by Linda Lovely
Mom kissed Dad’s cheek. “See you in the morning, honey. Don’t worry about your sister. She’s one strong lady. She’ll be fine.”
“I know.” Dad’s frown didn’t match his words.
SIX
My aunts had warned me they’d gone Hollywood when they penned instructions for the reading of their joint will. Actually it was the screening of their last will and testament—a final, double-the-trouble selfie. Lilly and Eva had been all giggly when they’d Skyped me with details a couple months ago.
Their hilarious description of how Mom reacted to their requests made me laugh until I cried. Eva and Lilly hadn’t divulged the will’s content, just said they had a blast playing movie producers, and hoped I’d enjoy watching the grand finale—but not too soon.
No laughing now.
I shivered and swiped at an obstinate tear. The notion of a loved one speaking to me from beyond the grave tinged my grief with a touch of the willies.
The scene inside my parents’ den brought me to a standstill. Mom had pulled the drapes and lit candles. And what was that smell? Incense? If anyone pulled out a crystal ball, I was hoofing it for the hills.
I straightened my shoulders. Mom, Dad, and Eva had already gathered in front of my folks’ big-screen TV. Waiting. For me.
Eva patted an empty sofa cushion at her side.
Crud. I couldn’t refuse. Hard to imagine Aunt Eva’s turmoil given the discovery of what was likely Jed’s skeleton. It had to be added torture for her to watch a video created when she and her sister were in such good humor—such good health. Still, I’d have preferred to sit on the sidelines so I could bolt if my emotions threatened to enter sob-o-rama mode.
How would Aunt Eva manage without Aunt Lilly? They’d been two impudent peas sharing the same pod. Same curly hair. Identical tanned and laugh-crinkled faces. Same mischievous golden brown eyes. If there was ever a time Aunt Eva needed her sister, it was now.
Mom stood and cleared her throat. “We’re all here. So let’s start. All supporting documents were signed, witnessed, and recorded. That satisfies the legalities. Eva and Lilly directed me as executor to show this video to surviving family should either of them die.” She cleared her throat. “They also insisted on the candles and incense.”
Mom nodded at her sister-in-law. “Eva, if you’d like, you can make a new will regarding the property Lilly left you.”
“Can’t imagine changing a thing,” Aunt Eva replied. “Don’t want to rack up more outrageous legal fees.”
Mom refrained from harrumphing, her usual response when my aunts took good-natured potshots at her profession. Besides serving as the attorney for the City of Clemson, Iris Hooker, Esquire, also wrote wills and handled real estate closings. A decent living, but she didn’t exactly belong to the Mercedes-driving, silk-suit club. I knew Mom charged my aunts exactly one dollar to handle their legal affairs.
Mom turned to Dad. “Honey, start the video.”
As usual, Dad had sole custody of the TV remote. Did Mom even know how to use it?
The screen flickered to life. A ragtime piano played and a hand-lettered card popped into view.
ONCE UPON A TIME…
My aunts had opted for the feel of an old-timey silent film. A series of photos flashed on screen, appearing and disappearing in warp speed. The young twins frolicked with a panting yellow Labrador pup. They wobbled on high heels stolen from Grandma’s closet. Then Dad joined them as a baby. The jokesters positioned their bare-bottomed younger brother to moon the camera while they mugged and pointed.
Dad choked out a chuckle, followed by a quick intake of breath. Trying not to cry.
He shook a finger at Eva. “Thought I paid you to destroy that picture.”
She snickered. “Not near enough. Saving it for your book jacket when you finally publish one of your crime novels.”
Another hand-lettered card filled the TV screen.
…THE TWINS GREW UP
I watched as the twins transformed into teens and then pretty young ladies. Sun glinting on mahogany hair. Big doe eyes and long lashes. Smiles that lit the screen.
“Good heavens, Brie, I’d forgotten how much you look like Eva and Lilly when they were your age,” Dad said. “Same curly hair and impish grin.”
“Better looking,” Aunt Eva added. “But there’s a resemblance.”
