by Becky Durfee
“What did he look like? The killer, I mean.”
“He was an older guy, with gray hair. The sad thing is, he’s got to be dead by now. If he had gray hair back in 1954, there’s no way he’d still be alive today. We’ll never be able to get justice for Steve, but even still I would like to give Elanor some answers. She’s dying of cancer, and all she’d like to know is who was responsible for her boyfriend’s death. And why.”
Zack slapped his hand on his desk. “Well, then, let’s get her some answers.”
Jenny was grateful for his enthusiasm, but saddened that similar zeal couldn’t come from her own husband. Was she married to the only person in the world who didn’t find her ability to be fascinating?
“Okay,” Jenny said sighing, “Let’s think about this.” Something clicked in her head. “Wait a minute. You said the house on Autumn Drive was a Larrabee home, right?”
“Yup.”
“And it kept your company from going out of business?”
“That’s the story.”
Jenny started to do some quick math in her head. The business had been family owned and operated since 1926. The house had been built in 1933. The man who had been in charge of building that house must have had gray hair by 1954, and he’d be indebted to Elanor’s father for saving his business. Suddenly the pieces were clicking into place.
“Who founded this company, do you know?” Jenny asked.
“My great-grandfather, Arthur Larrabee.”
Jenny froze. “I’ve actually heard his name in a message. Do you have a picture of him, by any chance?”
“Not lying around, but I’m sure I could dig one up. If I don’t have one, my father will.” Zack gave Jenny a strange look. “Why, do you think he was the shooter?”
“Would it offend you if I said yes?”
“No. Would it disturb you if I told you I think it’d be cool to have a murderer in the family?”
Jenny laughed. “No.”
“Okay, then we’re good.” Zack looked somewhat puzzled. “My only question is what motive he would have had.”
“Debt.”
“Debt?”
“I imagine he felt like he owed Elanor’s father something for saving his business. Elanor’s father despised Steve and wanted him gone. I’m thinking your great-grandfather pulled the trigger to repay a debt to an old friend.”
“Who knew my family history was so juicy?” Zack marveled. “I always thought they were just boring old people, but they’ve got some serious skeletons in their closets, huh?”
“It appears so.”
“I’ll tell you what. After you leave, I’ll start doing some investigating. Make some phone calls. I’ll get back to you if I find anything. Do you mind if I have your phone number?”
“Not at all,” Jenny said. She gave Zack the number, and he programmed it into his phone.
“I’ll text you with my number. That way you can call me directly if you need me for anything, and you don’t have to pretend to want to buy a home in order to talk to me.” Another toothy grin.
“Sounds great. Thank you for being so helpful. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I came here. I was afraid you’d slam the door in my face.”
“A few of my cousins probably would have. They’re all business. If you’re not here to buy a home, then don’t waste their time.” Zack stood up. “Larrabees come with varying degrees of stuffiness.”
Jenny followed suit and stood up as well. “I’m glad I got the laid back one, then.”
“I’m glad you got me too.” Zack giggled like a little girl. “This is so cool.”
Zack walked Jenny out to the door, sneaking another cookie from the kitchen as he walked by. “I’ll get on this right away,” he said. “You’ve just made my boring life very exciting.”
“Boring life?” Jenny remarked before she had the chance to stop herself. “I doubt that.”
“My life consists of work, frozen dinners and…work. That’s not exactly thrilling.”
“My home life consists of patching drywall and scraping wallpaper,” Jenny rebutted. “You want to trade?”
Zack pretended to think for a moment. “Umm…no. I did enough of that stuff as a teenager. I didn’t always have this prestigious desk job, you know.” He smoothed his tie and displayed a cheesy smile. “I spent a lot of years out there in the trenches, swinging a hammer. I’ve had enough of that to last a lifetime.”
“Me too, and I’ve only been doing it two weeks.”
