House of the Forest

by Diana Wallis Taylor

  Laura deliberately looked out the window. Why did Beth’s words bother her?

  Laura didn’t answer. She tried to bring up Alan’s face in her mind and concentrate on their relationship. It didn’t work. Realizing this, she sent a silent prayer heavenward for strength. Lord, I release Alan to you. You know the best course for both our lives. Help me to trust You for the future.

  She felt some of the heaviness she carried, lift. Oh Lord, You are my Rock and my strong tower, help me see clearly what to do.

  As they walked around, she enjoyed showing Beth the little Village of Big Bear Lake and they had fun finding a few small treasures. Beth loved the bistro and after lunch, they poked around town some more, took in an early movie, found a beauty shop and made appointments for a manicure and pedicure on Friday. Dodging more rain, they ran laughing to the car.

  Some of the kitchenware needed to be replaced, so they went through each of the cupboards, examining the contents to see what should be kept or given away.

  Laura held up a Teflon pan with deep scratches in it. “I think this one should go. It’s in bad shape.” She put out on the table.

  Beth pulled some utensils out of the drawer. “Ugh. These aren’t even collectables. I think you should toss them.”

  Laura looked them over. “You’re right. I need to make a list of what needs to be replaced.”

  There were a couple of boxes left over from packing her aunt’s things and they began to fill them with the unwanted kitchen pans, odd glasses and mis-matched silverware.

  They noted new items that were needed and put the box of unwanted kitchenware in the back of Beth’s car. They could drop the items off at the thrift shop on their way to K-Mart.

  Later, the boxes delivered, they pushed a cart up and down the aisles and Laura felt again the awesome awareness of how much money she had in her account. It made shopping tempting, but she knew she needed to be wise in her spending and silently resolved to use restraint. They would only purchase the things she needed.

  “Look at these cookie sheets, Laura. Great buy.” Beth put a couple in the cart.

  Laura put one back. “I don’t think I’ll spend a lot of time baking cookies.”

  They bought new hand towels, spatulas, a set of stainless steel pots and pans, a new microwave, and a set of stainless silverware, service for twelve.

  “What am I going to do with all that silverware?” It seemed a waste.

  “Hey, friend, aren’t you going to invite people up? What about barbeques in the summer? You’ll need this.”

  “I could just use plastic.”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “This silverware will last a long time and you won’t have to keep buying the plastic.”

  Laura put her hands up in surrender. They wandered through the small appliance section and she fingered a new white coffeemaker. “You know, Aunt Estelle’s is really old and stained. She must have made a lot of coffee.”

  Beth gave her an innocent look. “And of course you wouldn’t want it to go out on you on a crucial morning.”

  “Right.” Laura added it to the basket.

  With paper towels, tissues, toilet paper and some cleaning products, they finished their shopping.

  Later, as they sat back on the sofa in front of a cracking fire and sipped hot chocolate with marshmallows, Laura gazed pensively at the flames.

  “I wonder whatever happened to my Uncle Ray.”

  Beth shook her head slowly. “You’ll probably never know. It’s a shame about little Tommy’s death. It must have devastated your aunt. Your aunt had a sad life.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She seemed like an up person most of the time. She smiled a lot and I guess, considering what she went through, kept her troubles to herself.”

  “Don’t forget Richard.”

  “Richard?”

  “The guy in the letters you found.”

  “You’re right. She did have another chance at love.”

  Beth sighed. “That is so romantic, those letters. It makes me teary-eyed to think of their unrequited love affair.”

  “You’ve watched too many romantic movies.”

  Beth snorted. “And you haven’t? Come on now, tell me you read those letters and didn’t cry.”

  Laura grinned. “Okay, you got me. Yes, I cried.”

  They stared at the fire in silence, each occupied with their own thoughts.

  Leaning back against the cushions, Laura mused out loud. “I wonder how many people will show up on Saturday.”

  “From what you’ve told me, a lot of people knew your aunt. She touched a lot of lives,” Beth gave Laura a mischievous glance, “including your friend, Sam.”

  “Let’s not go through that again. He’s not my friend. I hardly know him.”

  Beth frowned, thinking. “You know who he reminds me of?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “That movie star—what’s his name? The guy in Parent Trap. A really cute movie they made a few years ago, the second version, not the one with Haley Mills. He owned the winery.”

  Laura thought a moment. “You mean Dennis Quaid?”

  Beth grinned. “Yes! He’s the one!”

  Laura frowned, contemplating the two men. Beth was right, a definite resemblance, including the dimples around his mouth. Laura found the thought pleasant, but a little unsettling.

  The phone rang and Laura reached over and picked it up.

  A male voice. “We have a plant to deliver. May we have the address to deliver it? We can’t deliver to a post office box.”

  “My aunt wanted flowers to go to the church and then the hospital.”

  The man hesitated. “Well, this is a plant, something to put in the yard. They don’t want it to go to the church. Can we update our records?”

  “Oh, well, I guess that okay.” She gave him the address and he promptly hung up. “Hello? Hello? Well!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “A very rude employee from some flower shop that wants to deliver a plant to the house. He just got the address and hung up. Didn’t even say thank you.”

