Twisted River

by Kelsey Gietl

  The guilt nearly tore Maggie up that she was lying to them, that after seven short years another mother would be gone. Then she caught a glimpse of Damaris and Henry’s identical incensed expressions and suppressed any further guilt. Hugo was doing this for them. She needed to do this for her child. Success in this life wasn’t about affection; it was about strength.

  “Miss Archer, your ring.”

  Maggie accepted the solid gold band from the judge and quickly slid it onto Mr. Frye’s left ring finger. Its simplicity paired nicely against the diamond in her own ring.

  Diamond? She ogled the ring on her finger—a modest diamond flanked by two molded flowers and vines etched around the gold band. Heavens, it was breathtaking … and assuredly too expensive.

  Her eyes flitted to his. “You don’t have the money for this.”

  Something tender flickered across his features and as quickly vanished. “I promise you,” he whispered, “it didn’t cost me a dime.” But how could he say so? Even if Damaris stole it from another of her funeral pillages, marrying Maggie would still cost him dearly.

  The judge placed his hand on top of their joined ones. “By the powers invested in me by the state of Missouri, I declare you husband and wife. It is your privilege to kiss the bride.”

  Before she could protest, Hugo pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “Business partners,” he whispered in her ear. “Nothing more.”

  “Thank goodness,” she breathed. She had done more too many times before.

  THIRTEEN

  “Mr. Radford? Excuse me, but are you busy?”

  Polishing off the last line of Mrs. Hardwick’s obituary, Reuben settled his pencil and looked up. Hugo Frye stood over him, the man’s hair and expression more disorderly than Reuben had ever seen it. He tipped back on his heels, a blush seeping up his neck. “If you have time,” he said, “I could use a favor.”

  “Afternoon, Mr. Frye.” Reuben rested an arm on his chair back. “How’d you get past the warden? Miss Newton doesn’t allow visitors up here without sounding an alarm.”

  The rouge of his neck spread to his ears. “I offered to photograph her family at no charge.”

  “Wow,” Stanley interjected, his nose buried in an article behind a wall of books and news clippings. “Wish that cheapskate Smithson paid me enough to do side jobs for free.”

  “Ignore him,” Reuben said. “What can I help you with?”

  Just like that, Hugo’s entire face matched the shade of his hair. Cheeks on fire, he extracted a folded sheet from his jacket pocket and handed it to Reuben. “I tried to write it, but I’m not any good with words. Could you make it better?”

  Unfolding the paper, Reuben smoothed it out on the desk and reached for his coffee as he read the first line.

  Hugo Denton Frye and Maggie Elaine Archer announce their marriage—

  Coffee spewed from Reuben’s mouth, spraying everything within three feet including the front of Stanley’s desk. His friend leapt forward, handkerchief flying from his pocket to blot the sheets. “Reuben, you lout,” he frowned. “Drown your own work, not mine.” He held up a sheet between two fingers, words blurred on the page. “Thanks a lot. Now I have to recopy this.”

  “Sorry,” Reuben croaked. “Hot. Burnt my mouth.” Claustrophobia settled across his back from Hugo’s presence at his shoulder, his mind unable to wrap itself around what he was reading. Maggie married? To Hugo? When she proposed to him only four days ago? Bracing his chin in his hands, he pressed his fingers to his temples and continued reading.

  Hugo Denton Frye and Maggie Elaine Archer announce their marriage on July 19, 1912. Mr. Frye is the only son of the late photographer, Henry Frye and Malina Denton, and a native of St. Louis. The new Mrs. Frye comes from England—

  “Wait.” Reuben backtracked across the page. He lowered his hands from his face. “Did you come here from the courthouse?”

  “Um ... yes.”

  Reuben’s eyes flicked in shock to the gold band on Hugo’s finger. “Didn’t you just meet Maggie at the funeral?”

  Hugo’s voice sank. “We met the month before. We didn’t want anyone to know.” He butted against the desk with another sweep of fingers through his tousled hair. “Mr. Radford, it’s difficult for a man my age to find a decent woman willing to care for his children, and I have three.”

  “Maggie with children?” Reuben tapped the announcement. “We aren’t referring to the same Maggie Archer, are we?” A tick pulsed in his left eye. “Is she waiting for you downstairs?”

