“No, no, it isn’t that.” Sunny glanced from side to side as if determining who was nearby. “I just . . .” Stopping short as footsteps crunched through the gravel behind us, she gazed at the protestors. “Is that the mayor?”
“Yep, and it looks like your friends are getting a bit tired of his pontificating,” Walt said. “Can’t say I blame them.”
“The mayor has some good points,” said a cool voice.
I turned around. “Hello, Sylvia. Surprised to see you here.”
“I do live in Taylorsford.” She adjusted the leaf-patterned silk scarf at her neck.
“Occasionally,” Zelda muttered.
I thought Sylvia might react to that, but she just tugged down the sleeves of her jacket.
“Sorry, we cut you off. What were you saying?” I asked my friend.
Sunny brushed back her hair but kept her hand up as if to block her face from scrutiny. “I’ll tell you later. Need to rejoin my group.” Her stack of bangle bracelets jingled merrily as she waved her arm in the direction of the protestors. Before she turned away, her gaze swept over Aunt Lydia, Zelda, Walt, and me. Strangely, she avoided glancing at Sylvia.
They probably had exchanged some choice words when she’d walked up behind my cousin. I knew how sharp Sylvia’s tongue could be and how little of such treatment Sunny would gracefully endure.
Once Sunny rejoined her friends, she led them in chanting louder protests against the mayor, who finally stopped talking and backed off.
Muttering something that sounded like obscenities, Bob Blackstone strode down the road to rejoin his lawyer and Don Virts, who were now leaning against the hood of the black sedan.
Zelda gave Sunny the thumbs-up gesture and shouted, “You go, girl! Stand up to the man!”
Aunt Lydia looked at Walt and smiled. “Still the same old Zelda.”
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Walt replied.
I studied my aunt and her old friends for a moment. It was good to see that Aunt Lydia would never truly be alone, no matter what happened.
And what do you think is going to happen, Amy?
I shook my head. Nothing, of course. And even if it did, I would be right next door . . .
No, I couldn’t think like that. I had to let things play out without a lot of useless dwelling on what-ifs.
I was happy to be distracted when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
It was a message. From Richard.
Need to stop by tonight to talk to you both, it said.
So much for abandoning my tendency to overthink things. I took a deep breath and plastered a smile on my face. As Zelda began to chant along with the protestors, I moved to her side and joined in, much to the amusement of Walt and my aunt.
Chapter Seventeen
I changed my top three times before deciding on a white peasant blouse trimmed with vibrant embroidery.
It was the best match for my favorite pair of shorts, which were rust-red cotton with a wide elastic band at the top. They were comfortable without looking sloppy, which meant I wouldn’t get the side-eye from Aunt Lydia.
Glancing in the antique standing mirror that filled one corner of my bedroom, I also admitted that the shorts showed a good bit of leg. I grinned. Something else that would please my matchmaking aunt. I slid my feet into a pair of open-backed sandals, noticing as I moved that the peasant top revealed more cleavage than I’d planned.
I turned to grab another blouse from the wardrobe as the doorbell chimed, and Aunt Lydia yelled, “Richard’s here.”
Shoving my hair behind my ears, I left the bedroom without changing my blouse. I reached the top of the staircase just as Aunt Lydia ushered Richard into the house.
“I’m thinking sitting room,” she said as she led him down the hall. “More comfortable, and you look like you’ve been through the wringer today.”
Richard glanced up as I clattered down the stairs. “Hi, Amy.”
“Hi.” A sudden wave of shyness made my greeting come out as a squeak.
His gaze swept over me, lingering on my bust and legs. “Nice outfit,” he said with a wink.
Aunt Lydia paused and turned her head to look at me. “Yes, it is. You should wear shorts more often, Amy. You have lovely legs.”
I flushed pink as a sunset, but she just walked into the sitting room, her silver head held high.
Richard waited for me to catch up with him. Leaning in, he whispered in my ear, “Your aunt is right, and I’m an expert on legs.”
I elbowed him. “Stop it. Don’t give her more ammunition.”
