“It’s a funny thing, Doris, but I never knew what Uncle Richard looked like. In fact, I didn’t even know he existed until Mr. McGrath sent me the will. My dad had lots of photographs of my mom, but he wasn’t in any of them.”
“It’s funny you calls ‘im Uncle Richard,” said Doris. “To me ‘e was always Mr. Gibson. I wonder why ‘e changed ‘is name.”
Riley suddenly stopped chewing the last mouthful of her apple and swallowed it in a hurry. “Good heavens, Doris! You’ve made me think of something. Mr. McGrath has never mentioned about Uncle Richard changing his name because he doesn’t know about it. If it wasn’t done legally, then it’s possible that both wills are invalid. Being his closest surviving relative, I’d get the house back!”
“Oh, my goodness!” exclaimed Doris for a second time. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’? You’d best call Mr. McGrath. ‘E ought to ‘ave thought of that ‘isself, didn’t ‘e?”
“But he doesn’t know anything about it! I can’t imagine why, but I kept my mouth shut.” Riley took out some change for the eggs that she needed. “I’d better make that call. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”
“‘Course I will. ‘Ere, take another happle while you’re at it!”
Riley grabbed one and hurried out of the store.
Ten minutes later, she put down the phone and swore; Mr. McGrath was out of town until Monday. On reflection, she thought it best not to tell Paul about the name change, which he might have forgotten about. There was no point in raising false hopes, even though keeping it to herself over the weekend would be difficult.
It was almost noon when she had a brief phone call from John Kelly. He said that the Newfoundland Constabulary had been unable to find Bethany O’Shea. They had questioned her colleagues at Lillington Realty, but they didn’t know where she had gone or when she would return. Riley had a lot on her mind, so the news made little impact.
Cooking dinner didn’t appeal to her, so she drove to Portugal Cove where there was a good fish and chip shop. As she passed the turnoff to Ada Rideout’s house, it occurred to her that she and Paul would have to say good-bye quite soon. It was a depressing thought.
As soon as they finished eating, Paul collected the dirty dishes and took them to the kitchen. Riley followed with the empty beer glasses.
“I’m going to phone Dad and Marion,” she said. “They’ve been back from New Zealand for a week now and will be wondering why I haven’t called.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“That I’ve lost the house and you’ve lost your job. Like I said before, I won’t mention the robbery. It can wait ‘til they come home in March.”
“I guess that’s best. And say ‘hello’ for me, will you?”
“Of course. Perhaps you can have a few words with them next time.”
Riley got through to Canberra to find that Marion was home but her dad had gone to work.
“Hope you guys had a good trip,” Riley began.
“Not too bad at all. As a matter of fact, Harry was a little better but Esmie said not to be fooled. The doctor was quite adamant. He only has a few months to live. Still, we enjoyed some great sightseeing on South Island.”
“I’m afraid things aren’t so hot here. You’d better brace yourself for some bad news. I’ve lost the house and Paul’s been laid off work permanently.” Riley wasn’t surprised at the pause that followed. This was a lot to absorb in a few seconds.
“I don’t understand, darling. How could you possibly lose the house?”
Riley described exactly what had happened and told Marion about the plan to move to the Toronto apartment. “The thing is,” she concluded, “Paul and I are living together. I hope you approve, at least in principle.”
“I suppose so. But Dad and I won’t be sure until we’ve met him.”
“I understand. He wants to have a chat sometime.”
“That will be nice. Tell me, why was he laid off?”
“Cost cutting and automation.”
“How miserable. What rotten luck you’re having. I must say, though, I’m very surprised at your uncle. Fancy having an affair and changing his will like that. Maybe he wasn’t of sound mind, as they say.”
“No such luck. The entire document stuck to the letter of the law.”
Riley finished the conversation with their travel plans: departure date, facts about the ferry and their approximate date of arrival in Toronto.
“All this is quite a shock,” Marion concluded. “Your father and I will talk things over when he gets back from work, not that we can do much about it. If we come up with any ideas, we’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, have a lovely trip and call as soon as you arrive.”
With that, they hung up.
It was a little after eight-thirty on Monday morning when Riley said good-bye to Paul as he left for work. The weekend had seemed interminable. Her kiss was passionate and lingering, perhaps because this was the first day of his final week at the weather office. About half an hour later, she picked up the phone and dialed the offices of Corcoran, Corcoran and McGrath.
“Yes, Miss Barnett,” answered the secretary, “Mr. McGrath is in. I’ll see if he’s free.”
Riley had been psyching herself up for this moment over the whole weekend. She dreaded telling the lawyer about her uncle changing his name.
“Good morning, Riley. What can I do for you?”
“Um…there’s something I should have mentioned when I first came. At the time it didn’t seem important but with the new will being found…well.”
“Go on. What is it?”
“My uncle’s name was Richard Bloombury, not Thomas Frederick Gibson.”
There was one of those pauses. Riley imagined the lawyer’s disapproving eyes sending daggers across his desk.
“There might be a problem, but I think it’s unlikely. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I…I don’t really know. Maybe I was worried about losing the house.”