With a laugh and a quick goodbye, Jenny made her exit. As she walked to her car, she felt positively exhilarated. Zack was definitely endearing in an opposite-of-Greg kind of way. This was the first time a guy had peaked her interest in a long time. Although she was fully aware she couldn’t have him for herself, she had to admit she was happy about Zack’s life of obvious bachelorhood. She would have been disappointed if he had been taken. Was that selfish of her? Maybe. But human nature was ugly sometimes.
More importantly, however, she was delighted to finally have answers for Elanor. While she didn’t have proof, the dates seemed to match up. The motive was reasonable. That had to be how things unfolded. Now it made sense that Steve’s visions implicated both a gray-haired man and her father. They were both to blame.
Nothing, not even the grief Greg would inevitably dish out when she got home, could bring Jenny down from her high.
Chapter 12
Jenny walked through the doorway, immediately noticing her painting hanging on the wall adjacent to the television. She smiled and glanced at Elanor, making sure she was awake. “It looks nice.”
“It sure does. Do you think it looks good there?”
“I think it looks great there.”
“I could have it moved if you think it would look better over there.” Elanor pointed to the opposite wall. “Believe me, I don’t mind having the handyman come back in.”
Jenny laughed. “It looks great where it is, but it would look fine over there, too, if you’d like him to pay you another visit.” Jenny sat down in her chair. “Speaking of visits…we had a very interesting guest of our own the other day.”
“Oh?” Elanor asked coyly. “And who might that have been?”
“Just a wonderful woman named Nancy Carr who bought tons and tons of beautiful furniture for us.”
“Oh, good.” Elanor said more seriously. “I’m glad she came. I’ve worked with Nancy for years. She’s a sweet woman, isn’t she?”
“Yes ma’am. And so is the woman who sent her.”
Elanor shooed away Jenny’s compliment with her hand. “Nancy does good work. I’ve always been impressed by her. She helped me decorate my entire house at the lake, several times over. I don’t really have a knack for that kind of thing, and she was a real life saver. I hope you found her to be helpful.”
“You have no idea,” Jenny said. “She could walk into a room and tell us exactly what it needed. She was amazing.”
“I know. She’s fabulous.” Elanor clasped her hands together excitedly. “So tell me what furniture you got.”
“Wow. Where to begin,” Jenny stated. “We got a new family room set to replace the one we had—that will match a painting I made of a mountain scene--and we got new bedding to match a river painting I’d done. Then we bought furniture to fill the rooms that were previously empty. We came from an apartment, so we didn’t have too much. Now we have a house full of beautiful furniture, thanks to you.” Jenny felt a little guilty. “We even replaced our kitchen set, not to match any of my paintings, but because the decorator said our modern set looked out of place in a historic home. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Of course I don’t mind. I sent her over there, didn’t I?”
Jenny giggled. “Yes, I suppose you did. And I can’t thank you enough. That was really generous of you.”
“Aw, it was nothing. With all that you’ve done for me, it was the least I could do. You’re helping me unravel the mystery of what happened to Steve. That’s
worth more than a little bit of furniture.”
“Well,” Jenny said, patting Elanor on the leg. “You may really be getting your money’s worth. I just may have the answer we’ve been looking for.”
Elanor’s face went white. “What did you find out?”
“Arthur Larrabee, the founder of Larrabee and Sons Custom Homes, actually built the house you grew up in. Your father saved him from bankruptcy, so maybe he returned the favor by doing your father’s dirty work. I’m thinking Arthur Larrabee was that gray-haired man from my vision. He apparently started his business in 1926, so by the time the house on Meadowbrook Road was built in 1954, he very easily could have had gray hair. And we know Larrabee and Sons was the company that Steve was working for, so it fits.”
Elanor silently contemplated Jenny’s words for quite some time. “That makes sense,” she eventually said. “That makes perfect sense.” She turned to Jenny. “Do you have any way of knowing for sure that it was him?”
“One of the younger Larrabees is going to look for a picture of Arthur for me. I’ll be able to tell if he was the same man from my vision.”
