Skip realized I could be useful to his plans, but he also found a way to get me out of permanent attachment to him with the annulment. A Plan B—or C, or D—I suppose. Just a bit more finagling for the king of finagling. Falling in love (maybe only fondness?) was a bump in the road, but I didn’t present a complete detour.
As a side note—I called the lawyer who had processed the annulment, and he confirmed my suspicions. He’d never met Skip. Everything had been handled via email, phone calls, and FedEx. The lawyer had been happy for the easy money—he’d filled out some forms, trotted over to the courthouse a couple of times. Signed, sealed, delivered. He didn’t say so, but I suspected Skip had included a generous bonus to make sure there were no hang-ups.
But like all good schemes—including those of the master strategizer, Skip—nothing went right from very close to the beginning. Perhaps the greeting committee who met Skip on that Cozumel beach brought bad news. Because, given the number of times I’ve reviewed my memory of his words and demeanor during our first few married hours together, I’ve become convinced that he did know the thugs were with us in Mexico, that perhaps he’d even arranged the meeting himself. I suspect that at least a couple of those four guys were also in his pocket, unbeknownst to their employers.
Was he a criminal? Yes.
Was he a criminal with good intentions? Probably.
Did his actions—the ones he initiated himself and the ones he helped me take—cause the removal of several really bad guys from society? Yes.
Was he a murderer? Possibly. I knew he was capable of killing someone, even if the bullets I’d seen him fire weren’t the definitively sole cause of death.
Will the FBI continue to chase him? No doubt—as a matter of principle. As has already been made abundantly clear, the FBI and I tend to have a different approach to just about everything.
So do I want to see him again? No.
As much as I’d hated the idea of Skip’s philandering, I realized that I had really wanted to see a piece of him in Emmie. I was free of that tether now too. But that didn’t change Emmie one bit. Now she really was completely alone in the world, except for me. And I claimed her with my whole heart.
I still couldn’t quite reconcile Skip’s statement that I was in a better place than he could have ever given me when he did, in fact, give it to me, and to Walt—if indirectly—in the form of title to property. Unless by place he meant relationship. But he had also, again very indirectly, caused me to meet Walt. And Walt was undoubtedly a source of refuge, my rock—and a very good place to be.
As you can see, dwelling too long on what ifs and maybes is a philosophical and perhaps psychological miasma. Like everybody else on this planet, I’m just going to have to live with the surrounding ambiguity.
oOo
A couple days after the memorial service, Des asked to meet with Loretta and me. He arrived wearing civilian clothes and looking more relaxed than I’d seen him in a very long time. He also brought a packet of papers, and I have to admit the sight of yet another set of documents spread out on our kitchen table made me a little queasy.
But they were beautiful documents. They were Tarq’s will and an accounting of all his worldly goods. Des, as Tarq’s executor, got to inform Loretta that she now owned the cabin and the little parcel of wooded land and meadow it sat upon.
I wept with her. The best kind of tears. This courageous, knocked-about woman had only known displacement, and now her gift from Tarq was a permanent home. A place where she could paint the walls any color she wanted and plant a garden and hang pictures and rest.
That afternoon, we did something both nonsensical and perfect. Loretta and I put on our grubby jeans and trekked through Mayfield’s woods until we found a little Douglas fir sapling that was struggling in the shadows of its much taller neighbors. We dug it up, keeping the muddy root ball intact.
Then I drove Loretta, the sapling, and all her clothes and personal items out to the cabin.
We dug a hole at the head of the grave of Tarq’s faithful Labrador, Ollie, and planted a little piece of Mayfield at Loretta’s new home.
Loretta retrieved the canister containing Tarq’s ashes from the truck and energetically flung his ashes all over Ollie’s grave and the new tree—a generous dousing. I stepped back and tried not to cough as fine particles drifted on the breeze.
“There,” she sniffed. “I didn’t think he’d go for a flowering bush. Too foofy.”
I hugged her, and we cried a little bit more, and then we moved her belongings into the cabin.
“Make a list,” I told her, “of things you want done. Painting, repairs, landscaping, whatever you need. Walt and I—and I’m sure we’ll have an abundance of volunteer boys—we’ll come and get you squared away.” I grabbed her hand. “Are you going to be okay here by yourself?”
She nodded vehemently. “Nora, I can’t even tell you what this means to me—” She broke down in rough sobs. “I’m going to be your nosy neighbor.”
I chuckled. “I’m counting on it.”
I would never tell her, but I absolutely was planning on returning the favor. Loretta had relapsed into alcoholism too many times to count, and I worried about the solitude becoming too depressing for her. I’d be stopping by plenty, keeping my eye on her, just like my old routine. We’d include her in every event at Mayfield and lots of non-events too. As far as I was concerned, she was Emmie’s grandmother.
“There’s something else,” Loretta said. “I have one more thing I need to do as your mother-in-law.”
My mouth fell open, but she hurried on. “I know what’s in your pocket, and I know that you need a good place to get rid of it. And that place is not Mayfield. Come with me.” She tugged on my hand, pushed through the back door, and pulled me across the meadow toward the tree line.
She led me to a swollen creek several yards deep in the trees that I hadn’t even known was there. “Here,” she announced. “He’s my son, so his ring can stay here on my property, somewhere—” She flitted her hand across the gurgling water. “Give it a heave.” Then she backed up a couple steps and pressed her fingers over her eyes. “Go on.” Her words were muffled by her palms. “Do it. I don’t want to see where it lands.”
