Agnes

by Jaime Maddox

  Why was Sandy curious about the watches? Perhaps it was just the reminder of her grandfather. He hoped the information he found helped. He made photocopies of the relevant papers and then returned the boxes to the storage area. While he was there, he began looking through more files, sitting on the floor, not even bothering to take them back to the comfort of the boardroom table.

  At first, he concentrated on items that specifically pertained to Sandy’s branch of the family, but found few. Her grandfather, Dr. David Parker, had little to do with the family business, so there wasn’t much in the archives except pictures of him as a boy and young man before he went off to Philadelphia for his education. The files did contain papers showing the transfer of land parcels made by Cowboy to both of his sons, and Danny copied these as well, figuring Sandy might find them interesting. Sandy’s grandfather had inherited the land in Mount Pocono that had been a family retreat, land in Hunlock Creek that housed stables and a hunting lodge, a tract of land in Nanticoke, and the house on Canal Street.

  A few hours after beginning his quest, and feeling quite satisfied, Danny put the file boxes back in their places and headed out the door, not thinking much about the papers in his hand. There was little there of interest except to someone like him, a historian. He feared Sandy would be disappointed with his offering. Was he ever wrong.

  Since his parents’ divorce, Danny and his two sisters had been spending weekends with their father at his home on Harvey’s Lake. As they grew to be teenagers and could be trusted for hours by themselves, they had elected to spend summers at the lake as well. There was a boat and a dock, and the siblings had great fun with their neighbors and friends, waterskiing and scuba diving, jet skiing and swimming in the beautiful lake waters.

  His sisters, now in high school and college and with cars and lives of their own, were never to be found, it seemed. Danny spent that night at home alone reading while his father golfed and had cocktails at the country club. The next night, after putting in a twelve-hour day at the lumberyard, Danny caught him just as he was about to pour himself a cocktail. He joined his dad on the terrace overlooking the lake. His parents had purchased this house when they married, and unlike most things in his family, it was fairly new. Like most things Parker, though, it was well done, with traditional hardwood floors and cut-glass doors and windows, marble sinks and floors, and antique French doors leading to the terrace. One entire wall, two stories high, was constructed entirely of glass.

  The house was set apart from its neighbors, on a rare secluded piece of land right on the water. There were no streetlights on this section of the lake, and at nine thirty in the evening, the only visible light was escaping from the interiors of the homes lined side by side on the water’s edge, and from party lights hung on boathouse roofs and railings.

  His relationship with his father was an odd one. It hadn’t taken Danny long to understand that it wasn’t his fault. His father was strange. Of all the people in the world, he thought his father liked him best, but his difficulties in relating to people kept their relationship at a superficial level. Dan wasn’t affectionate, and he tended to be harsh and demanding and aloof. His obsessive and compulsive tendencies made him difficult to live with and work for. He was absolutely devoid of humor. He could be compassionate, until someone pissed him off. At that point the killer instinct took over and he became absolutely ruthless. And whether he liked him or not, this man was his father, and he knew for certain that he loved him.

  Danny sank into a comfortable patio chair and pulled the sheaf of documents he’d copied from an envelope and handed the top one to his father. “I’m looking into family history and I want to know more about the watches.”

  “School project?” his father asked, even though it was June and Danny was off for the summer.

  “Yes.” Danny lied because his father hadn’t been happy when he mentioned meeting his cousin Sandy the week before. As much as he loved history, the information surrounding Dr. David Parker’s family had always been a mystery. It seemed that David had struck out on his own, and while Dale hadn’t officially disowned him, he seemed to have shunned him, for there was a paucity of information about David after he left for school. Without Danny’s knowledge of the trust fund and his curiosity about his family, he might not have even known that his great-grandfather had this mysterious brother.

  “Was there something special about Cowboy’s watch? Is that why one of them cost more money?”

  Dan glanced at the paper in his hand and squinted in the near darkness.“Flip the light, will you?” he said. Instantly, a string of party lights provided enough wattage for him to read the document. All he needed was a glance to identify the document and understand its contents. He signaled for Danny to flip the switch again, and instantly the patio was cloaked in darkness. “Oh, no, Danny, that watch wasn’t for Cowboy,” his father replied, with what sounded like a hint of sarcasm. He took a long sip from his glass and exhaled loudly before continuing. “Like you, David was left-handed. That extra watch was made especially for him, with the winding mechanism on the left side. Cowboy couldn’t have his baby boy using his right hand to wind his watch, now could he?”

  Danny marveled at his father’s knowledge. He could have pored over records and documents for days and not found the information his father had tucked away in his brain. Danny only wished his father made better use of his great mind and didn’t poison it with alcohol. He would continue to probe until Dan became argumentative, and then he’d back off before the conversation became too ugly. Like so many men and women Danny knew, his father wasn’t a nice man after alcohol began to influence his judgment. And Danny knew before he walked out to the terrace that this wasn’t the first bourbon and water his father had poured this evening. Danny nursed his, not really partial to the drink his father preferred, but too polite to ask for something else. Even if he had, he wasn’t sure Dan kept anything but bourbon in his den. Dan, on the other hand, was already at the bottom of his glass, causing the ice to tinkle against the sides with every gesture of his animated hand.

