Hidden Riches

by Felicia Mason

  Clayton and Archer left the cemetery with a bit more information. Three plots away from where Georgette and Russell Futrell lay buried they found the gravesite of the mysterious Howard. The stone had no first name and no last name, just Howard, 1979–2005.

  Since Clayton was planning to drop Archer off at the inn and then to go back out to see Jeremy Fisher again, he was behind the wheel of their rental.

  “Well, at least we got that Howard thing solved,” he said. “He died at twenty-six. Young. And the right age to be Emily Daniels’s much younger lover. The nephew I never knew I had.”

  “Hmm,” Archer said.

  “What?”

  “If that was Ana Mae’s son buried there, why was he so far away from the rest of the family? Your parents were right next to each other.”

  “Oh, he was with family,” Clayton said. “That whole area, about ten graves on each side, was family—older cousins, mostly Mama’s generation, a couple of aunts, and their husbands and their kids. We didn’t really know them. A lot of them had moved away from North Carolina. They went north to New York and Philadelphia for jobs and better lives. But they wanted to come home to be buried.”

  “When I die,” Archer said, “please cremate me and spread my ashes in the sea, preferably off Carmel.”

  Clayton gave him a look. “Don’t even play like that, Archer. We are going to live forever.”

  After dropping off Archer, Clayton went out to the Fisher place. He was stunned to see Delcine getting out of her car.

  When she saw him, she flushed and then scowled and yanked the strap of her small shoulder bag.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, as she slammed closed her car door.

  “I could ask the same of you,” he said, pocketing his keys.

  Delcine sighed, her shoulders slumping. “I, well, I had a few more questions for Jeremy.”

  No way was she going to admit to her wealthy younger brother that she was here to try to play on Jeremy Fisher’s memory of Ana Mae in order to get money from him to cover her financial situation. Delcine’s pride wouldn’t allow her to take that step. She would rather grovel at a stranger’s feet than divulge to her baby brother that she—well, her husband—had completely screwed up her life.

  “Funny, so did I,” Clayton said slapping his thigh with a booklet he was holding. “We must be thinking along the same lines.”

  I doubt it, Delcine thought.

  Indicating the booklet, she asked Clayton, “What’s that?”

  “The annual report. There’s something I want Jeremy to explain,” he said, heading toward the garage. “Come on.”

  No Aerosmith or any other rock music blasted the air, and they quickly realized they needed to try the house.

  As they made their way to the front door, Delcine, not at all comfortable with Clayton knowing something she didn’t, again asked, “So what is it you want to know from Jeremy?”

  “Just some questions that came to mind from the annual report of the Zorin Corporation.”

  Clayton rang the doorbell as Delcine fanned herself with one hand.

  “David Bell’s company? The one in Ohio? He already told us about Jeremy.”

  “Something doesn’t add up,” Clayton said. “I figured going straight to the source could clear up the confusion.”

  Other than Ana Mae having so much money, Delcine couldn’t think of any confusion.

  The door opened, and Nell Fisher beamed up at them. “Clayton, Delcine—I mean Marguerite—how wonderful to see you again. Come in, please. Get out of the heat.”

  She backed up in the wheelchair, and the Futrells followed her inside the blessedly cool house. Nell led them into the same great room she’d entertained them in during their last visit.

  “Call me Delcine.”

  Nell smiled. “Thank you. I know you prefer the other, but Ana Mae always called you Delcine.”

  “You just missed Jeremy,” she added. “He had to go to Texas to meet with a supplier. Is there something I can do for you?”

  Delcine sighed at the news that Jeremy wasn’t home. But Clayton stepped up. He held out the Zorin Corporation’s annual report to its shareholders.

  “I was reading through this and noticed that Jeremy is on the board of directors. Ana Mae was also affiliated with the company,” he said. “Her picture is even right here on the cover with David Bell, Zorin’s CEO.”

  Nell beamed. “He’s such a nice man. It’s a shame about his son, though. But Ana Mae was helping him work through that. They were very close, you know.”