He grinned and stood aside to allow me to walk in front of him.
Aunt Lydia was already seated in her favorite chair, leaving us the sofa and a hard-backed rocker. I headed for the rocking chair as Richard slumped onto the sofa, but Aunt Lydia waved me aside. “If you share the sofa, we can talk more easily.”
I sighed as I sat beside Richard. “My aunt likes to order people about, as you can see.”
“I think she has the right idea.” He draped his arm around my shoulders.
Aunt Lydia settled back in her chair and beamed.
I gazed up into Richard’s face, frowning when I realized Aunt Lydia was right. He did look tired. Lines I hadn’t noticed before bracketed his mouth. “So what’s this news you felt compelled to share?”
“It’s from that physical I had for insurance purposes. No, don’t worry. I’m fine. But lucky. Those required blood tests might have saved me from some serious complications.”
Aunt Lydia tapped her cane against the rag rug covering the floor. “Oh, dear, what’s wrong?”
“Iron. Too much iron.”
I sat up, dislodging his arm. “What?”
“In the water. You know I’ve been using Daniel Cooper’s well. Fixed it up a bit, but didn’t really have it tested, because I’m an idiot, apparently.” Richard shifted on the sofa, sliding a little closer to the edge. “I thought, where’s the harm? It’s just water, and it looked and tasted clean. So I just had the pump updated and left it at that. I thought I was smart, saving money. But it seems my great-uncle had the right idea in switching to the town system.”
Aunt Lydia drew a circle on the rug with her cane. “Your well water has too much iron in it? Not surprising—there’s a lot of minerals and such in the groundwater around here.”
“Maybe so, but the iron levels in my water must be extreme based on my bloodwork. No other logical explanation for it.”
“Too much iron is harmful?” I’d never heard of such a thing. In my experience, people took iron supplements to improve their health.
“Very, according to the doctors I talked to.” Richard leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “They told me excess iron can build up in the body over time and cause serious complications. You wouldn’t even know what was happening until you started experiencing symptoms like stomach cramps, vomiting, and weight loss. If not caught in time or diagnosed properly, it can even kill you. Which is why I’m lucky. The blood tests identified it before I got sick. A few weeks to flush the excess out of my system, and I’ll be fine.”
“But you can’t use the well, obviously.” Aunt Lydia rose to her feet and crossed to a side table where her picture of Paul Dassin, in its new frame, sat among a cluster of family photos.
“No. I suppose it could be filtered, but I’m not taking that risk. It’s back to town water for me.”
“That would be safest,” I said, sinking back against the sofa cushions.
“Yeah, but you see”—Richard looked up to meet my aunt’s piercing gaze—“it got me thinking.”
I sat up with a start. “You said vomiting and other stomach upsets and weight loss?”
He nodded. “Just like the story you told me about Eloise Fowler and those children at the orphanage.”
“So it wasn’t really mushrooms. They would’ve had a well too, right?”
“And not that far from mine. Same water table, probably.”
I jumped to my
feet. “The orphanage opened in 1957, and the deaths were about a year later. The timing fits—they were slowly being poisoned by iron in the water, and no one knew.”
“Or did they?” Aunt Lydia stared at the photos on the table. “Maybe that’s what Clark Fowler meant when he was raving about a conspiracy.”
I crossed the room to stand behind her. “But your father, and Bob Blackstone’s father, and Doris Virts’s dad were all on the town council then. You think they knew and let those children die? Surely they wouldn’t have allowed such a thing.”
“No”—Aunt Lydia turned around, her blue eyes filled with unshed tears—“they wouldn’t have allowed that, not if they’d known ahead of time. But they might have covered it up if they found out afterward. To protect the town.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Turning aside, I pressed my hand against the back of my aunt’s chair.
Richard rose to his feet. “It’s possible, if you consider the trouble it might have caused. Lawsuits or other court actions could’ve forced the council to pay damages to Clark Fowler, if no one else. Might even have left the town bankrupt.”
“And destroyed all Lee Blackstone’s hopes of running for higher office,” Aunt Lydia said.
