by Dale Mayer
“Only if you firm up a date,” he said.
“Like next weekend?”
She glared at him when he shook his head. “No, I want a specific date.”
“Fine,” she said, “next weekend it is.”
“Here?”
She sighed. “Okay, everybody else has come to this place, why not a lawyer too?”
He just laughed. “My brother’s a good guy.”
“I bet you didn’t think so growing up,” she said.
“Nope, I sure didn’t. We were siblings. At moments we hated each other, but, underneath it all, we still loved each other.”
“Then you were lucky. I didn’t have any siblings, so I don’t know what that relationship looks like.”
“That’s okay too,” he said, “because you can still have relationships with people without them having to be siblings.”
“I haven’t really met any friends here,” she said sadly. “You, of course, but no female friends, I mean.”
“Well, that’s because you keep jailing them,” he said in a joking manner.
“I was thinking that,” she said, wrinkling her face up. “Why am I getting close to people who have behaved so badly?”
“I think we all basically project our inner thoughts onto others. So, where you are good-hearted, you see the world as filled with good-hearted people. Like that haughty Burns kid was calling you out for wanting money from him, where he’s the money-grubbing one.”
“I feel so stupid being taken in by these people.”
“Don’t,” Mack said. “The alternative is to think everyone is out to get you.”
“Maybe so,” Doreen said.
“What about Crystal’s mom? Could you ever be friends with her?”
She shook her head. “It would be really hard for me to be friends with somebody who abused a child.”
“I understand.”
He left soon afterward, getting a work call and grabbing her ice pick and leaving, this time for his last visit of the day.
Chapter 21
Sunday Morning …
When Doreen woke up Sunday morning, it was to peace and quiet—not a phone call, not an animal barking, no intruders. Peace and quiet. Perfect. She lay on the mattress on the floor and stared up at her ceiling.
“A bed frame would be nice,” she announced. “If it’ll have to wait until I get paid for the antiques, fine,” she muttered to Mugs. His response was to roll onto his back and wave his stubby feet in the air, but she was pretty sure he was still asleep.
Maybe he was having a nightmare because he made an odd little woofing sound, and then his feet started to move. Being upside down, he was getting nowhere. She gently stroked the underside of his chin. He calmed down almost instantly, and then a heavy sigh worked its way up his chest and out.
She smiled at that. “You’ll be just fine, buddy.”
She hopped up, had a quick shower, got dressed, then decided it was time for laundry. Especially the linens. She stripped down the bed, disturbing poor Mugs in the process, and carried that and her week’s worth of laundry downstairs to the washer and dryer. She put on the laundry, fed her animals, and then started some coffee for her. With that, she disarmed the alarm, unlocked the back door, propped it open, and stepped out into the early morning sunshine.
It was early, but not so early that the world wasn’t awake with her. She checked her cell phone to see it was eight. But, on a Sunday, that was pretty early for this town. She sniffed the air because, although the sunlight competed with a few clouds out there, she felt almost an electricity, a sense of waiting, like a storm was about to blow through. And the smell of fresh rain on the grass reached her nose, moving into her area. She walked around her small deck, hating it even more but loving the area nonetheless. The thought of getting a big deck and some outdoor furniture—well, that was still looking more like a dream than anything.
With her first cup of coffee, she wandered to the creek, looking around at the area. That was one thing she hadn’t done last night, shown Mack where the ice pick had come from. He’d taken it with him after a call had come through, and he’d bagged it up and rushed away. He was due to return tonight for sure, for another cooking lesson and to eat his creation. He might come by earlier today as well, so she could show him where she’d found the ice pick buried. Not wanting to be caught looking like a fool and maybe overlooking the second ice pick, she called the animals to her and headed downriver on the other side.
As soon as she came to the large ivy patch, she stopped to get her bearings. First things first. She took several photographs of the really nice houses in this area, as well as the path along the river toward the lake. Then she took several more of where she’d found the first ice pick. After that, she gave the area another good search because she didn’t want to lead Mack down here and have him find something she hadn’t. She wandered up and down but didn’t see anything.
As she walked back, her phone rang. “Good morning, Mack. Did you forget I was supposed to take you down to where I found the ice pick?”
“I had to leave. Remember?” he grumbled. “I’m coming by now. Be there in five.”
“What if I’m not there?” But there was no point in arguing. She meandered her way back and was on the bridge when she heard a shout. She looked out to see Mack walking through her rear kitchen door. She lifted a hand. He headed her way, and she noticed he had a coffee in his hand too.
“Where were you?”
“Down at the area where I found the ice pick,” she said. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you that on the phone. And to thank you for fixing my little bridge.” She smiled as she pointed to it.
“No problem.” He shrugged, but his teasing smirk emerged. “I could smell the coffee from where I was.”
She glared at him suspiciously. “There better still be more left in the pot.”
“Yep,” he said, “but you can fill your cup up again when we get back. Show me where that tool was.”
