by Cindy Myers
“He was pretty cagey when I asked why he was in town,” Maggie said. “I guess he didn’t want anyone to scoop him.” She sighed. “Which is exactly what Rick wants now. He thinks Shelly will be more open to talking to a friend at the local paper than she has been to the national press. But I hate to intrude on her privacy. It feels wrong.”
“I see Rick’s point,” Danielle said. “And I see yours, too. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. First, I’m going to put Rick off as long as I can and think about it some more. Then maybe I will talk to Shelly. But as a friend, first. Not a reporter.”
The door from the kitchen burst open and Janelle rushed in, her face flushed, short blond hair windblown. “Dani!” she cried.
Danielle rose. “What is it?” she asked, her voice rising in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“I went to the grocery to get some more breading for tonight’s Wiener schnitzel and I heard the most awful news.” She covered her cheeks with both hands.
“What news?” Maggie asked, as Danielle put her arm around her partner to comfort her.
“They’ve found Gerald Pershing. Or rather, they have found what’s left of him.”
Chapter 16
Lucille stood on the side of County Road Ten, hot sun burning the back of her neck while a shiver raced through her. Gravel rolled beneath the soles of her favorite blue sandals as she rocked back and forth, her gaze fixed on the wrecker and the steel cable extending from its winch to the ravine below. “You’re absolutely sure it’s Gerald Pershing?” she asked Bob, who stood beside her, a rifle incongruously cradled in one arm.
He nodded. “I recognized the car.”
“But he wasn’t the only person who ever drove a car like that,” she said. “This could have been a tourist, driving too fast on a rainy night. . . .”
“It was Gerald. I’m sure.” He looked grim.
“But how could you be sure? I mean, he’d been down there a while. . . .” She swallowed down a sudden surge of nausea.
“He still had that silver hair. And he had this ring, remember?” He rubbed below the knuckle of his own ring finger.
She remembered the ring—big and yellow gold, inset with a fat diamond that had to be at least two carats. “The ring was pretty unique,” she admitted. “Still . . .”
“I spent five days in close quarters with the man,” Bob said. “I remember the ring.”
She nodded. As much as she’d grown to dislike Gerald, she didn’t want to think of him dying this way, marooned in a remote ravine, injured and trapped. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and been killed instantly.
“I can’t remember the last time I was out this way,” Bob said. He looked around the usually deserted road. They stood where the gravel two-lane made a sharp curve to avoid a rock outcropping that jutted from the crumbling slope of a hill.
“I can,” Lucille said.
He looked at her expectantly. She squinted down the road, the gravel shoulders lined with vehicles driven by rescue workers and the curious. Tall yellow sunflowers jutted up between and around the cars, their heads nodding like a crowd of bonneted spectators surveying the action. “Gerald and I drove out here one afternoon, when we were first getting to know each other,” she said. “I showed him this shortcut to the highway.”
“Well, hell, Lucille.” Bob shifted the rifle to his other arm. “You’re not going to feel guilty about him going off the road, are you?”
She shook her head. Well, probably she would feel a little guilty, but she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it.
“Here it comes,” someone said, and they turned in time to see the nose of the car rise up out of the gully. The driver’s side front quarter panel was accordioned, the windshield mostly missing, jagged fingers of spidered glass jutting into the front cavity.
Even damaged this way, Lucille recognized the vehicle—a red Cadillac convertible. Gerald had left the top up, though when they’d been dating he’d put it down as much as possible. They’d raced along back country roads like teenagers, and once they’d made out in the front seat, as if they were thirty years younger.
“You’re not going to get all hysterical, are you?” Bob asked. He watched her as if she were a live hand grenade.
“I’m not the hysterical type.”
“No, you aren’t.” He took a step back, looking relieved.
“Bob, I understand you’re the one who called this in.” Josh Miller strode toward them along the shoulder of the road.
“I’m the one who found him,” Bob said. “Daisy Mott called it in.”
“So Ms. Mott was with you?” Josh took a notebook from his pocket and began writing. “I’ll need to talk to her, too.”
“Daisy was up on the other side of the ravine. We were tracking a bear that’s been after her goats. We saw something shiny down in there. I thought it might be a car, so I went down to take a look. She waited up top.”
“Any luck with the bear?” Josh asked.
He patted the stock of the rifle in his arms. “I hit her with some rubber bullets the wildlife officer gave me. Hopefully she’ll remember and stay away from Daisy’s herd.”
“What did you do when you saw the car?” Josh asked.
“I thought I recognized it, but I went close enough to make sure I was right. I looked through the busted windshield and saw Gerald there inside.”
“You recognized him?” Josh asked.
Bob made a face. “Have you seen the body?”
Josh shook his head.
“Let’s just say, Gerald doesn’t look much like himself these days. But I recognized the silver hair, and that big gold-and-diamond ring he always wore. And it was his car, so . . .” He shrugged.
“Did you touch anything?”
