
2:01:40They would publish Thursday.
2:01:42On Friday, she would testify.
2:01:45On Monday, she would bury her
2:01:47grandmother properly.
2:01:49The parlor did not answer, but the fire
2:01:53in the stove shifted. A log settled. A
2:01:57plume of warm air lifted the loose
2:01:59corner of the ledger on the table, which
2:02:02Marley chose to take for the rest of her
2:02:04life as a yes. Thursday came. Kit's
2:02:07piece dropped at 6:00 in the morning.
2:02:09She had placed it with an independent
2:02:11investigative outlet called The Granite
2:02:13Record, which had been founded in 2022
2:02:16by three former daily newspaper
2:02:18reporters from Vermont and New
2:02:20Hampshire, which had 70,000 paid
2:02:23subscribers, which had no advertisers,
2:02:26and which was not owned by anyone who
2:02:28answered to Everheart Apprentice or his
2:02:30donors. The piece was 11,000 words. It
2:02:34was titled in plain Roman type what
2:02:36Wifred Oster heard. It ran under a joint
2:02:40by line kit oaren
2:02:44with reporting by Marla Hollandbeck.
2:02:47By 7 in the morning it had been read
2:02:4980,000 times. By 9 300,000
2:02:55by noon it had been linked by two
2:02:57national outlets. By 2:00 in the
2:02:59afternoon, Everheart Apprentice's press
2:03:02office issued a statement calling the
2:03:04article a reckless and defamatory smear
2:03:06built on the ramblings of a mentally
2:03:08unwell deceased spinster and the
2:03:11opportunism of a transient influencer.
2:03:14By three, Pepper Axton gave a 4-minute
2:03:17on camera interview from her kitchen in
2:03:19Lel in which she said her name, her age,
2:03:22her hometown, and the sentence, "Ever
2:03:24hard apprentice raped me in the spring
2:03:27of 1996 when I was 24 years old." And he
2:03:31was an assistant district attorney, and
2:03:34I have been afraid of saying that out
2:03:36loud for 29 years. And I am done.
2:03:41By four, Loretta Mink Price sat in front
2:03:44of a camera in Albuquerque and read her
2:03:461998 complaint into the record. By five,
2:03:49Francine Delv sat in Kit's borrowed
2:03:52studio at a community radio station in
2:03:54Keen and described the dark sedan behind
2:03:57the Grace and How dumpster. By 6, Odal
2:04:01Bosshin submitted her sworn affidavit to
2:04:03the Vermont Attorney General's office.
2:04:06By 7, two more women had come forward.
2:04:09By 10, four more. By midnight, the
2:04:12Vermont Senate Minority Leader called
2:04:14for a special session of the judiciary
2:04:16committee. By Friday morning, three of
2:04:19Apprentice's five largest donors had
2:04:21quietly asked to be removed from his
2:04:23website. By Friday afternoon, Trent
2:04:26Vossberg's podcast network had sent him
2:04:28a letter that his contract was under
2:04:30review. By Friday night, two of the
2:04:33biggest podcast distribution platforms
2:04:36had quietly delisted Cold Water, pending
2:04:38internal content review. By Saturday,
2:04:41the FBI's public integrity section had
2:04:44opened a preliminary inquiry. By Monday,
2:04:47Everheart Apprentice resigned from the
2:04:49United States Senate. He did not do a
2:04:51press conference. He released a
2:04:54statement through a surrogate. The
2:04:56statement contained the phrase to spare
2:04:58my family further distraction twice. It
2:05:02did not contain the words, "I'm sorry."
2:05:05It did not contain the name Deline
2:05:07Yearwood. It did not contain the name
2:05:10Pepper Axton. It did not contain the
2:05:13name Loretta Mink Price. It did not
2:05:16contain the name Wifred Auster. Marley
2:05:18read the statement standing in the
2:05:20clearing in front of the cottage in a
2:05:22weak March sun that had just started to
2:05:25melt the moss edge of the roof.
2:05:28She did not feel what she thought she
2:05:30would feel. She did not feel triumph.
2:05:34She did not feel vindication.
2:05:37She felt the small, clean, quiet that a
2:05:40person feels after they have done the
2:05:41one thing they knew from a long way off
2:05:44that they were going to be asked to do.
2:05:46She put the phone in her pocket. She
2:05:48walked back inside. She fed the stove.
2:05:52The Lowel lawsuit settled four weeks
2:05:54later. The pro bono team from a Boston
2:05:57firm that had read Kit's article and
2:05:59specifically the paragraph about Thate
2:06:02Spence's involvement in the Hanley
2:06:04mutual matter had reached out to Ysef
2:06:07Kemp the Tuesday after apprentice
2:06:09resigned. They offered to co-consel at
2:06:12no cost. They offered their forensic
2:06:15electrical expert at no cost. They
2:06:18offered their appellet team at no cost.
