Plain Roots

by Becki Willis

  So here she was, come to collect a reward she hardly deserved.

  Why me?

  Charity asked the question a hundred times, but there was no clear answer. Even if she was Nell’s only blood kin, surely there had been others more deserving of the honor. Charity barely remembered her aunt; had, in fact, seen her but a handful of times in her life. Surely, there were friends or neighbors who deserved to be rewarded for the part they played in Nell Tillman’s life. Someone who knew the real story behind her uncle’s death and why his name was spoken with pity, someone who knew why these walls fairly crumbled with the weight of a heavy conscience.

  There was so much more to the story, Charity was certain of it. She could feel the oppression in the air. It wasn’t just the musty smell of dust and the lack of fresh air. There was a story to be told in the strictly feminine decor, save for the untouched male garments here in the bedroom. Something happened to her uncle, Charity was sure. Something bad, something of which no one spoke.

  Charity fingered the ragged garments. They must have been hanging there for at least twenty-five years or more. A thick layer of dust coated the material. At her touch, the disturbed motes danced up to tickle her nose and caused Charity to sneeze. She inadvertently jerked, disturbing the clothes even further. A fold shifted to reveal a dark stain across the front of the shirt. Even after all these years, the blood was evident.

  Just like the bullet hole it surrounded.

  Charity dropped the cloth with a jerk, her hand stinging. Her sudden move caused the hall tree to teeter uncertainly, twirling on one foot as if the wooden pole had a life of its own. The bloodstained clothes whipped around and chased after Charity as she shrieked and stumbled backwards.

  After a balancing act worthy of a circus performance, the pole finally righted itself and spun to a stop. The blood soaked clothes made a final swish through the air, circled round the pole, then settled once more into a sagging heap.

  “Oh. My. Gosh.” Charity whispered the words aloud, palms flat against her cheeks. She stood staring at the clothes, wondering if they would take another lunge at her. With much of the dust shaken free and now floating through the air, tickling at her nose once more, the clothes looked lighter, freer. Their secret was no longer hidden in the folds of forgotten khaki. The bloodstains — and the bullet hole — were now clearly visible.

  Charity knew it was irrational, but she glanced over her shoulder with a sense of guilt. The rush of relief washing over her was every bit as crazy. She couldn’t say exactly why, but she hurried forward and rearranged the clothes so that their secret was once again safe. Then she quickly left the room, even shutting the door behind her for good measure.

  Out of sight and, she hoped, out of mind.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Too bad, it didn’t work that way.

  All morning, the bloodstained clothes haunted Charity’s mind. She tried to work in the kitchen, cleaning and sorting, but everywhere she looked, she saw the distorted edges of a bullet hole, or the smudges of old, dried blood. She scrubbed a stain on the stove three times before she realized the spot was burned into her cornea, not splattered onto the enamel. She couldn’t determine if the fading red rim around a bowl was paint or blood. Was that gunpowder caked along the baseboards by the refrigerator, or merely dirt? Her imagination even turned the eyelet edges of the curtain into shotgun spatter.

  The refrigerator, itself, was all but empty; either a neighbor had thought to clean it out or Aunt Nell had been on the verge of starvation. Charity wasted little time wiping down the empty shelves, giving a wide berth to the bottle of ketchup still tucked inside the door. Was it really ketchup … or blood?

  By noon, Charity was a bundle of nerves. She took a much-needed break, choosing to eat her lunch outside on the swing. She left the front and back doors of the cottage open, hoping the screen doors would pull a crosscurrent of fresh air through the musty interior of the house.

  She had stopped at a little deli in town this morning, and now had a veritable feast for lunch: turkey and cranberry layered upon hearty wheat bread, kettle chips, bottled water, and a wedge of maple brownie with walnuts for dessert. Charity even turned off her I-pod and listened to the simple sounds of nature around her.

  If not for the bloodstained clothes and the raised hairs on her neck, it really was a perfect spot, Charity mused.