“I’m sure it will be. It has to be.” Elanor sank back into her bed, looking more relaxed than she had in a while. “I finally got my answers. After all these years, now I know what happened.” She released a deep breath. “Now I can die peacefully.”
“Slow down there, sister. You don’t need to go passing away on me just because you have your answer.”
Still reclined against her pillow, Elanor smiled kindly and replied, “You’re the only one who will miss me, you know.”
“That can’t be true,” Jenny said sincerely.
Elanor looked distant. “Oh, it’s true.” She raised her eyes to meet Jenny’s. “I never married. I had no kids. I have no siblings. No nieces. No nephews. And I was a little too much of a corporate bitch to have any true friends. When you’re in charge of a company, you have to keep people at arm’s length. I was nice to people and all, but I didn’t really pal around with any of my staff outside of work. I didn’t want to be accused of playing favorites at promotion time. I also needed to make sure I could let people go if necessary. You don’t want to have to be in the position of firing one of your friends. Making personal relationships at work only gets messy when you’re the boss.”
“I get that,” Jenny stated. “But honestly, it surprises me that you never married. You’re such a hoot. I would have thought that men would be pounding down your door.”
“A couple did,” Elanor confessed. “But the truth was I was married to my job. I was only leading them on by acting like I wanted a relationship.” Elanor looked solemn. “I hurt two very nice boys when I was younger. I still feel bad about that.”
“Do you feel like talking about it?” Jenny asked.
“They’re long stories.”
“I’ve got time,” Jenny said. “I’m trying to avoid going home, remember?”
Elanor let out a laugh. “Gosh. Let me see how much I can remember. I haven’t thought about those boys in ages.
“The first was a young man named Ronald; he worked with me at the grocery store right after I moved out of my parents’ house. He was a dear, sweet thing. Very innocent. And boy was he ever good looking. My, oh, my. He was right up there with Marlon Brando and Paul Newman.”
Jenny had to smirk at the dated references, but even she had to admit that very few men rivaled a young Paul Newman.
“Needless to say every girl who worked at that store was smitten with him. Every girl but me, that is. I was still holding out hope that Steve was coming back at that point, so I had no interest in boys, no matter how good-looking they were. While every other girl in the store was busy tripping over herself to be noticed by Ronald, I treated him like anyone else. I think that made me stand out in his eyes, so he actually became quite smitten with me. I was the only woman in the store who posed a challenge to him. It’s funny…people always seem to want what they can’t have.
“Anyway, he asked me out several times, and I always declined. I never gave him a reason; I just said no. But he kept asking. His persistence eventually paid off, too, because I finally caved.
“Actually, I only agreed to go out with him out of rebellion. After about a year, I started to accept that Steve wasn’t coming back, and at that point I became angry. I kind of thought to myself, ‘screw him,’ and I agreed to go out with Ronald. There’s no better way to get back at a guy than going out with someone who looks like a movie star, right?”
Jenny had to grin. “Good point.”
“I do feel a little bit bad about the whole thing, even to this day. My motives weren’t really that great; I never did have any serious feelings for Ronald. He was so kind, and he treated me so well, but he wasn’t very bright. Or ambitious. He worked at the grocery store for a while, and eventually he earned the title of assistant frozen food manager. He was so proud. It was step one of his goal, which was eventually being the frozen food manager.” Elanor shook her head. “Maybe I’m a snob, but I could never settle down with a guy whose only goal was to be a worker bee in a grocery store. Not when I was on a mission to change the world.
“But he served a purpose in my life at the time. He was someone. Having him in my life meant I wasn’t sitting around waiting anymore. It meant I was taking some control of my life back.” Elanor got a mischievous smile on her face. “And it didn’t hurt that he was so good looking. Man. He was just about the best distraction any girl could have asked for.”
Jenny giggled. Even though she knew Elanor quite well at that point, something was still very strange about an elderly woman talking about how hot a guy was.