“Very well. I have some business in Portugal Cove later on this afternoon. How about I drop by the house at about three-thirty?”
“I’ll be home, Mr. McGrath.”
“Let me say one more thing. If your uncle changed his name legally, there would be no effect on the wills. If not…well, we’ll see.”
Riley hung up with mixed feelings. She somehow doubted that Mr. McGrath would have more information by the afternoon, but she would keep her fingers crossed anyway. If Uncle Richard had used an illegal name, she might get something for all the trauma she’d sustained.
True to his word, McGrath’s Jaguar pulled up behind the Toyota on the dot of three-thirty. Riley watched him from the deck door. She couldn’t help noticing he was carrying his briefcase as he hurried toward the house through a light drizzle. Maybe he’d brought something interesting.
Riley opened the front door. “Come in. It was nice of you to stop by. I know how busy you are.”
Riley took his coat and hung it on a hook then followed McGrath to the dining table.
He opened his briefcase and withdrew two legal documents. “In case you’re wondering whether the wills were made by different people, I’ve brought along copies of both so you can see your uncle’s signatures. They appear identical.”
Riley took the two documents from the folder and looked at the last pages. Uncle Richard had signed his name as Thomas F. Gibson on both of them. She couldn’t see any difference.
“I’ve looked at signatures all my working life,” McGrath continued, “and pride myself on knowing a forgery when I see one. You can take it from me that both wills were signed by the same person, which means that no one was impersonating Mr. Gibson at any time. It has nothing to do with the name change, of course. I’ll have to contact the firm in Vancouver about that. If you recall, they executed the first will. Allow a day or two for an answer or longer if they’re busy.”
“What do you think, Mr. McGrath?”
“I don’t know, my dear. I would tend
to favor legality.”
“So it looks as though things will stay as they are?”
“More than likely.”
“Before you go,” said Riley, “there are a couple of things you should know about. On Friday, John Kelly called to say that Bethany O’Shea has left St. John’s. One of the constables asked around the neighborhood where she lives. No one had seen her since before the robbery.”
McGrath returned the documents to his briefcase. “I guess the good sergeant’s put two and two together and thinks she’s flown the coop along with the others. I suppose it’s possible. However, the trail’s getting cold and unless the RCMP comes up with something definitive quite soon, we may never know who went where. And what was the second thing?”
“We’ve booked the Mustang on the Port aux Basques to North Sydney ferry for the morning of October twenty-fourth. That gives us two more weeks.”
“I’ll be sorry to see you go,” said McGrath. “But we might meet again. I sometimes pass through Toronto on my travels.”
They crossed the living room to the front door, where the lawyer put on his coat.
“Give us a call if you do,” said Riley.
They shook hands, then McGrath turned and hurried back through the drizzle to his car.
Riley returned to the deck door and watched the Jaguar disappear down the driveway. It seemed almost certain that her two days of hope had been dashed.
When Paul got home, she gave him a drink and told him the whole story while they cuddled on the settee.
“You should have said something before,” he said, “then you wouldn’t have worried so much. But it’s typical of my Riley-girl to be considerate and not raise false hopes.”
Riley accompanied Paul to the Mustang as he departed for his last day at work.
“I don’t know whether finishing on Friday the thirteenth is a good thing or not,” he commented, throwing a jacket onto the passenger seat.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Riley answered. “Right now I’m going to look around and see how much stuff I’ve collected. I have a nasty feeling there’s more than we can take.”
“I’d better go. Can’t be late on my last day, can I?”
Riley stood back as he started the engine. She watched him turn the car and realized they wouldn’t need the Toyota any longer; the time had come to call Charlie and arrange to turn it in.
Paul came home rather earlier than usual and parked the Mustang in the Toyota’s spot.
Riley let him in.
“What happened to your car?” he asked.
“I took it back to Charlie to get it over with. He was all sympathetic and gave me a good price. He asked me to pay in the check as soon as possible.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“You can say that again!”
“Yeah. And I got my severance pay too. It went into my bank account along with my salary. Not much, but better than nothing.”
Paul kissed Riley on the forehead and flopped onto the settee. “I decided to take all my personal notes from work. There’s quite a pile. It’s stuff that might be useful if I went to another weather office.”
“I’ve started digging out my bits and pieces too. Everything to go is in the spare room.”
“It feels weird with no job, Riley-girl. Like I’m in some sort of limbo—neither coming nor going, if you see what I mean.”
“I understand, sort of, but I can’t imagine what it’s really like since I’ve never had a proper job. Tossing burgers doesn’t count. Paul, my love, I think we should celebrate and not get morbid. There’s some Glenfiddich left, so how about that and some fancy canapés for starters?”
“Fantastic! And afterwards?”
Riley perched on the arm of the settee. “Snow crab and lobster. Then there’s your favorite cheese cake, all washed down with German bubbly and more Glenfiddich to follow.”
“Holy cow! Anything else?”
“Me!”
Paul grabbed her. She fell awkwardly and they ended up in a tangle on the floor.
The days that followed became progressively busier with no time to get depressed. On Saturday they had to catch the bank before it closed at noon to pay in Charlie’s check and find out their account balances. After that, they ordered a shipping crate to pack up and send ahead. Then Sunday afternoon came and it was time to say good-bye to Ada Rideout.
