The Pickled Piper

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  “China.”

  “Well, there you are. Half a world away and no need for any decisions to be made for quite a while.” Her aunt smiled wickedly. “And I hear they have perfectly lovely gift items in China.”

  “Aunt Judy!” But Piper smiled, too. Her aunt was right. She shouldn’t let herself get worked up over something that might never need to be addressed. Hopefully Scott would see her latest e-mail and view their relationship more clearly.

  Piper grabbed her purse. “Ready to tour the Taylor mansion?”

  Aunt Judy had called Piper about Dorothy Taylor’s open house that afternoon and suggested they go to it together, saying, “It could be an opportunity to talk to Dorothy about Robby.”

  Piper thought that was a fine idea, and going with her aunt instead of Will or even alone was much better as far as the town gossip mill was concerned.

  “It’s not exactly a mansion,” Aunt Judy said, “but yes, I’m ready.”

  Piper locked up, and Aunt Judy gave directions to Dorothy Taylor’s home as they climbed into Piper’s hatchback, whose tires had thankfully been repaired and plumped. “She grew up in that house,” she explained as Piper drove off, “and her father, who’d been widowed by then, turned it over to Dorothy when she and Henry married. Her father was born in the house, but he decided to move to Arizona for his arthritis.”

  “So the house has been in her family for quite a while?” Piper asked.

  “Oh yes, ever since her grandfather built it nearly a hundred years ago. Plenty of furniture was passed down as well, though Dorothy wasn’t fond of most of it and gradually moved pieces up to the attic. Those were the things Alan Rosemont got from her at a real bargain price. He sewed up the deal in a flash before any of her friends, or Robby, knew what was going on. Dorothy, as you know, thought she was simply getting paid to have someone clean out her attic for her.”

  “So the pieces were pretty valuable?”

  “A few were. I’m sure there was plenty of junk like most of us have mixed in. But Alan obviously had a sharp eye and spotted the good stuff.”

  “What a shame. I wouldn’t blame Robby for being furious.”

  “There’s the house, dear.” Aunt Judy pointed out a gray clapboard-sided house with white trim. The large railing-edged front porch added plenty of charm to the two-story structure, but Piper could already see signs of age and lack of maintenance in the peeling paint and scrubby front lawn. She pulled up behind a black Audi.

  “That looks like Stan Yeager’s car,” Aunt Judy said. “We’re going to have to find a way to talk to Dorothy without him around.” She opened her door as Piper climbed out from her own side.

  “I’m surprised she’s having this open house so soon,” Piper said. “Mr. Yeager gave me the impression the decision to sell had just been made.”

  “It does seem a rush,” Aunt Judy agreed. “It reminds me a little too much of Alan Rosemont’s dealings, except Stan Yeager would never behave so unethically. It wouldn’t be up to him, anyway. The push must be coming from Robby.”

  As they walked up to the porch steps, the front door opened. Stan Yeager stepped out.

  “Welcome! Welcome! Glad to see you got the word, Miss Lamb. I was about to give you a call to let you know.”

  “No need,” Piper said. “The news reached us through the grapevine. We were surprised, though, at the suddenness.”

  “Once Mrs. Taylor made up her mind, she saw no reason to dawdle,” Yeager said. His expression sobered. “It’s often hard for the older clients to make the change. Some look at it as pulling off a Band-Aid. You know—painful, but best to do it fast.” His smile reappeared. “I know you’ll love the place. It’s loaded with character.”

  He waved them in, and Piper stepped into an entry hallway with a living room to the left. A bay window overlooked the porch, and an old-fashioned radiator lined the inner wall.

  “They used to call this the ‘front room,’” Yeager said. He pointed out the abundant natural light coming from the large window as well as its hardwood floors as positive features, though the floors looked uneven to Piper and the window frames leaky. She also thought the room looked seldom used, with its 1970s furniture nearing museum-level preservation even though no seat cushions were covered in plastic.

  “Dorothy mostly entertained in the sunroom at the back,” Aunt Judy said. “She and Henry added that on some years ago, and it was much more spacious.”

