Halt at X: A North of Boston Novel

by Sally Ann Sims

  The smile he offered could mean any number of things, Frank thought when he saw the quietly confident Indian man and willed his own face not to register anything but a subdued welcome.

  “Please. Have a seat,” Frank said, advancing across the room with his hand extended for shaking. What the hell kinda fuss is Singh planning to make now?

  Frank lifted the silver coffee pot and poured coffee into thin china teacups with the school seal on the side in gold and blue. The spindly handled cups were designed for much daintier hands than his, which is why Frank told John not to use them unless it was a formal occasion, which this certainly wasn’t. Frank handed a cup on a saucer to Bomi, returning the same smile of self-confidence and sheathed power. Then Frank walked to the doorway and shut the door. John was nowhere to be seen.

  “So,” Frank said, returning to the coffee table. “What concerns you?”

  Bomi sipped the coffee primly, at ease with the finger-ensnaring cup. He’s probably drunk oceans of tea in this kind of cup, Frank thought. Back where he belongs.

  Bomi set the saucer and cup down and pulled some papers out of a small portfolio folder.

  “Well, let us see. Ah, here,” he said, selecting a spreadsheet. “I noticed an account of around $500,000 that aroused my… curiosity. And the other is — ”

  The front doorbell rang, and Frank excused himself to buy time, claiming much of his staff had left for the day. He shut the Pecan Room door behind him and headed across the foyer. There were no sounds from the kitchen.

  He opened the door to Cliff, who surged in past him.

  “I left you a message. To warn you he was on his way. I don’t like the way he’s digging around. Like a badger.” Cliff was in khakis, a blue polo shirt, and grass-stained golf shoes. His bulbous nose was burnt and his white hair styled randomly by the wind.

  “Were you out on the course?”

  “Seventeenth hole,” he grumbled. “Right on par.”

  “That’s dedication to P-H,” Frank joked. “Coming back for this little drop-in by Bomi.”

  He stepped close to Frank. “There isn’t anything to hide is there?”

  Frank met his eyes straight. “Nothing outside of our plan.”

  “Good. Let’s send him packing.” Cliff pushed past Frank and headed toward the Pecan Room.

  Bomi was immersed in his papers when they entered. He stood again and shook Cliff’s hand.

  “So,” Cliff said, not masking his irritation. He set to pacing behind the sofa on which Bomi was seated, which meant Bomi had to continually turn around to see him while he spoke. In response, Bomi moved over to the wing chair.

  “As I just mentioned to Frank, there’s a $500,000 account that it’s unclear what its purpose is and the matter of $2 million that was entered in May as a ‘corporate donation,’ which left the books in… ” Bomi looked through his papers. “Two weeks ago, Wednesday.”

  How did he get those numbers? Frank wondered. Hal was supposed to have paved those potholes over.

  “We’ve made adjustments in the money allocation to speed processing of corporate donations and to work with our partners to… .” Frank scrambled to find words to end his declaration.

  Bomi watched Frank’s eyes, the slightest of smiles on Bomi’s lips.

  “Look,” said Cliff. “Frank is raking in the corporate dough. You’ve got to spend money to make money, everyone knows that.”

  “Yes, Mr. Plunkett. Cliff, if I may?” Bomi asked. Cliff nodded. “But the auditors will need to know the fate of that two million dollars as well as the purpose of the half-million-dollar account. Protecting our pristine nonprofit status is crucial, as you gentleman no doubt agree.”

  “It’s very simple,” Frank said. “The half mill is a donor recognition fund. The two million needed to be returned due to business issues with the donor. We have a pledge for three million from them in the next fiscal year.”

  “A written pledge?” Bomi asked. “How wonderful for P-H! May I see it?”

  “I’ll get you a copy,” Frank said. “Of what I have.”

  Cliff looked over at Frank.

  “Great!” Cliff said with manufactured cheer. “Then we’re all set.”

  “Excellent. Do not let me take any more of your valuable time,” Bomi said. He repacked his portfolio. “And we’re to have a very pleasant weekend, sunny and warm.” He stood up. “I’ll see my own way out.”