I almost wanted to laugh, but it seemed like such a solemn ceremony to her. Maybe it was an Alcoholics Anonymous strategy or something, this casting your worries and your past pain into the water. Or maybe it was just Loretta being Loretta.
I slipped Skip’s wedding ring out of my pocket, aimed downstream, and chucked it—high and arching, glinting briefly in a stray ray of sunlight that penetrated the forest canopy. I didn’t even hear the ploop when it landed—the creek was gushing too noisily.
“Done,” I said.
Loretta linked her arm through mine as we returned to the cabin. “That’s right, darling. All done.”
oOo
There is nothing hyphenated about my new last name.
Walt and I married a couple weeks later. No fanfare, just a small ceremony in the large main room in the mansion—the one with the floor to ceiling windows and amazing view and fireplace. In other words, it was lovely.
Clarice had outdone herself with cleaning and polishing and cooking and decorating. And all the best people I know were there, including Josh who flew in especially. Matt was invited, but he sent a nice card instead. Didn’t want to wear out his welcome, I suppose.
Walt and I are now in the process of adopting a few of the boys who need it most. These are the boys who don’t have a parent or other family member who is working within the judicial system to re-earn guardian responsibility, to demonstrate trustworthiness and the ability to provide. Eli and Thomas are on the list. Bodie also, even though he’s legally an adult now. We thought he might enjoy having a real family to come home to, and so we asked him. And he cried, and we cried, and it was agreed.
Emmie also. Her paperwork is more complicated, but we’re plowing through with the help of Maeve Berends, the county cler
k.
I’m grateful for Skip’s generosity in giving me the freight terminal. It’s a wonderfully healthy business. I’ve been working with Hank to invest where needed to increase the terminal’s capacity and to keep the equipment and infrastructure in good shape. But there’s profit left at the end of every month, and Walt and I are using that steady flow of funds to renovate and improve Mayfield, particularly the mansion so that we can accommodate more boys. Maybe girls, too.
We’ll have to see how it goes, hire staff, fence in more pasture for animals. I think cows are up next.
I also still have the gold bars in reserve.
Instead of a phone, I carry a camera around with me everywhere now. I send a new stack of photos to my dad every couple of weeks—pictures of Mayfield, the boys, Walt and me, Emmie, Clarice, Gus, Loretta, the mountains, the animals (including a selfie with Orville, the potbellied pig!). Arleta arranged for a large cork board to be mounted on the wall in Dad’s room, and she said that he spends hours every time a set of photos arrives, pinning and rearranging the display to his satisfaction.
Gus sure hangs around a lot. He’s been teaching the boys who are interested (which is most of them) how to take apart, service, and reassemble small engines. We have a little tractor that works now, along with a mower attachment it can pull, and a few generators for when winter storms knock out the power. There’s a possibility those things with the metal roll cages and wheels that Gus and Walt think they’re hiding (but I’ve been snooping) in the old root cellar building will be functioning go-karts by summer.
What this all really means, though, is that Clarice has to feed Gus quite frequently. I don’t think she minds.
NOTES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Woodland and Longview are both real cities along the I-5 corridor in southwest Washington State. However, I have taken tremendous liberties with spacing and locations, and all the retail establishments and institutions, including county government, described in the Mayfield series are entirely fictional and placed for the convenience of storytelling. If you decide to visit the area, though, I can promise you will find just as many trees, mountains, backroads, and neighborly folks—and as much rain—as described.
Profound thanks to the following people who gave their time and expertise to assist in the writing of this book:
Sergeant Fred Neiman, Sr. and all the instructors of the Clark County Sheriff’s Citizens’ Academy. The highlights had to be firing the Thompson submachine gun and stepping into the medical examiner’s walk-in cooler. Oh, and the K-9 demonstration and the officer survival/lethal force decision making test. And the drug task force presentation with identification color spectrum pictures and the—you get the idea.
Beth Anne Steele of the FBI Public Affairs Office, Portland Division, for letting me attend the Community Relations Executive Seminar Training program even though my only (non)qualification is that I make stuff up for a living. And to the special agents and support staff who shared their knowledge and stories.
I claim all errors, whether accidental or intentional, solely as my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I live in a small town in the west end of the Columbia River Gorge. When I grow up, I fully intend to be a feisty old lady. In the meantime, I regularly max out my library's lending limit, have happily declared a truce with the clover in the lawn, but am fanatical about sealing up cracks in my old house, armed with a caulking gun. Due to the number of gaps I have yet to locate, however, I have also perfected my big spider shriek.
I love wool socks, Pink Lady apples with crunchy peanut butter, scenery of breathtaking grandeur, and weather just cool enough to require a sweater, all of which are plentiful in the Pacific Northwest. I am eternally grateful to have escaped the corporate world with its relentless, mind-numbing meetings and now write (or doodle or fantasize or cogitate or stare out the window or whatever you want to call it) full time.
I post updates on my website www.jerushajones.com
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Also by Jerusha Jones
The Imogene Museum Mystery Series
Rock Bottom
Doubled Up
Sight Shot
Tin Foil
Faux Reel
Shift Burn
Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5) Page 18