by Robyn Carr
“But now, with the dessert, I think it’s time to talk about someone else at this table.”
Myrna and Paul Faraday met eyes, but Marge Glaser only said, “What’s for dessert?” She hadn’t taken Cutler’s advice. She was starving.
“Peach cobbler and coffee,” Myrna said, smiling. “I admit to bringing some of this on myself,” Myrna continued while the Barstows served dessert. “I’ve had a good time at Morton’s expense in the plotting of my suspense and mystery novels. If you had known Morton, you’d know how much he’d actually like that! People around here have speculated for a long time. If he’s missing and she keeps writing these stories about missing husbands buried in the flower garden, could she have?”
“Hardly anyone has ever taken the bait as far as you, Faraday,” Cutler said. “Did Mr. Faraday tell you, Marge, that he writes true-crime dramas and hopes to do a story on Mrs. Claypool’s murder of Mr. Claypool? Of course, he would have told you….”
“Why else would I be investigating the widow and her property,” Faraday said somewhat shortly.
“Why else indeed,” Myrna said, dipping into her peach cobbler. “You haven’t had the greatest success with your books, have you, Paul? Pity. Seems you need something with more of a kick to it.”
Marge Glaser took a bite of her cobbler and made a face. “Bllllkkkkk. What in the world could you do to cobbler to make it taste like it has shoe polish in it?”
“Oh dear, I hope you’re not right. Though the Barstows do have very strange tastes. Well, the coffee is good, dear. If you don’t like the cobbler, we’ll leave it for the cats.
“As I was saying, Mr. Faraday was looking for a story with a little more kick to it, so he decided to dig up some proof that I murdered my husband and buried him on Hudson House property. But you couldn’t find any bones, could you, Mr. Faraday?”
Faraday frowned. “Where is this going?”
“But,” Cutler said, “Faraday has friends who teach at the college of medicine, don’t you, Paul? All you had to do was find the right bones. You asked for the twenty-year-old bones of a sixty-something-year-old man. Right?”
“Bloody nonsense,” he said, but he flicked the tape recorder off.
“Turn that back on, please,” Marge asked a little too politely. “Did you go looking for bones to plant?”
“That’s absurd. Why would I do something like that?”
“Mr. Faraday was seen visiting with friends around the anatomy, physiology and anthropology departments. That’s why I invited my old friend, Niles, to dinner tonight.”
All eyes turned to Niles. Niles, by the way, had eaten everything but the soup. He reached into his accordion folder and pulled out a thin stack of stapled pages with letters, numbers, symbols, dashes, dots and periods. “I learned from John—or Cutler, as he’s called around here—the name of the individual doing the tests for the prosecutor’s office on these old bones.” He handed the paper to Marge Glaser. “They’re the twenty-year-old bones of a man around sixty-five, all right. Or men.”
“Men?”
“The bones—four of them—come from four different bodies. While you were interested in the age, the sex and the length of time buried, it never occurred to you to ask how many different DNAs were represented. And since you don’t have anything of the victim’s to compare to the DNA here, I guess it wouldn’t occur.”
“So,” Myrna said. “That’s that. No body. Just a few old bones collected from the San Francisco School of Medicine by Mr. Faraday and tossed under my rhododendron. And what a mess was made of my house and yard. The Barstows are still complaining, although I did pay them overtime. If I weren’t so old, Mr. Faraday, I believe I’d sue you.”
Ms. Glaser sipped her coffee and said, “Good God, what’s in the coffee?”
Myrna held a napkin and slapped it onto the table. “You haven’t been entirely pleasant this evening, and here I’ve made your job so painless.”
“She’s right, Marge,” Cutler said. “We could have saved all this for court, but frankly, we’d rather not go to court.”
“I’d like to go to court,” Niles Galbraith said. “I love going to court. I do it all the time. I’m a professional expert witness. I get a thousand dollars an hour.”
