Hideaway Home

by Hannah Alexander

Furthermore, Herbert Morrow believed Joseph Moennig had tracked down Krueger and confronted him as the thief. Then, after killing Joseph, Krueger took off with his family. When Red asked Morrow who might have been behind the vandalism at Joseph’s house on Thursday, Morrow thought maybe Krueger had slipped back into town when no one was looking. It seemed quite a few folks thought Krueger was a Nazi sympathizer, and they were glad to be rid of him.

  John Martin’s mother, Cora Lee, interrupted their discussion. “Red Meyer, you need to try a helping of my raspberry cobbler.” She handed him a dish with red berries oozing from beneath a crispy crust, topped by ice cream. “John cranked the ice-cream freezer himself.”

  Already full as a tick, Red accepted the dessert and thanked her, excused himself from the group to walk around the churchyard.

  He tried hard not to look at Bertie, but sight of her drew him like being pulled around by a mule on a thick lead rope. There was no missing the sadness in her eyes that he’d put there with his own confession.

  He saw Arielle Potts working beside his mother at the serving line, and recalled what she’d told him about the Bald Knobbers. The real reason those rascals ran so many people off their farms in Taney County was because they knew the railroad was coming in.

  It was only hearsay, of course, that the property of those farmers who were frightened into leaving their homes just happened to be on that line. He’d probably been gazing down at some of those very plots of land when he rode the train in on Monday.

  There was no railroad going in now, but there were plans for a dam. Which would mean a lake. The Moennig and Krueger property might all be lakeshore in a few years. A fella might buy it cheap, and make a killin’ on it in a few years when the dam went in at Branson, if he was willing to wait that long.

  From what Red had heard, it seemed the Kruegers were about to lose their place. If the bank foreclosed on the loan, it could do pretty much anything it wanted to get that money back. Red wondered who might have profited from that.

  He’d spent some time with Wyatt Brown in Italy last year, before Wyatt got shot up and sent home. He’d heard Wyatt got a job over in Galena, the county seat, after he recovered. It was a wild guess, but could be someone had already made a move on the Krueger place. Maybe Wyatt could look up that information for him.

  Definitely a crazy theory, but worth checking into.

  Hideaway was already a resort town, with many wealthy folks from all over the country vacationing here. How much more popular would it become with a lake? The Moennig place would for sure be on that shore.

  Could Joseph have lost his life because someone wanted his land?

  Red took his dish back to the serving table and handed it to Cora Lee Martin. “Have you seen Bertie around anywhere?” he asked her.

  “Sure did, Red. She took off walking down the road a while back. Poor thing. I know she’s plumb worn out from all this.”

  “Did anyone go with her?”

  “Not that I noticed.” Cora Lee glanced at him skeptically. “She’s a grown woman, Red, she can walk herself home, I expect.”

  He thanked her and went to find Ivan, who, predictably, was sitting on a blanket under a shady tree, talking to Edith, who was taking a brief rest from serving.

  Red asked Edith if she knew where Bertie had gone.

  “I’m sure she just got tired and went to your house,” Edith said. “She probably needed a nap, since she barely slept last night.”

  “She didn’t say anything about going to gather comfrey leaves, did she?” Red asked.

  “I don’t think she would go by herself,” Edith said. “Not after our experience yesterday.”

  Red figured he knew Bertie a little better than her roommate of eight months knew her.

  “Not to worry,” Ivan said. “Even if she did go, Dad’s gone to his favorite fishing hole, and that’s just below the Moennig place. She’ll be safe.” He stretched his long legs and leaned back against the sycamore tree, looking relaxed and happy to be home.

  Red turned away. He would check the house, and if Bertie wasn’t there, he’d saddle Seymour and go—

  He turned back, and looked down at Ivan’s shoe…where there was a deep gash in the left heel.

  “Ivan, are those your shoes?”

  Ivan frowned at him, then looked down at his shoes. “They are now. Why?”

  “Where’d you get ’em?”