2:06:21Thate Spence withdrew from the Hanley
2:06:23Mutual case the following Monday, citing
2:06:26reconsideration of resource allocation.
2:06:30Hanley Mutual settled on April 22nd for
2:06:33$17,000.
2:06:36Vincent Delicort's homeowner's policy
2:06:38paid out another 92,000 for the
2:06:41structural damage to the Marramac Street
2:06:43building after a separate action.
2:06:47Marley did not reopen the salon. She
2:06:50paid off attorney Kemp's contingency.
2:06:53She paid off the econoline.
2:06:55She paid the back property taxes on the
2:06:57Hemlock Hollow Cottage, which were
2:07:00$2,200 and which Winnie's trust had
2:07:03quietly covered through 2026.
2:07:06She bought a new roof. She hired a man
2:07:09named Odin Havland, who was 34, a
2:07:11stonemason by trade, who had grown up
2:07:14two valleys over, and whose grandmother
2:07:16had been a reader in Winn's library in
2:07:18the 1960s. Odin came up on a Saturday
2:07:21with his brother, and a load of cedar
2:07:24shingles. They worked for three
2:07:27weekends. By the time they finished, the
2:07:30moss roof had been stripped back to the
2:07:32sound.
2:07:33Shingles reflashed, repitched where it
2:07:36needed it. They left a 6-ft patch of the
2:07:39original moss intact on the north dormer
2:07:42slope at Marley's specific request
2:07:45because she wanted the cottage to still
2:07:47look when you came over the rise in the
2:07:49trail like the painted one in Winnie's
2:07:52small oil panel, which it did. Odin also
2:07:55rebuilt the three broken porch columns,
2:07:59peeled logs.
2:08:01Same technique Winnie's generation had
2:08:03used. The replacements were lighter in
2:08:06color than the originals, which was
2:08:07fine. Over the next 10 years, they would
2:08:10weather dark, too. Marley opened the
2:08:13Hemlock Hollow Oral History Project on
2:08:16June 12th. She did not announce it. She
2:08:20did not have a website. She had a phone
2:08:22number written on index cards that Ro
2:08:25Tanil distributed through the Clear
2:08:27Horizon's office, that Odil Boschen
2:08:30distributed through her nursing
2:08:31contacts, that Pepper Axton distributed
2:08:34through two women's groups in Lel, and
2:08:36that Kit Oaren distributed through the
2:08:39small network of women reporters who
2:08:41were by that point working on 14
2:08:43different versions of what Kit called
2:08:46the Winnie template in 14 different
2:08:49towns in New England. The index card
2:08:52said, "You bring your voice, we bring
2:08:54the chair. Private, free. No cameras, no
2:09:00charge. Call for an appointment. A woman
2:09:04will answer." The chair was her
2:09:07grandmother's. Marley had hauled it out
2:09:09of the back of the Econoline on a Sunday
2:09:11in May. She had taken the blue tarp off.
2:09:15She had wheeled it with Odin and his
2:09:17brother and Row helping up the slope and
2:09:19across the clearing and up the porch
2:09:21steps and through the front door and
2:09:23into the parlor. She had positioned it
2:09:26beside the dorma window where the
2:09:27morning light came in strongest. She had
2:09:30bolted it to the floor. Then she had
2:09:33rolled it. The hydraulic post still
2:09:36worked. The ox blood vinyl was still
2:09:38cracked. The headrest leather was still
2:09:41the exact shade her grandmother had
2:09:43chosen in 1976
2:09:46because her grandmother had said,
2:09:48"People tell you more when they feel
2:09:50like they are at home." The first woman
2:09:53to sit in the chair was Pepper Axton.
2:09:57Marley did Pepper's roots.
2:10:00While she worked, Pepper talked not
2:10:02about Apprentice. She had already said
2:10:05that about her mother who had died in
2:10:082012 and about the way her mother had
2:10:10always worn a specific blue bandana when
2:10:13she worked in the garden and about the
2:10:16day Pepper had found that bandana folded
2:10:18in a drawer 6 months after the funeral
2:10:21and had sat down on the floor and had
2:10:24not been able to get up for an hour.
2:10:28Marley listened. Her grandmother's
2:10:30shears moved slow. A small Zoom H5
2:10:34recorder sat on the countertop beside
2:10:36the mason jar of combs running. Pepper
2:10:39had signed the consent. The consent
2:10:42lived in a filing cabinet upstairs in
2:10:44the attic in a drawer Marley had labeled
2:10:46current voices. When Pepper's hair was
2:10:49done, Marley tilted the chair up, swept
2:10:52the floor, put the cape away. Pepper
2:10:55walked to the dormer window and looked
2:10:57out at the clearing. The light here was
2:11:00better than it had been in Marley's
2:11:01shop. she observed. Marley agreed. The
2:11:05chair was the same chair Pepper added in
2:11:08the way that a person confirms something
2:11:10she already knows because the confirming
2:11:13is part of the comfort.