As if to cheer them up, the sun came out when Paul parked the car outside her house. Almost at once, Marj Noseworthy materialized out of nowhere and came over to the fence, complete with the inevitable garden rake.
“Hello, Marj,” said Riley brightly as they opened the gate. “We’ve come to say good-bye to Ada. You’ll be pleased to hear we’re leaving Newfoundland for good a week from today.”
“I knows all about that. In case you’ve forgotten, I told you so.”
“You can go pat yourself on the back now,” said Paul, “if you can reach.”
Marj shook the rake at them, then threw it to the ground and stalked out of sight behind the house.
Ada must have witnessed the exchange and guessed what had been said because as soon as Marj had gone, she opened the front door.
They didn’t stay long. Riley explained how she had lost the property, and promised to keep in touch. They would see her again on visits to Paul’s parents.
Riley was almost in tears as they made their way down the garden path for the last time and paused at the gate.
“I’m going to miss you, Ada,” she said. “And to think you never even saw the house. I feel awful.”
Ada patted Riley’s arm. “Don’t worry, dear, it wasn’t your fault. As it happens, one of my children may be moving to Toronto. If he does, we’ll be able to meet in different surroundings. If not, I know you’ll be back soon. The island has a strange hold on people, even come-from-aways.”
The two hugged each other, then Paul shook hands and they got into the Mustang. Riley waved out of the window as they drove slowly toward Portugal Cove Road.
After that, life became like a diary with daily engagements to cross out when they were done or transferred to the next day when they weren’t.
The shipping crate was delivered on Monday morning and they began to pack in earnest. It was about time for a coffee break when Jean drove up. The front door was already open so she stepped inside and surveyed the chaos surrounding the half-filled crate in the middle of the living room.
“My God, what a mess!” she exclaimed. “You’ll never fit it all in. But don’t worry, I have an idea. Put everything that isn’t vital on one side and I’ll look after it for you.”
“Hey, that’s real nice,” said Riley. “If I’d thought of it, I’d have asked.”
They both laughed.
“How about we shuttle the car back and forth on Saturday?” Paul suggested. ”That’s our only free day.”
“And I’ll give you dinner,” said Jean.
“It’s a date,” said Riley. “You’ve saved our lives.”
They slept in on Tuesday until the phone rang soon after nine o’clock. Riley got out of bed and rushed from the room, grabbing her housecoat off the floor.
It was Mr. McGrath.
“We’ve solved the mystery of your uncle’s name,” the lawyer began. “Our colleagues in Vancouver did all the work. They discovered that he surfaced in Jamaica around 1960. At that time, his name was Richard Bloombury. He had a job at a North Coast resort hotel owned by an English couple. In March of 1961, he changed his name to Thomas Frederick Gibson and immediately put in an application for Jamaican citizenship. Apparently, it fell through. A year later he applied to the Canadian Embassy for landed immigrant status. That was granted and he arrived in Vancouver on March 13, 1963. We don’t know what he did to support himself, but he may have worked as a freelance editor for writers, advertisers and the like. That was his occupation here in Newfoundland. He moved to St. John’s in 1964 and bought the property on Dog Cove Road in 1966.”
“Wow!” exclaime
d Riley. “That’s quite something. My parents will be thrilled!”
“I’ll have it typed up and mailed to your Toronto address with a copy for your parents.”
“Perfect!”
“If that’s everything, I guess this is our second good-bye. I wish you both a safe journey and good luck.”
“Thanks for everything, Mr. McGrath,” Riley concluded. “You’ve been a big help.”
On Wednesday morning, they took the Mustang to Charlie’s garage for servicing.
“She’s in good shape,” he said as the hoist descended. “But watch what you’re doin’ on that there ferry. People ain’t too careful gettin’ on and off. Pity if she got a dent.”
“I won’t forget,” Paul replied.
Charlie shook hands with them both.
“We’ll be back before long,” said Riley. “You can bet on it.”
As they headed for the house, Paul said, “You’d better get some practice with the Mustang. It’s not like the Toyota and I’ll need spelling at the wheel from time to time.”
“How about I drive along the Trans-Canada for a bit to get the feel of it?” Riley suggested. “We have to meet with John Kelly at three and can do that at the same time.”
Paul slowed down as they passed the store. “Good thinking. I’d forgotten about our policeman friend. We’ll see him first.”
The meeting with Sergeant Kelly was short and to the point. He explained that the investigation into the robbery was going nowhere and it looked as though the crooks had got clean away, probably to the States. He promised to let them know if anything turned up. Kelly also said how sorry he was to hear that Riley had been disinherited and lost the house. Finally, he noted their address and phone number in Toronto.
On Thursday morning, they finished packing the crate. It was picked up around noon. After that, they found time for a walk down the trail. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best kind of weather. A cold, wet fog was blowing off Conception Bay but since this was their last chance, they donned waterproofs and boots, then headed across the garden.
In the stress and activity of the past week or two, they forgot that Riley had no photographs of the property other than the house and its immediate surroundings.
She Came From Away Page 23