  “No.” Hugo gave Reuben what failed to pass for a smile. “I have a few other matters to attend to at the studio, so I sent her home with the children. Three clients to photograph this afternoon, then paperwork to keep me busy until after dinner I dare say. Speaking of which, I should get to it.” Hugo pushed off of the desk, burying his hands in his pockets. “How much will it be for the rewrite? I can send payment early next week.”

  Knowing the Mid-Mississippi already didn’t pay Hugo Frye what he deserved, and barely able to manage the calculations in his head besides, Reuben said the only thing fitting the situation. “No need. Consider it a wedding present from the newspaper.” A present he would have to compensate.

  Hugo grinned, pumping Reuben’s hand in gratitude. “Thanks, Mr. Radford. I sure appreciate it.” With a new skip in his step, he exited the newsroom.

  Expelling a burst of air, Reuben pulled a new sheet from his desk drawer, squared it up beside the marriage announcement, and started writing. He only half paid attention to the lead strokes on the page, preferring to switch his personal opinions off while he penned the lines proving Maggie had managed to con another unsuspecting soul.

  He slid the finished announcement into a folder with a stack of completed obituaries and slammed it onto Smithson’s desk as the clock struck five.

  Stanley waited for him when he returned, his bag slung over his shoulder. “Get stiffed by a girl? I could hear you lay those papers down from here.”

  “Yeah, you could say it like that.” With a hard look, Reuben loosened his tie before crumpling it and his jacket into his satchel. He tossed his notepad onto the pile and swung the bag across his chest.

  Stanley grinned. “You finally gonna let me meet this girl who wrecked you?”

  Reuben slapped a hand to Stanley’s shoulder. “Yes, Lee, I certainly am. I need you to keep me from killing her.”

  “Leonard!”

  Smithson stood in his office doorway appearing to have recently sucked a few too many lemons. “Where do you think you’re going, Leonard?”

  Stanley pointed at the wall clock which now read five minutes after five. “It’s five o’clock, sir.”

  “What, you think the news waits on your delicate schedule?” Smithson stalked across the room and slapped a note sheet to Stanley’s chest. “Shooting on Third. Get down there and bring me the scoop tonight.”

  Stanley gave a sympathetic shrug at Reuben who sensed his visit to Maggie becoming a one-man show which made him cringe. Smithson caught their silent exchange. “You got a flirtation going with Radford, Leonard?”

  “No, I promised him I’d take care of something with him.”