  Beth glanced up. “Why didn’t you give him the address of the church?”

  “He said they had a plant that was supposed to be planted here. I didn’t think fast enough. He also said they just had a post office box number for my aunt.”

  “Some salespeople can be pretty abrupt.”

  Laura frowned. “I’d prefer people send flowers to the church. I don’t know what I’ll do with them here.”

  Beth wrinkled her brow. “How would the local florist get your aunt’s post office box number? I thought the post office didn’t give that out.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She lived up here a long time. People knew where she lived. Maybe the clerk was new.”

  “Well, the notice is in the paper.”

  Laura’s thoughts tumbled about in her head. Alan, the trip up here, the many people she’d met that were involved in her aunt’s life, the will and her inheritance. It seemed a lot to contemplate. With everything taken care of so neatly, why did she have this unsettled feeling?

  “Beth, I think we should pray. For the services, for traveling mercies for people who are going to attend the service, and, I think we need to pray over this house. So much has happened here, so many emotions.”

  Beth set her mug down and reached over for Laura’s hand. “You’re right, my friend, we need to cover all of this with His love. Tomorrow you have the burial and Saturday will be a difficult day for you and for a lot of people.”

  As they bowed their heads, Laura brushed aside the sense of foreboding and turned her heart to prayer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Laura called Gloria again to let her know what progress she was making, but once more got the answering machine. Could she be out of town? Thinking back, she remembered her mother saying something about a friend in Palm Springs. A friend? Most Likely male. She’d prayed for her mother many times over the years, and shared her faith, but Gloria didn’t want to
hear it.

  “Laura, if you must be involved in all this religious folderol I suppose you must, but for the life of me I can’t see spending all your time in Bible studies, church and those types of things when you work all day for a religious college. I would think you’d get enough of that at work.”

  She’d tried to explain to her mother that it was different. That she loved being with people who loved the Lord.

  Gloria sniffed at the idea of her daughter marrying a minister. She had other ideas for the direction Laura’s life could go. She’d been involved with other men since Laura could remember. Her own father had died of a heart attack at the early age of forty two. There had been two stepfathers as Laura grew up, both marriages ending in divorce. Laura had been put in private school while her mother and her second husband traveled.

  When Gloria got lonely after the second divorce, she brought Laura home to keep her company and Laura went to a school nearby.

  At Aunt Estelle’s home her room always looked the same, whenever she came, special trinkets, rocks and pine cones she’d collected were arranged on a shelf. A wedding ring quilt brightened her bed. She could hardly wait between visits.

  The small silent group rode to the cemetery that afternoon in the Morgan’s car. The graveside service was brief. A minister had been procured by the funeral home. He spoke briefly, covering familiar scriptures, reminding them that Jesus went ahead of them to prepare a place and Estelle DuPont now shared that place with the Savior.

  Laura stared at the simple coffin and wondered once again if she should have looked at Aunt Estelle before the service. Yet, remembering an open casket service she’d gone to a year ago at a church and the strange wax-like face of the deceased, so totally unreal from the person she’d known, she decided she’d made the right decision. Laura would just remember her aunt as she was the last time she saw her.

  The casket was lowered and Laura tossed a white rose on top. As the group turned away and started to walk back to their car, Laura looked back. Two men were busy shoveling dirt in the grave. Hot tears began to roll down her cheeks and she felt an arm around her.

  “Steady, friend. You know she’s not there. It’s only her body in the casket. The real Estelle DuPont is walking the hills of heaven with our Savior. She’s in a happier place.

  She hugged Beth back. “I know. I just miss her more than I realized.”

  This part was over but she still had the memorial service to face.

  Back at the house, Ginny invited them over for a cup of tea and some home-made oatmeal-raisin cookies. George tactfully excused himself and went out to his workshop to give the women time to chat.

  As they sipped their tea, Laura remembered what she wanted to ask Ginny about and turned to her.

  “Ginny, would you tell me about Richard?”

  The older woman carefully set her cup down on the coffee table. “I thought you’d probably read the letters by now.”

  “Yes. I felt so sad for Aunt Estelle when I read where he was killed.”

  “It almost killed your aunt. She seemed so brave after Ray left. She prayed and hoped he’d return. After seven years, I think she finally realized Ray wasn’t coming back. She’d met Richard and allowed herself to think that there might be a future for them. Richard loved Estelle from the first time they met. It took Estelle a while to realize that she loved him back. They wrote back and forth when he left for Vietnam, and the rest you know from the letters.”

  “Poor Aunt Estelle, she really had a sad life.”

  “Esty knew the Lord, dear, and He was her strength. Whatever sorrow she carried, she turned into blessing other people. It wasn’t something she talked about much, although I knew some of the beneficiaries that had been the object of her generosity.”

  Ginny smiled pensively, staring into her now empty cup. “I imagine we’ll never know all the people she helped. We may be surprised at who comes to the funeral.”

  Beth had been listening quietly. “Didn’t she ever hear from her husband again?”

  Ginny shook her head. “Only that time she knew he’d been in the house. She smelled traces of cigarette smoke in the house.

  “How long ago did you say it was?”

  “Oh, years ago.”

