by Susan Calder
“What would you do with a half a million dollars?”
“Fifty percent of the property is more than that, according to the appraisal.”
“Brendan is bound to contest. The handwritten will could be ruled invalid for some shit-legal reason.”
“Has Brendan said he’ll contest?”
Johnny wobbled his chair back and forth. If he was preparing another tumbling trick, she wouldn’t fall for it again. Was his motive for approaching her to cast suspicion on Brendan? By his own admission, Johnny didn’t care about the half brother he had bullied as a child.
“If I had the dough,” Johnny drawled, “ahhh’d buy me a ranch.”
“Outside Calgary?”
“Hell, no. The weather here’s only tolerable two months of the year. It’d be somewhere warm: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, California, Old Mexico. It could be a small ranch or acreage as long as there’s space for a horse, a few cows and chickens; a patch of potatoes and corn.”
“To be self-sustaining?”
He drew on his cigarette. A blast sounded in the distance.
“The fireworks,” Paula said.
Johnny craned his head around. “Can we see them from here?”
“We’re too low.”
“Come by our place one night.”
No way.
“Like I told you, I’m a loner, like my uncle,” Johnny said. “That’s partly why I identify with him and want his killer caught.”
A dog walker paused to let his pet sniff Walter’s grass. The man waved at Paula. She didn’t recognize him in the dark but waved back.
“I got to thinking,” Johnny continued. “Say I got my ranch. I don’t have any known heirs, so I leave it to my nephew and niece, Cynthia’s kids. One of them offs me to get the money sooner. Would I want my killer inheriting my ranch? You bet the fuck not.” He drew on the cigarette. “Do you think Uncle Caspar left his property to Ma to disinherit Brendan?”
“Because he suspected…?”
“That Brendan was a bad seed.”
“I understand that Brendan, as a child, was particularly close to Caspar.”
“Closeness breeds….” Johnny’s thin lips narrowed on the cigarette. “What if Caspar sensed an evil in Brendan?”
Goosebumps prickled Paula’s arms. A clap of fireworks pierced the air.
Johnny blew out a ribbon of smoke. “My family is split into two halves. Caspar and I are the take-it-as-it-happens strain. My father and Brendan have the drive. Maybe Dad didn’t reach the top because he lacked the ‘evil’ gene.”
“Which Brendan has?”
He pulled on the cigarette. A car rumbled past. Across the street, her neighbour’s light went out. Stars were emerging in the sky.
“What about your drive to succeed in figure skating?” she asked.
“Now, there’s a sport where evil wins. Skaters will do things you wouldn’t believe to take out their opponents. But that drive came more from Ma than from me. In some ways, she’s more Becker than the real deal.”
“I gather your grandmother had the drive.”
“But not my grandfather. Get it? They started the split.”
“What about Cynthia?”
“She wants to be like Dad but is really like Caspar and me. You know, she used to be more fun when she was younger. We got into some crazy scrapes.”
“Speaking of which, we’ve been doing research on the Internet and found a blog post written by a guy in Wyoming.”
“What would you do with a half-million bucks?” Johnny asked.
“He used to work with a friend named Johnny Becker and wrote about how the two of you—”
“Kidnapped this girl,” Johnny said. “We didn’t really but called it that. She’d gone out with my buddy and treated him like shit.”
“He said it was you she’d ticked off.”
“To teach her a lesson, we coaxed her into the truck and took her to this barn. Her daddy’s a big-time developer, mainly golf course resorts.” He continued through an explosion of fireworks noise. “All we did was tease her with things like saying we’d sent her father a ransom note. We let her go the next day. Of course, she goes crying to her daddy.”
“She was probably scared to death by your so-called teasing”
“Her daddy pressed for charges. Luckily, the sheriff got our joke and dropped the whole thing. He wasn’t a tight-ass, like your cop friend.” Johnny dropped his cigarette butt to the porch floor. He ground the glow out with his cowboy boot. “What would you do with a half-million?”
