Clause & Effect

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  Then, a week before the performance, I opened an email and faced a new complication. Valentine Veilleux, my coffee-table book client, wrote to say there might be a glitch in publication plans. The editor who’d bought the project had left the publishing house and her replacement wanted changes to the manuscript. Val requested a meeting with me, in person, in two days’ time. She’d be passing close enough to Lenape Hollow on her way to a new photo shoot to manage a side trip.

  It was an unusual request, and one I could have turned down, but I found it impossible to ignore her plea for help. Besides, I was curious to meet her. What I knew of her from our correspondence, and from her wonderful photographs, intrigued me. Although squeezing a work session into my already jam-packed schedule wouldn’t be easy, I emailed back to suggest when and where we could most easily get together.

  Chapter 36

  Mountain View Acres wasn’t even on my radar until Luke came into my life, and I had never visited the campground, but it had two advantages. It was nearby and it had space for Val’s custom-designed RV. She arrived late the night before our meeting and I drove out there as soon as I was adequately caffeinated the next morning.

  Val’s appearance was the first surprise. No more than thirty, she was younger than I thought she’d be and what my late husband would have called “a real looker,” with long, strawberry-blond hair, bright green eyes behind a pair of stylish glasses, and a trim figure. A wide smile and a throaty voice didn’t hurt when it came to making a good first impression, either.

  “I love being able to show off my workspace,” she said when I stepped inside the behemoth that also served as her year-round home.

  Instead of the standard dinette found in most RVs, Val’s had a specially built computer workstation where she edited her photographs. The rest of the vehicle was given over to comfy, if cramped, living quarters. There were, essentially, four rooms. Besides her “office,” she had a galley-style kitchen, a bath that squeezed in a shower stall as well as a sink and a toilet, and a bedroom with a queen-size bed. She lacked none of the necessities of modern life. The bedroom had a television and DVD player and the kitchen boasted a microwave as well as a stove and refrigerator.

  Nice as it was, I’d have gone stir-crazy if I had to spend very long in such a confined space, but then I’ve never been a fan of the tiny-house craze, either.

  Seated on a small, comfortable sofa located opposite the workstation, we spent more than two hours going over the changes Val’s new editor wanted in the text of her book. To my mind, there was nothing wrong with the original version, but most of the quibbles were small, nitpicky things and not worth an argument. The rewrite kept Val’s vision intact. All in all, I thought the book was in great shape by the time we’d finished.

  To be honest, her photographs of dogs, cats, and other animals could have been successfully published without any captions at all. Each of the shots she’d selected had a whimsical flair that set it apart from run-of-the-mill pet pictures.

  I stood up to stretch while she cleared away the coffee and muffins that had fueled our marathon work session. Turning, I found myself staring through the window behind the sofa at an even more enormous RV occupying the adjacent campsite . . . and at the much smaller vehicle parked next to it. I blinked, but the beat-up old Vespa I’d seen every day for the last week was still there.

  There wasn’t a pup tent in sight.

  “How odd,” I murmured.

  “What is?” Val followed the direction of my gaze and smiled. “Oh, that? The scooter doesn’t match the RV, does it? The guy who owns both came put-putting in shortly after I arrived last night. I thought my rig was a big one, but his puts mine to shame. Whoever he is, he spent some serious money on his motor home.”

  “The Vespa belongs to my cousin, Luke Darbee.”

  She must have heard the strain in my voice. Her features took on an expression of concern. “Is something wrong?”

  “Only that I’ve been laboring under a serious misapprehension that makes me wonder what else I’ve been wrong about. A luxury vehicle like that one doesn’t fit my image of a young man wandering the country to find himself.” Or rather, to find his ancestors . . . if that was really what he’d been up to.

  I suddenly wished I’d clung to my earlier doubts about Luke. His story had been a little hard to swallow the first time he told it, but his natural charm and his Greenleigh nose had lulled me into accepting that rather improbable tale. Now I had to wonder what he was really after here in Lenape Hollow, and what he wanted from me.

