Rohn Federbush - Sally Bianco 02 - The Appropriate Way

by Rohn Federbush

  Kindle Edition

  ASIN: B00KOV2HG0

  Copyright 2014 by Rohn Federbush

  Book Cover Design and Book Formatting by

  Rebel Ink Designs

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author at RohnFederbush@RohnFederbush.com.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For more information on the author and her works, please visit Rohn’s Website at http://www.RohnFederbush.com.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Other Books by Rohn Federbush

  About Rohn Federbush

  Chapter One

  Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

  Route 64, West of St. Charles, Illinois

  Heading east on their drive to Wayne, John and Sally Nelson nodded to each other in a state of awe at the winter’s pink dawn shimmering on each iced twig, tree limb and snow bank along the road. The sky was sea of soft clouds floating in the rosy glow of sunrise. Sally trusted her new husband to maneuver their Honda over the freshly salted roads. She pointed to the dazzling sight. “How can anyone hate winter?”

  “No one who retires to Florida will witness this.” John let up on the gas as they approached a banked curve in the road. “Sure a minority lives on the ocean or the Gulf, but they can’t possibly conceive of this sustained miracle of beauty.”

  “Iced in pink grandeur.” Sally snuggled into her neck scarf, breathing in a comforting whiff of Arpege perfume. “Let’s promise never to retire down south. Anyone with a brain knows how to bundle up against the cold. In hot weather, even nude, you can drip with sweat.”

  “I’ve always wondered if brains swell in the summer.” John kept both hands on the steering wheel. “Maybe that’s why people get to a flash point and end-up lashing out.”

  “Crime rates sky-rocket in heat waves.” Sally stretched out her gloved hands to the dash-board heater. “Although, the cases we investigated didn’t involve climate.”

  “People in the northern hemisphere produced the world’s industrial and technological revolutions. In the tropics and deserts, heated brain cells generate fiendish hatreds.” John was on a roll. “And, the Holidays need snow.”

  “Have you read ‘The Golden Bough’?” Sally asked. “I have a copy back home. It’s a pagan history describing hunters scurrying around to bring the remaining green trees into their caves to rescue them from the frost.”

  “I bet they worshipped their fires when the sun diminished.” John gestured in the direction of the houses in town adorned with Christmas lights. “Decorations appreciate a background of ice-encrusted snow.” He took his eyes off the road for a second to look her way. “We need to make a trip back to Ann Arbor to pack up the rest of your belongings.”

  Sally laughed. “We better install a few bookshelves in your house first.” She loved her new husband’s voice, maybe not the decorating scheme of his house. Too starkly modern for her taste. Nothing mattered as long as she could be within John’s reach. The Lord could allow criminals to cross her path a hundred times, burn down her house, bury her friends, disperse her family, and move her hither and yon, if He would keep this one man near her. She’d been alone long enough. At 67 finding John, who said he’d resolved in high-school never to marry anyone but her, kept the world fresh and marvelous.

  At their New Year’s Day wedding reception the day before, John had accepted an invitation to visit Dunham Castle in Wayne. The hazardous and slowed eight-mile drive allowed them to reach the Armstrongs’ castle in a little over an hour.

  Back in the roaring Twenties, the yellow limestone castle was disassembled in Ireland and then rebuilt on the corner of Dunham and Territory Roads. Sally admitted when she attended St. Charles high school she too had dreamt of someday being a guest of the castle. Bret Armstrong revealed to John that he’d invested a majority his father-in-law’s funds to change the apartment house, which the castle had denigrated into, back to its original grandeur.

  When they walked up to the front entrance and knocked, a butler in a regulation dark suit opened the giant door. “Whom shall I say is calling?”

  John banged Sally’s back, whispering, “Isn’t that cool?”

  Sally answered for her husband, “The Nelsons, John and Sally.”