  “We know,” Delcine said.

  Mano the robot came in then, again bearing a cart. This time it held a pitcher of lemonade.

  After refreshments were served, Clayton tried to get Nell Fisher back on point.

  “How did Jeremy end up on the board of Zorin?”

  Nell waved a manicured hand. “Oh, that was part of the deal,” she said.

  “The deal? What deal?” Delcine asked.

  For a moment, Nell looked confused. “The deal,” she said. “When Zorin bought out Fisher Innovative Solutions, Jeremy secured two six-year terms on the board and, of course, an equity stake in the company. They offered a one-term board position to me and to Ana Mae as well, but neither one of us wanted that kind of responsibility.”

  “Oh, my God,” Delcine said, the pieces finally coming together. And judging from Clayton’s expression when he glanced over at her, he got it too.

  “How much did Jeremy’s company go for?” he asked.

  Nell leaned forward in her wheelchair and grinned at Clayton and Delcine. “Can you believe they paid almost twenty million dollars for a little gadget company that started right outside in what used to be our garage?”

  Delcine gasped.

  “They initially offered twelve million, but Jeremy held firm. He got an M.B.A. at Chapel Hill, you know. And he knew both the value of Fisher Innovative Solutions and what it was worth. So he held out, and they met his number. He got the bulk of it—in cash,” she said. “Since Ana Mae and I were just minority shareholders, we both just got almost five million and some stock options.”

  Overwhelmed, Delcine sat back in her chair, her mouth agape. Clayton’s guess had been right.

  Nell giggled like a teenager. “I say ‘just’ as if either of us expected anything like that much money to come out of that mop-and-bucket caddy or any of Jeremy’s other little things he made for me and Ana Mae. Neither of us was complaining, though. Ana Mae and I were too busy laughing and crying together.”

  It was not until later that night—much later, as she lay in the bunk bed of her youth in the house where Ana Mae had lived her entire life—that it dawned on JoJo. She got up and padded to the kitchen, where she’d left her booklet from Mr. Rollings with all of the quilt blocks reproduced in it. She looked at the picture of the quilt and then flipped to the page with the seventh block on it.

  With just the light from the stove to illuminate the room, she saw it, and she smiled. She knew she now possessed the secret of the seventh block on the quilt. The image Ana Mae created in fabric and thread was of Jesus with little children. By embracing the children, the least of them, Ana Mae followed the example he set.

  That was the secret of the quilt block. It may even be the secret of the whole thing, JoJo thought. The treasure she was already getting was that she got to know her big sister better, even though Ana Mae was gone now. And she’d had some time to get to know Clayton and Delcine. The three of them had never been particularly close, but now, as adults, they were discovering plenty of shared memories that made their growing-up years in Drapersville seem not quite as bad as remembered.

  There had been good times and good moments.

  Lester thought they were looking for a hidden or buried treasure. JoJo now realized that her sister . . . it was Ana Mae who was the treasure.

  JoJo smiled.

  Closing the booklet, she placed it on the kitchen table and made her way back to bed humming a Sunda
y school song she recalled from her youth: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.”

  And so did Ana Mae.

  In Ana Mae’s bedroom, Delcine held a heated but whispered mobile phone conversation with Winslow.

  “It’s not that easy,” she hissed. “And since you have failed to in any way come up with a plan to get us out of this mess, staying here to get the money is the only way I see out of the problem.”

  She listened to her husband for a moment, and then grunted.

  “That’s easy enough for you to say, Win. What do you think is going to happen to all of those memberships when your face is plastered on the six o’clock news, huh? Did you think of that? I already cannot bear the thought of what’s being said behind my back at my women’s club. We’re probably laughingstocks already.”

  She was silent for a moment as Winslow countered. Then, “Fine!” she yelled. “Fine. Do whatever the hell you want to do.”

  She threw the cell phone across the room and heard a clunk as it hit the dresser. A moment later, a soft knock came at the door.