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” Val agreed. “Just look around you.” She gestured at her living space. “I couldn’t have afforded all this if I hadn’t been left a legacy by my grandfather. Maybe your cousin Luke is like me, a wanderer who sank all of his cash into an RV because he likes to travel. All he needs to do is stop here and there to earn enough money to keep going.”

  “In that case, he’d have found a job in Lenape Hollow. As far as I know, he hasn’t even looked for one.” Instead, he was acting in a pageant for no pay and hanging out with kids years younger than he was.

  “Maybe he’s one of those tech geniuses who made millions by his early twenties.”

  “He says he’s from Ohio.”

  She laughed. “They don’t all live in California, or in Washington State, either.”

  I considered that possibility and rejected it. “From time to time, I’ve had the strongest feeling Luke was holding back about something, but why would he want to hide a successful career?”

  “Inherited wealth?” Val suggested.

  “Maybe.” I gestured at the RV. “I suppose that could be a rich boy’s toy. There’s nothing wrong with having money. What I don’t understand is why he’d keep it secret.”

  “Just a guess here,” Val said, “but perhaps he’s gun-shy about letting people in on his financial situation.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, I’ve never been rich—”

  “We have that in common,” I said with a chuckle.

  “But there are people out there who look on anyone with money as a target. They try to hit them up for loans . . . or worse. Look what happens to lottery winners when they go public.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, thinking it over. “You may be right.”

  Val glanced at the clock mounted on one wall of the RV. “I’ve got to hit the road. It was good meeting you, Mikki, and I owe you big-time for all your help on the book. Can I offer you a bit of unsolicited advice before I go?”

  “I’d like to think an old dog can still learn new tricks.”

  “And you said that with a straight face! I love it. Seriously, though—stay here after I leave. Talk to your cousin. Ask him straight out why he led you to believe he was living hand to mouth.”

  We said our good-byes and I waved as she drove off. Then I squared my shoulders and marched up to the door of the other RV. Luke opened it with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a surprised expression on his face.

  “Mikki. What are you doing here?”

  “Invite me in and I’ll be happy to explain.”

  He did and I did and when I added that I was astonished to find him living in the lap of luxury, he put down the mug and sat with hands dangling between his knees and head bowed, a true picture in dejection. I reached across the slight space between us to pat his arm.

  “I thought you were hurting for cash. I came close to inviting you to stay with me until after the pageant, so you wouldn’t have the expense of the campground and the cost of gas to drive back and forth.”

  “I didn’t realize.” For a moment, he stared off into space. Then he turned his head and met my eyes. “Here’s the thing, Mikki. Usually, when people find out I’m loaded, they look at me differently. The way they act toward me changes. All of a sudden, they think I’m a soft touch. Some of them even think I’m too stupid to know when I’m being conned. One girl, a girl I really liked, called me a miser because I didn’t hand o
ver a wad of cash, as if that would magically solve all her problems.”

  The bitterness in his voice made me wince. Val had been right. He had good reason to be circumspect about his financial situation.

  “You’re too young to be a miser,” I said in a mild voice, “but if you think I would have hit you up for a loan, then that’s just plain insulting. Don’t you know me better than that?”

  “I didn’t in the beginning. And later . . . well, it just didn’t come up, okay?”

  I sighed. “I had a feeling you were hiding something from me. I’m just glad it wasn’t anything truly terrible.”

  “Like what?” He relaxed enough to meet my eyes.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A warrant out for your arrest? A plot to get me—the senile old lady—to sign over my house and life savings to my destitute young cousin?”

  “You’re about as senile as . . . as . . . well, I can’t think of anybody right off the top of my head, but some really smart, really sharp person, okay?”

  “Okay. Thank you. I think.”