“Well, you may get your chance,” Marge said, standing. She walked around the table, clicked off the tape recorder, popped out the tape and tossed it up in the air, catching it in the other hand. “If we prosecute Mr. Faraday for planting artificial evidence, for obstruction of justice, for fraud. Let’s see, there must be more….”
“Ms. Glaser, there’s absolutely no reason you should believe this eccentric old woman over—”
“You, Mr. Faraday?” She made a half bow in the direction of Myrna. “Thank you for dinner and for your most delightful company, Mrs. Claypool. Our office will be in touch.”
“Do you have groundskeepers at your office, Ms. Glaser?”
“I’m certain we do, Mrs. Claypool.”
“Do you suppose the district attorney’s office would consider loaning them to me in the spring? To clean up that horrid mess out there?”
“I’ll mail you a form for restitution, how’s that? And now, my coat?”
Myrna rang the dinner bell, and Ms. Glaser’s coat, as well as Mr. Faraday’s coat and hat, were delivered by the Barstows. Ms. Glaser stomped toward the door with Faraday stumbling behind her, babbling.
“Thank you for coming,” Myrna called. “Do come again.”
The only reply was the closing of the door. Myrna, Cutler and Niles were left in the dining room.
“Now, wasn’t that a pleasant evening,” Myrna said.
Getting ready for the festival was almost as much fun for the town as the event itself. Thursday night saw townsfolk completing their own booths and decorations, the erection of the stage, the arranging of games and prizes. Once the Thursday preparations were complete, the town filled with strangers. Vendors who traveled from town fair to town fair would converge on Grace Valley early on Friday and begin setting up their wares—every form of art and craft imaginable. On Saturday the public would come, hundreds if not thousands. And on Sunday night, the people would drift away, the vendors would pack up and Grace Valley would go back to its old self again, with a few extra bucks for town use in the coffers.
One of the most sought-after prizes at the festival was the quilt of the town designed and sewn by Birdie and her group. It was proudly hung in its own booth and beside it was a clear plastic barrel. Chances were sold for five dollars and the money would be donated to benefit the town.
They did the town quilt every year and it was always just a little different than the one before, but it always had the important buildings represented. This year they had added characters. John and June stood outside the clinic, Tom Toopeek and his SUV were outside the police department, George Fuller was beside the café, Burt Crandall near the bakery, Sam Cussler with his fishing pole beside the garage, Harry Shipton beside the church and a little pixie with white springy hair in the gardens of Hudson House.
When the Thursday-night preparations were nearing completion, George brought out a couple of huge vats of ice cream with bowls and spoons. George’s oldest son set up the disc player and speakers on the stage and turned up the volume for the crowd of volunteers that had gathered behind the café and church.
John Stone was still having trouble walking without pain, his buttocks looking a lot like blueberry marble, but he was glad to be part of the decorating and congregating. Because it was getting late and the volunteers were mostly middle-aged, George’s son kept the music light. John heard the music and saw Susan helping Birdie hang the quilt. He went over to the booth and came up behind his wife. He put his arms around her from behind and she, remarkably, leaned back against him.
“John, have you ever seen a more beautiful quilt?” she asked.
“Never. We’ll buy a bunch of chances.”
He pulled her away from Birdie’s quilt, and right there, in th
e yard behind the café, he took her in his arms and began to slow dance with her. “John!” she said, sweetly surprised. “Are you sure you’re up to this? What about your…”
“My bruised butt? Hurts like the devil,” he said. “But not feeling close to you has hurt more.”
“Oh, John.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Please…let’s not argue about our roles anymore.”
“It’s not about that. It’s about the accident and my trip down into the ravine. I’ve had lots of emergencies in my day, but nothing like that, ever. You know what my emergencies have been like—you were there for a lot of them. Scrubbed, sterile, struggling to save a life under the most advanced and pristine of conditions…and even that could get my adrenaline pumping for hours if not days. But this time…” He pulled her closer.
“Not advanced…not pristine…not sterile,” she added.