  “Ya did? Fine, Radford, if you’re so anxious to spend time with Leonard, you can go with him. I want an article from both of you and we’ll see who lines the more gruesome mockup.” He shifted to smack the paper against Reuben’s chest instead, and Reuben snatched it before it fluttered to the floor. “Stealing your fellow reporter’s byline?” Smithson cackled, heading back to his office. “Radford, you just may have enough gumption for your own beat after all.”

  ~~~

  “This is what you see every day?”

  That afternoon’s coffee bubbled in Reuben’s gut as he stared at the body face up on Third Street, blood pooling into the cobblestone cracks from the man’s empty eye socket. Even from thirty feet away and surrounded by dark clothed police officers, the sight of brain matter was enough to entice Reuben’s gag reflex. Ther
e was a day not too many months before when he had almost ended his life in the same manner, staying his hand right before Tena walked through the door. He had understood his death would have been gruesome, but seeing it up close was an entirely different cricket match. Witnessing what a horror he almost left behind, compounded by the stifling summer’s heat and an unappealing afternoon in the newsroom, roiled his nerves along with his stomach.

  “Not every day,” Stanley replied. He bit his lip and continued to furiously scribble on his notepad. “But you’ll need a stronger disposition if you want to report on this beat.”

  “I don’t want to write on this beat,” Reuben griped as another of the many reporters attempted to edge closer and was knocked back by an officer’s club. “Smithson made me join you.”

  Stanley’s lips rose in a sneaky grin. “Fine, then. Why don’t you go do what we planned on?”

  “Alone?” Reuben chanced another glance at the body now being loaded into a black police ambulance. The corpse’s head lolled to the side to fix him with an empty gaze and caused an involuntarily shiver despite the eighty-degree evening. “Without you there, Lee, I’ll be as dead as that corpse there.”

  “Women will do that to you. Oh, gee, time to throw on the interrogation hat!” Stanley flipped to the next page, his pen flying as fast as his feet to where a group of five reporters bull-rushed a nearby shopkeeper.

  Jumping out of the way of traffic as the street opened up again, Reuben slumped against a storefront window, silently cursing himself for ever being polite to Hugo Frye that afternoon. He rested his head back against the window and closed his eyes, silently counting the tidy sum that marriage announcement would now cost him. And all due to a woman who couldn’t care one lick about him. Honestly, what was he doing with his life?

  “You’re sleeping at a crime scene?”

  Knocked from his memories by Stanley’s punch to his shoulder, Reuben opened his eyes to glower at his friend. “I’m not sleeping,” he growled. “I’m considering what a terrible idea it is for me to see her tonight.”

  Stanley seized Reuben’s shirt collar with a firm shake. “Don’t be a collypoddle, Reuben. You need to face this girl or you’re going to be a sniveling mess forever and never make headway with Hazel.”

  “Has it ever occurred to your one track mind that maybe I don’t want to make headway with her?”

  Stanley thumbed the inside of his lip. “Sure, and that’s the reason why you’ve been out with her the last four out of five nights this week. Seriously, if you lie this bad, how did you ever get this old flame into bed with you?”

  “Sod off, Lee. If you’ve forgotten, I’ve also been out with Luella, Phoebe, Rosalea and their friends, not to mention you every night this week.”

  “Yes, but you don’t live with any of those other women or me, now do you?”

  Blood rushed to Reuben’s face, almost certainly as red as Hugo’s hair. Leave it to Stanley to set everything up so conveniently. He had already known all about Mr. Vine’s posting for a boarder when he blindsided Reuben into handing the reins over on his living situation. Reuben returned from his disastrous lunch with Maggie to a note on his desk in Hazel’s precise script, and Stanley’s smirk was the last thing he wanted to endure after an hour being lied to and manipulated by his former flame.

  He had wanted to slam the note and his fist into Stanley’s smug face and would have if Stanley hadn’t actually done him a favor. Reuben needed somewhere to sleep besides the newsroom, and both Mr. Vine’s monetary rate and personal expectations were more than reasonable.

  “I have but one rule,” Mr. Vine said as Reuben stood in the entryway to their three-story brownstone. “If my daughter needs an escort to one of her dag blam girlish functions, you’ll take her, understood? Her Mama won’t let her go unattended, and I’ve got no patience for that argument.”

  “But-but,” Reuben stammered, “Your daughter and I—we’re not—I mean, I don’t intend to—”

  “Don’t look so darned frightened, boy,” Mr. Vine chuckled. “Whether you do or you don’t with Hazel, well, that’s Hazel’s decision. Call me a progressive parent—and I right well am—” He thumbed his chin with a shrug. “But better for something to happen—if it happens—where I can watch it unfold than off in your second-rate apartment.”

  Stanley yanked at the collar of Reuben’s shirt, practically dragging him down the street. He flagged a taxi and shoved him across the seat inside before jumping in himself. “Give him the address, Reuben.”