  She tried to think of explanations for the tattered clothes.

  It wasn’t really a bullet hole; it was a moth hole…

  What looked like blood was actually paint…

  Her aunt and uncle were members of the local theater and the outfit was a prop…

  The day before her uncle died, he ripped the shirt on a nail and bled; her aunt kept the clothes for sentimental reasons, remembering his last household chore…

  Aunt Nell shot her husband in a fit of rage and kept the clothes as a reminder to control her temper…

  Charity gasped, wondering where that last thought came from. Surely, she wasn’t suggesting her aunt was a murderess! That was impossible.

  But why would it be impossible, a tiny little voice in her head asked. She knew so little about her aunt. She had not seen her in sixteen years, and then only briefly. She recalled how strangely her aunt acted, how she kept to herself and barely exchanged a dozen words with anyone, even though she traveled hundreds of miles to attend her sister’s funeral. Charity’s father never spoke of her, except to say she was a crazy, lonely old woman.

  “Hello, there!”

  A voice called out a cheerful greeting, startling Charity from her musings. She peered over a hedge of knockout roses, spotting the woman coming down the pebbled walk with a basket in her hands.

  “Oh, don’t get up,” the woman called out, still half the yard away. “Stay right there. I’ll come to you.”

  Charity watched the woman approach, deciding she had to be a neighbor. Her gray curls were like a fuzzy cap around her head and could use a good comb-out. Her ample figure was swathed in a bright blue housedress and she wore slip-on house shoes, the kind with a hard sole for outdoor wear.

  “I’m Hilda Brooks, from across the street,” the woman said, slightly out of breath. She pointed in the general direction of the driveway. Charity could not see a house from where she sat, but suspected one hid beyond the cluster of evergreen trees and hedges lining this side of the road.

  “Hi. I’m Charity Gannon.”

  Hilda Brooks nodded as if it was old news. “I heard Nell’s niece was coming. I brought the mail.” She thrust the basket toward a surprised Charity.

  “Oh.” Frown lines crinkled Charity’s brow as she stared down at the two dozen or more envelopes inside the basket, topped with a jar of preserves. As an afterthought, she added, “Thank you.”

  “Oh, it was no problem,” the neighbor said, waving away her words. “A few letters still trickle in now and then, mostly from sweepstakes or car warranty offers, but I just toss those in the trash can. These are the only ones that looked important.”

  The lines deepened on Charity’s forehead. Glancing around, she belatedly noticed there was no car in the driveway other than hers. She cocked her head to one side. “Did Aunt Nell have a car?”

  “Oh, no, dear, she didn’t drive.”

  “Really?” Charity asked in surprise. “That must have been difficult, living way out here.”

  “Actually, no. Nell didn’t get out much. Hardly at all, to be honest. She had most of her groceries delivered, and asked me to run an errand or two for her now and then. Your aunt was practically a recluse. Although she did love her yard,” she was quick to say.

  Charity glanced around, realizing the yard was part of what spooked her to begin with. Like the interior of the house, at first glance there was nothing amiss about the flourishing flowerbeds and prolific hedges. The ivy-covered arbor out front might even be considered charming. So might the vines that clung to the fence, tucked neatly along the row of evergreens. Only now did she realize that the sleepy, over
grown yard offered more secrecy than privacy, more a sense of unease than of peace. The excessive yard had given her the heebie-jeebies, even before she saw the clothes.

  “Did you know my aunt well?”

  Hilda Brooks shrugged her beefy shoulders. “As well as anyone did, I suppose.”

  “How long had you known her?”

  “Let’s see. We moved here before my Tommy was born, so about… forty years, I think. Yes, that sounds about right. Oh, my, how times flies!”

  Charity made the appropriate murmur of agreement, although she was eager to ask her next question. “What can you tell me about my aunt?”

  “Well, she was your aunt!” the woman softly chided.

  “We didn’t see each other very often. I live in Maryland,” Charity explained.