“But he was fun,” Elanor said kindly, returning to her story. “He truly was. He was simple, but we did have some good times together.” She let out a sigh. “I ended up hurting that poor boy. I didn’t mean to, but I did. While I was just having some fun, he was busy falling in love with me. It never ends nicely when the love is one-sided.”
“Uh-oh,” Jenny said, “What happened?”
“He proposed,” Elanor said with sadness. “And I had to say no. I felt positively awful about it at the time, but you know…I have thought about it since then, and I realize I wasn’t entirely to blame. You can’t fall in love with a free-spirited woman and then become angry when she won’t settle down with you. I made no secret of the fact that I was out to change the world, but when Ronald looked into the future he saw me being nothing more than a wife and baby machine. If his view of the future didn’t come true, it’s only because he had a very unrealistic view of the future.”
“Even I know you wouldn’t have agreed to that, and I just met you,” Jenny said.
“Exactly,” replied Elanor. “I think he just figured if I was in love with him enough, I’d be willing to abandon my dreams and settle down.” She shook her head. “But he was young, too. I imagine he just didn’t know any better back then. I’m hoping he took that as a learning experience and realized that if he wanted a woman who would marry him and have babies, he’d need to find a woman who wanted to get married and have babies.” She looked a little sad. “I’m hoping that’s how he looks at it, anyway. I hope he didn’t harbor hatred and resentment toward me all these years.”
“Probably not,” Jenny said reassuringly. “I imagine he went on to find a woman who fit better into his life. Once he met her, he probably realized that you two weren’t really a good match.” Jenny shrugged. “In fact, if he ultimately ended up happy, he may have been grateful that you turned him down. When push came to shove, he didn’t really want to be married to you. He wanted to be married to a more…” Jenny searched for the correct word, “traditional woman.”
“Oh, I know that,” Elanor said. “I just wonder if he knows it. Like I said, he wasn’t very bright. But he was good looking. Did I mention that?” The evil smile returned.
“Once or twice,” Jenny replied giggling.
“I wish I had a picture of him,” Elanor said. �
��You’d be impressed.”
“I’m sure I would be.”
“You know, though,” Elanor said, scratching her head. “I do have to wonder…He seemed sweet and innocent and all, but sometimes I think he was a little more selfish than I give him credit for.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The timing,” Elanor stated. “He proposed to me right at the moment my magazine was taking off. It’s as if he sensed he was losing me, so he wanted to…trap me. Make me his. You know? I’d like to think that if he truly loved me, he would have been happy for me that my dream was coming true. But he certainly was not happy for me when I was becoming successful. I believe my success threatened him. I think he wanted to keep me small so that I wouldn’t outgrow him. Either that, or he wanted to be the star of the show. He wanted it to be grocery store manager Ronald Dwyer and his wife Elanor, not magazine mogul Elanor and her husband Ronald.”
A rock formed in the pit of Jenny’s stomach as a wave of unpleasant familiarity overcame her.
Not sensing Jenny’s mood shift, Elanor continued. “I guess I’ll never know for sure what he was thinking, but if either of my suspicions are correct, those are ugly traits.”
“I agree,” Jenny said softly. “I definitely agree.”
“I know you do,” Elanor said. “It’s one of the reasons I could recognize your situation. I lived it. I see a lot of similarity between Ronald and your husband. They both wanted their flags to look higher by keeping ours low, and that’s not the way it should be.”
“Nope. It sure isn’t.” Jenny said, although she was mostly talking to herself. Eager to change the subject, Jenny added, “What about the other guy? You said there were two.”
Elanor rubbed her eyes, which were starting to show signs of fatigue. “The other gentleman was a young man named Mike who couldn’t have been more different than Ronald. I met Mike, oh, I don’t know, I guess when I was twenty seven or twenty eight. It was a few years after Ronald. My magazine was in full swing by then, and Mike was a graphic designer. I had hired him as a contractor; he did good work.”