Deadly Homecoming at Rosemont

by Chappell,Connie

  I tossed the mangled weed to the ground. It was time for a second call to Clay. Forced to queue another message behind the first at both numbers ticked my annoyance up the scale. I made this clear by the use of his fully expanded first name: Clayton.

  The first business on the left inside the alley is Piedmont Café. I went in, grabbed and doctored a small coffee, then went to stand before the depot clock. Just the sight of it set my inspiration at a simmer. For days, I circled the alleyway, waiting for an idea to strike. It had been wearing, even painful, like trying to break a wild stallion and being repeatedly bucked off in the process. Despite bumps and bruises, I finally sat astride the beast, riding bareback—my fingers curled into its mane, the wind in my face, the sun at my back, a vast pasture of words surrounding me. I stood there a moment more, paying homage to the writing gods, then tore myself away, and backtracked to the alley’s charming little bookstore.

  Downstairs, The Bookmark’s aisles were narrow. At the back of the store, a tightly coiled spiral staircase rises up to the stacks on the mezzanine. For quick descents, a gleaming fire pole cut through the floor next to it, telling me a treasure awaited anyone adventurous enough to search. It might be mis-shelved or dusty, but a treasure awaited nonetheless.

  I went straight to the preschool section on ground level. I planned to pay a condolence call on Ruby Griswold and knew she kept her great-grandson, Little Carlson, every Friday. I met him on a handful of occasions, and he shrank from me every time. While she and I talked, he would sit Indian-style on the floor, poring over early-learning books. He already owned those devoted to colors, shapes, and animals. I thought maybe a gift would make him smile at me just once. I thought maybe I could bribe the four-year old. After a lengthy period of indecision, I selected a book about numbers. The colorful pages addressed the lessons in a logical fashion: one, then two, then three, and so on.

  Book in hand, I headed for the front register. Once there, a familiar soprano voice called my name. I looked around to see Janice Jankowski coming my way from the nonfiction aisle. I returned her smile, and she fell into line behind me. Paying no attention to my selection, she showed me hers: The Encyclopedia of Breastfeeding. For an encyclopedia, it wasn’t as thick as one might expect.

  “At least Barb’s taking it one step at a time,” the expectant grandmother said of her daughter, “deciding about breastfeeding before she lines up a ritzy daycare. Although to tell you the truth, Stan and I started a college fund six months ago. But that’s different. Grandparents are allowed.”

  “How’s she doing?” I asked, handing cash to the salesclerk and observing the peculiar look she sent my way. I could only assume she scanned this morning’s headline, saw my picture, and believed me to be murdered.

  “Great. Just six more weeks. The baby will be here before school starts again in the fall.”

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “She won’t tell her father and me. She calls it a trade secret, and I keep asking her what I can trade for the secret.”

  We laughed. She swept up her package. Outside, we strolled to a slatted bench and sat. Her gaiety abruptly shifted to somberness.

  “I’m just sick. And worried.”

  “You know about the insurance snafu, then,” I said, looking over at her.

  She nodded. “I know the university’s attorney tied Adam to the hot seat yesterday afternoon. That treatment was on top of being the one to walk into the storeroom and find the artifacts stolen. I felt sorry for him, so I invited him over to the house to have dinner with Stan and me tonight.”

  We each looked down at our own hands. They clutched the parcels that lay in our individual laps.

  “Well, it’s too late now anyway,” she concluded. “There’s no coming back from this.”

  I knew what she meant. Gideon used similar words himself. The university’s reputation would not survive the fallout from this catastrophe.

  Janice suddenly let loose with a grating sigh she directed heavenward. “I should have done something. I should have done more.”

  “More? What are you talking about?” I said, confused. How could Janice have prevented the artifacts from being stolen? Security responsibilities weren’t attached to her pay grade.

  “Hasn’t Gideon been telling you?”

  “Telling me what?”

  “I was afraid he hadn’t.”

  “Janice, what are you talking about?” I asked again, my anxiety prickling.