  Bomi left the room. Cliff and Frank heard the door shut with its characteristic echoing thud and, through the tall windows, watched Bomi’s slight form recede down the walk over to the parking lot.

  Cliff scraped his fingers through his hair after suddenly coming upon himself in one of the room’s many mirrors.

  “Put him off as long as you can. Don’t jump to his every request, Frank.”

  “Yes,” Frank said. Which is exactly my plan since there isn’t any written pledge. “Any way we can move him off Executive Committee?”

  Cliff thought for a few seconds. “Not this next year. Not until Honor owes me a favor, and right now it’s the other way round.” He pulled up the waistband of his khakis, which a roll of stomach fat had depressed. “Well, I think I’ll finish up my last hole,” he said, heading for the door. Then he came back and stood next to Frank by the window. “Oh, and whether or not there’s a written pledge, I’m counting on you to produce an airtight accounting trail.”

  “No problem,” Frank said. He walked Cliff to the door.

  Frank’s phone rang as he shut the door. He didn’t answer it after seeing Lucinda’s name. She texted Where’s Warren? He texted back He’s tied up.

  He called Hal Denton as he walked back to the Pecan Room.

  “How did Singh get Fiona?” He looked out the window and saw John crossing the lawn, leaving for the weekend. Frank had planned to have dinner out, preferably with Margo, but that seemed unlikely now. He’d try to catch her after she left Salt Marsh and offer her dinner at The Captain’s Table. To make up for things. He wasn’t sure what had happened to piss her off so much.

  “This is news to me,” Hal said. “I haven’t met him.”

  “Find out,” he said and ended the call.

  As he looked toward the window his glance fell on the chessboard, in silhouette against the windowpanes. A maple pawn was moved two squares out from the maple queen.

  * * * * *

  Salt Marsh was becoming Lucinda’s second home. She tried to ride four nights a week to train for the show, give the mare Friday off, and trail ride on the weekend. She was totally free of the need to be around the farmhouse for someone else, although Gabriel objected to so many evenings alone. For some reason, she’d made herself rush back home in the months after Bart left, hoping she’d see the blue van in the driveway.

  She’d decided to buy original artwork to fill in the spots where Bart’s haunting photos used to hang and reminded herself to ask Aden about the little galleries in Newcester, whose number seemed to triple in the summer. Great paintings priced at half what they were worth, he’d said a few months ago. Aden had been keeping a low profile lately, but she knew he was gearing up for the art program expansion and keeping his donors happy and working the annual fund, for which they’d yet to find a qualified director to bring on staff.

  With the extended daylight of summer evenings, she could work with Holly and the mare in the outdoor dressage arena following the letters in her practice routine. Her task was to master walk, trot, canter, and halt and all the transitions between these gaits so she could perform the test fluidly. Lucinda considered it icing on the cake if she could get good impulse in Lady Grey’s gaits and to encourage her to bend along the neck, shoulder, and flank around corners and circles. Holly thought Lucinda and Lady Grey good enough to finish in the top three of her class.

  The show was slated for November, and Lucinda wasn’t sure she was going to be ready, but she just wanted to go for it. Have some fun. If she wasn’t perfect, so what? She laughed at the thought, knowing she was far from
perfect.

  “What’s so funny,” Tori asked.

  “How far from perfect I am,” Lucinda said.

  “I don’t know about that.” Tori carried a clipboard with a horse worming schedule on it. She stopped in front of Lady Grey’s stall.

  “She’s doing excellent though. Despite me.”

  “You’re a better rider than you think you are.”

  Tori let herself into the stall. Lady Grey walked over to her, neck stretched out, seeking treats. Tori gave her the last bite of an apple she had in her pocket. The women stood near the door watching the mare chew contentedly, exuding apple breath.

  “Lucinda, you’ve done a bang-up job with her. Look how happy she is. How healthy she looks!”

  Lucinda smiled. A year ago the mare was a mud-encrusted stick figure of a horse. Now she was the beautiful silver horse Lucinda had always dreamed about as a young girl when she’d been struck with horse fever, which seemed, based on all the evidence she’d experienced, to last a lifetime even if it goes in remission for a decade or two.