  With the slightest hint of a frown, the butler ushered them into a small sitting room. The drapes were thick and dark, the tables of antique marble, and the chandelier perhaps a Tiffany reproduction. A hint of pine furniture polish testified to the room’s cleanliness.

  “Should we to sit or stand?” John asked after the butler closed the door on them.

  “Sit.” Sally decided, pocketing her leather gloves. “I suspect you should remove your hat.”

  “Oh,” John complained, as he obliged. “I wanted Bret to admire my fur hat. The butler must be our age. Is there a school for butlers?”

  Sally smiled not able to hide her enjoyment in her husband of three days. Over six feet, his height belied his youthful heart shining forth in delight with simple things. She’d given him the hat for Christmas and here he was trying to show off in front of a new acquaintance. The Lord was abundant in His gifts. Their shared age hadn’t diminished the pleasure of their love or their curiosity for the world around them.

  Bret and Matilda Armstrong gathered them from the sitting room. “I’ve prepared brunch for us,” Matilda said, taking John’s arm to lead him across the mammoth entrance hall.

  The dining room held a requisite long table where four places were set at the far end. Bret and Matilda sat across from John and Sally. A center piece of evergreens and candles ran down the table, which could easily seat twenty. Bret invited them to fill their plates from a sideboard set with a scrumptious brunch of waffles with strawberry and whipped cream toppings, ham, heavenly-smelling sausages, poached eggs, English muffins and cherry or cheese Danish. The Christmas dinnerware added to the festive meal’s enjoyment. Orange juice with Champaign was available, but John followed Sally’s example and only drank the fragrant black coffee.

  “Do hurry along,” Bret insisted after brunch. He was set on giving John and Sally the promised tour of the castle’s twenty rooms.

  Each hall, each bedroom and sitting room, even the bathrooms were decorated with Christmas trees, wreathes, tiny villages, animated toys, and all good and cheery paraphernalia. The castle’s abundance of stained-glass windows and dark carved woodwork alone were worth the Holiday tour.

  “Matilda enrolled us in the Christmas tour list with the Chamber of Commerce.” Bret Armstrong’s chest swelled under his red velvet vest. “She loves showing the place off. Now she’s reluctant to pack all this magnificence away until next year.”

  “I believe in year-round Christmas.” John laughed. “I hardly leave the hotel during the season.” He nudged Sally, “Except for this year.”

  Sally made a mental note. John could enjoy Christma
s every day. She hoped she could find presents he didn’t already own. The unwritten thank-you cards for their New Year’s Eve wedding gifts still loomed on Sally’s mental to-do list.

  Back on the ground floor, they found Matilda waiting in the foyer. She’d finished a comment to the butler.

  And, Sally recognized Peter Masters, Matilda’s father, who she’d met at her surprise wedding reception. He leaned against the outer wall near the door, as if exhausted from an early morning run. But who would run in these wintry conditions? Father and daughter were the same height, taller than either John or Bret.

  Matilda’s gracious mood had altered. “Excuse us, for a moment.” She directed Bret to follow her father into a room opposite the parlor Sally and John were first shown.

  Bret turned to John. “Please, come with us.”

  Sally followed on John’s heels into a breath-taking library. Her attention couldn’t concentrate on the array of leather bindings on the floor-to-ceiling shelves, for long.

  “It’s your mother.” Peter touched Matilda’s arm. “When I got home ...” His voice broke and he straightened his tie for their benefit. “…from the airport this morning.” He dropped down into a plush red chair, as if he’d thoroughly explained his distress.

  Sally and John exchanged glances. The butler brought in a tray of orange juice, coffee and water, placing it on the coffee table. When Matilda failed to respond to her father or act as a hostess, Sally poured and offered Peter a glass of water.

  Without explaining the cause of his dismay, Peter finished off the water. “I’ll get a room at the Pheasant Run. Don’t go out there.”

  “To the house?” Bret sat down opposite his father-in-law.