  “There’s no two ways about it. I didn’t see this rift between Gideon and Adam ending any time soon.”

  “A rift? Any time soon? How long has this been going on?”

  “Oh, jeez,” Janice said, raising an eyebrow to help her think. “I guess I noticed the tension back in March, maybe February.”

  “February? So this is not connected to the artifacts?” The theft weighed so heavily on my mind, I wanted clarification.

  “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. Why would it?” She lifted a shoulder. “It just seemed so personal between the two of them. It started with little things. Comments. Looks Adam gave Gideon after he walked away. Cooperation between the two of them soured. I remember a call that came in about electronic textbooks. I thought Adam could take it, since Gideon was out. He wouldn’t. Said it was Gideon’s job, said it pretty snottily. Then I began to notice that whenever Gideon called a department meeting, Adam always strolled in late. He never used to behave rudely or flaunt the rules. He did little things, just to get under Gideon’s skin.”

  “But why? What did Gideon do to him? Was Adam okay with you?”

  “He treated me fine. I know of nothing Gideon did to him, but something changed. Gideon noticed the shift in attitude. How could he not? I saw all the eye-rolling, heard the snide comments. They were both ill at ease, and that affected the atmosphere in the office, which affected me.” She curled a thumb back to tap her shoulder. “I was almost ready to lecture them myself several times, then Adam would snap back. We’d have a couple good days followed by the two of them barely tolerating each other.”

  “I’m so surprised by this.”

  Janice put a grimace on her face. “And it came to a head Wednesday.”

  “What happened Wednesday?”

  “Gideon took his summer school class out at the mock excavation site at Fletcher Reserve that morning. Well, you must’ve known. He would’ve been dressed for the dig when he left the house. He cut his lesson short to be back for delivery of the artifacts, but the transfer company called to say they would be late. When I asked Adam if I should call Gideon at the site with the new delivery time, he said no—that he’d take care of it. But he didn’t. When Gideon returned and only then found out the plans changed, he took Adam into his office. They spent a good little while in there, let me tell you. Finally, Adam stormed out, slamming Gideon’s door, and I didn’t see either of them until the call came saying that the truck finally arrived. It’s been like this between them for so long my nerves are shot!” she screeched, lifting the little hairs on my neck. “Now, we’ll probably lose the collection, or what’s left of it. And I thought the worst that could happen would be that they’d be called into Dillon’s office for fighting on the playground.” Stuart Dillon was Eastwood’s president, not playground monitor. “I feel so bad about it now. The shipment arrived at five. All I did was grab my purse, go straight home, butt Stanley out of his La-Z-Boy, and take a pill.”

  “None of this is your fault, Janice.”

  “I should have called you for advice. We could’ve put our heads together.”

  “No, I should have known something was wrong. Their arguments are not your fault.”

  She waved this away. “I guess I lay the problem more at Adam’s door than Gideon’s. If Gideon’s guilty of anything, it’s assuming the man would act responsibly. I don’t understand. We never had these problems when Tom Berryhill worked here.” Berryhill was department chair before Gideon held the post. “Adam was pure gold, then. Everything ran witho
ut a hitch. For months now, he’s been full of himself to an amazing degree.”

  “What about yesterday? Adam came out to the lot to get Gideon. He seemed visibly shaken.”

  “Oh, he was. I thought he was going to pass out when he saw the safe had been robbed. I saw him again this morning. He was humble, Wrenn. That’s how I’d describe him. Humble. A complete turnaround.”

  I puzzled quietly over Adam Porter. The man I described as visibly shaken was, at times, both pure gold and full of himself. He could find humility when he wasn’t slamming doors.

  Emulating Adam’s ricocheting behavior, Janice and I rose, mumbled parting comments, then headed in opposite directions.

  Lifelines

  Blinding instinct pulled me toward my next destination. I felt like a salmon swimming upstream. I had an hour coming for lunch, and I sped home. Why, you ask, when there was nothing in the house to eat? The pantry wasn’t the draw. The flowerbeds were. Any one of them would do.