  “Right,” Yeager said, nodding. “We’ll get to the sunroom in a minute. In the meantime, across the way, here, is the dining room.” He led them into another hardwood-floored room that should have been as bright as the front room but instead was darkened with heavy draperies and a massive dining table, chairs, a buffet, and china cabinet.

  Yeager gave them a moment to scan it, then said, “And at the back of the house is the kitchen.” Piper and her aunt dutifully followed the Realtor. Piper’s first thought on entering the kitchen was that if she were actually buying, she’d have a huge amount of renovation to do. The appliances were years old, the cabinets dated and too few, and the counter space severely limited. This was definitely not a kitchen in which she’d want to do pickling and canning. Which was a moot point, of course, since she had no intention of becoming its owner.

  The sound of footsteps drew Piper’s attention to a back hallway connected to the kitchen. There, an older woman gradually materialized out of the dimness, a stiff smile on her face. Feeling instant guilt from her critical thoughts as well as the false pretenses under which she was there, Piper pulled up a smile that certainly must have matched the woman’s for stiffness until Aunt Judy cheerily cried, “Dorothy! There you are!”

  23

  Dorothy Taylor’s expression softened on seeing Piper’s aunt in her kitchen.

  “I’ve brought my niece to see your lovely place,” Aunt Judy said. She introduced the two, adding, to Piper’s surprise, that they had actually met years ago at a church picnic. Dorothy, from her doubtful look, was just as clueless as Piper on that point. But after a minuscule pause, both heads bobbed as each said, “Oh yes, that’s right,” along with, “How nice to see you again.”

  Piper thought she could see a slight facial resemblance to Robby, but unlike her son, Dorothy Taylor was plump and far from fit. She also sported bright red hair rather than Robby’s dark waves, but considering her age as well as the shade, the color hadn’t risen from her genes. Dorothy, in addition, seemed more reserved than her son. That last might have come from negative feelings over selling her house. Piper hoped to learn more about that.

  “Are we the first ones here?” Aunt Judy asked.

  Dorothy shook her head and pursed her lips. “The Satterfield couple is upstairs with their baby. I don’t think she likes the house. She thought the bathroom was old-fashioned.”

  “Maybe I’ll just run up and point out a few of the finer features,” Stan Yeager said, and as he hurried off, Aunt Judy caught Piper’s eye. Piper knew what she was thinking. Here’s our chance.

  “We don’t mind waiting till the other couple is done,” Aunt Judy said. “Would you like to sit for a bit, Dorothy? Maybe in the backyard with a glass of something nice and cool?”

  Dorothy Taylor smiled—her first genuine smile so far, Piper thought. “I’d love that, Judy. I have a pitcher of iced tea chilling.”

  “I’ll get it,” Aunt Judy said. “Why don’t you show Piper your lovely garden, and I’ll be right out.”

  Dorothy Taylor agreeably beckoned Piper toward the hallway and out through a screen door that led to a small patio with an aged umbrella table and chairs. To their right was the sunroom Aunt Judy had mentioned. That attachment, though nicely spacious, looked to Piper out of sync with the rest of the house, as though it had been sliced off of a much more modern structure and glued onto this nearly century-old one.

  “I’ll miss my garden,” Dorothy said, walkin
g on with some effort across her uneven lawn toward a grouping of faded, end-of-summer perennials. “It’s so full of memories since many of my plants came from good friends as they divided up their own gardens.” She pointed to a drooping clump of daylilies. “Those were from Ellie Peterson. The hostas over there came from your aunt years ago. And I have scads of daffodils and irises that were given to me by dear friends who are no longer with us.” She heaved a sigh, and Piper was about to express sympathy until Dorothy added, “Patty Hendrickson and Enid Bates moved down to Florida some time ago.”

  They turned at the sound of the screen door banging. Aunt Judy had stepped onto the patio with a tray of iced tea, so they made their way back to join her.

  “Thank you, Judy,” Dorothy said, taking one of the glasses from her and settling heavily in a chair. She looked about her somewhat morosely. “This might be the last time we’ll sit here together.”