With the animals in tow and Thaddeus riding on Mack’s shoulder, they crossed the little bridge. Doreen stopped on the other side and said, “You did such a good job repairing this. Thank you again for that.”
He stared at it in resignation. “I had to, I guess. Otherwise you’re likely to fall through again, aren’t you?”
Doreen nodded. When they came to the big patch of ivy, she stopped and said, “It was in here.”
“In where?”
She stepped forward and pointed as close as she could remember to where the ice pick had been.
“How far down in the ground was it?”
She shrugged. “Only part of the wooden handle was aboveground. So the rest of it was buried. Basically the whole length of it was hidden.”
Mack looked at the area and said, “What in the world possessed you to dig into the ivy to find it?”
She groaned. “It wasn’t me. It was the animals.” She quickly explained how she came to be here. “I had to dig around in the rocks a bit to lift up the tool, but, once I got it loosened, it came right out.”
Mack stepped forward, moved the ivy around, found the hollow, and said, “This is the spot all right, but it looks like it’s been lying here for a long time.”
“We do have somewhat of a date,” Doreen said, “because it was only created about, what? Twenty years ago?”
“Interesting,” he said.
“What kind of interesting?” she asked, stepping closer and peering down at what he was looking at.
“Nothing in particular.” He looked over at the fence and took a lot of photographs.
“Do you see the second one? I did look,” she said, “but I couldn’t find it.”
“No, I don’t see it, but, depending on what forensics finds on that first ice pick, we may have to come back and look deeper.”
“Right,” she said, “that makes sense.”
“Only to you,” he said with a heavy sigh.
She chuckled. “You would have found it event
ually.”
“I never would have found it,” he said. “I’m too busy taking care of all the rest of the things needing to be taken care of.”
“Me too,” Doreen said. “Just think. I’m here, having an innocent little walk, and my animals go and find this ice pick. I wouldn’t even know what it was if it wasn’t for you. I also wouldn’t have known what images to look up.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You had to look up images?”
“Sure,” she said. “I wouldn’t just believe you blindly, would I?”
His jaw dropped. “I’ve never lied to you,” he roared.
“Maybe, but you could have been delusional,” she said with a big fat smile.
Mack rolled his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get back. The first person there gets the rest of the coffee.”
“That’s not fair,” Doreen said, as he raced ahead, his long strides eating up the path. She tried to brush past him, but he stepped into her way. She growled. “If you take all that coffee, I’ll eat all the zucchini bread.”
At that, he stopped and looked at her.
She nodded. “I will.”
“The problem is,” he said, “you will.”
She chuckled. “Good to see that you know me so well.”
He groaned, and they crossed the bridge single file. When they got to the other side, Doreen darted ahead to the house. She could see there wasn’t much coffee left. She filled her cup and then turned triumphantly to look at Mack. “There was only a little bit left anyway.”
He shrugged. “I’m good. I had a whole pot at home.” She glared at him, and he burst out laughing. “But I got you,” he said.
“Wow, that’s just mean.” She put down her cup. “Are you leaving now then?”
“I am,” he said, as he headed for the front door.
She checked her watch. It was almost nine. “I guess it’s really quiet around town at this hour because of church, right?”
“Sometimes, but, the minute you expect that, it becomes something different, and you’ll end up in the middle of traffic.”
Just then, an old rattletrap of a car puttered around the corner. It slowed as it came into the cul-de-sac and stopped to look at various houses. Mack walked down to his truck, checking out the rattletrap. He shook his head, hopped into his truck, and slowly reversed down the driveway. As he did so, this little rattletrap of a car pulled into Doreen’s driveway and parked. Mack frowned and looked at Doreen. She shrugged.
Two ladies—both fairly small in stature, maybe five-two, five-three—hopped out. They moved quickly and with lots of energy, but they appeared to be in their mid-fifties, so she wasn’t sure just what their real ages were. As they came closer, Doreen was afraid it would be religious-pamphlet time.
There was a honk of a horn from Mack in his truck. Doreen lifted a hand and waved goodbye. He was basically checking to see if it was okay for him to leave. With that, he did. She smiled at the two ladies. “What can I do for you?”
One said, “You can help us.”
And the other chimed in, “At least, we’re hoping you can help us.”
It wasn’t long before Doreen realized one would start a sentence, and the other would finish it. And, when she asked them what this was all about, they just smiled and said, “You’re the one who talked to our brother in the grocery store.”
“Are you the Burns sisters?”
Both nodded.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I understand you didn’t get any of your father’s inheritance.”
They shook their heads. “No, we didn’t, and he promised us we were in the will, and we would be taken care of,” said the one on the left. She wore an almost identical outfit to her sister, but she had some turquoise trim around her blouse whereas the other one had lavender trim.
“Did you ever see the will?” Doreen asked.
Both ladies shook their heads.
“Was your father a fair person? Was he a man of his word? Could you trust him?”
“Absolutely, that’s who he was.”