  “I’ve decided to give her a show name — Art d’Argenta. It’s kind of a takeoff on the Italian for The Art of Silver,” Lucinda said.

  “How elegant! I predict you two are going to blow the competition out of the ring.”

  Lucinda laughed. “We’ll do ok.”

  “Just like you,” Tori said. “Always level-headed. Never wanna brag.”

  “Well, she’s definitely been the bright spot in my year.”

  “What’s going on at work? I haven’t been keeping up, what with all the P-H curriculum hoops I’ve been jumping through.” Tori stopped to reflect and then added, “Now I have to replace my main prospect for a trainer/teacher. Not that I’d put a whole lotta store in him actually working out.” Her grin disappeared.

  “Where is Jay at this point?” Lucinda asked warily.

  “Caitlin fired him after the news broke. He’s hanging around town because of the conditions of his bail. Don’t know where he’s riding. Knowing him, he’ll shake the whole thing off and reinvent himself on the Florida circuit this winter.”

  “Isn’t Thea pressing charges?”

  “She was going to. But she’s pretty down on herself about the whole thing.”

  There was a knock on the lower half of the stall door. Lady Grey stuck her head over and nickered at Nanogirl.

  “So what’s up with your work stuff?” Tori said. She wrote something on her worming list and then looked over at Lucinda who was fishing bits of hay out of the mare’s automatic watering basin.

  “Frank is totally focused on his corporate friends to the determent of all our other income sources. Aden and Jennifer have been working their butts off. I’ve been able to keep it together ’cause we have such a great team, all of them, but… .”

  “But?”

  “Tori, he’s doing something funky with money. Large chunks of it are coming and going. He won’t tell me what he’s promising these corporate bigwigs. It’s a train wreck in the making when the tracks twist. Which they will.”

  “Can’t you just let him screw up and take himself down? And a few others who deserve it?”

  “It’s way more than that. It’ll reflect poorly on my department because it should all be under my oversight. But he’s pushing me out. Giving more authority to Warren so he can more easily mold his empire. And worst of all, he’s going to shortchange the students by restricting their opportunities, the academic programs, since he’s beholding to the whims of these companies.”

  “Not to mention the fact that someone’s after you physically or you wouldn’t be wearing that.” Tori pointed to the Harris buzzer at Lucinda’s hip.

  “That stuff has cooled. No more prowlers, no notes. No cars flying at me or honking at the wrong time.”

  Ramsey arrived outside the stall, lifted his Red Sox cap to Tori and Lucinda, collected a reluctant Nanogirl, and led her away.

  “Don’t get lulled into complacency.”

  Lucinda laughed. “Hardly! Harris is constantly on the prowl, following me around campus and Thornbury, and his men rotate spending most weekend nights in my barn, although they’re all very low key about it.” She absently began braiding the mare’s mane. “How’s Martin? What’s up with Skyline?”

  “Skyline’s at that wildlife sanctuary we mentioned at breakfast. They think there’s hope, although slim, that she might be able to return to the wild.” Tori picked a few shavings out of the mare’s tail and then continued.

  “Martin’s fine. He visits her practically every other day, checking on her progress in finding food in her very large enclosure. Eagles are really more scavengers than hunters like Martin mentioned so appropriately at the breakfast table.” Tori smiled. “She flies right over to him and lands on his shoulder. And,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect, “there’s talk of Hyperion coming out of bankruptcy protection. There’s an interested buyer!”

  “That’s fantastic,” said Lucinda, eying the loose braids she’d completed.

  “Martin seems cool with the idea that he could work for someone else rather than run the whole show. Pull back. If the new owner pans out.”

  “A big if,” Lucinda said.

  “Meanwhile, he’s got a major gig with Chester Mulholland in Newcester. Hey! Martin told me Chester made a half-mill donation to P-H.”

  Lucinda stared at Tori in stunned surprise.

  “What!”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Lucinda dropped the braid she was working on and raked out what she’d done.

  “You see what I mean?” Lucinda said. “It’s like we’re working for different colleges.”