  “It’s gone.” Peter leaned over to replace his empty glass on the tray. He cradled his head in his hands, reminding Sally of John’s habit of rubbing his bald head to think. Peter’s shoulders shook with sobs. “…in the fire.”

  Matilda nearly collapsed, sitting instead on the arm of her father’s chair, as if trying to digest the awful news. “When did it happen?”

  Peter straightened, shaking his head in despair. “The firemen were still there. I rushed in before they could stop me. They were covering her body in front of the fireplace. She was still holding her pewter candlestick.”

  “Mother never used those candlesticks.” Matilda stood up and then sat down next to Bret. “...her Colonial ancestors...”

  The family was going to need professional help to process the trauma and its cause. Matilda already seemed in denial. Sally stepped to the door and motioned for the butler, showing him her detective badge. “Call the police department. Ask for Sheriff Art Woods. Tell him to come out here, right now. Tell him Sally Bianco said, ‘Now!’”

  John overheard her directions. “Sally Nelson,” he whispered.

  Sally patted John’s bald head before kissing his cheek. “My license is under Sally Bianco’s name.”

  All three of them Art Woods, John and Sally attended the same high school in St. Charles fifty years earlier. Art had already accepted John and Sally’s detective licenses on an earlier missing person case. And, with the recent addition of arson expertise due to their latest case when the criminal had set fire to their dream home’s construction, Sally was sure Art would want them involved.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  In a New York minute, before the Armstrongs could thoroughly calm Peter Masters, Sheriff Art Woods, with only a sweater on against the cold, knocked on the castle door. “Where is your coat?” Sally admonished.

  “You said now.” Sheriff Woods entered the deadly quiet of the library.

  After Sally explained all she knew, Sheriff Woods escorted Sally, Matilda, and Peter to his police car. John and Bret followed the cruiser to the Masters’ country place less than a half-mile away. Parked cars clogged both sides of West Territorial Road until they reached the Masters’ farm lane. Was Art made uncomfortable by his friend’s old neighborhood? Tony Montgomery committed suicide when they were all teenagers together.

  “Who are all these people?” Peter asked them.

  Two television trucks vied for parking spots on the road. A police barricade blocked the lane to the house. After his superior explained who the occupants of the car behind them were, the young officer, Sally recognized as Tim Hanson, prepared to let both cars pass.

  Before Tim moved away from the back window of the police car, Matilda touched his arm. “Where are the horses?”

  “Your neighbor, the Montgomerys, took them over to their place as soon as Carolyn Montgomery called us. The house was completely in flames.”

  Matilda had nodded.

  The sheriff tugged at his hat as if to remind himself he was no longer the grieving young teenager, she’d known so long ago. Tony’s suicide had ended more than their friendship. She and Art Woods, the sheriff, had dated in those baffling, poignant years.

  She’d met Gabby, Art’s wife, during her last visit to her hometown, when John Nelson helped her find a missing woman. John had followed her to Ann Arbor to assist in the investigation. Sally was glad he was near, when her bookstore friend, Robert Koelz, died of a stroke. They’d solved the crime, finding the husband had killed a former wife. John proved his worth as a stalwart friend throughout their next painful case when a crazy arsonist burnt their dream home to the ground. Their marriage seemed a logical and emotionally solid decision and they’d moved back to John’s house in St. Charles.

  Sheriff Woods drove slowly toward the pandemonium of fire trucks and police cars. Only blackened walls remained of the Masters’ home. A fireplace loomed inside, like an ebony tombstone.

  “Everything’s gone. Everything’s gone,” Peter kept repeating as he got out of the front seat.

  Sally followed Matilda toward the ambulance, where a body was being loaded. The smell of smoke and burnt flesh lingered. Matilda stood quietly, but her hands reached for Bret, as she scrutinized the form on the stretcher. Suddenly, Matilda caught the arm of one of the attendants.

  Sally rushed over to release her grip. “It’s all right, dear.”