Doreen thought to herself. “Okay,” she said, “but I don’t understand what you think I can do about it.”
The two sisters looked at each other, back at her, and said, “We don’t have much money, but we’re hoping you can advise us.”
“What possible advice could I give you?”
“We don’t know how to get some of our inheritance,” the first one said.
In her head, Doreen thought maybe she should just call them Turquoise and Lavender.
“Our dad swore to us we were taken care of. We spent all our lives working on the farm with him, and we were never paid. He made a lot of money, and he continued to earn more money as we looked after the orchards while he was in the offices.”
“Did you see the ice pick set he bought?”
The two sisters stopped talking, looked at her, and frowned.
Doreen smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off tangent like that, but it does relate.”
Slowly, as if not sure of what she was saying, Lavender said, “We were there when he bought it.”
“I know Frank was delighted,” Turquoise said.
“I’m sure,” Doreen said. “Do you know where your father kept them?”
“Dad hung them on the wall,” Turquoise said. “He had a little art display, and he put them up on the wall with special lights on them.”
“Oh, wow,” Doreen said. “He must have really liked them.”
The two sisters exchanged worried glances, then looked back at her.
“He loved them. But maybe not for the reason you’re thinking. He used to laugh at them and diss Frank’s work as cheap and homemade looking. Frank was delighted initially, until my father used his pieces as a talking point, and not in a nice way.”
“Interesting,” Doreen said, “any idea what happened to them?”
The two sisters looked at her in confusion.
“They aren’t still hanging in that spot in the house,” Doreen added.
“I think they are. Or rather they were when we were last in the house—then again that was around the time our father died. Jude kicked us out soon afterward, and we haven’t been back since. He’s our blood, but …” Lavender said faintly. “There’s fifteen years between us, and he’s in the prime of his life and on top of the world. We’ve worked hard, physically hard. Both of us are having some health issues, and it’s hard for us to get jobs. We’re in our fifties, and nobody wants to hire us, and we don’t have any education.”
“Except as orchardists?”
“True,” they said. “Well, we haven’t been able to get anybody to give us a job.”
“Have you asked anyone in that particular field for a job? Surely you’re well-known for your work?”
“No. Our father was credited for our success, so he had the name and the expertise, not us.” They turned to each other and frowned. “She’s right though, you know? I wonder if we could get hired in that capacity.”
“I don’t know,” Lavender said, her voice quiet. “I feel like we have been unjustly treated. We worked all that time. If we’d at least pocketed our wages, we would have something in our bank accounts.”
Doreen frowned. “I know you’re saying he’s a good man, but that is not the sign of a good man.”
The two sisters hesitated. “It’s come to our attention,” Lavender said, “that maybe he did take advantage of us.”
“I don’t think there’s any maybe in this,” Doreen said. “He definitely took advantage of you. How dare he not pay you wages when he was making that kind of money. The fact that he is gone and that he hasn’t left you money in his will is another big issue.”
“The thing is, we’re pretty sure he did,” Turquoise said excitedly.
“How do you figure?”
“Because the lawyer said so.”
“Which lawyer is that?” Doreen asked. “I’m a little hesitant to trust any lawyer.”
“I know,” La
vender said. “My father’s old lawyer said we would be fine. But the other lawyer, the new lawyer, says we don’t get anything.”
“Wow,” Doreen said, remembering her own marriage and what she didn’t get from her years building up her husband’s business because her own divorce lawyer ended up being her husband’s mistress. “Lawyers are slippery,” she said, trying for a neutral tone of voice.
“The old lawyer though, he was almost like family to us, and he said we were being taken care of. The new lawyer just laughed and said nothing was in the will, and we could contest it, but we won’t win.”
“Right. What happened to the old lawyer?”
“He died,” Turquoise said.
“And who inherited his practice?”
“This new lawyer.”
Doreen tapped her arms with her fingers and said, “What is it you want me to do?”
“We need to figure out if that will is legitimate,” Lavender said quietly.
She seemed to be the more talkative of the two sisters, the more earnest, although they both looked a little worn out and broken down. “How am I supposed to help with that?” Doreen asked curiously.
These two sisters looked at her, and she could see the blank looks in their eyes.
“You have no idea, right?”
They both shook their heads. “No, we don’t have a clue.”
“Look. I can ask around and see if anything pops up. By the way, how did your father die?”
“He had a heart attack,” Turquoise said. “And he was gone very quickly.”
“Who was with him at the time?”
“He was alone when he had the heart attack. We came home from work and found him collapsed in his office.”
“Where was your brother?”
“He said he was out and about, doing whatever he does,” Turquoise said with a note of disdain.
“How’s the relationship between you guys?”
“He kicked us out onto the streets,” Turquoise said, “so how do you imagine it is?”
“But have you done anything to aggravate issues or in any way to harm him?”
Both sisters shook their heads. “No, that’s something we couldn’t do.”
“Did your father have any other children?”