  “Dad gave them to me to wear today. He’s breaking in some new ones.”

  “They’re your father’s?”

  “Well, did you expect me to wear my combat boots to the funeral? All my others were too tight on me. These are Dad’s old shoes. Not dressy, but for everyday.”

  Red realized the mistake he’d made, thinking the print he’d been tracking was from a work boot because the shoe was so wide and long. Extra width for a sturdy work boot. But the extra width on these shoes was because they were a larger size shoe, made to fit a man with a larger foot. Like Gerald Potts.

  The very thought led Red to other thoughts that made him suddenly sick.

  “I’ve got to get to Bertie.”

  “Why, Red?” Ivan asked. “I told you, Dad’s going out that way.”

  “How do you know he’s there yet? I don’t feel safe leaving her alone. You know how much trouble Bertie can get herself into without thinkin’ twice.”

  Ivan looked at Edith, and together they got to their feet.

  “We’ll take my car,” Ivan said.

  Once upon a time, Bertie had been able to ride her bicycle anywhere she wanted, even out into the field to take water to Dad and Lloyd when they were planting or gathering—when she wasn’t working alongside them. With a hundred and twenty acres of land—ninety of which were good for crops—it had taken the whole family and sometimes several of the boys from town to help gather the hay into their big barn.

  This morning she walked, carrying a scratchy burlap bag from Seymour’s stable over her arm. She would collect the comfrey she needed, then carry it back to the house and scrub herself down to remove any summer critters that might have hitched a ride on her clothing—Lilly said it had been a bad summer for ticks.

  Then she would boil the comfrey for tea; the large leaves she would use as dressing. The leaves were a perfect size for that kind of a poultice.

  The old cow trail was still a well-used path to the riverbank, with gooseberry bushes and blackberry brambles only a few steps from the trail. She would come back another day to pick berries. Today, she was gathering something much more important.

  Red would most likely put up a fight, but now that Lilly was as determined as Bertie to help him heal, she thought between the two of them they’d convince him to at least try it.

  Oh, Lord, touch his heart and heal him, she prayed as she stepped over an old tree root that used to trip her when she was a kid. He’s been through so much.

  She couldn’t imagine how she would have reacted to the horror Red had endured these past three years. She was surprised more men didn’t come back from the war shellshocked, unable to function. She hated war with a passion.

  And yet she knew the alternative could have been a whole world under the evil reign of Nazi Germany—with Hitler the supreme commander. Red and Ivan and the men who had fought this war were heroes. Why couldn’t Red realize how much his sacrifice meant to her? To everyone?

  She found the comfrey plants exactly where they had always been, watered by a tiny spring on the hillside, just above the cliffs that dropped down to the largest of the caves at the foot of the hill. She was bending down to collect the first few huge leaves—which would work so well to wrap around Red’s knee and thigh—when she heard voices below her.

  She couldn’t quite make out the words, but she did recognize Gerald’s deep voice. That was nothing new. The riverbank below was a popular fishing spot for the locals, who knew where to catch the best striper on the river. She’d known he would be down there today.

  But as she continued to collect the leave
s, the tone of Gerald’s voice changed. He sounded angry.

  Frowning, she broke the final comfrey leaf from its stem, eased it gently into the bag on the ground, then, curious, she stepped over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. All she could see were the tops of two heads, two men in separate flat-bottomed boats, directly below her.

  Gerald wore the old fishing hat he always wore. Gramercy Short was the other man, his balding head already turning pink in the sun.

  “Look, we had an agreement,” Gramercy snapped, his voice echoing along the water. “My silence for a price. You owe me.”

  As the words registered, Bertie took a step backward. This didn’t feel like a place she wanted to be right now.

  “We agreed this would be a long-term investment of our mutual time and silence,” Gerald said.

  “Don’t give me your highfalutin words. I don’t want no long-term nothing! I’m not waiting ’til the lake comes in. I could be dead by then. I want my share now.”

  “You should know I don’t have that kind of money. Where would I get it?”