“No. I called Daisy and she called y’all. I hiked up here to meet the rescue folks.” He looked past Josh, scowling. “What are you doing here?”
Lucille followed his gaze and saw Duke Breman moving toward them, long strides covering ground quickly. “I went into the Last Dollar for lunch and everyone in the place was talking about this.” He turned to Lucille. “Have they really found Gerald Pershing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t looked.” She nodded toward the wrecker. The driver was winching the convertible onto the flatbed. “That looks like his car.”
“It was Gerald,” Bob said.
“What was he doing out here?” Duke asked.
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “Maybe you can ask him.”
“This road is a shortcut from Eureka to the highway,” Lucille said. “A back way.”
“Did he usually take this route to the highway?” Duke asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t want anyone to see him leaving town.”
“Or maybe he was in a hurry to get away,” Bob said.
Duke looked at Josh. “Do they know what happened? Why he crashed?”
Josh shook his head. “The accident investigators will take a look, but with a scene this old, they might not find much. Weather and other traffic will have wiped out any skid marks. Maybe he was traveling too fast and missed the curve. Or maybe a deer or something ran out in front of him and he swerved to avoid it. We may never know.”
“At least now you can report back to whoever hired you that the man is dead,” Bob said. “Quit trying to make people think something shady was going on and leave us be.”
Duke ignored him and addressed Josh again. “Were there any signs of foul play?”
“Again, sir, I don’t know the answer to that. There will be an investigation. But at this point, it appears to be an unfortunate traffic accident. We see more than our share on these mountain roads.”
“What happens now?” Lucille asked.
“They’ll transport the body to the coroner’s office in Montrose,” Josh said. “He’ll rule on the cause of death. Our accident investigation team will report on our findings. We’ll want to notify his next of kin. Would you h
appen to know who that might be?”
“He mentioned a son, but I don’t know how to get in touch with him,” she said. “Or even his name.”
“I can give you that information,” Duke said.
Lucille sent him a sharp look. Did that mean he had been hired by the family? Did they know the terms of Gerald’s will? What did they think of his surprise bequest? What did they think of her?
“That’s all I need from you folks right now.” Josh closed the notebook and tucked it back into the front pocket of his uniform shirt. “Mr. Breman, I’ll call later for the information on Mr. Pershing’s next of kin, once we’re certain it’s him.”
“I tell you, it’s him,” Bob said.
“If I have any more questions for you, I’ll be in touch,” Josh said.
“Can you give me a ride back to Daisy’s place?” Bob asked. “I left my truck there.”
“Sure. I’ll drop you off.”
“Is Daisy his girlfriend?” Duke asked when Bob and Josh were gone.
“I have no idea,” Lucille said. “I try not to speculate too much on people’s relationships.”
“A good policy,” he said.
He looked pensive. She found most men difficult to read, but he was more opaque than most. “Are you disappointed?” she asked.
“Why would I be disappointed?”
“I got the impression you were hoping to uncover a murder plot.”
“No. I was hired to find out what happened to Gerald and I have.”
“So I’ll ask you the same question I asked Josh: What happens now?”
“I go back home and file my report. Once a death certificate is issued, the executor of the estate will contact you.”
The words sent a chill through her. She hadn’t exactly forgotten that Gerald had supposedly remembered her in his will, but she’d tried hard to put it out of her mind. Such a bequest didn’t make any sense. “What if I don’t want whatever he left me?” she asked.
“It’s a lot of money. You should take it.”
“How much money?”
“Close to a million dollars, give or take a few thousand.”
She’d never been punched in the gut before, but she imagined it felt like this—aching and breathless and swaying on her feet. Duke put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, and found her voice. “It seems wrong to accept money from a man I avoided for the last months of his life.”
He kept his hand where it was, big and warm and undeniably masculine. She had to resist the urge to lean into him. “He wanted you to have it,” he said. “You could think of it as payback for the way he treated you. Guilt money.”
“That’s even worse.”
He took his hand away and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans. “Don’t overthink this,” he said. “Invest some, spend some, give some away, but don’t agonize over it.”
“I have a new grandchild on the way. I could open a college fund for her and for her brother.”
“Do something for yourself, too. You should travel.”
“Where would I go?” She’d lived several different places in her life, but she’d never taken a real vacation anywhere. She lived in a place where other people vacationed. The idea of leaving seemed exotic and alluring.
“How about Austin?”
A nervous tremor shimmied through her stomach, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. “Why would I want to do that?”
“You could always come see me.” He flashed a grin that threatened to buckle her knees. “I’d show you a good time.”
The words brought her back to her senses. “That’s a line I’ve heard before.”
“The good ones are worth repeating.” He held out his hand. “Seriously, I want to keep in touch.”
“You have my number.” She slipped her hand in his.
“Not the most enthusiastic invitation I ever received,” he said.
“I think you’ll agree I have good reason for being cautious.” She glanced toward the wrecked convertible.
