by Gaus, P. L.
Andy fished out a wedge of lemon and bit into it, puckering as he chewed. “Lost a family this morning,” he confided after a pause.
Cal drained his tea, poured more for himself and Weaver, and waited.
“I had three of the men together to rule on electric lights, and one balked. I told him he could find a liberal group up east of Trail.”
Cal whistled.
“Make an example of one, you see,” Andy observed.
“You think the rest will hold tight?”
“I believe so. I had plenty of nominations from the people, and they all saw me draw the lot to become Bishop.”
“It’s almost asking too much, Andy,” Cal said without guile. “You’re taking them backwards, and most of them are sticking with you.”
“You’d have expected otherwise?”
Cal nodded quietly.
“You’re right,” Weaver sighed.
“If you can keep 80 percent, that will be good.”
“This morning I am only two for three,” Weaver said, distantly.
“There’s still the two men who stayed with you,” Cal encouraged.
Weaver managed to produce a wry smile. “They came into town with me this afternoon. Down at the light company, telling them to take out the electric wires.”
“A victory, then,” Cal said.
“For now.”
“You knew you’d lose a few, Andy.”
Andy paused and changed the subject with a distasteful look on his face. Heavily, he said, “I’ve made no progress identifying our cultists, but some families seem afraid of their teenagers.”
Cal’s forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows lifted questioningly. To lighten the mood, he asked, “You remember Mony Hershberger’s Ben?”
A brief smile broke out on Weaver’s face, and he laughed softly. “Mailboxes.”
“I’ll bet he busted up twenty before they caught him,” Cal added.
Grinning, Weaver said, “Mony’s Ben was always a little ‘touched in the head,’ Cal.”
“Just a little?”
“You remember that barn fire his father had?”
“That was Ben?” Cal asked, surprised.
“He didn’t mean it. Just trying to light a pipe, was all,” Weaver said. He smiled, looked out the kitchen window for a spell, and then appeared to slump in his chair. “You know my older brother died Monday in a crash in front of his house?”
“J.R. Yes. I’m sorry,” Cal said.
“I wish I could say the same,” Andy blurted. “I didn’t mean that,” he added instantly. His frown was heavy, and he shook his head slowly back and forth.
Cal sat motionless.
Weaver peered directly into Troyer’s eyes and said, “It looks like my brother swindled eight of my men, Cal.”
Cal appeared skeptical.
“Truly,” Weaver asserted. “Eight men got letters yesterday canceling the notes on their farms.”
“That’s not possible,” Cal said.
“I’d have agreed with you. But there’s something about some ‘Lease to Own’ contracts, and I’ve got to sort through to the bottom of it all in less than a week.”
Cal leaned back a ways in his chair, clasped his fingers behind his head, and blew out air, saying, “Whew!”
“It gets worse,” Weaver said nervously.
Cal waited, still leaning back.
“Two families have got at least one son each they won’t talk about. There’s gossip. I told one father I intended talking to his son, and he grew nervous. Told me in so many words that that might not be prudent! Of course their wives wouldn’t say anything at all.”
“What kind of secret can anyone keep among the Amish?” Cal asked, intending no disrespect.
Weaver said, “They all know about it, all right. Just no one’s talking.”
“You’re right,” Cal said, bringing his arms down to the table. “That beats electric problems any day.”
“I think Melvin Yoder must have gone far more liberal than I realized.”
Cal shook his head.
“It’s not everyone,” Weaver explained.
“Still,” Cal said.
“Have you got a lot going this summer, Cal?”
“Just the usual.”
“You think you and Mike Branden could help on the land matter?”
“Not with the boys?”
“That will be my little problem for a while.”
“You want me to talk to Mike first, or get going on it myself?”
“I need you and Branden to come out and talk with the men.”
“Your place?”
“Yoder’s old house. Temporarily.”
“You said they all got a letter?”
Weaver nodded.
“We’ll need to see that,” Cal said.
