E Is for Evidence

pleasant and civil to us both. He became interested in the company. He talked about settling down and learning the business. Woody was thrilled." She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, which she pressed to her lips, blotting the film of perspiration that had formed like dew.
    So far she wasn't telling me a thing I didn't already know. "What happened?"
    "That year… when Lance came home and things were going so well… that year… it was New Year's Day. I remember how happy I was things were off to such a good start. Then Bass came to us with the most preposter-ous tale. Somehow, in my heart, I suppose I've always blamed him. He spoiled everything. I've never really for-given him, though it was hardly his fault. Bass was thirteen then. Sly. He knew about wickedness even at that age and he enjoyed it all so very much."
    Still does, I thought. "What did he tell you?"
    "He said he'd walked in on Lance. He came straight to us with that sneaky look in his eyes, pretending to be so upset when he knew exactly what he was about. At first, Woody didn't believe a word of it."
    "He walked in on Lance doing what?"
    There was a silence and then she pushed on, her voice dropping so low I was forced to lean closer. "With Olive," she whispered. "Lance and Olive. In her room on the bed. She was sixteen and so beautiful. I thought I'd die of the shame and embarrassment, the loathing at what was going on. Woody was crazed. He was in a towering rage. Lance swore it was innocent, that Bass misunderstood, but that was nonsense. Absurd to think we'd believe any such thing. Woody beat Lance to within an inch of his life. A fearful beating. I thought he'd kill him. Lance swore it only happened once. He swore he'd never lay another hand on her and he honored that. I know he did."
    "That's when Olive was sent away to boarding school," I said.
    Helen nodded.
    "Who else knew about the incident?"
    "No one. Just the five of us. Lance and Olive, Bass and Woody and me. Ebony was off in Europe. Ash knew some-thing dreadful had happened, but she never knew what it was."
    There was a silence. Helen smoothed the frayed fabric on the arm of the rocker where she'd picked strands loose. She glanced at me. Her expression seemed tinged with guilt, like an old dog that's piddled somewhere you haven't discovered yet. There was more, something she didn't want to own up to.
    "What's the rest?" I asked. "What else?"
    She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink in patches.
    "Just tell me, Helen. It can't matter now."
    "Yes, it does," she whispered. She'd begun to weep. I could see her clamp down, forcing her feelings back into the box she'd kept them in all these years.
    I waited so long that I didn't think she meant to finish. Her hands began to shake in a separate dance of their own, a jitterbug of anxiety.
    Finally she spoke. "Lance was lying about the two of them. It had gone on for years. Woody never knew, but I suspected as much."
    "You suspected Lance was abusing her and you never interfered?"
    "What could I say? I had no proof. I kept them away from each other whenever I could. He'd go off to summer camp. She'd stay with friends of ours in Maine. I never left them alone in the house. I hoped it was a phase, something that would disappear of its own accord. I thought if I called attention to it… I don't know what I thought. It was so unspeakable. A mother doesn't sit a boy down and discuss such things. I didn't want to pry, and Olive denied the slightest suggestion that anything was amiss. If she'd come to me, I'd have stepped in. Of course I would, but she never said a word. She might have been the one who initiated the contact for all I knew."
    "How long did this go on?" I was having a hard time keeping the judgment out of my voice, afraid if she sensed the full range of my outrage, she'd clam up.
    "Lance was obsessed with her almost from infancy. He was five when she was born and I was so relieved, you see, that he didn't resent her. It was just him and Ebony until Olive came along. He'd been the baby so I was de-lighted he seemed taken with her. It must have started as childish curiosity and advanced to something else. It did end once they were discovered. They could hardly toler-ate each other's company these past few years, but by then the damage had been done. She had terrible problems."
    "Sexual problems, I'd assume."
    Helen nodded, cheeks coloring. "She also suffered deep depressions that would go on for months. All she did was run, run,