  We looked at each other and started to laugh. When I’d subsided, except for a couple of stray giggles, he invited me to lunch to make up for misjudging me.

  “My treat,” he said. “After all, I can afford it!”

  Chapter 37

  I suggested Harriet’s, not because I still had any worries about Luke’s finances, but because it’s my favorite spot to have lunch. I enjoy the pleasant, homey atmosphere and the simple delight of eating well-prepared comfort food. The aromas that greeted us the moment we walked in made my mouth water—Ada baked some of her own breads and rolls and today she’d prepared something laced with garlic.

  “Why the smile?” Luke asked.

  “Just a stray memory. My mother was a plain cook, easy on the seasonings. I’d never tasted anything flavored with garlic until I was invited to have supper at a friend’s house. I was probably ten or eleven and not particularly good at hiding my feelings. I don’t think I actually said ‘yuck’ when I tasted the chicken, but I did make a face. Luckily, my friend’s mom was sharp enough to understand the reason behind my reaction and didn’t take offense.”

  “My mother isn’t big on spices or seasonings, either. She doesn’t even use salt when she cooks.” He contemplated the condiments tray at the table we chose. “That’s probably why I sprinkle way too much of it on my burgers.”

  “Tell me about her,” I urged after we’d given our orders.

  Luke shrugged. “You know the basics. She raised me after my dad split. She had a good job. She’s a CPA, but she was also into amateur theatrics. She used to take me with her to rehearsals when she was in a play, or directing one. Pretty soon, I was hooked, too, same as with the family tree climbing. Her interests got to be mine.”

  “Did you ever see your father?”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t until after he died that I found out he’d come from money, and that a pretty big chunk of it was earmarked for me. You remember Lawrence Greenleigh? The one who was illegitimate? He invented some widget or other that revolutionized the way cars are manufactured. I’m a little hazy on the details, but the upshot is that he had a bundle to pass down to his heirs and, for a miracle, none of them turned around and lost it.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Lucky me,” he agreed. “The whole idea of not having to worry about money took some getting used to, especially when I saw the way some of my so-called friends reacted to my good fortune.”

  Just as Ada set our plates in front of us—a cheeseburger and fries for Luke and a club sandwich for me—the door opened to admit five people all talking at once. Belatedly, I realized that Ada had already shoved two tables together in preparation for their arrival.

  “There must have been a meeting of the village board this morning,” I whispered to Luke.

  He looked up from his burger with mild curiosity. “Oh, yeah?”

  At the same moment, Tom O’Day spotted us. His eyes lit up and he hustled over, but it was my cousin he addressed, not me. “I see you finally connected. Excellent.”

  “You two have met?”

  “This is the young man who was looking for you— when? Must be nearly a month ago. Back before the trees came down. Marie and I told you about him.”

  “So you did. I’d completely forgotten.”

  Too bad I hadn’t made the connection sooner. Knowing Luke had been in town before Grace’s body was found, and well before it was identified, might have prevented my overactive imagination from going off on a tangent about secret babies. Then again, maybe not.

  When Tom rejoined his party, Luke explained that he’d tracked me down on the internet, even finding my home address there. He’d swung by on his way to check out another branch of his family tree, and it had taken him longer than he’d expected to get back to Lenape Hollow. That our first meeting had ended up being at Harriet’s had been pure chance.

  We finished our lunch and were about to leave when my hearing aid beeped at me to signal that the battery was about to quit. Luke, who had followed my car into Lenape Hollow on his scooter, went on ahead to rehearsal while I stayed behind to fish a fresh battery out of my purse and replace the nearly dead one. As often happens when I reinsert one of the hearing aids, I accidentally turned up the volume.

  The words “fooling around with your sister-in-law” blasted my eardrums.

  I whipped my head around to stare at the occupants of the joined tables. The voice had been female and the only woman in the group was Ronnie North, but to whom had she been speaking? I had four choices: Joe Ramirez, Tony Welby, Tom O’Day, and Frank Uberman. It took me only a moment to zero in on Frank. He was glaring at Ronnie with ill-concealed outrage.