  “We’ll still see each other, Dorothy,” Aunt Judy said, sitting next to her friend. “It won’t matter exactly where that will be. What are your plans? Will you stay in Cloverdale? Or are you thinking of moving closer to Robby?”

  Dorothy looked away from Aunt Judy. “I haven’t exactly had time to make plans, at least not anything definite. First things first!” She switched on a bright, but not terribly convincing, smile. “So!” she said, turning to Piper. “You’ve seen at least half of my house. What do you think so far?”

  Piper scrambled to come up with a proper answer. “It’s quite an interesting place,” she said, hoping that sounded positive. “There’s obviously a lot of history attached to your house.”

  Dorothy nodded. “There is that.” To Piper’s surprise, she then chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Not all of it wonderful, though, right Judy? Remember the incident with Pop?”

  Aunt Judy grinned but said, “That’s all water under the bridge, Dorothy.”

  Dorothy said to Piper, “You’ll probably hear about it eventually, so you might as well get it from the horse’s mouth. When Henry and I were first married, my father turned the house over to us before moving to Arizona. My mother had passed away—bless her soul—years before, and as far as I knew Pop had lived the quiet life of a retired widower after that.

  “Well! One day, my doorbell rings, and I answer it to find this strange woman on my doorstep, baggage at her feet, demanding to see my father. At least, that’s what I eventually figured out she wanted, since her accent—from someplace like Romania or Lithuania, I couldn’t tell you exactly where—was so thick I could barely understand her.

  “Come to find out the regular visits Pop was making to Rochester, which I thought were simply to meet with an amateur astronomy group he’d got interested in, were for another interest as well, which he never happened to mention.” Dorothy turned an amused, head-shaking glance to Aunt Judy before going on. “Turned out Pop had set up this woman—Nadia was her name—in a little apartment and was having a much better time in Rochester than any astronomy club ever offered.”

  “Dorothy!” Aunt Judy protested, but her shoulders were shaking and she pressed her fingers to her lips.

  “Now, my father was a single man and free to do what he wanted as far as I was concerned. I was certainly surprised, but I wasn’t about to judge him. The only thing was, he apparently decided this little arrangement had run its course, and when he left for Arizona he neglected to say anything about it to this woman. She, obviously, was not pleased to be left hanging and had tracked him down to here. When I informed her he had given the house to me and moved on, she was furious and screamed that he had promised to take care of her. He’d stopped paying her rent in Rochester, so she was going to stay here. At that she picked up her bags and marched upstairs!

  “I didn’t know what to do. But I certainly didn’t want a strange woman moving into my house. I threatened to call the police. That’s when she said she would sue to take our house altogether if we didn’t let her stay.”

  Dorothy took a sip of her tea before going on. “Henry and I were horrified, of course. We didn’t think there was any way she’d win her suit, but we didn’t have the money at that time to hire a lawyer to defend ourselves. We were young and naïve and felt pretty helpless. So there she stayed, in our spare bedroom, smoking up a storm, coming down and messing up my kitchen and bad-mouthing Pop with every other word that came out of her mouth.

  “It got really bad when she started doing the same around town—complaining about Pop to anyone who would listen. Finally, Henry and I scraped together a bit of money. We offered her travel fare to Arizona along with my father’s address if she would leave and never come back. She snapped up the cash and took off.”

  Dorothy swatted at a fly circling the table. “The last I heard,” she said, “she showed up at my father’s, stayed awhile, then decided to move on to Las Vegas. I learned all this from a neighbor of my father’s. Pop never mentioned Nadia to me, and I never mentioned her to him.” Dorothy took another sip of her tea, looking over the top of her glass at Piper and waiting for her reaction.

  “Well,” Piper said. “That wasn’t exactly the kind of history I had in mind, but it does make a good story.”

  Dorothy cackled and reached over to pat Piper’s hand. “You were hoping for something like ‘George Washington slept here,’ I suppose. The house is old, but not that old. I like you, Piper. I’d like to think of you living in my house.” At that, Dorothy’s smile faded. She blinked and looked away.

  Stan Yeager popped his head out the screen door. “The Satterfields have left. I can show you the upstairs if you like.”