How much of his version of the abduction story was true? It did provide a plausible reason for the lack of charges. Tonight’s fireworks noise was the loudest she’d heard this year. The wind must be blowing from the southwest.
“Come on,” he said. “Dream, a little.”
“I’ll never inherit a half-million.”
“Suppose you won a lottery or a bundle in Vegas?”
Would answering contribute to the bond Johnny seemed to feel they shared and gain her…what? “I wouldn’t change my life significantly,” she said. “I’d improve it with a few luxuries, like working freelance so I wouldn’t have to deal with the bread-and-butter claims, only the ones that intrigue me.”
“Like us?”
“Whenever your uncle came upstairs this summer, did you notice him smoking or smell smoke on him?”
He leaned his chair back. The legs buckled and tilted him sideways.
“It’s busted,” he said. “I hardly touched the thing.”
“You’re right. It was already junk.”
Johnny butted the cigarette on the arm of the cock-eyed chair. “There always used to be a cigarette pack sticking out of Uncle Caspar’s shirt pocket. Do you suppose I noticed it not there, unconsciously? Then, when I heard the fire started from his smoking in bed, something nagged me this was wrong?”
“It’s possible.”
He stroked his mustache. “I am deep.”
Paula laughed. She wished she hadn’t.
“Cynthia won’t stop squawking about her hail damage,” Johnny said. “I told her to call you for advice. You might hear from her. It would give you an excuse to ask her questions.”
“You still suspect Cynthia?”
“Your appraiser is coming by tomorrow to look at those paintings of Brendan’s. Cynthia wants her or me there so Brendan doesn’t lie to us about their value. In the new will, we three share Caspar’s contents.”
“I remember.”
“Why not tell the appraiser you’ll meet him there to go over the repair estimate with Ma, now that she’s the heir apparent? That’d be your excuse to spy on Brendan and Ma. You can take it from there.”
It would also be an opportunity to observe Leah with Brendan. “Did you get an appraisal for the jewellery you found in Caspar’s apartment?”
“They were hardly worth shit.”
Did Cynthia and Brendan confirm this or trust the jewellery to Johnny? “Have you found any more valuables?”
“Not yet. So far, I’ve only looked in the obvious places: drawers, the oven, the stereo cabinet—Do we have company?”
Erin’s station wagon parked in front of Johnny’s pickup. Paula’s mother got out of the passenger side. She wasn’t asleep in the house? Paula jogged down the stairs and hugged her mother and Erin. She told them Johnny was a claimant who had stopped by with information, which was true.
“You work terribly late,” her mother said.
“You play late.”
“We had a blast.” Erin smiled at her grandmother.
Paula couldn’t smell liquor on either of them.
Erin said she had to be off to get up in the morning for work. From the porch, Johnny saluted Paula and her mother. He rose, toppling the chair so far over he almost went with it. Her mother gasped. Paula crossed her arms.
Johnny swaggered down the stairs. “I’ll be moseying on.”
Good.
“He looks familiar,” her mother said a
s his pickup roared to a start.
Paula hoped her mother wouldn’t recognize him from the parade. That would avoid explanation. Inside, they put on the kettle for tea.
“What did you and Erin do in the bar for six hours?” Paula asked.
“Talked. Leah joined us during breaks. We watched the merriment and a chug-a-lug-contest.”
“Did you participate?” Paula joked. She carried their teacups to the table.
“I forgot to tell you,” her mother said. “David invited me over tomorrow for the day. Would you have time to give me a lift?”
“Sam’s father?”
“He phoned this afternoon to ask me to help him make jam. I knew you’d be occupied with your hail claims.”
“Jam? David barely cooks.” He had never phoned Paula’s house before.
“His neighbour brings him a case of cherries every year. Her relatives own an orchard in the Okanagan.”
“David makes jam every year? On his own?”
“He thinks he’d enjoy having company. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at cherry.”