2:11:15Marley acknowledged it was. Pepper said
2:11:19she had missed it. Marley said she had
2:11:22too. That was the whole exchange. Marley
2:11:26did not record the exchange because the
2:11:28exchange was theirs.
2:11:30She shut off the zoom. She walked Pepper
2:11:33to her car. Pepper drove down the trail
2:11:36waving. Marley stood on the porch and
2:11:39watched the silver elantra disappear.
2:11:42Then she went back inside.
2:11:45The parlor smelled of lapsang such and
2:11:48warm shears and the specific
2:11:49indooroutdoor smell cedar shingles get
2:11:52in the first week after they are nailed
2:11:54up new. She climbed the ladder stairs.
2:11:57She wrote in the ledger, "Pepper Axton,
2:12:01June 12th, roots, blue bandana,
2:12:06her mother." She closed the ledger. She
2:12:10climbed back down. She made herself a
2:12:13sandwich. By September, Marley had
2:12:16recorded 47 women. Some came for
2:12:19haircuts.
2:12:20Some came for color. Some came for a
2:12:23trim they did not need. One came for a
2:12:27wedding updo and brought her entire
2:12:29bridal party. Four women who sat in the
2:12:31parlor eating cheese and crackers while
2:12:33the bride, who was 59 years old, told
2:12:37the story of her first husband's death
2:12:39in 1994
2:12:41into the microphone while Marley pinned
2:12:43up her hair. Three came and did not sit
2:12:46in the chair at all. They sat at the
2:12:49pine table. They drank tea. They talked
2:12:53for two hours. Marley did not touch
2:12:56their hair. She just listened. She
2:13:00recorded if they said yes. She did not
2:13:03if they said no. Some women came and
2:13:06could not say the thing they had come to
2:13:08say. Marley did not push. They were
2:13:11given a time a pot of lapsang, a plate
2:13:14of butter cookies that a neighbor in
2:13:16Jamaica village had started baking for
2:13:18the project in July, and a chair that
2:13:21spun. Some of them came back a second
2:13:24time. Some came back a third time. Some
2:13:28came back the 12th time and said the
2:13:30thing finally with their hair done up in
2:13:32rollers and their hands in their lap and
2:13:35tears tracking down the cape. A tenth of
2:13:38what Marley recorded would ever be made
2:13:40public. 9/10 would live in the filing
2:13:44cabinet in the attic, which was fine.
2:13:48which was Marley had come to understand
2:13:50the entire point. Winnie had taught her
2:13:52through a notebook and a ledger and a
2:13:54tape that the voice did not need an
2:13:56audience to be worth recording. The
2:13:59recording was the thing. The audience
2:14:01was separate.
2:14:03Sometimes it came, sometimes it did not.
2:14:08Sometimes it came a hundred years later
2:14:10when the only reason the voice could
2:14:12still be heard was that one woman in one
2:14:15quiet year had decided to press the red
2:14:18button and keep the cassette. On the
2:14:21first weekend of October, Marley held a
2:14:24small gathering at the cottage. It was
2:14:27not a party. She called it a Saturday.
2:14:31Pepper came. Loretta flew in from
2:14:34Albuquerque.
2:14:36Francine drove up from Townsend. Odal
2:14:39came from Brattleboroough.
2:14:41Kit came with her father's old 35 mm
2:14:44camera and did not take a single
2:14:46photograph. Ro came with his wife and
2:14:49his two sons. Odin came with his brother
2:14:52and a sheetpan of apple crumble.
2:14:56Attorney Devo Mendler came with a bottle
2:14:58of brandy he had bought in 1998 and
2:15:01never opened. And that he said needed a
2:15:04reason. They sat on the porch. The new
2:15:07columns held up the roof. The restored
2:15:10patch of original moss on the dormer
2:15:12slope caught the afternoon sun. The
2:15:15hemlocks were starting their slow turn.
2:15:18The birches were already yellow. Mendler
2:15:21poured small amounts of the brandy into
2:15:23mason jars. Everyone touched the jars
2:15:26together. Nobody toasted anything
2:15:29specific. The clink was quiet and small,
2:15:32and nobody tried to make it mean more
2:15:34than it did. Marley stood a little
2:15:38apart. She wore the same cropped denim
2:15:40jacket she had worn the day she had
2:15:42bought the cottage, the red leather
2:15:45skirt, the black boots, her hair down,
2:15:49the olive khaki canvas backpack hanging
2:15:52from the hook by the front door, worn
2:15:55almost through at the strap.