  They heard the front doorbell ring. “Take care of whoever just arrived, Stan,” Aunt Judy said. “We’ll sit awhile longer with Dorothy.”

  “Lord, I hope that’s not Shirley Pettit,” Dorothy said. “She hinted she wanted a place with room enough to raise more Siamese cats!”

  “Dorothy,” Aunt Judy said, “are you sure you’re ready to sell your house? I mean, this all seems such a rush. Have you thought it all through carefully?”

  Dorothy shook her head. “I have to sell. I can’t expect Robby to help me keep the place up.”

  “But you could afford to pay for help, couldn’t you, Dorothy? I mean, not to be too nosy, but it did sound like Henry left you well enough off to pay for repairs and upkeep on the house.”

  “He did,” Dorothy agreed. “At least enough for a while. That got to be so expensive, though, and other things,” she said, vaguely, “came up. Then, too, hiring people doesn’t always work out, you know. Just last spring I hired that Dennis Isley to replace my old toilet. He offered me the lowest price, so I went with it. But the new toilet kept leaking and Robby ended up having to do it over himself as well as patch up my kitchen ceiling from the water damage. He was furious!”

  “Yes, I can imagine he would be,” Piper said. “I’d sure want my money back from anyone who did such a shoddy job. Did Robby talk to Dennis about that?”

  “Well, ah, he might have. Yes, actually, I think he did. They worked it out, I’m sure. More tea, Judy?”

  “No, I’m fine, Dorothy, thank you. That is a shame about the leaky toilet. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Dennis wasn’t the most capable handyman. He was definitely cheaper, though, which might be why Alan Rosemont employed him now and then.”

  “Oh! Alan!” Dorothy’s face darkened at mention of the swindling antique dealer’s name. “That snake! Yes, Alan was always on the lookout to make or save a buck, wasn’t he? He and Dennis must have got along just fine.”

  “Actually,” Piper said, “I don’t believe they did. Cheap as Dennis’s services may have been, I think Alan still tried his best to underpay him. I understand why you feel that way about Alan. It sounds like he acted very unethically regarding your family antiques.”

  “Oh, Robby was so upset,” Dorothy said, shaking her head. “And it wasn’t just from the money I lost. There were t
hings that had belonged to my father—the old telescopes from that astronomy hobby I mentioned, for one. I never realized, but Robby said later he always intended to take up the hobby himself when he had time.”

  “Really?” Aunt Judy said.

  Dorothy nodded. “Robby never knew my father that well, Pop living so far away until he died. But he still grew to be very like Pop in some ways.” She frowned. “Well, I mean, with their interests in astronomy, of course, and . . . and . . .” She paused, searching, then brightened. “And physical fitness! Pop always rode a bike if you remember, Judy. He had energy to spare, just like Robby.”

  “That’s right, he did,” Aunt Judy said. “He had a quick temper, too, didn’t he?”

  “That he did,” Dorothy agreed. “Which is probably why he and Nadia didn’t get along for very long. If they’d spent too much time around each other, they’d have been at each other’s throats, would be my guess.”

  Aunt Judy cast Piper a glance, and Piper thought she might be wondering, as she was, if this was another similarity between grandfather and grandson. At that moment, Stan Yeager reappeared.

  “All clear. Who wants to see the upstairs?”

  Nobody within hearing distance, was Piper’s first thought, but since that was supposedly the reason she was there, she gamely stood up. “Back in a minute,” she said, leaving Aunt Judy to see what more could be learned about Dorothy Taylor’s son.

  As she reentered the house, she heard her aunt ask, “More tea, Dorothy dear?”

  24

  Early Monday morning, Piper looked out her apartment window and saw Amy’s orange Toyota pull up in front of Gilbert Williams’s bookshop. She spotted Nate sitting in the passenger seat, so Piper put down her just-filled coffee mug to run out and say hi. As Nate climbed out, she called, “Moving in?”

  Nate looked up and grinned. “Right.” He swept his arm toward the small-sized car. “And this is my moving van. Took us close to ten—maybe fifteen!—minutes to load it up.”