  She moved over next to Tori. “I know this is an odd request — ”

  “Go on,” said Tori, smiling. “I’d like to see you top the request you asked in eighth grade for me to help you scare off the pimply Thompson kid who was mooning over you.”

  “Nothing that hard,” she said. “Look. If Martin can poke around and find out what the Mulholland donation is for, I’d really appreciate it. I know Chester is proud of his donations, so I imagine it won’t be hard.”

  Tori smiled again. “Will do. We’re having dinner with them next weekend. Hey, I got to finish the worming schedule so Thea can get moving on it. See you.”

  Tori let herself out of the stall, with Lucinda following. Lucinda picked up her bridle, slung in over her shoulder like a handbag, and then picked up her saddle. She carried it over her two raised forearms like a muff. In the tack room, she rinsed off the bit in the sink and hung the bridle on a four pronged cleaning hook hung from the ceiling. She hung the buckle of her leather girth on another prong and turned to rub saddle soap on her sponge when the tack room door opened.

  Lucinda glanced over and caught a glimpse of Thea, who ducked her head and was backing up while shutting the door.

  “Wait!” Lucinda said. “Come in Thea! Please.”

  Thea held onto the door knob, her face hidden from Lucinda.

  “Please,” Lucinda said quietly.

  Thea slunk in, eyes down, and sat on a tack trunk. Lucinda shut the door. Thea’s eyes wandered to Lucinda’s saddle on the cleaning rack, and she popped up and grabbed a sponge.

  “You don’t have to,” Lucinda said.

  “I know. I want to. Keep my hands busy.”

  “How are you?”

  “Ok.”

  “Yeah, right,” Lucinda joked.

  Thea looked over at Lucinda. “Yeah, right,” she said.

  “Look. I’m not going to say I told you so, so stop avoiding me, ok?” Lucinda said. She worked the sponge down the length of a braided rein.

  Thea’s mouth relaxed as she re-banded her ponytail high at the back of her head.

  “I just want to know whether you’re going to press charges?”

  “No.” Thea looked attentively at something on the cantle of the saddle.

  Lucinda winced, but she forced herself to remain silent.

  “I don’t nee
d that. I got enough shit going on already. As long as he’s gone, I’m ok.”

  Lucinda wiped the nose band and the cheek pieces. Finished, she threaded the throatlatch into a figure eight around the bridle and hung it on the wall.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Thea tugged on one of her elastic bracelets before looking squarely into Lucinda’s face. “Next time I’m about to do something stupid and I don’t listen to you, knock me over the head.”

  Lucinda chuckled. “God, if we could all learn that easily.”

  There was a short silence until they heard a loud kick from the first stall by the tack room, Bally Glen’s stall.

  “Ramsey’s starting the pm feeding. I gotta help him with the worming. Catch you around,” Thea said. She took a step toward Lucinda and then looked down, like she was building up nerve, or was trying to avoid something.

  “You don’t owe me an explanation. For anything,” Lucinda said.

  Thea raised her gaze to meet Lucinda’s and then hugged her. Tears started spilling out of Thea’s eyes.

  “It’s just nice that someone cares,” Thea said and pulled away.

  As Thea left the tack room, Lucinda began on the girth. While she rubbed the thick leather that holds the saddle on the horse, she realized how much she’d blamed herself for what happened to Thea. It felt like in the wake of Jay’s attempt to get back with Lucinda, he’d washed up against Thea and spun her life out of control too. She blamed herself for that, which really wasn’t fair. But there it was. You can’t tell your heart how to feel.

  Lucinda also, until this moment, hadn’t realized how much she wanted to see Jay fined or in jail. For her own sake. For revenge.

  * * * * *

  Aden’s red Jetta pulled into the Salt Marsh driveway just as Lucinda was leaving for home. He honked and pointed to the parking lot. Lucinda pulled a U-turn and emerged from her car. When Aden opened his car door, Gretel popped out attached to a nylon leash, charging to the end of its length. She stood with her left paw uplifted, scanning the near pasture in which a small herd of deer began their evening graze.

  “What’s up?” Lucinda asked.