Her mother had made the first move by phoning David to check on his hail damage, but he wouldn’t return any call from politeness. David made Caspar Becker seem gregarious. This jam-making would ease Paula’s guilt about taking time for work, but that wasn’t fair to her mother. “You don’t have to go because David wants someone to do his work.”
“I don’t like being in your way when you’re so busy.”
“You’re never in my way, Mum. I don’t have anything pressing tomorrow.” Her snooping visit to the Beckers wasn’t essential. At home, she could juggle work on hail claims around chats with her mother.
“I can’t go back on my word to David.” A pink flush rose up her mother’s face.
Had Sam been serious about their parents’ mutual attraction?
Paula sipped her tea. “How did David’s garden survive the hail?
“He lost a few plants but nothing major. I’m so happy for him.” Her mother’s face shone; her wrinkles looked smoother. “David loves his garden.”
Her mother and David? It was no joke. Paula couldn’t believe it.
Chapter Twenty-one
“How’s your mansion coming along?” David rested his gnarled fingers on the handle of his lawn mower.
“Mansion?” Paula said. “You mean my house renovation? Sam and I are still working on the plan.”
“The way he goes on about it, you’d think the Queen of England would feel at home.”
“Sam’s excited about the project. We haven’t confirmed the contractor yet.”
“Don’t you think Paula’s house is large enough for the two of them, David?” Paula’s mother said.
“Wouldn’t know. They haven’t invited me over.”
“We have, too,” Paula said. “You always turn us down.”
Her mother sniffed. “When we married, Paula’s father and I made do with a one-bedroom apartment.”
“We raised Sam and his brother here.” David pointed at his bungalow that was roughly the size of Paula’s. “It was good enough for him then.”
David had been mowing his front lawn when Paula and her mother arrived. At eighty-two he still managed a push machine. Too often he reminded Paula of a wizened Sam. The men shared the same facial features and height, around 5’6”, although Sam stood straight with his shoulders back, while his father hunched, and Sam’s hair had remained full. David’s grey sprigs fanned across his crown. He compensated with a pencil mustache. Assuming she and Sam grew old together, Paula prayed he wouldn’t start resembling his father even more. This morning David wore his typical outfit: baggy pants, loose T-shirt and an overshirt, all in shades of brown and olive. It had occurred to her, while drifting to sleep last night, that her mother might interpret David’s snarly remarks as jokes. Paula was sure they were genuine meanness mixed with insecurity about Sam’s departure from his working-class roots.
“You have my cell number,” Paula told her mother. “Call when you’re ready to leave.”
“I don’t understand why you people need that constant communication,” David said. “Most of it’s trivia.”
“I keep telling Paula this,” her mother said.
Paula kissed her mother goodbye, waved at David and wished them happy jamming.
With a half-hour before she was due at the Beckers’, Paula parked around the block and phoned Sam from her car.
“Oh, yeah, the annual cherry jam fest,” he said. “He eats it on his toast every morning until the stock runs out. When I offered to help with the canning one year, he told me I’d just get in the way. Apparently, your mother has more appeal.”
“I hope a full day with your father will curb any notions of romance she has. No offense, by the way.”
“I’m with you on that,” Sam said. “A weekend in Edmonton will distract her from him.”
“I doubt I can manage a whole weekend, Sam. If I can get these hail claims under control and my office cleared out, I might get away for one night.” All of this seemed so unlikely to happen that she hadn’t mentioned the trip to her mother.
En route to the Beckers’, her cellphone rang. The jewellery theft claimant, Tom DeLong. David had a point about the benefits of being incommunicado. She pulled over to take the call.
“Why did you cut out on us last night?” Tom blared. “I left work early to meet you.”
“Isabelle, my associate—”
“My mother-in-law said you sent a girl in your place. Then she takes off before I arrive. What was that all about?”
“I’ll find out and get back to you.”
“It had better be today or I’m calling my insurance agent.”
