Aspen Allegations - A Sutton Massachusetts Mystery
Page 31
Chapter 17
I pushed open the glass doors leading into the Sutton Senior Center, smiling at the holiday wreaths that hung along the walls. The woman at the long, tall white counter to our left waved a greeting as we passed. A small room on the right held Matthew’s computer class, and he nodded to us, his calm instruction flowing unabated to a small group of attentive students.
The larger room ahead was perhaps half full, and we spotted Adam immediately at a table by the far wall. Jeff was already there, and both waved us over with welcoming smiles.
Adam stood as I approached, holding out a hand. “So good to see y’all again. I hear you have some progress to report!”
He shook my hand firmly, then Jason’s, and we all settled ourselves around the table. I took in a deep breath, then began.
I laid out everything we had learned, from start to finish. Adam and Jeff followed my words eagerly, and both clearly were brimming with questions, but they didn’t interrupt. When at last I had finished, Jeff sat back, his eyes round.
“I had no idea at all,” he sighed at last, looking between us. “My father had never spoken of that night. I had heard of it, of course. It was a legend at my summer camp – a ghost story the boys would scare each other with. But my father refused to talk about it. After a while I stopped pressing him, and honored his wishes.”
Adam nodded in understanding. “Your father didn’t want you to think of him in that situation,” he explained gently. “He didn’t want you to be rowin’ along the edges of Singletary, staring at the water, thinking of him reaching for Eileen’s hand. He hoped you would be free of the shadows that haunted him.”
Jeff shook his head. “Still, it was a burden he carried, and maybe, somehow, I could have helped.”
Adam gave a wry smile. “Nothing you could have done would have helped to lighten his load,” he gently advised. “Your father was a writer. He felt things with a passion. He was going to carry that grief with him every day.”
I leant forward slightly. “Jeff, so you mean all of this was completely new to you? There was nothing even remotely familiar about any of it? Your father never talked about missing money, or why he fell out with his friends, or why they never reconnected when he returned to Sutton?”
Jeff gave a slight shrug. “I’m afraid my father sought to shelter me in many ways. When I asked about his old friends, he simply said they drifted apart and had nothing in common any more.” He glanced over at Adam. “He said that Adam was all he needed. The two of them were as thick as thieves.”
Adam smiled, and nodded at the compliment. “Your father was an amazing man and I treasured his friendship,” he returned. “It is still hard for me to believe he’s gone.”
I turned to him. “Did he share more of his story with you, perhaps? Was some of this familiar?”
He nodded. “Yes, there were times, after a long night of whiskey and fishin’, that he would reminisce some about his youth. He would talk with sadness about the night Eileen drowned, or the demons that drove him to head off into the army.” He glanced over at Jeff. “But he always tempered it with the thought that he met your mother because of it, and together they had raised you. He was quite proud of you and all you’ve achieved.”
Jeff looked down for a moment, his eyes misty.
Adam ran a hand through his hair, his brow furrowing. “Something you said, though, triggered a memory. What was it …”
Tension drew across my chest. It took an effort for me to stay silent, to let him follow those tenuous wisps of thought backwards in his mind, to reach their source.
“Ah, yes,” he stated, brightening. “You were talking with Charles about the missing money. The money he said Eileen had taken out of the bank before she met her tragic end. It brought something to mind that John had been complaining about one night.”
“Oh, and what was that?” I asked with interest, leaning forward.
“We were driving by Sares Farms one afternoon, and I needed to stop in to get some fresh tupelo honey for one of the ladies in the bridge group. She’d been fixin’ to bake her delicious cookies again, but she was out. I let her know I’d be happy to pick some up. In any case, as we pulled into the main parking lot, one of the workers drove by in one of those large tractors. The kind that you can attach twenty different things to. John stared at it, shaking his head.”
His gaze grew thoughtful. “When I asked him what was wrong, he said that Sam had bought a new tractor just like that right after Eileen had died. John thought it was right disrespectful for Sam to have done that – to celebrate the death by buying himself new toys, as it were. It was part of what led to their falling out, and to John decidin’ to quit town altogether once he graduated.”
I glanced at Jason in surprise. “I got the impression that Sam’s family was quite poor at the time,” I murmured.
Jason nodded in agreement. “That’s how it seemed to me as well.”
Adam’s voice was somber. “John always said he fed his desserts to Sam in the lunchroom because the lad barely had anything to eat. It did seem, from what I heard, that times were tougher than a week-dead snake for that family.”
I pursed my lips. “And yet, somehow, Sam was able to buy an expensive new tractor for himself as a graduation present? Did he ever say where he got the money?”
Adam shrugged. “John never mentioned; he was just upset at the meanness of it all. To him it was the final straw.”
I looked over at Jason. “Maybe we should take another trip out to Sares farms then, and have a little chat with Sam.”
Jason smiled. “I wouldn’t mind some fresh tupelo honey, myself,” he teased. “We could make ourselves some cookies tonight and eat them by the fire.”
“That we could,” I agreed, warming at the thought.