“No. There, by the side of the road was a young boy, bleeding, possibly dying. And at the bottom of the hill, another. Their car hanging in the trees like an apparition. The nearest hospital miles and miles away. Country medicine. Do you know how it made me feel?”
“Inadequate?” she suggested.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “And alive. Never more alive. When I got to that accident site, my first thought was that I wished you had come with me. You’re the kind of nurse who can anticipate a doctor’s needs accurately, assist perfectly, keep the pace, move the doctor along when he or she lags, reassure the patient confidently. You’re the best nurse I’ve ever worked with. And I was so ashamed that I’d ever discouraged you in any way. Not only does the clinic need you, medicine needs you. Susan, do you think you’ll ever forgive me?”
She looked up into his eyes with tears in her own. “John, do you really mean that?”
“You can’t know how much I mean it. I’m just sorry that it took a near-fatal accident for me to see it. To really see it.”
“I wondered if you’d ever again respect me and my skills in the way you did when we first met. I’ve hungered for that.”
“I don’t know what happened to me, Susan. You and June were completely right—I was so stupid!”
“June said you were stupid? I thought she was staying out of our little tiff.”
“She’s much nosier than she looks.” He kissed the top of her head. “I know I still have amends to make, but are you going to eventually forgive me?”
“Eventually,” she said, but she said it with a smile.
“And are we going to have sex again?”
“Eventually,” she said. “John?”
“Hmm?” he said, holding her close, dancing with her.
“I do love you,” she said.
He stopped dancing and looked down at her. “I love you,” he said.
He lifted her chin and kissed her deeply. Her arms went around him, holding him closely as she moved under his lips. There was a promise in the kiss. And when they broke apart they were met by the applause of all the festival volunteers.
Susan laughed, covering her mouth in embarrassment. John bowed.
Since there was no hospital within two hundred miles where June wasn’t known, it was pointless to travel far for her ultrasound. She went to Rockport’s Valley Hospital and tried to relax about the whole thing.
When the technician called her into the room, June said curtly, “No one knows about this pregnancy except me, my doctor and now you.” She left out Elmer and the baby’s father on purpose, hoping to cow the technician into enforced silence. “Of course, Doctor” was all that was said in reply.
While she lay there, her belly jellied, she felt her heart begin to race in excitement.
“Tell me what you want to know,” the technician said. “It’s up to you.”
“Just turn the monitor so I can see it better,” she said, this time keeping the shortness out of her voice.
The image came into view, faded as the wand was moved, came into specific relief again, faded again.
“I’m looking for a due date,” June said somewhat absently.
“We’ll send the film to your OB, who can provide a more detailed summary, but it looks…it looks…”
“Four months,” June said in an almost reverent breath. How had this baby grown so much without her knowledge? So fast? Where had her mind been.
“Looks very healthy, don’t you think? And happy?”
June squinted, looking for the happiness in the image, and then saw what she hadn’t been looking for, but sprang out at her just the same.
“Yes,” June said. “She does look happy.”
And then she cried again.
Twenty-Two
The transformation of the town began at dawn, with the first sounds of a semi-flatbed hauling a load of portable public potties. Not long after that the engines of trucks, vans, SUVs, RVs and cars were added as vendors began to arrive and set up their booths. Then came the sound of voices, laughter, hauling, hammering and the greetings of friends as artisans who traveled to weekend fairs found themselves running into acquaintances they hadn’t seen in months.
June and John watched the activity from the steps of the clinic. Every year, George Fuller, Sam Cussler and Burt Crandall, who all had businesses on Valley Drive—the main drag—headed up the committee that organized the space for the vendors. June elbowed John when she noticed, with some surprise, Sam holding a clipboard in the middle of the street, directing people this way and that. She hadn’t expected Sam to be up to the job; no one had. In fact, Elmer had come into town early to help, expecting his old friend to be beset with grief and therefore unavailable.
“Sam? What’s he doing here?” John asked.