Damn. How had Isabelle botched this straightforward matter? Paula phoned her. No reply. She sent a text. If she stopped by the office now, she’d miss a chance to talk to Leah and be late for the meeting with Florence and the appraiser. Isabelle handling the DeLong claim had made so much sense at the time. What a stupid mistake to delegate a contentious claimant to her.
* * *
Brendan and Sol, the appraiser, stood on the Beckers’ front lawn beside the tree. Paula told them she wanted to talk to Leah before discussing the appraisal with Florence.
“She’s still sleeping.” Brendan said. “You might as well see Florence first. Tell her to get Johnny out of bed. He’s supposed to help load these paintings into the truck.” Brendan glanced at his watch. “Cynthia said she’d be here an hour ago. Figures.”
Paula walked into the house and down the hall, steeling herself for an encounter with Johnny. In the alcove, Florence sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by china and glassware, as though engaged in a children’s tea party. She looked up at Paula and eased to her feet. “Ready to go over the estimates?”
A breeze blew in from the deck. Paula couldn’t see Johnny through the windows. “Brendan says to send Johnny outside.”
“He’s cleaning up down at Caspar’s. Have a look at this.” Florence held out a china dish with a lid. “It belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.”
“The…. Not the famous ones?” The floral-patterned sugar bowl was pretty but not exceptional. Did Florence mean the king who gave up the British throne for the woman he loved?
“It was part of a tea set at their ranch south of here.
Paula had vaguely heard of the duke buying an Alberta ranch in the early twentieth century. Florence didn’t appear to be joking about this being his sugar bowl, assuming Florence ever joked. Paula recalled her mother ranting against Edward VIII. She was even more critical of his social-climbing wife, Wallis Simpson. Her mother hadn’t been born when Edward abdicated but had grown up listening to her aunts swoon over his grand romance. Later she saw his act as an abdication of duty and condemned him for supporting Hitler.
“Don’t tell me you worked for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor?” Paula asked.
“How old do you think I am?” Florence said. “Willie and Hans, my in-laws,
were employed as housekeepers at the ranch for a couple of weeks. The duchess only lasted there one day. She gave Willie the sugar bowl after a young server broke the creamer that went with it.” Florence balanced the bowl on her palm. “It wasn’t much good to a duchess without the pair.”
So it wasn’t given out of generosity. According to her mother and everything Paula had read about the Duchess of Windsor, she had a nasty temperament. But Paula had heard the term ‘duchess’ lately, in another context. Where was that?
“How did your in-laws get that job?”
“A man Willie cleaned house for was friends with the duke and recommended Willie and Hans. It was hard to find people who wanted to work so far from civilization, which the ranch was in the early ’50s.”
“What did Wilhelmina think of Mrs. Simpson?” Paula remembered the duke reference, now. Willie, the children’s grandmother, had called Cynthia and Johnny the duchess and duke, to Florence’s fury.
“This happened before my time, but Willie liked to reminisce about their days in the countryside. It was the closest Willie and Hans came to a holiday after moving to Canada.”
“Not much of a vacation.”
“Immigrants sacrifice for their children. Willie said the duke was a charmer and easy on the staff. She…Willie felt Wallis Simpson wasn’t as bad as the press made out.” Florence scowled. “People are prejudiced against women who don’t follow the normal rules. Men like the duke have more freedom.”
Was Florence thinking of herself and her married lover?
“Willie found Mrs. Simpson decent and fair to the workers. It rained half that day at the ranch. Who wouldn’t be crabby stuck way out nowhere in that weather? Mrs. Simpson was a city girl. The ranch was the duke’s western fantasy. She went along to please him.”
So Wallis had been crabby. Paula’s mother would love this tale. Was it really true?
“Didn’t Edward and Wallis have some connection with the Nazis?” Paula asked.
“Willie wasn’t aware of this, at the time,” Florence said. “If she’d known, she might have been less positive. Willie and Hans left Germany on the last ship before the war because they disagreed with those brutes.”