…EVENTUALLY EVA & LILLY GOT THEIR GOATS. NO KIDDING…
The video skipped years ahead. No pictures of Jed Watson. Not even a wedding photo. The fast-forward also made me wonder for the first time why Lilly never married. In this adult section of the pictorial, the twins tended their goat herd, bottle-fed newborn kids, made and sampled cheese, and played with their guardian dogs.
I smiled despite the sad circumstances. As a kid, I’d spent many happy hours at Udderly Kidding Dairy.
Aunt Eva patted my hand and whispered, “Now comes the surprise.”
The screen went black. But the soundtrack continued—a drum roll and trumpets. Eva and Lilly perched side by side on the sofa. Right where I sat now. Not a still photo but live action caught on video.
The twins glanced at each other, giggled conspiratorially, and mimed a joint theatrical gasp. “Uh-oh,” they crooned in unison. “One of us has left the building…not to mention our farm.”
On screen, Aunt Eva took up the narrative. I knew it was Eva, because a small tattoo—“I came first”—decorated her right inner wrist. She never tired of reminding her twin she was the older and wiser sister by five whole minutes.
“If both of us have kicked the bucket, you can stop watching. We’ve left everything we own to our one and only niece, Miss Brie (can-you-believe-she-won’t-eat-cheese-with-that-name) Hooker.”
I gasped. Before I could utter a word, Aunt Lilly cleared her throat—on screen, of course. She was dead.
Lilly nudged Eva. “My turn. If only one of us croaked, it’s a bit more complicated. The surviving twin gets the farm, but wait, there’s more.”
She held up a poster-size photo of an old Southern mansion. “Iris, can you zoom in on this picture, please?”
An image of Summer Place filled the screen.
I’d first laid eyes on Summer Place three years ago while out for a car ride with my aunts. When we drove past the gorgeous old mansion, I immediately imagined myself as its owner. Dressed in a flouncy sundress, I’d serve sweet tea and Mint Juleps to my bed-and-breakfast guests as they savored my vegan dishes and rocked in the shade of the front verandah.
Of course, in my daydreams—which I stupidly shared with my guffawing aunts—the verandah wasn’t missing half its rotting floorboards, and the mansion’s fluted columns weren’t yellowed with age and canted like decaying front teeth.
“Got your attention, Brie?” The on-screen Eva laughed.
A video zoom-out brought my aunty bookends back in focus. Lilly cocked her head, her impish grin unchanged from the photos taken when the twins were eight-year-old troublemakers. Half a century ago.
“Why am I holding this, Brie?” Lilly asked.
She was reading my mind.
Except that wasn’t possible. The twins recorded the video before Aunt Lilly’s cherry red Mustang was towed to the scrap heap. Now Lilly—well, her ashes—were scattered at the highest spot on the Udderly Kidding farm.
Goosebumps marched up my arms.
The on-screen Lilly continued. “My darling Brie, Eva and I bought this sorry, run-down mansion for you shortly after you dumped that loser of a fiancé. We planned to give it to you on your thirty-fifth birthday. ’Course, we kinda hoped to be alive to hand you the keys and toast your future B&B success.”
On camera, Eva elbowed Lilly and winked. “My turn, Sis.”
In the here and now, Aunt Eva patted my hand as I stared open-mouthed at the TV.
“Brie, honey, it takes both of us old bats t
o run Udderly Kidding Dairy,” the digital Eva announced. “So, if one of us birds has fallen off the perch, we hope you can help us for a spell. Will you come live at Udderly? Help run the farm? That’ll give your surviving auntie time to sell and get the flock—pardon the pun—out of town, or find employees to help her keep kidding around.”
The aunts spoke in sing-song unison: “What say you, dear? Could you wait a bit longer to start your B&B?”
The on-screen Eva added, “Don’t worry. We’ll `still love you if you say no.”
Lilly nodded her assent. “Salary? Well, our income’s not dependable month-to-month, but we’re profitable. You won’t starve—especially if you give in and eat cheese. We understand operating a goat cheese farm isn’t high on a vegan chef’s priority list. Only you can decide.”
Eva spoke again. “Sorry to drop this on you. Even sorrier one of us isn’t here.”
The image of the twins faded. A final hand-lettered card appeared.
THE END…OR MAYBE THE BEGINNING?