“What he does every year,” June said. “Helping set up for the festival. He’s going to have to operate the gas station this weekend if these people are to get out of town when it’s over.”
“You’d think he’d get a replacement,” John said.
“I should have known he’d be here. This town is his family. He’d feel better being a part of it.” She pointed to the booth set up just in front of the Flower Shoppe. “I think Justine’s sisters are going to keep her booth open and sell the dried-flower arrangements that she worked on.”
“Man,” John said, scratching his chin. “People around here certainly persevere.”
“Don’t we?” she returned with a smile, giving him a playful swat on the rump, bringing a yelp out of him. “Sure was sweet the way you and Susan made up last night. You’re the talk of the town, you know. Love-birds.”
He looked down into her eyes and a sly, crooked grin began to blossom on his face. “I’m sure that will change soon,” he teased. “Someone else is going to be all the talk.”
“No question about it,” she said. “Let’s go over our clinic hours. Inside.”
“Yes’m, boss,” he said, following her.
No one seemed to notice an armed man in camouflage lurking behind houses and garages, his beret pulled low, antiglare paint on his cheekbones, as he watched the gathering of vendors suspiciously.
Inside the clinic, June, John, Jessie and Susan leaned over Jessie’s desk and studied the schedule. The clinic would have to remain open during the hours that the harvest festival ran. Friday was limited to emergency patients only. There were no scheduled appointments as a couple hundred visiting artisans would be getting their thumbs in the way of their hammers, tripping over their wares and stepping on their tools and twisting ankles.
“My dad and Blake Norton from Rockport are both volunteers for day shifts—Dad on Saturday and Blake on Sunday. Blake’s nurse, Lisa, is going to volunteer both afternoons, but Susan, it would help if we could have you on call.”
“I’ll be on call, too,” Jessie said. “I can help in the clinic, but I can also watch Sydney if Susan is called in.”
“That’s good, Jessie, thanks. This is all just as a precaution. Most of our work is going to be simple first aid, and a physician can handle it without help, just as an R
N can.”
“The Dicksonses have hired Wanda Mull to help watch the kids,” Susan said. “I think that will include Sydney most of the time. You can hardly separate Sydney and Lindsey.”
“Isn’t that nice,” June said. “I’m so glad people are including Wanda.”
“And Clinton is going to be helping George and his son,” Susan added. “And Jurea actually managed to bake a cake for the cake walk the church is putting on. It was her fourth or fifth try, but it turned out well.”
When June found out that Jurea had moved back into the little house with her children, she had told Susan, who’d spread the word to some of the other Presbyterian Women. They had reached out to Jurea, pulling her into their fold, helping her with some of the new challenges she faced. Though she’d been in town for months, she avoided using the stove; it made her nervous. Some of the women from church showed her how.
“I wonder if Clarence will ever come around,” Susan said, thinking aloud.
In fact, that’s exactly what Clarence was doing—coming around. He was lurking close to their house, making sure that Jurea and the children were safe. And he was growing increasingly alarmed by all the activity in the town. It looked, for all intents and purposes, like an invasion.
With the leaves wearing their jackets of copper, orange, red and burgundy, the air a clean and crisp breath of fall, the streets of the valley filled to capacity. Ricky Rios’s car blocked the street at the west end while Deputy Lee Stafford’s car blocked the street at the east. Within lay the wares of many, from paintings to pots, T-shirts to saddles, relishes to soy nuts. Clowns sold balloons twisted into animal shapes, artists drew caricatures and junk food of every stripe took over the diets of hundreds.
When the elder Doc Hudson arrived at the clinic to spell John, the latter said, “The bulk of my business has been dosing antacids.”
To which Elmer said, “Thanks, I think I’m needing some myself.”
There was a rented truck parked behind the church with a padlock on the door. It seemed to be in the charge of Pastor Shipton, who refused to reveal the contents, until Tom Toopeek inquired on behalf of the law. Harry whispered in Tom’s ear. Tom chuckled lightly and turned away to other business.