“Fair enough.” He leaned over and planted a kiss beside her temple. “Just know that I’m a man who likes a challenge.”
He turned and walked away, leaving her a little light-headed, with a smile she didn’t want to let go.
“You’ll let me know when you hear from the family? Let them know we’d like to publish the obituary, since so many people in town knew him. Thank you.” Maggie hung up the phone and stared at the page of notes in front of her. Rick was going to get his story on Gerald Pershing after all, though not the scandalous murder mystery he’d expected. Gerald’s death had been much more mundane, though just as tragic.
Jameso came up the stairs, Angela in his arms. The baby was wearing a new sunsuit Barb had sent from Paris, where she and her husband, Jimmy, were spending three weeks. The letter accompanying the gift had made Maggie laugh: I wish I was in Eureka with you and the darling child. Too much chocolate, cheese, wine, and bread. I’m going to get fat.
“Who was that on the phone?” Jameso asked.
“The funeral home in Montrose. I was checking to see if any arrangements had been made for Gerald Pershing.” She stood and took the baby and held her, studying that sweet, innocent face. Life was going to bang her up in ways Maggie couldn’t even imagine; the knowledge made her shudder.
“Heck of a thing,” Jameso said. “Him dying that way and no one even knowing he was down there.”
“It could have been years before anyone found him, if Bob hadn’t been tracking that bear,” Maggie said. She pressed a kiss to Angela’s soft cheek and closed her eyes, breathing deeply of that sweet, baby scent, fighting the sadness that dragged at her.
Jameso squeezed her shoulder. “Hey, don’t let it get to you. He’s not worth getting upset over.”
She looked up, surprised, and more than a little touched that he’d noticed. “I was just thinking about how quickly life can go wrong. One minute you’re cruising along in a red convertible, the next you’re dead, alone and at the bottom of a ravine.”
“Maybe Gerald got what he deserved,” Jameso said. “Maybe his life of swindling and cheating caught up with him.”
“You mean, like karma? I didn’t know you believed in things like that.”
“I’m not sure what I believe. But I like the idea that people who do bad things have to pay for their deeds in this life, even if I can think of too many examples where that doesn’t happen.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d want every mistake I ever made in the past to come back to haunt my future,” she said. “If that was true, no one could ever really start over. I mean, I’d always be looking over my shoulder, waiting for the past to catch up with me.”
“Come on. You never did anything bad.”
“Not terrible, no. But we all make mistakes. I’d really prefer to think we can put our pasts behind us, and be better people in the future.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “God knows, I’ve made enough mistakes in my own past. I try not to dwell on them.” He tugged a ruffle into place around Angela’s chubby leg. “I think that was Jake’s problem, you know?” he said.
“Fighting his past?”
“He couldn’t forgive himself for mistakes he’d made a long time ago. That’s why he drank. Why he was so angry. I almost fell into that trap myself. You pulled me out.”
She studied him. “Do you really think so?” She’d always seen him as a man who didn’t need help from anyone.
“I know so. That night we met—when I went up to Jake’s cabin and found you there?”
“Yes.” It had been her first night in Eureka. She was sad and disoriented and more than a little scared. Jameso had roared up on his motorcycle, handsome and dangerous in black leather. She’d been afraid of him and fascinated and even a little offended by him. But she’d also been attracted, and though she’d fought the attraction at first, afraid of making another mistake, she’d given in at last, and she’d
never be sorry about opening herself up to love that way.
“I didn’t really go up there just to check on his house,” he said. “I planned to get roaring drunk, to try to forget about my messed-up life for a while. Meeting you made me want something different, instead of the same mistakes and anger and hurt over and over again.” He pulled her close, his arms encircling her and the baby. “I want to focus on the future, and the good things in my life now.”
“I want to do that, too. And then something happens to pull me back. It’s like fighting a riptide, pulling at my ankles. It’s exhausting.”
“Then hold on to me. I’ll get us safely to shore. Maybe that’s one of the things marriage is about—rescuing each other, riding out the bad times to get to the better times.”
She had a picture of them, old and graying, still clinging to each other on choppy seas. She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder. If they could see a future like that with each other, then surely they could get there together. They just had to believe, and not let go.
“Can you believe they found him, after all this time?”
“I heard the air bag trapped him and he must have lingered for days.”
“I heard he hit his head in the crash and died instantly.”
“You have to wonder about karma, you know? Still, what a horrible way to go.”
Cassie wanted to cover her ears to block out the conversations swirling around her in the library’s conference room. Even here, where they’d gathered to rehearse the Founders’ Pageant—people couldn’t stop talking about Gerald Pershing. Leave it to that old blowhard to grab the spotlight even when he was dead. Cassie cleared her throat. “We’d better get started.”
“At least now they know he wasn’t murdered.”
“They don’t know anything. Maybe someone shot him and that’s why he went off the road. Did you ever think of that?”
“It’s time to start,” Cassie said, louder.
“I wonder where they’ll send the body? Do you think he had family?”