  “No.” Matilda would not let go of the stretcher. “It’s too short for Mother!”

  Sally motioned for Sheriff Woods and John to come to her aid. “Calm down, Matilda.”

  “Sally.” John let her know he stood behind her.

  Matilda reached for the blanket covering the corpse, but the attendant gently shouldered her aside. “Dad,” Matilda yelled, as the door closed on the ambulance. Peter hurried over to Matilda.

  Sheriff Woods and Tim now held Matilda by the shoulders, one cop on each side. Sally pulled at the back of Sheriff Woods’ uniform. “Ma’am, don’t do that again.” Sheriff Woods’ tone was calm, but threatening.

  Sally took a step back. Her old friend, Art, didn’t know she had pulled on his sweater. Instead, John’s arm wrapped around her.

  “Mother is six feet tall.” Matilda turned to Tim. Then to Sheriff Woods, she shouted, “That’s not her.”

  “Sheriff?” Tim seemed at a loss.

  Sally disengaged herself from John’s embrace and walked around in front of Matilda. She nodded to Matilda’s stunned father. Another, older cop appeared with a fur-lined overcoat. He helped Sheriff Woods into its sleeves. Sally’s brain cells locked on the stray thought that they had all climbed out from under Gogol’s overcoat. Harold Bloom’s name came next to mind, but not any sober wisdom with the random name. Things were happening too fast to get a firm grip on any theory about the cause of the fire. Secrets and conflicts among long-standing friendships and feuds filled the cold air with conflicting sentiments and unanswered questions.

  “Stop the ambulance.” Matilda struggled against Tim, her handler. Sheriff Woods held up his hand and the ambulance rolled to a stop. Matilda was freed to stand alone. “Check to see if she has an emerald and diamond wedding ring.”

  Peter slipped his arm around his daughter’s waist, bending his head into her shoulder. Matilda stroked her father’s hair. “Th
ey’ll find her ring in the fireplace.” Peter choked on his sobbing words. “She threw it there before I left for Dallas.”

  Sally signaled for the cops to close in again. Sheriff Woods strolled over. “What’s the trouble now, Sally?”

  “You’ll want to question these people at the station.” John motioned to the mourners. “Something’s not right.”

  Sally let out her breath. Father and daughter were conducted without handcuffs into the back seat of the police car. Sally’s heart was sending out familiar flipping signals to let her know she needed to relax, immediately.

  John handed his card to Tim, who already wore his examination gloves.

  Those wedding-gift thank you cards could wait. Sally needed to find out what was going on.

  “Our phone numbers are on the card.” John seemed inordinately calm. “If any charges are filed, I expect Bret Armstrong will send the Masters’ family lawyer over to the station.”

  Bret took a step toward the moving police vehicle, but John caught his shoulder. “Let’s go in our car.”

  In their Honda, Sally, John, and Bret Armstrong followed the police car back down the lane. Media people and assorted neighbors stuck their IPhones and camcorders up to the windows of both cars. “Don’t think the worst,” Sally said. “It will all be cleared up, shortly.”

  “You should stay with Sally and me.” John looked at Sally in the rear-view mirror. “Until everything is straightened out.”

  Bret groaned. “What am I going to do without Matilda? Her life is entwined in my shoelaces. Now some horrible mistake. On television, innocent people get swept up by the hysterical justice system in mysterious deaths. My Matilda!” Bret let his head lean against the back of the front seat. Caught sobs suffocated his breath.

  Sally patted his shoulder. “Hang on, Bret. John and I can help figure this out for you. Sheriff Woods only wants to question Matilda and her father.”

  Sally’s mind was bombarded with questions. Why was Matilda initially not upset about her father’s news? Was it because she knew her mother was safe? They needed to find Mrs. Masters. And who was the dead woman in the house, holding a candlestick no less? ‘Hang on’ sounded like a good suggestion, but to whom. Sally straightened up in the car. “Do you pray very much?”