  The hour wouldn’t be spent dining on watercress and catching part of a soap, but in self-analysis. Today’s topic: the startling revelation that Gideon had become guarded about his life. I would not expect to know everything about his past, certainly not the past that was his before me. But two days ago, a week, four months—yes, that should’ve been dinnertime conversation, at some point.

  An analyst’s couch is not required for these midday sessions of mine, just sturdy garden gloves, a pail for discarded thoughts and trimmings, and, of course, a flowerbed in need. Good or bad, I admit I spend a lot of time inside my head. I sort through every fact of life until I figure out what it means, trace back every emotion, bridge every gap, accept the hard facts, and set a firm plan of defense. I know who I am. It was what Gideon and I were that bothered me.

  I crested the hill on Somerset Road and saw the Crossfire sitting in the drive. I never knew Gideon to come home in the middle of the day. Well, except for cake and ice cream. A bone-chilling fear ripped through me, and I pressed on the gas pedal.

  I stepped through the front door to find him working at the kitchen counter that abuts the breakfast bar. “Why are you home?” I said, crossing the room.

  After he thought a second, he said, “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” His casual manner was backed up by cuffs rolled up a turn and his tie corralled inside his denim shirtfront. “And why are you home?” he returned with a wink. The glint in his eye was missing.

  My fingertips gripped the edge of the bar. He attempted to divert me into a circular conversation, but I would stay the course and with good cause. Whenever there’s a ripple in Gideon’s world, he cooks. Omelets are his comfort food. He’d been stung by something. All the ingredients for triage were lined up on the counter: sweet onion, mushrooms, shredded cheese, a carton of eggs, and a green bell pepper on the chopping block.

  “Something’s wrong. What is it?” I asked.

  A half-full cup of coffee sat at his elbow, a skillet waited on the stove behind him, and, between us, his hesitation loomed. My eyes held his with a silent plea: Please, please, please, Gideon, don’t leave me out. Then the butcher knife he held poised over the block lowered to the counter, and the partially sliced pepper rocked backwards on its top when he released it.

  “There’s been a development with the insurance form,” he said to the dishtowel he pulled free from his waist to clean his hands.

  “What kind of development?”

  “The agent called from New York. He says my signature’s on it.”

  “He says? What do you mean, you don’t think you signed it?”

  “I guess I should’ve signed it. I’m the department chair, but I don’t remember signing it. Maybe I did and forgot. Either way,” he said significantly, “they’re going to take me out for a walk.”

  “Meaning what? Your job’s in jeopardy?”

  “I would imagine so. Someone has to be the scapegoat.”

  “That should be Adam,” I jumped to point out.

  “Two scapegoats might be better than one in the board’s view. Anyway, Dillon wants to talk with the members first, then he’ll call me back in.” He gave me the full impact of his blue eyes. “I was politely excused from the campus.”

  “I can’t believe Dillon would do that. Not to you.”

  “He’s got the board to contend with and some pretty high-priced problems. He’s showing leadership. And really, he gave me a break. Blake Hall’s still closed. I literally had nowhere else to go. So, remembering the kitchen was lacking, I went to Crowell’s.”

  Crowell’s was a family-run chain of grocery stores in Havens.

  He came around the bar to kiss my cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, Wrenn. I’ll make enough for two. Hungry?”

  “Well, I was, but…”

  “Oh, come on. It’s going to be a masterpiece,” he said, finding a measure of enthusiasm.

  He went back to his chopping while I fidgeted with Tarbutton’s biscuit jar sitting on the counter. His diversionary tactics hadn’t escaped me. He tempted me with lunch while neatly fitting his situation with Dillon and the board back into the drawer. As drawer-front met desk, my talk with Janice stepped forward in my mind. I planned to dissect it when I thought I’d be home alone. Clearly, the situation at the university was escalating rapidly, and I needed to catch up. So, without the benefit of my garden-variety triage, I waded in, trying to keep my tone conversational.