I dug my fingernails into the suede fabric of the chair. “Could Bob Blackstone know this? He’s been so adamant about expanding the town water system to serve his subdivision. Wonder if this is why?”
“Might be.” Aunt Lydia ran her fingers across the top of a silver frame that held a photo of her parents—sitting on the back porch of this house with my mother and aunt nestled in their laps.
I could see she was deeply troubled by this news and moved to stand beside her. “He certainly wouldn’t want any development company to know. There’s no guarantee town water will be available for a while. If they want to start building right away, the developers will have to provide wells and septic tanks.”
Richard crossed the room to join us. “That’s a big gamble. What if the new owners fall ill?”
I shrugged. “Maybe the mayor figures if he can get the developers to buy the property now, he can pocket the money before they realize the problem.”
“To be fair,” my aunt said, “it might take them a while to draw up their plans, so Bob could be banking on having time to expand the town system first.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Or he’s willing to gamble and hope for the best.”
“But no developer would purchase that property if they knew the truth.” Richard laid his hand on my shoulder. “Unless Blackstone could immediately offer them access to town water, and there’s no guarantee of that anytime soon. His current buyers would back out. They wouldn’t take that risk.”
I dropped my arms to my sides and gazed at my aunt’s averted face. “So Mayor Blackstone does have a reason to murder someone. I mean, if Doris Virts knew about the cover-up and was rambling, or if Clark Fowler got his proof somehow . . . Although that’s also a good reason for Don Virts to kill Clark, I suppose. He probably needs his cut of the money from the deal and didn’t want Clark to jinx it. But that doesn’t explain Doris’s death, unless . . .” I swallowed the words forming on my tongue. I didn’t want to mention my suspicions about Kurt Kendrick to Aunt Lydia yet. She already hated him enough to confront him again, and I didn’t want to chance that.
Richard squeezed my shoulder. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Although I think Brad Tucker should be told. About Bob Blackstone if nothing else.”
“Definitely.” Richard’s body heat warmed my back. It was sensation I liked a little too much. I pulled away from his hand and moved closer my aunt. “This certainly sheds a new light on the past.” I picked up Paul Dassin’s photo and studied his arresting face. Richard would probably look much like his great-uncle when he was older. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing. “There’s something else if you think about it. Something that happened before the orphanage tragedy.”
Aunt Lydia turned her head to stare at me. “What do you mean?”
I traced the outline of Paul Dassin’s face on the glass with one finger. “Richard mentioned symptoms that sound an awful lot like poisoning.”
“Daniel Cooper?” Richard stepped forward to flank my aunt’s other side.
“It could explain a lot.” I set the photo back amid the family pictures. “Like a healthy young farmer falling ill, displaying symptoms that mimic poisoning.”
Richard glanced over at me. “And then his bride is accused of murder.”
Aunt Lydia leaned heavily on her cane. “Yes,” she said in a soft voice. “A young woman who was an outsider, a stranger. She came from an isolated mountain community and practiced herbalism. Not something the people of Taylorsford were accustomed to in 1925. It would have been considered unchristian at the time. So if you think it through, it’s not surprising she was accused.”
“They wouldn’t have known about the excess iron in Daniel’s water. They wouldn’t have even known to look for it.” I linked my arm through my aunt’s crooked elbow.
Aunt Lydia’s expression remained troubled. “It does explain Daniel’s symptoms and his death. But why wouldn’t Daniel or his mother have shown such effects before? The family lived on that land for years.”
Richard cast me a thoughtful look. “But not in the same house, right? My home was built in 1923. So there had to have been another earlier house somewhere on their land.”
“It burnt down, and Daniel built yours to replace it,” Aunt Lydia said. “That much I remember from chatting with Paul Dassin when I was young. The family only consisted of Daniel and his mother, you know. His father died in the Spanish-American War when Leona Cooper was pregnant with Daniel.”