  Watching him, Danny was overwhelmed by sadness that such an intelligent and capable man had been reduced to this pathetic state. At times like this he could understand why his mother had divorced this man—he wasn’t the same guy who’d stopped by the lumberyard that afternoon, who ran million-dollar companies and golfed with the governor. This man wasn’t to be respected and feared; he was to be pitied.

  When his dad excused himself to pour another drink, Danny spilled half of his over the terrace wall. “What happened with the land? Why did Cowboy divide it?” Danny asked his father, who was just a dozen feet away, just inside the French doors and close enough that their conversation didn’t pause while he poured another drink.

  “His sister Eloise had married and moved away, and he knew she wouldn’t be interested in having large tracts of land here. Too much of a headache to deal with. So he decided to split things up, giving her the monetary value of the land Bear had left in his control, and then gave the rest to his two surviving sons. Then he set up the trust fund with company stocks and public stocks so everyone would profit equally from the company.”

  “What happened when your grandfather bought them out of the company?” After Agnes, the first Dale had taken possession of the companies by purchasing the shares held by Nellie and Madeline’s descendants. This unilateral control gave him the freedom to make bold moves that resulted in tremendous growth for the companies in the decades after the flood.

  Dan laughed. “It was a little sticky. Since the company profits funded the trust fund, some tenets of the trust had to be revised. Everyone who’s a descendant of Bear Parker gets an equal share to the trust. It just isn’t growing from the profits of the Parker companies anymore.”

  Danny knew this, his father had complained many times about what had been the folly of his grandfather’s decision. What had seemed like a smart move back then had actually crippled the trust fund. It would never grow and
never do more than sustain the basic needs to the beneficiaries.

  “What about the land, Dad?”

  “What about it?”

  “What happened to the land Cowboy gave David?”

  “Well, Canal Street was washed away by Agnes. David’s widow sold the hunting lodge, and his granddaughter still owns the Pocono property.”

  Danny looked to his father, whose head was thrown back against the lounge chair on which he reposed, as if stargazing on this bright night. His eyes were closed, though. He was just resting.

  “What about the land in Nanticoke?”

  Suddenly, as if he’d been slapped, his father sat upright and turned toward him, grabbing the papers Danny still held in his hand. “Why don’t you major in business? What are you going to do with a history degree, anyway? Sometimes history should be left to rest. Now, no more questions.”

  With that, Dan rose, and on somewhat unsteady legs, he marched into his study. Danny followed him, unsure what he’d said to piss his father off so unexpectedly. Before he even reached the door to the study, he could hear the sound of the shredding machine chopping up the documents he’d spent yesterday copying.

  *

  His typical day at the lumberyard began at five thirty a.m., allowing Danny time to prepare for the six o’clock opening of the doors. To meet those deadlines, he usually set a four thirty alarm, but on this particular day Danny had set his clock for three am. He needed to stop back at the Parker Companies and do some investigating.

  He arrived at the offices in Plymouth at three forty-five, entered the security code into the alarm, and then headed back to the boardroom. This time, he didn’t need to dig through boxes of papers to find what he was looking for. He simply sat back at the boardroom table and studied the map of the Parker Companies that had been painted over a century before.

  His father’s sudden change in temperament the evening before had resulted from Danny’s questions regarding David’s land in Nanticoke. Nanticoke and the surrounding communities—Breslau, Hanover, Alden, Glen Lyon—had been an enormous faction of the Parker’s coal interests. These towns were heavily endowed with both coal and access to the Susquehanna for easy transport south. It wasn’t easy for Danny to discern from the map which area had been bequeathed to David, and he had to venture to the file room yet again to pull out topographical maps that gave more detail.

  His years of studying these documents gave him a familiarity that told him he was on the right track, even though he couldn’t find what he was looking for. It was a difficult task to finally discover what exactly David Parker had inherited all those years before. When he finally figured it out and saw the piece of land on the map, Danny wondered what had rattled his father. The land in question was located to the east of the city and had never been mined. Some notes on the map he used as reference indicated the land was dry, not suitable for farming, and held little prospect for a lucrative coal vein. It seemed like a worthless tract of land, on paper, at least. The question remained, though—what had upset his father so much?

  Using a notepad, Danny jotted some details indicated on the map, including the name of the road nearest the land, and looking at his watch, he decided he had just enough time to dash there before he had to get to the lumberyard. Back at his car—he was driving his mother’s BMW while she was out of town—he plugged the address into the GPS. Just fifteen minutes later, he pulled the car to the side of the road when the navigation system indicated he’d arrived at his destination.