Weaver nodded and frowned heavily. “Can you get out to the house Friday morning?”
“I’ll have to check.”
“You sure you’ve got the time, Cal?”
Cal said, “Of course—just like the old times,” and waited.
Weaver sat with an unhappy expression and eventually said, “The way those letters read, my brother sold the land out from under eight of my families just before he died.”
6
Wednesday, August 9
9:28 A.M.
AFTER a light breakfast, Branden took the leather pouch containing J. R. Weaver’s trust papers off the kitchen table and stepped into the stuffy garage. He put the garage door up, and bright light flooded in on an assaulting wave of dry heat. He rolled down the windows on his truck, backed out onto the culde-sac where his brick colonial stood near the campus, and drove down into town with the truck windows open, the temperature already showing ninety-two degrees on the bank display just south of the courthouse square. He waited for traffic to clear on Clay Street and swung into the bank lot, his tires crackling on the heat blisters in the blacktop. As he walked toward the two-story brick bank building, pavement heat lifting through the soles of his worn sandals, he held J. R. Weaver’s leather pouch under his left arm, and flipped through his wallet for the photocopy he had made yesterday from his senior yearbook—Brittany Sommers in her high school cheerleader’s uniform, captain of the squad. Britta was the smallest of the lot, the confident, scrappy little girl smiling at the camera from the top position of a human pyramid, her black hair shiny and long, the fall sweater-and-skirt uniform revealing, in the young girl, the beautiful form she would carry as a woman. He shook his head, remembering her fondly, and slid the photo back into his wallet, intending to tease her about it if he got the chance.
In the shade under the portico of the bank’s main doors, Branden used a handkerchief to dry sweat beads on his hands and arms, the back of his neck, and face. He was dressed in blue jeans and a plain yellow T-shirt. He had made the appointment yesterday, and he had stopped at Chester’s shop for a haircut and a trim. Now he used the bank window as a mirror to comb hair and beard into place. He studied his reflection in the window glass and smiled at himself, realizing that he hadn’t needed the haircut. He took out his handkerchief again, this time to dry the leather pouch he was carrying.
He lingered in the shade of the portico while a line of customers spilled out of the bank, and he noticed the brief rush of cool air through the open door. An unkempt man came out through the main doors, stopped short at sight of the professor, and stood blocking the doorway, eyeing Branden up and down with a spiteful expression, until he was forced to move aside by people wanting to get through the door. He moved closer to Branden and blurted, “Look, Branden. My ex talks about you all the time.”
“Arden Dobrowski,” Branden said contemptuously. “You’re not allowed within five hundred yards of Britta Sommers.”
“That lying tramp is trying to freeze me out of . . . ”
He would, apparently, have said considerably more, but Branden took him forcibly under the arm, spun him against the outside brick wall of the bank, jabbed two stiff fingers into Dobr
owski’s chest and barked, “You’ll not speak about Britta that way.”
Dobrowski tried to force Branden’s arm away as he squirmed against the hot bricks.
Branden stiffened his arm and took hold of Dobrowski’s shirt. Coldly, he said, “If I hear you talking like that about Britta Sommers, I’m going to land on you like a pile driver, Arden. You understand? I’ve done it before, and under the circumstances, I’ll do it again.”
Dobrowski took Branden’s fist, pulled it away from his chest, and stepped sideways. “She’s my ex, thanks to you, and I’ll talk about her any way I please.”
Branden said, “You’ve been warned,” and felt pressure in his temples as he remembered why he would never tolerate such comments from Dobrowski. He took a combative step forward and glared with animosity at Dobrowski in the bright light on the bank’s front lawn, his eyes ablaze with the heat of ugly memories and utter disgust. Dobrowski stomped angrily out into the parking lot, rubbing at his shoulder.