  “Like I said, Nell didn’t get out very often, not after… well, not in the last thirty years or so. But she was a good neighbor, all the same. I would drop by to visit, and we talked on the phone at least once a week. I’ve truly missed her since she’s been gone.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Charity offered her sympathy. “Are you the one who cleaned out her refrigerator?”

  “Yes, I didn’t want there to be any spoiled food to worry about.”

  “Thank you for that, it was very thoughtful of you.”

  “Nell would have done the same for me. Well, if she had left this yard, anyway.” Tears glistened in the other woman’s eyes as she attempted the sad joke.

  Charity mulled over her earlier words. “You said Aunt Nell had been that way for about thirty years? She came to my mother’s funeral sixteen years ago.”

  “Yes, I remember. You have no idea how difficult it was for her leave her safe place and to travel all that way by herself. I offered to go with her, just for moral support, but I had a terrible case of the flu and she wouldn’t hear of it. She was devastated by your mother’s death and she insisted on going to the funeral.”

  Simply hearing the story made Charity’s heart ache. She could not imagine being so terrified of — What? Of anything! — that you were unable to leave your home. Nor could she imagine conquering that fear for such a sad and solemn occasion as attending your only sister’s funeral, particularly a sister from whom you were estranged. It was simply heartbreaking.

  “That’s so sad,” Charity commiserated. “What-What happened to make her become like that?” she asked with sincere curiosity.

  The talkative neighbor suddenly clammed up. She darted a nervous glance around the yard, her eyes seeming to land on the old shed on the opposite side of the house. “I-I believe it was after her husband died,” she answered vaguely. “Grief, I suppose.”

  “What can you tell me about my uncle? I never knew him. He passed away before I was born.”

  “Harold was… a dreamer.” Her search for a kind word of description was obvious. “Always thinking of some way to get rich without having to actually put in an honest day’s work. He was a friendly enough fellow, most of the time. But he was a dreamer and a schemer.”

  Charity heard the disapproval in Hilda Brook’s voice. “What did he do for a living?”

  “He never had any job for long. He did a variety of things, from lobstering in Maine, selling insurance, trying his hand at a cranberry bog, logging in New Hampshire, selling shoes door-to-door. You name it, he tried it for a month or two.”

  “So he traveled a lot?”

  Hilda bobbed her head. “Claimed he knew every road in these highlands. That’s why he started up his own delivery service. He was so sure he could do a better job than the postal service and the big national delivery companies. Said it took a local to serve the people of the Northeast Kingdom.” She all but sniffed with disdain.

  “I take it he didn’t succeed.”

  “Kingdom Parcel was a colossal disaster.”

  Charity tried to hide her dismay. Hilda Brooks almost sounded pleased that Harold Tillman had failed. Perhaps she had not been such a good friend to her aunt, after all. “Do you recall how he died? I don’t believe I ever heard the story.”

  The heavyset woman darted another nervous glance toward the house. Again, she was vague, fluttering her hands in the air. “I think it was rather complicated. Probably nothing they wanted to bother you with.” She abruptly changed tunes. “Well, it was really nice to meet you, dear, but I really must be going. I just wanted to bring you the last of Nell’s mail.”

  “Yes, thank you. It was nice to meet you, too. And thank you, for all that you did for my aunt.”

  Tears moistened the neighbor’s eyes again. “It was the least I could do for her, after all she went through, the poor dear.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Being a widow and all, you know? That sort of thing.” Hilda Brooks made the lame excuse even as she backed her way out of the yard. It seemed she could not leave fast enough.

  Totally perplexed, Charity watched the woman scuttle down the walkway and disappear behind the cover of the vine-smothered fence.

  ***

  As soon as the strange neighbor was gone, Charity grabbed her phone and typed ‘Kingdom Parcel’ into its search engine. Buried several hits down was a woeful tale about a young start-up company in the early 80’s that went under, hardly before it even began. Amid rumors of a failed business venture, one of the founders of the company, Harold Tillman, was found dead. There was mention of foul play, but the case was ultimately ruled a suicide. The company was dissolved and never heard from again.