  “Don’t try to pull that one on me, Potts. Everybody knows your wife’s family is loaded to the gills.”

  There was a silence, then came Gerald’s voice, low and cold—so soft, Bertie wouldn’t’ve heard him, except their voices carried from the water up the side of the cliff like a natural amplifier.

  “You leave my wife out of this.”

  There was a wicked chuckle. “But isn’t that what this is all about? Me leaving everyone else out of our little discovery?”

  “It was an accident!”

  “Hideaway needs to have another accident. Or did you talk little Miss Moennig into selling?”

  “I never said anything about the Moennig farm.”

  “You said you’d see to it that—”

  The ground shifted beneath Bertie’s feet. She gasped, scrambling backward. The voices hushed below as rocks and pebbles splashed and echoed.

  She needed to grab her bag of leaves and get out of here before—

  The ground beneath her gave way completely. There was a shout from below, and she screamed. Suddenly she was tumbling down amidst mud and gravel. Rocks dug into her legs and gouged her shoulders.

  She hit the river with a splash of shocking cold. Water stung her nose and she gagged. Her feet touched the rocky bottom as more pebbles rained down on her from above.

  When she broke surface the stones had stopped falling, but as she blinked her eyes and her vision cleared, she saw something more dangerous.

  Gramercy Short was on his knees in the boat, and he had his paddle raised over his head, directly above her.

  “Short!” Gerald called from behind him. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  The paddle started down. Bertie didn’t wait. She dove beneath the surface again, clawing her way beneath Short’s boat to avoid his weapon. She came out on the other side, gasping for breath, only to find Gramercy in the water with her, reaching for her, his face twisted with some kind of vicious determination.

  He snagged her by the hem of her skirt as she tried to swim away. She went under, choked, fought her way back to the surface, coughing.

  “No!” Gerald shouted behind her.

  “Looks like trouble has decided to pay us a call,” Short said. “Probably another one of those Nazis you’re so eager to kill.”

  “Let her go, Short!” Gerald said. “Bertie isn’t a part of this.”

  “Sure she is,” Gramercy said, treading water, gripping his boat with one hand and more of Bertie’s skirt with the other. “This little gal’s up to her neck in it, ’specially if you’re collecting lakeshore land. Her father’s gone, and I’ve heard her brother has tuberculosis. With her out of the way, we’d have that much more stock in our company.”

  “There’s no stock! No company!” Gerald snapped. “Let her go, Short. Now!”

  Gramercy dragged Bertie under. She kicked and struggled against him, but here she couldn’t touch bottom, couldn’t reach the surface.

  She was going to die.

  Fingers dug cruelly into her arm. She kicked and shoved and tried to dive away.

  She heard a shout that was loud enough to penetrate the water and her terror. “Short!”

  She fought those hands, kicking, thrusting her body toward the surface, fighting with desperation for her life. He shoved her again, and as her body went down, he kicked her hard in the ribs. His fingers dug into her throat, squeezing. Darkness surrounded her. Blackness smothered her.

  Then suddenly, it ended. He released her. She floated for a bare second or two, unable to find her bearings. Before she could force her arms and legs to move, her hair was caught in a painful grip, and she felt herself being jerked upward.

  Air kissed her face, and she sucked it into her lungs in greedy gasps. Strong hands pulled her to the shore. She blinked, then looked up to see Gerald hovering over her, his face pale, wide, terrified eyes suddenly filling with relief.

  “Bertie? I’m so sorry.”

  She looked back where she had been. Gramercy Short’s thick body floated face down in the water, bumping against Gerald’s boat as it tried to float downstream with the current. His arms were splayed out beside him, bald head shining in the sun, with a gash in the back of it that had stopped bleeding.

  Gerald reached down and pulled the man over, pressed his fingers to his neck, then closed his eyes and shook his head.

  Gramercy Short was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  In spite of the cane, the pain in his leg, the weakness, Red had no trouble leading Ivan, Edith and John through the brush and up the incline to the top of the cliffs, where he heard splashing, where he’d heard shouting just seconds before. Now, he heard someone gasping for breath.