  “Great,” Delcine muttered. “Just great.” Then, louder, “I’m fine, JoJo.”

  But Delcine was anything but fine, and the tears she had refused to shed all of these months came gushing down like water from a levee breached in a hurricane.

  “Delcine?”

  JoJo pushed the door open a bit. She saw the state her older sister was in and went into the bathroom. She returned with a length of toilet paper that she handed to Delcine.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, she waited for the tears to subside.

  “I’m okay,” Delcine sniffled. “You can leave now.”

  “No, I won’t. And no, you’re not okay.”

  Delcine sighed heavily, then wiped at her eyes and blew her nose. “When did you get so bossy?”

  “I took lessons from you.”

  The words could have been harsh, uttered with the disdain and condescension Delcine usually meted out on others. But there was a note of compassion in JoJo’s voice, and fresh tears fell from the woman who, as Marguerite, was cultured, wealthy, confident, assured, and more than a bit bitchy. Delcine was a skinny and poor black girl from the country. In less than a week, Marguerite had disappeared, and Delcine had taken over the life she once knew . . . and cherished.

  “My life is a lie,” Delcine said.

  JoJo tucked one leg under the other at the end of the bed.

  Without her makeup and the power suits and designer dresses, Delcine looked vulnerable, like the sister JoJo remembered her being before they became virtual strangers.

  Sensing that this was a time to listen rather than a time to talk, she, for once, just waited. Whatever Delcine decided to share, she would in her own time and way.

  The wait did not take long.

  “Winslow and I are broke,” Delcine said.

  Of all the things she had expected to hear, that was not among them. JoJo anticipated news of an affair—on Win’s part, since she didn’t think Delcine had any passion in her at all. Broke was something else entirely. Something that JoJo could relate to. But before JoJo could respond, Delcine continued.

  “And when I say, broke, I don’t mean we just can’t afford to go on one of our elaborate or extended vacations to Europe or send Cedric and Latrice to private school. We’re bankrupt, JoJo. Literally. The house is being foreclosed on next week.”

  JoJo gasped.

  That mansion in their super-fancy neighborhood? The one JoJo had never been invited to but had found pictures of online?

  Wow. Double wow.

  “What happened?”

  The question came out before she could stop herself.

  But Delcine either didn’t hear or more likely deigned not to answer and instead just fiddled with a piece of the toilet paper, twisting it around her finger.

  “And if that’s not bad enough, or embarrassing enough, Winslow is about to be indicted.”

  “Indicted? Oh, my God. What did he do?”

  Delcine snorted, a most unladylike sound that under different circumstances might have amused JoJo. “What didn’t he do is the better question.”

  She stared at the wall for a moment, her lips quivering, and a moment later the tears were falling again.

  JoJo, at a loss for how to relate to this Delcine, sat there for a moment. Then she did what her instincts prompted her to do. She gathered her sister in her arms and let her cry.

  The two sat like that for a while, JoJo rocking and holding Delcine, while the older of the two alternated between wails and sniffles.

  “What the hell is going on in here? What’s all this noise?”

  Lester appeared in the doorway, wearing a white T-shirt and boxers.

  “Go away, Lester.”

  The nearly identical command from both women made him frown and the sisters look at each other.

  A moment later, they both fell backward on the bed laughing as the years between them rolled away.

  “Too much damn estrogen in this house,” Lester muttered as he walked away.

  Clayton snuggled closer to Archer on their king-size bed at the inn. With several plump pillows at his back, Archer was sitting up, and Clayton lounged casually, using Archer as his pillow. Both men were bare chested but wearing matching blue-cotton pajama pants—one of Archer’s purchases from earlier in the day.

  It was the time late in the evening when work was done—the laptop computer closed and files put aside; the novels, one on each nightstand, forgotten for now with pages book-marked for later, when the storyline of a thriller, Archer’s, or a literary classic, Clayton’s, would again beckon.

  Now, however, quiet time ruled.