  Poor Aunt Nell! Her husband committed suicide. Charity’s heart ached for the lonely old woman and the pain she had endured. No wonder she became a recluse.

  Charity looked around the yard again, trying to see it through her aunt’s eyes. This had been her sanctuary. She obviously put a lot of love and attention into the space; too bad, she had no one to share it with.

  Sorting through the mail in the basket, only a handful of letters looked important enough to open: utility bills, something from the tax appraisal district, and two letters. One came in a flowery envelope, the other addressed in a bold masculine hand with no return address.

  She tugged at the flap of the small flowery envelope and pulled the handwritten note free. Someone named Betty was thanking her aunt for the recipes she submitted for the Ladies’ Auxiliary fundraiser cookbook. She ended the note by inviting Nell to join them for their monthly meetings; practically begged her, in fact.

  As Charity ripped open the second letter, she half-hoped it was of a personal nature. She would like to think her aunt had some sort of romance in her life over the past thirty years. A quick glance down at stark, typed words dispelled that notion.

  Don’t think we have forgotten.

  With her brow furrowed in a frown, Charity turned the single sheet of paper over in her hands, searching for something more. That was all there was. One simple sentence. It sounded almost… threatening.

  A sudden sense of unease slithered down her spine. She collected the remnants of her lunch, gathered up the mail, and went back into the house.

  One step across the threshold and she remembered the bullet hole. Inside was clearly no better.

  Charity forced herself to stay another two hours, scrubbing and cleaning and sorting. When she came to the first obstacle, she jumped at the excuse to quit early. What could she really do without boxes, trash bags and storage tubs, anyway? Best to find a dollar store, buy what she needed, and come back tomorrow morning.

  That would give her the entire evening to gather enough courage to return.

  CHAPTER THREE

  September 1983

  “Nellie! Nellie, where are you?”

  Nell Tillman wiped her hands on her apron, trying to get the stickiness of honey from between her fingers. She was making Harry’s favorite pie for dessert. In case things hadn’t gone quite the way he planned, at least they could have a sweet ending to their day.

  “In the kitchen!” she called out, even though it was hardly necessary. He could easily see straight thr
ough the dining room and into the kitchen, the moment he stepped through the living room’s front door. He kept promising they would move to a bigger house. Once they had more room, he promised, they would start a family. Never mind that the years were quickly slipping away and she would soon be too old for childbirth. All he needed was that one big break.

  There had been plenty of days like today. Harry would head out to some big meeting with another of his grand ideas, hoping to come back with good news. Hoping to find a financial backer for another of his ventures.

  More often than not, he came home looking like a deflated balloon. Nellie lost count of the ideas that never quite panned out over the years. She learned long ago not to ask questions, just be waiting at home with his favorite foods; she could serve them in celebration or consolation, depending on the look upon his face.

  “We did it, Nellie!” Harold Tillman announced in a booming voice. He came up from behind, sliding his arms around her waist and lifting her off the ground as he swished her feet in the air. He nuzzled his face into the bun at the back on her neck. “We started our own company!”

  “Put me down, you silly man!” She tried to sound stern, but her laughter killed the effect.

  “Not a chance, Nellie girl! Not a chance!” He swung her again. Her apron flared out like a tent and her feet caught the edge of the trashcan as he twirled her in a circle. The can toppled and its contents spilled out onto the floor, but he paid it no mind. “Soon we’ll have servants to clean up messes like that,” he predicted. “And a cook to prepare our meals.”

  “Turn me loose, you old dreamer,” she said, swatting at the hands clasped over her stomach. “And who else but me knows just how you like your meals?”

  Nell bent down to gather the garbage, but her eyes kept darting upward. She rarely saw her husband like this. Had she ever, in fact? He looked years younger, his long narrow face split with a wide smile.