  Reuben slouched in the seat. “I don’t know the address.”

  “The name then.”

  “The Mid-Mississippi Daily. We need to give that article to Smithson on the double.”

  “Eric Smithson can wait an hour.” Stanley lunged, both hands on Reuben’s collar. “So help me, I will beat it out of you.”

  “Cor blimey, enough!” Reuben pushed his friend away. “It’s Hugo Frye’s place.”

  “The Fryes?” said the driver. He eased away from the curb into the evening traffic. “’Course I know the place. My pop was friends with old Henry Frye.”

  Stanley’s smile was as jolly as his laugh, slapping the leather seat like he had heard the world’s funniest joke. “That’s the girl you’re stuck on?” he howled. “Hugo Frye’s new wife? She ditched you in exchange for him?” Releasing a final chuckle, he bent over the front seat. “By golly, step on it, sir. We’ve got some major damage control to perform.”

  FOURTEEN

  Maggie’s wedding night was the opposite of a honeymoon. It began badly and only continued to grow worse as the evening wore on.

  Fifteen minutes after signing the marriage license, Mr. Frye neatly situated her in a taxi with the children, instructing that bedtime was promptly at eight o’clock and “Don’t wait up.” He shut the car door on her mid-rebuttal and scuttled down the sidewalk faster than she could wrap her mind around being deserted on her own wedding day. The resulting ride home contained enough tension to cut through the butter that sat on the Fryes’ dining room table at that evening’s dinner.

  And what an atrocious dinner it had been.

  Between the icebox and the root cellar, she managed to create a meal of pan-fried ham—overcooked, chopped beets—undercooked, and eggs of a somewhat dubious nature. Fearing she would leave the children starving and her new husband embittered, she sliced a few apples and served everything promptly at seven o’clock.

  “Right on time!” she exclaimed. She settled Isa into a chair on top of two pillows.

  “On time would have been an hour ago,” Henry sniped, eyeing his meal as if it were laced with poison. “That’s when Dad serves it.”

  Maggie set to slicing Isa’s ham into toddler-sized pieces. “In Fontaine, we always ate at this hour, often later.”

  “Daddy always apologizes because he can’t cook like Mama could,” Molly said. She took a bite of ham and soured, swallowing politely before choosing an apple slice instead. “He says Mama cooked as pretty as she was.”

  Isa’s wide eyes turned up to Maggie. “Are you our mama now?”

  Maggie’s face burned as red as the bowl of beets on the table, both from the little girl’s question and her own rising irritation at Hugo’s continued absence. They were his children, for pity’s sake. Similar to a lesson about the birds and the bees, such questions should be fielded by a parent, not a complete stranger.

  “Don’t be stupid, Isa,” Henry scolded. “You only get one mama. Ours left.” He stabbed his fork into a beet. “Because she didn’t love you.”

  Isa’s upper lip jutted out and two fat tears dripped down her cheeks before a series of wails erupted from her mouth.

  “Henry!” Maggie exclaimed. She slapped her napkin on the table. “You apologize.”

  With a glare certain to steam frozen water, Henry picked up his plate. “I’d rather eat calf’s liver,” he snarled. Then in a single sweep, he upended his entire meal upon Isa’s head.

  Maggie now stood in the t
iny bathroom built off the kitchen, her annoyance at the boy in the doorway actually overshadowing the pregnancy nausea. “Return to your room, Henry,” she hissed. She plucked a dripping Isa from the bathtub and deposited her on the bathmat before wrapping a towel around her little frame and rubbing her hair dry.

  “But I haven’t brushed my teeth,” Henry countered. He dashed around her to nab his toothbrush from the box.

  Maggie dropped Isa’s towel to wrestle it out of his hand. “And tonight you’re not going to,” she spat, pointing the brush in his face. “The dentist can yank them out one by one for all I care. That’ll teach you to be nasty to your sister.”

  She replaced Henry’s toothbrush in its box and yanked him from the room by the arm. Half dragging him down the hall, she deposited him at the foot of the staircase. “Go upstairs and change into your pajamas. And heaven help you when your father hears about everything that went on tonight.”

  “What’ll it matter what you tell him?” Henry backed up three stairs so he matched her height, his little six-year-old arms folded across his chest. “You’re not my Mama.”

  “I’m not, thank goodness. You are the last child I would want for a son.”

  The defiance died in Henry’s eyes and then sparked ablaze anew. He stomped up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door behind him before belting out a muffled scream. She didn’t care. Let him be furious with her. After all, he was only a child.

  “Henry’s a bad boy!” Isa cried, her little bare bottom streaking past Maggie up the stairs as the front knocker pounded.

  “I am not in sound mind for this,” she muttered then yelled up the stairs, “Molly, please ready your sister for bed!”

  “I will, Miss Margaret!”

  Unbolting the lock, she yanked open the front door and felt fresh waves of nausea. And I am most certainly not in sound mind for this, she thought.

  With fingers predictably clenched around his satchel strap, Reuben regarded her with cold calculation and a tone to match. “Excuse me, ma’am. Is your husband home?”