  “I ran into Janice at The Bookmark this morning.”

  “What was Jan-Jan after?”

  “A book for the mother-to-be.”

  “Sounds right.”

  “We talked for a little while. She said there’s been other problems at school. Specifically, in the department. She told me some things about Adam and you.” His reaction was a split-second pause in slicing. “Things you haven’t mentioned. It scared me.” His head swiveled my way. “It made me think something was wrong with us.”

  His eyes retreated to the countertop.

  “Is something wrong with us?” Silence filled the kitchen. “Gideon? What is it?”

  He glanced up, hearing near desperation in my plea. “Grams died, and you didn’t need me.”

  “No, that’s not true,” I said while his injured voice rang in my ears.

  “Yes, Wrenn, it is,” he said, laying down the knife.

  “But Grams died a year and a half ago. Am I to assume you’ve been walking on eggshells since then? Even now? I see no evidence. Until this, I would have said nothing changed. You confided the university’s reputation-damaging details about the theft. No problem. You were upfront about Sherrie, but not Adam. Why is that? And, Gideon, that was you and me racing home last night,” I said, pointing a finger at him, then back at me, “the same you and me we’ve always been. So what is it really? Why are you holding back your troubles with Adam?”

  “Sexually, yes, things are the same,” he said, bypassing the Adam question, “but I see things. You had a lot of difficulty getting the Piedmont Alley story going. You left the mayor’s speech behind after you worked hours on it. That’s not you. And you’re throwing yourself into these investigations. K.C. must be beside himself. In my opinion, you were almost overly pleased to have met Sherrie. Everything about you has tweaked. Just a little, yes, but I notice them.”

  “Okay,” I said, antsy to refocus the subject matter, “let’s just say for the moment, I give you those things. No argument. I won’t admit they’re connected to Grams’ death; let’s not argue that.”

  “But that is the point.”

  I cut him off. “No, you and Adam: that’s your problem, not mine. I didn’t get a chance to tweak that. That played out one-hundred percent without my intervention.”

  He exhaled, checking the turns of his sleeve cuffs. They were already perfectly matched. “Yes, you’re right. You’re right about that. I guess in my mind, I connected them because in February when Adam got word about the exhibit and started operating on half-baked ideas, the anniversary of Grams’ death came around and
your grief seemed to get a second wind. All you did was sit in front of your computer, presumably writing.”

  I was big enough to agree with Gideon’s assessment. In February, yes, a wave of grief hit me, but I handled it. And I don’t think I sat in front of my computer any more than usual. He was just swerving around again to argue the same connection, hanging everything on Grams and me, not him and Adam.

  But even there, I slowed my speed. Something felt off now. I thought back to my conversation with Janice. Her take on the situation between the men hit a “personal” note. Gideon’s assessment of Adam dinged his “half-baked ideas,” which surprised me because that told me Adam’s rational thinking went sideways. Something personal. Something that made him make bad choices. Maybe I was wrong to link Adam’s shift in character to some scheme to steal a portion of the artifacts. It made no sense for Adam to draw attention to himself if that was the overarching plan. Why advertise? On the other hand, just to keep my gut feelings in play, how could there not be a connection? I was ready to pursue my waffling rationale with Gideon when his next sentence shattered me.

  “Through all your grief, Wrenn, you pushed me away.” His eyes lowered, then his voice. “Not that I could really be a substitute for Grams. She was a grand old lady. I loved her, too, but I thought…” He faltered. “I waited for you to want some comfort from me, but you’re so damned stubborn.”

  His last few words hit so close they obliterated my resolve. A handful of seconds ticked by while I felt the blood drain from my face. “God, the same thing happened when my parents left.” The words stammered out on a string of painful memories. My hands sprung to my face, muffling a sob.

  Gideon didn’t hesitate. He was there, gently pulling me into an embrace. “Oh Christ, Wrenn, I didn’t think about that.” Rocking me, he whispered, “I knew this was in there. Just let it out.”