Back in the shade, Branden watched Dobrowski get into a small, rusty car. Dobrowski labored at cranking down the windows on both sides of his car, and started the sputtering engine. When he swung around past the front of the bank, he scowled at Branden and made a vulgar gesture. Then he stopped, checked his rearview mirror, backed into the lot again, took a spot facing the entrance where Branden stood, shut off the engine, and stared at Branden spitefully. Branden laughed, shook his head, and stepped into the cold air of the bank.
Inside, he asked one of the managers to let him into the men’s room in a corner out of view, and there he dried his face and neck again, straightened his shirt, touched up his hair and beard, came out, and took the steps to the second floor, where the trust division had its offices along both sides of a long, carpeted hall. At the door to each office, a secretary worked at a desk in the wide hall.
Britta Sommers’s secretary used her phone to announce the professor and admitted Branden directly. Branden walked into a well-ordered, modern office done in mahogany, black lacquer, and red leather, and found Brittany Sommers crossing the carpet to him, arms outstretched. She was still petite, with short black hair that seemed silky and looked shiny. Her gray business suit hid nothing of the youthful beauty Branden remembered from high school. She came up to him eagerly, reached her arms behind his neck, and pulled him to her aggressively. She kissed him impetuously on the mouth before he could turn away, and with her head tilted back, she said, “Mike. Mike. Mike. Why didn’t I marry you?”
He dropped the leather pouch onto a table beside a floor lamp and chair, reached behind his head with both hands, pulled her hands down, maneuvered them in front of his chest, and took a deep breath as he pushed her back. “Britta,” he said gently, “eighth-grade romances are such sweet affairs. Who would ruin those memories with a marriage?”
She held his blue eyes with her green, smiled dreamily, and sighed, “She calls you Michael, doesn’t she?”
“Caroline?”
“Who else?” she said and pushed closer. “I’m going to call you Michael, too.”
“You’re still a flirt, Britta,” he chided, and stepped free of her grasp. “As I recall, you threw me over for a football player.”
“The captain, Michael,” Britta said in a petulant tone. “Not just a player.” Her eyes sparkled mischief, and she whispered, “I’ll just call you Michael when we’re alone.” She stepped back and ran her gaze over his medium frame, assessing the muscles under his T-shirt. Up close again, she ran her fingers through his hair at the temples and said, “More gray than I remember, Michael.”
The professor blushed and said, “If eighth-grade love affairs ever truly lasted, you’d be the one, Britta. You’d be the one.”
With a triumphant smile, she spun around and swayed back to her desk. Once on the other side of the desk, however, she seemed to stiffen and lose some of her sparkle. She motioned for Branden to take a seat in a red leather chair, pointed at the leather pouch on the table by the lamp, and said, “What do you have there?”
Branden retrieved the pouch, eased himself into the plush chair, and said, “John R. Weaver’s trust.”
“Oh,” Britta said, pensive. She sat behind her desk and said, “Somebody’s been working overtime down at the sheriff’s.”
“They want me to ask you about the trust. We got the papers out at his house, and there are a lot of other papers out there that indicate you and Weaver had a land deal or two going on. They’ll want to know about that, too.”
“That’s awfully nosy,” Britta scolded, “sending you over here like that.”
“You’re Weaver’s trust officer, Britta, and his death might not have been an accident.”
Sommers’s eyebrows arched, and she asked, “Not an accident?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“I suppose you’re working for the sheriff again.”
“For the sheriff’s office. The sheriff himself was injured at the accident scene.”
“Bull in a china shop, if you ask me.”
“It’s a delicate matter, Britta. It’s only me. And for now, I just want a sketch of what Weaver’s trust will do, now that he’s dead. And some background on his land dealings.”
“His latest deal was the big one,” Britta said. “I’ve got a little piece of the action. It’s my ‘walk-away’ money, Michael. The land sales, that is. I’m selling out everything I’ve got invested in this county to a developer in Cleveland and moving to Nashville.”
“Selling out everything?”
“Land, house, job, and furniture. It all goes. I’m moving south to live with my son. Take care of him.”