  In that same moment, I realized that Ronnie, for all she’d sounded so loud to me, was speaking in a whisper too low for the other three men to hear. If I hadn’t been fiddling with my hearing aid, I’d never have caught her words.

  I wished I hadn’t. Frank . . . and Judy?

  No wonder Darlene and her sister barely spoke to each other!

  I made no effort to turn my volume down. Instead, I eavesdropped shamelessly, stretching my ears to hear Frank’s response.

  “Never happened,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “So you say.” If Ronnie had used that smug, superior tone with me, I’d have been tempted to slap her face. Frank subsided into brooding silence.

  Tom, Joe, and the mayor had been engaged in an intense discussion of their own, a debate over some financial issue or other. Tony Welby broke off, oblivious to the tension between Ronnie and Frank, to ask her if she had any immediate concerns about plans for the quasquibicentennial.

  “Everything is progressing smoothly,” she assured him.

  “Good. Good.” Welby picked up the check and everyone but Frank stood up.

  A few minutes later, after the others had left the café, he was still sitting there. I signaled to Ada to wait a moment before clearing his table and slid into the chair Ronnie had just vacated.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I overheard part what Ronnie said to you.”

  His head shot up. The look of anguish on his face nearly brought tears to my eyes. Whatever had happened all those years ago, he was truly sorry for it now. But what had happened? And when? And why would Ronnie bring it up now?

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I took a quick look around. Frank and I were the only two customers left in the restaurant and Ada was busy out back in the kitchen.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Look, obviously Darlene forgave you, if not her sister, so—”

  Frank glared at me. “Darlene doesn’t know anything about it because there was no ‘it’ in the first place. Max Kenner had a real problem with the truth. He’d lie about his affairs and then try to convince everyone that it was Judy who was fooling around.”

  “But she was.”

  “Oh, I know she broke up the Brohaughs’ marriage, but that was years after the perfec
tly innocent incident Ronnie was needling me about.”

  “Frank, Judy was having an affair with Gilbert Baxter around the time of the bicentennial.”

  The look of shock on his face convinced me he hadn’t known anything about that relationship. His reaction didn’t really surprise me. The Frank Uberman I knew, a man I’d first met when we were both in diapers, doesn’t have a mean-spirited bone in his body. He tends to see the best in people, not the worst.

  “Surely you can’t believe—”

  “Oh no, Frank. Not a chance. You’d no more cheat on Darlene than she would on you.”

  “You were ready to believe it a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Only because—” I broke off. Why had I, for even a moment, accepted Ronnie’s accusation as the truth? Why had I been so certain Darlene had forgiven her husband?

  The answers weren’t long in coming.

  “Someone must have told Darlene that Judy made a play for you,” I said slowly. “Probably the same gossip who told Ronnie.” I’d thought all along that there was more behind the way Darlene reacted to the slightest mention of her sister’s name than Judy’s affair with the husband of one of Darlene’s friends.

  “Max,” Frank muttered. “I guess Darlene might have believed him. Not that I’d been unfaithful, but that Judy tried something. He could be pretty convincing, and if he was out to hurt Judy, that would be one way to do it. But why wouldn’t Darlene just ask me if the story was true? I’d have told her the only reason I met her sister at that motel was to give her advice about finding a divorce lawyer.”

  “Maybe you should have told Darlene everything without being asked.” I tried to make my voice gentle, but I knew he heard the critical undercurrent. “And maybe you should have thought twice about meeting her at a motel.”

  “Max had given her a shiner. She didn’t want anyone to see her until the bruising healed. And she didn’t want Darlene to know. I promised her I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “Idiot.” I sympathized, but it seemed absurd to me that a simple misunderstanding should have lasted for decades when one short conversation early on could have scotched it.