I blinked. What in tarnation? Me? My aunts knew I’d planned on quitting my job in Asheville. But not to move to the boonies, milk goats, and make cheese. The idea was nuts.
The image of Summer Place tugged at my resolve. How unbelievably generous of my aunts. And, if I lived here, I could tackle renovations in my spare time.
I glanced at Aunt Eva. Unshed tears pooled in her eyes. I thought about that unearthed skeleton and a sheriff who happened to be the deceased’s cousin. He’d be out to nail my aunt.
Eva smiled. “Honey, don’t worry. I won’t press you to make a decision. When we made this will, I had no idea my dear husband’s bones would surface. No point in getting you mixed up in this sordid mess.”
Double crud. “No” wasn’t an option. Aunt Eva needed me.
I hugged Aunt Eva. “Don’t be silly. I want to stay with you.”
My mind raced ahead. I needed to call my boss. Let him know I was quitting; ask if he needed me to return for a few days. If I offered to leave and forgo the two weeks’ pay he owed me, I expected his answer would be, “Don’t let the door hit your derriere on your way out.”
I smiled. Maybe this was just the kick in the butt I needed to get out of Asheville.
I glanced over at Mom and Dad. Their frowns said they weren’t overjoyed at my decision.
SEVEN
Since my stick shift skills were more than questionable in the mountains, Dad volunteered to chauffeur me to Asheville in Aunt Eva’s beefy Chevy truck. I needed the loaner to haul my paltry belongings to my new Udderly Kidding home.
As I suspected, my boss had no problems saying adios if it meant saving a few pennies. Plenty of wannabe chefs applied every month for my sous chef position.
I’d been living rent-free in a swanky enclave of mini-mansions just outside Asheville’s city limits. Jessica, an eccentric globe-trotting widow, was my landlady. Whenever she departed on one of her travel extravaganzas, I housesat and took care of Xena, her spoiled German shepherd. In exchange, I enjoyed a comfy, if compact, efficiency apartment above her garage. Even better, I had the run, literally, of the gated community’s lush landscaped grounds and could dive into the often vacant pool whenever I wanted to swim laps. While I’d never win a triathlon, I was pretty disciplined about exercising. Maybe I’d squeeze in a few short runs before nightfall while living at Udderly. Getting up to exercise before my dawn chores seemed downright obscene.
I’d miss my Asheville digs and landlady. Our arrangement had let me end each pay period with extra bucks to put toward an eventual down payment on a B&B. When Jessica was in town, she’d served as my fearless taste-tester, willing to try any of my vegan concoctions.
Fortunately, my hasty departure wouldn’t leave my benefactor or her pampered pooch in a pinch. One of my friends had already won Jessica’s stamp of approval.
She had two hiring conditions: her dog had to give her lick of approval, and live-in candidates couldn’t consume meat. Jessica was militant about the ethical treatment of living creatures. Since I wasn’t sure if she considered milking goats an acceptable human-animal bond, I delicately sidestepped the fact I was taking off to help run a goat cheese farm.
Before starting the scenic two-hour drive from Ardon County to Asheville, we helped Aunt Eva with early (and I do mean early) morning chores. The drive offered my first opportunity to have Dad all to my lonesome so I could grill him about Aunt Eva and her long-forgotten husband.
For the first fifteen minutes on the road, I dillydallied, unsure how to tactfully inquire about the skeleton that publicly tumbled out of our family closet. We passed a kudzu-choked hillside. When Dad failed to make his usual crime-writer quip—“Now there’s where I’d hide a body. Kudzu would blanket it in fifteen minutes.”—I knew he was beyond preoccupied.
Every time I snuck a glance his way, Dad’s scowl discouraged conversation. The vein twitching at the side of his temple suggested anger lurked behind his glower.
I’d almost worked up the nerve to speak when he broke the silence. “With that skeleton popping up, you’re bound to hear gossip, ugly gossip. You need to understand what it was like for Eva forty years ago.”
He took his gaze off the winding mountain road long enough to make eye contact. “Eva has some mean-spirited enemies. Mostly kin to Jed, country folk who were horrified when he married an outsider, and a Yankee to boot. After Jed had gone missing long enough to be declared dead, Eva inherited his farm. Given that the land had belonged to the Watson clan for five generations, some of his relatives became downright apoplectic. The fact she dared to change her last name back to Hooker didn’t help.”