  “Bertie!” he shouted.

  Red crested the cliff and nearly fell down the other side, where the earth had obviously given way, providing a long slide of rocks and dirt from the cliff top into the river twenty feet below.

  What he saw froze him, and he held a hand up for the others to use caution as they joined him. He dropped to his knees. Bertie was lying on the riverbank, drenched, coughing.

  Gerald stood half in half out of the water, staring down at Bertie, his face white. Gramercy Short lay in the water, and his lifeless body was bumping against Gerald’s flat-bottomed boat.

  Bertie turned to Gerald, still catching her breath.

  “I killed him,” he told her, his voice carrying upward. “I didn’t know what else to do. He just about had you.”

  Gerald looked down at the oar, and at his own hands, and then back at Bertie. “He was killing you.”

  “Dad!” Ivan cried, and started down the cliff.

  Red grabbed him. “Wait, Ivan. Something else is up.”

  Ivan tried to pull away, but Red held him firm. “We need to have a talk with your father.”

  Ivan turned to him. “Why? Isn’t it obvious what happened? Short’s been up to his old tricks. Looks like he tried to get to Bertie this time.”

  Red looked back down at his best friend’s father, the man he and Bertie had known all their lives. “What was it, Gerald?”

  Gerald didn’t answer. He dropped to his knees beside Bertie.

  “Dad?” Ivan pulled from Red’s grip. “What’s he talking about? What’s going on here?”

  Still on his knees, Red turned to his side and released his cane. Using his hands, ignoring the pain, he slid down the steep cliff side, using the dirt from the recent collapse to break his fall. He reached Bertie where she lay drenched and shivering, and pulled her into his arms.

  “Dad?” Ivan said. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “I didn’t mean to do it—”

  “Gerald,” Bertie said softly, “Gramercy said something about a deal you two had made. Why did he try to kill me? What’s going on?”

  “The sheriff’s coming,” Red told Gerald. “You’d better practice your story on us.”

  “I don’
t have a story, Red.” Gerald sounded utterly beaten. “It was all a horrible mistake.”

  “You can tell that to the sheriff, too,” Red said. “I don’t suppose you’d believe that your own wife and son are the ones that helped give you away.”

  Gerald looked up at Ivan, and tears filled his eyes. “Oh, son, what have I done?”

  “I don’t know, Dad,” Ivan called down. “Tell me. Please. Help me understand what’s going on here.”

  “The shoes you were wearing when you laid all those limbs,” Red said, “and turned our horse out and put your vile mark on our stable were the same shoes you let Ivan wear to the funeral today.”

  He felt Bertie’s shoulders shake with sobs, and drew her to his chest.

  “I didn’t do those things, Red,” Gerald’s voice, already too soft, sounded as if it was losing strength. “I made some bad moves, did some wicked things, but I would never have hurt Joseph if I’d known it was him.”

  Red felt Bertie tense. She pulled away, dashing the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “You killed my father?”

  Gerald covered his face with his hands. A moan came from his throat. “I never meant to kill him,” he said, then looked over at Gramercy’s body. “I never meant to kill anybody. With Short, I didn’t know what else to do to save you, Bertie. I couldn’t get to him in time to wrestle him away from you. There was no other way.”

  Bertie shivered again. “I can’t be hearing this. Not you, Gerald.”

  “Dad.” Ivan’s voice thickened with pain. “You killed Joseph?”

  Gerald closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t…I didn’t know it was him, I swear it.”

  “Who did you think it was?” Red demanded.

  Gerald reached a hand out as if to touch Bertie. She shrunk away from him.

  He shook his head. “I thought it was Krueger, and I thought Krueger was a Nazi infiltrator. I still think that. I knew he was the cattle thief, because I caught him at it. I didn’t even mean to kill him, just run him out of Hideaway.”

  “And get his land?” Bertie asked, remembering something else she’d overheard between the men when they were arguing.