2:15:58She watched the women on the porch.
2:16:00Pepper was laughing at something Loretta
2:16:03had said. Odal was showing Rose older
2:16:06son the stove damper and explaining why
2:16:09her grandmother had owned the same kind.
2:16:12Francine was holding a mason jar in both
2:16:14hands and looking at the ginko colored
2:16:17light on the clearing like she had not
2:16:19seen a color like it in a long time.
2:16:23Kit stood at the railing. She caught
2:16:26Marley's eye across the porch. Kit
2:16:29lifted her mason jar maybe 2 in. Marley
2:16:33lifted hers back. That was the whole
2:16:36conversation.
2:16:37Then Kit looked past Marley and smiled a
2:16:40small private smile. Marley turned to
2:16:43see what she was smiling at. A woman had
2:16:46come up the trail. Marley did not
2:16:49recognize her. She was maybe 70. She
2:16:52wore a plumcoled wool coat and a knit
2:16:55cap. She carried a canvas tote and she
2:16:58looked as she came into the clearing
2:17:00like a woman who had been looking for an
2:17:01address for a long time and had finally
2:17:05found it. She stopped at the base of the
2:17:07porch steps. She looked up at Marley and
2:17:11said, "She was the hair girl, wasn't
2:17:13she?" Marley acknowledged it. The woman
2:17:16explained herself in the small,
2:17:18efficient way people explain themselves
2:17:21when they have rehearsed the opening
2:17:22line on the drive. Her daughter had seen
2:17:25Marley on the TV. Her daughter lived in
2:17:28Nsha. Her daughter had told her mama
2:17:31that woman in Vermont.
2:17:34You should go. She was 72 years old. She
2:17:38had been a nurse's aid in 1971 at a
2:17:41state school in Waterbury. She had seen
2:17:44things nobody had wanted her to see. She
2:17:46had never told anyone except her
2:17:48husband, and he had been gone 6 years.
2:17:52Marley set her mason jar down on the
2:17:54porch railing. She came down the steps.
2:17:58She did not offer her hand. She did not
2:18:01try to touch the woman. She just stood
2:18:03in front of her at the base of the
2:18:05porch. and she looked at her and she
2:18:08spoke in the voice her grandmother had
2:18:10used at the kitchen table in 1996.
2:18:14The kettle was on. She said, "Come in."
2:18:18The woman nodded. She climbed the steps
2:18:21slow. Marley held the door open for her.
2:18:25The woman walked past her into the
2:18:27parlor. She paused at the mantle. She
2:18:30looked at the painted cottage. She
2:18:33looked at the row of carved birds. She
2:18:36looked for a long moment at the barber
2:18:38chair bolted to the floor beside the
2:18:40dormer window. She crossed to the chair.
2:18:44She touched the ox blood vinyl of the
2:18:46armrest with two fingers. She turned to
2:18:49Marley and simply nodded again. The nod
2:18:52was its own sentence. Marley nodded
2:18:55back. Marley closed the front door
2:18:58behind them. Through the window in the
2:19:00clearing, the women on the porch kept
2:19:02talking. The late sun warmed the new
2:19:05cedar shingles. Somewhere ups slope the
2:19:08barred owl Marley had learned to
2:19:10recognize called twice, then once, then
2:19:14nothing. The parlor was warm. The kettle
2:19:18was on. The cottage, which had waited 24
2:19:21years to be found, had become what it
2:19:24had always been, a room where a woman
2:19:27could sit down, say the thing out loud,
2:19:30and be heard. Marley lifted a clean cape
2:19:33from the hook by the mirror. She shook
2:19:35it open. She stepped behind the chair.
2:19:39She draped the cape across the woman's
2:19:41shoulders with the care her grandmother
2:19:43had draped a cape across her first
2:19:45client in 1976.
2:19:48She clipped it at the neck. She picked
2:19:51up the shears from the countertop. She
2:19:54did not press record yet. She would when
2:19:57the woman said she was ready. She leaned
2:20:00in slightly so her voice reached the
2:20:02woman's ear and spoke soft.
2:20:05The woman should tell her when she was
2:20:07ready. Not before. They had all
2:20:11afternoon. They had as many afternoons
2:20:14as it took. The woman closed her eyes.
2:20:18Outside on the porch, kid Oaren lifted
2:20:21her mason jar one more inch toward the
2:20:24window as if to say, "Good." The barred
2:20:27owl called a third time. The painted
2:20:30cottage on the mantle kept its watch.
2:20:33The real cottage breathed in, and the
2:20:36woman in the chair, after a long quiet
2:20:38moment, with her eyes still closed,
2:20:40began to

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