“Oh, sad.” I looked from my aunt to Richard and back again. “But it’s weird that the Coopers lived on their land for so long, yet Daniel only fell ill years later. It doesn’t take that long for iron-poisoning symptoms to show up, does it?”
“Not from what the doctors told me. Maybe a year to eighteen months. Two years, tops.” Richard rubbed at his chin with one hand.
I examined the arrangement of family photos. All that history, captured in black and white. If only those people could speak. “Would the location of the wells make a difference?”
“It could, I suppose,” Aunt Lydia said, pulling free from my arm to press her palms against the table. “I know people on the other side of town who’ve had to dig wells. One family hit water with no problem, while their next-door neighbors’ project kept spewing up nothing but sand. Properties were close together too.”
“So we need to investigate where the old house was located. I bet it’s in the archives somewhere. Remember, Aunt Lydia, I was just talking about the collection of land plats earlier today? I think that’s where we should start.” I turned to Richard. “You up for a little research tomorrow morning? If we go in early, we’ll have the place to ourselves before the library opens at ten o’clock.”
“Sure,” he replied, “but if we’re doing that, I’m heading home now to grab dinner and then get some sleep. It’s been quite a day. Thank you for hearing me out, Lydia, and Amy”—he leaned in to kiss my cheek—“see you tomorrow.” As he reached the hall, he spun on his heel to face us again. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot. I have a conference call I need to be on tomorrow morning.” He lifted his hands. “Weird timing because it’s international. I’ll have to do that from home, so can I meet you at the library, say, around nine-thirty?”
“Sure,” I replied, giving him a little wave.
After a glance at Aunt Lydia, who just arched her eyebrows, I ran into the hall. I caught Richard at the front door and grabbed his arm. “That wasn’t a proper good-bye,” I said as he gazed down at me.
“Well then, I’d better remedy that.”
I lost all sense of time after that and was shocked when he abruptly pulled away.
“Perhaps I’d better go on home now.” He stroked my bare shoulder. “Your aunt will wonder what we
’re up to.”
“I bet she can guess,” I said, my voice strangely hoarse.
Without another word, Richard reached out and gently tugged my sleeves back over my shoulders.
I was lost then, and I knew it.
Charles would’ve simply turned away or pointed out the rumpled condition of my blouse, expecting me to take care of it even if he’d been the one to muss me in the first place.
But Richard fixed my blouse and smiled and kissed me softly on the lips one more time before leaving the house.
I locked the door after him, fumbling with the dead bolt three times before I finally slid it into place. As I wandered dreamily toward the sitting room, a rustling from the parlor made me stop dead.
Something crashed to the floor. Creeping over to the open door, I peeked into the shadowed room and spied books scattered across the rose-patterned wool rug that covered most of the hardwood floor. I stepped into the parlor to investigate.
The books were from a small collection housed in a curio cupboard that sat next to a chair Rose Baker Litton had imported from England. Strangely, one of the curio cabinet’s glass doors hung open. I rubbed at my nose, fighting an urge to sneeze, and knelt beside the chair.
Such an ugly chair. Who in their right mind would have shipped it across the Atlantic? The horsehair-stuffed velvet seat had faded from its original black to a coppery brown. Its dark wood back was carved into a fantastical motif that managed to look threatening as well as uncomfortable.
I glanced up at the carvings. Of course, vines and roses. A rather narcissistic folly, like the entire parlor. A room devoted to roses in honor of the woman who had decorated it. At least the chair’s carved vines were realistic enough to include thorns.
Just like Grandma Rose, my mom would say.
I rubbed my arms with both hands. It was colder in this room than anywhere else in the house. Which was weird because Aunt Lydia had closed off most of the vents to preserve energy. But perhaps it was just the heavy damask drapes insulating the room against the summer heat.
The fallen books were all slim volumes in leather bindings. They probably contained poetry or the daily homilies so popular in the early twentieth century. As I placed them back into the curio cabinet, my fingers stroked the smooth crimson leather of one of the volumes. I hated lingering in that room but couldn’t overcome my curiosity—show me any book, and I’d want to browse its pages.
A Murder for the Books Page 18