When Dad paused for several seconds, I prodded. “I heard Eva admit she’d wished Jed dead. Why?”
Dad stole another glance at me. “The bastard beat Eva. Over a period of three years, he broke both her arms, a leg, and her jaw. Burned her once, too. Held her hand over a gas burner on their stove. You can still see the scarring on her right palm. The violence started within months of their wedding. Eva was isolated on the farm and too humiliated to admit her horrible mistake. Jed threatened to kill her if she told anyone or tried to leave.”
Dad shook his head. “This all came out later. Much later. At the time, I didn’t have a clue. Had I known, I swear I’d have killed the bastard myself, sent him straight to hell so his skin would feel the flames.”
My throat tightened as I tried to imagine the beautiful young woman I’d seen in yesterday’s video beaten by a man she’d pledged to love until death parted them. “I can’t believe Eva didn’t tell Lilly. Reach out to her twin. They seemed so close, I would have sworn they had mental telepathy.”
“Lilly knew it was bad, but Eva refused to admit how bad. Guess she was mortified she’d let herself wind up in such a fix. She was barely nineteen, a college freshman, when Jed swept her off her feet. Lilly begged Eva to postpone marrying until she finished college, but Jed was graduating, and Eva said she couldn’t bear being separated. Whenever Lilly visited, Eva always had some cockeyed explanation for her injuries. Claimed she’d been kicked by an ornery mule or tangled with some exotic piece of farm equipment.”
I couldn’t fathom how Eva had fallen for such a lout. “You met him, right? Jed. What was your take?”
Dad didn’t speak. The past hung heavy in the car.
“All the ladies thought he was good-looking. Athletic. Only time I laid eyes on him was the day of the wedding. Spent all of what—a half-hour—talking to him, mostly about hunting and fishing. Eva seemed so happy, downright giddy. Claimed she’d never tire of Jed’s honeyed Southern drawl.”
“You didn’t see them after the wedding?”
Dad shook his head. “They never invited family down, and Eva never made it back to Iowa. Always begged off, saying it wasn’t a good time. One excuse after another. To tell the truth, I was a self-absorbed punk, thinking about football g
ames, girls, grades, and zits. Didn’t occur to me something might be wrong.”
I tried to imagine Eva’s happiness morphing into fear. “When did Jed disappear?”
“Eva snuck off to see a lawyer about a divorce the day after she celebrated her twenty-first birthday. The next week Jed left on a fishing trip. No one ever saw him again. There were plenty of accusations back then. His relatives screamed Eva had done him in and hid the body. Of course, there wasn’t one scrap of proof. I know my sister. She’s no killer. Plenty of folks thought otherwise. Still do.”
Dad’s shoulders slumped. “That’s why your mom and I aren’t keen about you living on the farm. Lots of members of the Watson clan live nearby. Your mother has brought charges against quite a few. These folks let their fists do their talking. It would be just like one of these hot heads to pay Eva a visit. Old hatreds and grudges have been simmering on Ardon County’s back burner for years. That skeleton could bring the bitter stew to a rolling boil. I don’t want you—or Eva—in harm’s way.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. When I thought about Udderly Kidding, my associations were unfailingly good. Love and laughter. Sunshine and sparkling creeks. Shaggy dogs and newborn kids.
Danger? Nope.
Not unless you considered it hazardous to scarf down too many of Lilly’s homemade cinnamon rolls.
“Please reconsider, Brie.” Dad cut into my reverie. “Both you and Eva should move in with your mom and me. We have tons of room. What with the days getting longer, you’ll have plenty of time to handle chores and still bed down at our house. You don’t need to spend a single night out there in the boonies.”
I shook my head. “You’re dreaming, Dad. You know Eva won’t leave her guardian dogs alone to deal with coyotes or trespassers. She and Aunt Lilly refused to leave the farm for more than a weekend for fear someone might decide their goats would be easy pickings on a midnight raid. Besides, Eva has a shotgun and knows how to use it. You read too many crime novels. That skeleton just rattled you. We’ll be fine.”