  “I’m glad you found Mama and Daddy’s graves. I wouldn’t have known where to begin looking,” Clayton said. Then, “We learned a lot today.”

  Archer, his fingers idly caressing Clayton’s chest, murmured a sound that could have been assent or disagreement, depending on the interpretation.

  “What?” Clayton said.

  When Archer failed to respond, Clayton twisted a bit to see his partner’s face. Then, so that he wasn’t contorted on the bed, he hitched himself over a bit, pulled one of the pillows from behind Archer and, lying on his stomach, folded his arms under it.

  “What did that sound mean?”

  Archer took a moment to stretch and then rearranged the pillows at his back, tossing a couple of them toward the foot of the big bed as he got himself settled.

  He had come to a couple of conclusions. Factoring in what he already knew—and continued to keep from Clayton—his suppositions now seemed to have even more merit than ever. What initially seemed preposterous to him had to now be viewed in a different light. A much different light.

  “Did it strike you as odd that the good reverend was at the cemetery today?”

  Clayton, his head resting on his pillow, said, “Not particularly. Maybe there was a funeral or something.”

  “There was no funeral,” Archer said.

  Clayton looked up. “And you know this because . . .”

  “Because there weren’t any of those tents or chairs or even any flowers on any graves to indicate a service had recently ended. He was there specifically in the place he wanted to be.”

  That made Clayton sit up, propping up on one elbow.

  “He was at Ana Mae’s gravesite.”

  Archer lifted a brow and regarded Clayton. “Yes, he was.”

  When Archer didn’t say anything else, Clayton sighed. “Oh, all right. I’ll play along. This is one of those lawyer things of yours where I’m supposed to figure out what seems so readily evident or apparent to the legal eagle?”

  Archer smiled. “No. It’s not a lawyer thing. Of mine or anybody else’s. What it is, at least to me, is curious.”

  “How so?”

  “Why was he at Ana Mae’s grave today?”

  “Paying respects, I figure,” Clayton said.

  “Why?”

&
nbsp; Clayton groaned and flipped over onto his back. “Come on, Arch. I’m too tired for the mental games.”

  Since Archer was in no position to make any assumptions or break a confidence, he decided to let it go—for now. He might do a bit of his own investigating tomorrow. In the meantime, with Clayton clearly so amenable, he had another far better idea of how they should spend the next hour or so.

  Archer splayed a hand on his partner’s bare chest, then let that hand wander in a leisurely southern direction. “Then how about another type of game?”

  When the giggling finally subsided, JoJo and Delcine were on Ana Mae’s bed facing each other.

  “I never did thank you,” Delcine said.

  That surprised JoJo.

  “Thank me? For what?”

  “For keeping in touch through the years,” Delcine said. “You remember my birthday and the kids’. That’s very nice, especially since I know I have been less than . . . ,” she paused for a moment, searching for the right word. “Sisterly,” she finally said.

  JoJo shrugged.

  “None of us was ever really close,” she said. “At least not after we grew up. With Mama and Daddy gone, there just wasn’t anything to keep us tied to this place.”

  “Ana Mae stayed,” Delcine pointed out.

  “Yes, she did. But Ana Mae, she was different than us. She always was. Like even though she was older, at least so much older than me, she always was so . . .”

  “Grounded?”

  “Yeah,” JoJo said. “Rooted here. Like she was just born to be here. In Drapersville. Like the rest of the country or anywhere else just never appealed to her—never even occurred to her.”

  “Well,” Delcine said, “we know from David Bell that something in Ohio appealed to her.”

  JoJo chuckled at that one. “You really think he’s her son’s father?”

  “I don’t see how it could be anybody else. The man was, as the kids say, tore up from the floor up at the funeral, and you heard him on the phone,” Delcine said sitting up and tucking one leg under the other on the bed. “Ana Mae was his heart and soul. And he’s estranged from his twenty-something-year-old son. Ana Mae didn’t know where her son was. I think Mr. Bell is the same man and that we should just give up this foolishness of suspecting every man in town who is about the right age of being her secret child.”