  Beth leaned forward. “Did he break in? What about the alarm system?”

  Ginny shook her head. “Esty never had the door locks changed and he had a key. I don’t think she had an alarm system then.”

  Beth was intrigued. “You mean he came secretly and got in the house?”

  “Yes, as I told Laura, Esty and I were at our monthly women’s luncheon at the church. We had to go early to help set up. We were gone about five hours. When Estelle got home, she called me, all upset. Some of Ray’s clothes that she’d kept in the winter closet were gone along with a picture of she and Ray and Little Tommy that was taken out of the frame on her dresser. That really upset her. The other things he took were tools, his own. I hurried right over. George and I tried to convince her to have an alarm system put in but she didn’t do that until a few years ago.”

  Beth shook her head. “That’s really strange. After not hearing from him for years, he comes to the house when she’s not home, takes a few things he needs and disappears again.”

  Ginny nodded.

  Laura broke in. “He went to prison, Beth, for armed robbery.”

  “Really?”

  “A friend who took the Los Angeles Times sent Esty the clipping about the robbery.” Ginny shook her head. “I don’t know how Ray found the clipping. He took that too, evidently.

  “How long was he sentenced to prison?” Beth was all ears now.

  “We never did hear about that, dear. I’m sure for quite a few years.”

  Laura sighed, considering what her uncle had come to. “Uncle Ray evidently surrendered. The two of them had stolen oven nine hundred thousand dollars. It was never found. Uncle Ray said his partner hid the money and now that he was dead, no one would know where it was.”

  Beth shook her head. “That’s terrible.” She chewed on her lip a moment, thinking.

  Ginny looked over. “What is it, dear?”

  “Well, I was thinking about Laura’s uncle sneaking in the house. It was before he went to prison, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, now that I think of it.

  “And the money was never found?”

  “That’s what the paper said.”

  Laura’s eyebrows went up. “What are you getting at, Beth?”

  Beth leaned forward on her chair. “Look. The bank is robbed. Your uncle comes to the house when your aunt is gone, takes some things and leaves again. Shortly afterward he and his partner are found by the police, the other guy is shot and your uncle is arrested. He says the other guy hid the money.” She turned to Laura. “What if it was your uncle who hid the money? Where would be a place the police would be least likely to suspect since he’d been estranged from his wife for years?”

  “Aunt Estelle’s house?”

  Ginny shook her head. “It’s a nice theory, girls, but the police did come and search the house.”

  “You mean, they thought Aunt Estelle had something to do with the money?”

  “No, Laura, they merely talked with Esty. She had nothing to hide and invited them to search the house. They did a rather perfunctory job, but found nothing. I think they were embarrassed to be bothering her.”

  Beth spread her hands and shrugged. “So much for my detective theories.”

  Laura did some mental calculations and turned to Ginny. “Could Uncle Ray be out of prison by now?”

  “I don’t know, dear. He could have been paroled for good behavior.”

  “If he’s out of prison, I wonder if he’ll show up at the funeral.”

  Ginny frowned. “I don’t think he would do that. He’s probably living a quiet life somewhere. Big Bear Lake would not be a very friendly town for him.”

  Beth set her cup and saucer on the table. “Would people be unkind to him becau
se of what he did?’

  “That’s a good question. It’s just that small towns seem to rally around their own and people loved Esty. They thought she got a bad deal from Ray.”

  Laura rose slowly. “We probably better get back home. Thank you so much, Ginny for sharing about Richard. I appreciate the support from you and George more than you know.”

  She gave the small woman a warm hug as did Beth.

  “Now if you girls need anything, you just call.”

  “Thanks, Ginny, I will. Right now I think Beth and I are just going to finish the inventory for the insurance company update. We’ll see you Saturday.”

  As they walked back to her aunt’s house, Laura couldn’t help but sense the heaviness she’d felt before. Could it be the thought that her uncle still had a key to the house? Maybe she should change the locks. Perhaps she was just over-reacting to the fact that her uncle had been in prison. After all, there was an alarm system now.

  As she maneuvered the key in the old lock of the front door, she pursed her lips. Old locks were easy to open.

  “Beth, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I should change the locks after all these years. Who knows who has a key to the house.”

  Beth gave her a funny look and Laura suspected she’d been thinking the same thing.

  “Good idea,” said Beth firmly

  As they entered the house, Laura turned towards the front door and frowned.

  “That’s strange.”

  “What is?”

  “The florist never did deliver that plant.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Deke snapped shut his cell phone. This was too easy. The woman’s voice sounded young. He wondered what she looked like and sneered, probably an old maid. She fell for the ruse and gave him the address with no hesitation. So he wasn’t from the flower shop. She’d never know. He’d deal with her when he got up there. Besides, he was a relative, of sorts, her long-lost cousin Deke. He’d make up something.

  Now, how to get into the house; he’d have to watch and see when she left for the memorial service. The neighbors would probably be going too. That should leave things pretty quiet. If he were seen, he’d have to have some excuse for being near the house, a city employee, water or gas department maybe? He chewed on his lower lip a moment. He’d need some supplies. Getting a piece of paper, he made a list of the things he might need.