“How is he?”
“He’s autistic.”
“I know that, Britta.”
“He’s been living in an institution near Vanderbilt, in Nashville, since I divorced Arden. Now I think it’s time to put a stop to that. I’m selling off everything and moving down there to be with him. To take care of him myself.”
“Will you have enough?” Branden asked.
Sommers laughed spiritedly. “Since you, Michael, all the men in my life have been losers. Not me. I invested all of Arden’s alimony payments in the stock market in the nineties. I learned about land deals from watching John Weaver work. And I started a little company with him. Sommer Homes. Kinda catchy, don’t you think? It’s only a portion of what Weaver had going throughout the county, but the profits have been marvelous.”
“I’ve seen some of the documents on Weaver’s land deals,” Branden said. “He was good at it, if his ledgers tell the truth.”
“The best,” Britta said. “That’s why I threw in with him. I showed him how to invest money, and he showed me how to make it.”
“With Sommer Homes?”
“That was the core of it, but I need to have a little privacy, Michael.” She winked at him.
“So it’s the Sommer Homes holdings, plus some?” Branden asked.
“More than just the land, Michael,” she said. “Like I said, I’m getting out quick and moving south. All of the deals haven’t closed, but with Weaver dead, I collect another half-million, with partner’s insurance.”
Branden leveled his gaze at her pensively, aware that she was toying with him.
“Oh, come now, Michael,” Britta said. “You wouldn’t expect a woman to go unprotected. I work partner’s insurance into all of my companies. Gonna make out pretty well on this one.”
“All of the deals haven’t closed?”
Britta smiled and said, “We signed a binding agreement on the land sales to Holmes Estates last week.”
“When?” Branden asked.
“Friday. Why?”
“I’m just trying to figure why anyone would want Weaver dead.”
“Weaver was finished with his part of the deals,” Britta said. “There are still a few things for me to finish up this week, and then I’ll be headed south.” She smiled mischievously and added, “Come with me, Michael.”
Branden grinned and sc
olded her with a wagging finger.
Britta smiled and said, “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” Then she added, seriously, “I’m selling it all, Michael. For Danny. Stocks, land holdings, everything. I’ve transferred all the proceeds into a trust that I began for Danny three years ago—a portfolio that provides a trust fund for him and a good life for me. I’ve given my notice and handed over my accounts to other trust officers. By this time next week, my house will be on the market, and I’ll be in Nashville, making arrangements for a new life for my son. New doctors, better schools, everything. I’m getting out, Michael, and I’m getting out on top.”
Branden smiled, openly happy for her. “You’ve done well, Britta.” More seriously, he added, “What about Arden Dobrowski?”
“He’s out,” Britta said, instantly cold.
Branden questioned with his eyes.
“Arden’s a loser, Michael. Like I told you, they all were. All the men in my life except you. I never should have dropped you for Weston. You know better than anyone why I divorced Arden. Anyway, he paid alimony until about a year ago, when his car lots went belly up, and he filed for bankruptcy. Now he’s in the courts, trying to worm his way into our son’s trust. Wants to handle the money jointly. It’s not enough that he begs spending money off me. I’m tired of it. I just told him that I’m leaving.”
“Bumped into him outside,” Branden said. “Had to rough him up a bit, the way he was talking.”
“About me, I suppose.”
Branden shrugged. “So he doesn’t like it that you’re moving?”
“Poor baby,” Britta quipped.
“Has he ever tried to hurt you again?”
“He knows not to try. I’ve learned how to hit back.”
Branden shook his head, respecting her boldness. He thought of the leather pouch and asked, “How about the trust fund for Weaver?”
Sommers stood up with her hand stretched out for the papers. “Those are private papers, Michael,” she said officiously. “Confidential. The sheriff has got no right to be looking into that.”
“If Weaver’s death was truly an accident,” Branden said, “you’re altogether right.”
“It was an accident,” Britta claimed.