  Because the map at the office was so old, Danny hadn’t recognized the location of the land that Cowboy gave his son David. There were no buildings back then, and the current roads hadn’t yet been built. Yet Danny had been able to find the place, simply by following the taillights in front of him. Even though it was only five fifteen, there was already a steady flow of traffic on the road, all of it headed to the same destination. Danny pulled his car to the side of the road and watched as truck after truck passed him, their blinkers glowing brightly in the darkness as they turned into the main entrance to the Anthracite Landfill.

  Leaning his head against the plush leather headrest, he chewed his cheek, a habit that told those who knew him best that he was troubled. And at this moment, he was deeply troubled. If he hadn’t seen his father’s reaction the evening before, Danny would have tried to rationalize what he was seeing, would have thought there must be a plausible explanation for what seemed on the surface to be impossible. Yet here he was, at the property owned by his newfound cousin, Sandy, watching as Parker dump trucks and sanitation trucks bearing a multitude of logos hauled their trash to the landfill his grandfather had opened just days after the Agnes flood.

  While Danny wasn’t privy to the exact details of the company finances, he knew enough to know this was a huge problem. Sandy Parker knew nothing about this place. That could mean only one thing—his family was operating the business on her property without her knowledge or approval.

  Revenue derived from the landfill accounted for just over half of his family’s annual profits, maybe a bit more. If Sandy sought restitution for the income she’d lost over the years—and Danny’s rough calculation put that number at about a hundred million—his family would be bankrupt.

  With a heavy heart he pulled the car onto the road and, dodging the line of trucks, made a U-turn and headed toward the lumberyard. He continued to chew his cheek as he realized that his father had been right. He should have left the past alone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heirlooms

  The warm evening was perfect for a walk through the Village, and looking at the traffic on Washington Square, Sandy was happy Danny had chosen a restaurant that was nearby. After she stepped from the landing to the sidewalk, she headed toward Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street to pick up Angie. Tom had graciously offered to entertain Leo for the evening so his mother could meet her cousin.

  Sandy had moved back into the comfort of her own apartment after just one evening at Angie’s. The security system at her place was designed to protect a Picasso, and while she knew it couldn’t thwart a bullet, she felt perfectly safe at home. As suggested by the police, she was paying her environment a bit more attention than she usually did, but she wasn’t sure what to actually look for. In the Village, unusual was the norm.

  Being in her own space was infinitely more comfortable for her than tiptoeing around Angie, and Sandy knew that to stay would be to disrupt Angie’s routine with Leo. While her daughter would never complain, Sandy didn’t want to put her in a position where she had to. After a very enjoyable dinner of lasagna and a restful sleep in Angie’s guest room, she returned to her own home on Tuesday morning. Nothing exciting had happened since. She’d been going to the gym, reading, and had taken in a matinee on Broadway. She cleaned her apartment and laundered her clothes and shopped for groceries. She’d been doing all the things she normally did and was trying hard to convince herself that life was indeed normal.

  She’d spoken with Trooper Beers just a few hours earlier, and he hadn’t had any news to report. No one had seen anyone suspicious loitering about on the day of the shooting, and no further clues had been discovered in Angie’s tree house or in the woods surrounding the property. Every potential heir of the Davises who might benefit from the gas leases was interviewed, and no one confessed to the shooting. The officer had confided that the crime might never be solved unless they uncovered further evidence. Often crimes like this were solved only when a criminal arrested on other charges offered information in exchange for some leniency. But that sort of break was a matter of luck, and totally out of their hands. They had done everything they could, such as investigating the scene and interviewing potential witnesses, with disappointing results. That news had left Sandy rather shaken. Somehow, she’d hoped they’d find the person who’d shot her. Now, the police were telling her the culprit might never be identified. She cringed as she thought of spending the rest of her life on the lookout for a sniper.

  Angie was
waiting for her on the step, and Leo and Tom were keeping her company. “Hi, everyone.” Sandy greeted the trio but looked only briefly at the adults before her eyes settled on her grandson. Leo’s big brown eyes sparkled when Sandy reached for him, and the warmth of his smile penetrated directly to her heart. For a moment, she forgot her troubles. Showering him with kisses and squeezing him tight, Sandy had never felt such love. After a few minutes of baby talk and silly faces, she reluctantly handed him back to his father and joined arms with her daughter for the walk to Fonda, a few blocks up on Seventh Avenue.

  “How was your yoga?” Angie inquired as they melted into a crowd of pedestrians on Sixth Avenue.

  Sandy had always been fit. As a child, she’d taxed her body with outdoor activities, and she still did some outdoor exercise, but these days most of her exercise was in the gym. She did a Pilates class whenever she was in town, worked on the weight machines, and had even participated in Zumba with Angie to help her shed baby fat.

  “Good. We had a new instructor today. Lidya sprained something.” Sandy didn’t mention that the new instructor was a young hottie who’d been flirting with her for the past several months.