The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What do you know about Bax Duncan? Weren’t you the one who rented a room to him?” Amy had Deirdre seated at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. The scent of Amy’s dinner rolls baking in the oven filled the air.

  Deirdre cringed as Amy stood over her with her hands on her hips. She hadn’t touched the coffee. “Yes, it was just after Mrs. Donaldson passed away. He works for Sheriff Gannon. Is something wrong?”

  Amy described the earlier episode with Bax and his shirt. “Do you know anything else?”

  “No—he doesn’t talk about himself much. He doesn’t talk much at all.” Deirdre pulled out her handkerchief in time to catch a series of sneezes. She’d been sniffling since last night and now it sounded like a cold had a firm grip on her.

  “And doesn’t that make you wonder why? Have you seen the scars on his back?”

  Deirdre frowned and swallowed. “Goodness, how—why would I? He’s always been nice to me. You know, respectful. He might have gotten those scars in an accident. Anyway, a lot of men have scars now. We went through a horrible war, Amy. Maybe he was in the army and was wounded.”

  Amy sat down at the table, and the other woman visibly relaxed a bit. To Amy, it seemed the Great War had occurred in the distant past while she was still living in Powell Springs. After she left, the focus of her life had narrowed to her own basic survival, and so many other things had happened to her in the interim. “Yes, yes, I thought of that. He’s been nice to me, too, a couple of times—” And not so nice a few times as well, she thought. “I didn’t mean to say anything. But I was so surprised, the words just popped out. If you could have seen the look on his face when I mentioned it . . .” Amy shuddered. She’d seen that kind of furious expression before, the sudden, frightening switch from one mood to another, and knew what it could lead to. “He practically bared his teeth at me like a vicious dog. I thought he might hit me, he looked so angry. Then he had the nerve to throw his dirty shirt at me.”

  Deirdre’s eyes widened, and she put her hand to her throat. “Oh, no, that just can’t be! It’s so hard to believe it of him. He’s always been quiet and polite. He doesn’t make any demands or cause trouble. Some men don’t like to be reminded of what they went through in the army.”

  “We don’t even know if he was in the army,” Amy replied, not really listening to Deirdre’s rationale while old memories of her own marched through her mind. “You never know about people. You might think you do, and then you see a whole new side, one you never expected.”

  “But if there’s a-a problem, don’t you think Whit Gannon would have discovered it by now? He’s a good judge of people.”

  Amy pushed the creamer toward Deirdre. “Maybe.” But she was still wary.

  Deirdre let the coffee sit. “I have a sore throat—the coffee wouldn’t help it. What are you going to do about him?”

  Amy took back the cream and drizzled it into her own cup. “Nothing for now, except keep an eye on him.”

  Harlan Monroe walked into Robert Burton’s office with a manila folder. Like the others in the house, it was an impressive room, lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves that contained valuable first editions and antique volumes. A large Oriental carpet covered the floor, one which a servant tended daily, combing its fringed edges as if it were a pampered cocker spaniel. Paintings and sculptures from around the world decorated the room, and behind Burton’s mahogany desk hung a fine, rare tapestry from the court of Louis XIV. A pair of French doors opened onto the red tiled terrace that wrapped around the east side of the magnificent home and provided a broader view of Mt. Hood and the Willamette River. “For your signature, sir.”

  “And what are these, Monroe?” the man asked.

  “Checks for the usual household expenses, the grocery bill from Strohecker’s, the utilities, staff pay, and so on.”

  Robert Burton was in his seventies and still a vital, commanding presence in any room. His hair was Arctic white, although his carefully trimmed Vandyke beard bore a hint of the dark hair he’d once had. He had but two infirmities, which he made an effort to camouflage: arthritis that had put an end to his morning horseback rides around the hilltop property where his house was built, and eyesight that was failing to the point of being a serious disadvantage. He could see well enough to navigate his way through the house—he’d had an elevator installed to avoid the marble grand staircase—and for the most part still recognized faces and could address people at a well-lighted dining table. But in his office, he needed a strong magnifying glass to read even the largest print. All the eye specialists he had visited agreed that his condition, something they called disciform lesions, was stealing his sight. There was no cure.

  Now he opened the folder and moved the papers this way and that, trying to read them with the big lens. At last he picked up a pen to sign the first check and his signature ran off the edge of the paper onto the desk blotter. In frustration, he pushed away the folder and its contents. “Damn it, Monroe, this is no good.”

  Harlan did his best to hide his jittery impatience. The old man was still sharp enough but could be querulous and easily upset over small matters. “Mr. Burton, you could use that rubber signature stamp we ordered for you. It’s in your desk.”

  His white brows rose in an instant of recollection. “Of course, of course. I’d forgotten about that.” He unlocked the drawer where it reposed and brought it out. “Thank you, Monroe. You’re always thinking and you’re resourceful. I value those qualities in a man.”

  Harlan did his best to put on a humble expression. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I believe I’ll go up for my afternoon siesta when I finish here. You won’t be bored, I assume?” the man said.

  “No, I have your bank deposit to make and I need to pick up your pocket watch from the jeweler’s.” Harlan watched as Burton stamped the signature line with more success than he’d had writing out his name with a pen. Then he collected the papers and retreated to his own desk in a tiny office down the hall. It had a narrow view of the garden but at least it wasn’t downstairs with the kitchen and the rest of the staff. And it had a door that locked.

  With the knob secured, he sat down at his desk, made out another check, pulled out a rubber stamp identical to the one he’d ordered for Burton, and stamped it. Folding the paper, he put it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

  He checked his watch and saw that he had just enough time to get to the banks before they closed. That was good. He had an important errand tonight that would require a significant amount of cash. It was a high-risk venture, but it paid very well.

  It was late afternoon when Amy opened the door to Granny Mae’s café. The smell of freshly brewed coffee and other familiar, savory aromas filled her head and stirred her memories. The restaurant had never had any other name but the word Café painted in red letters on the windows. And it took all the courage she could muster to walk into the place, knowing that Mae and Jessica had become friends during those days they’d fought the influenza epidemic, side by side. They had taken care of Amy, too, when she had been so ill she was delirious.

  It looked the same as it had when she’d last seen it, right down to the checked tablecloths. She’d heard that Granny Mae and Shaw Braddock, Cole’s father, had had a brief romance going until he’d died from a bleeding ulcer in 1920. She found the whole idea a little revolting, especially since Shaw had been more rude and abrasive than anyone she’d ever met. She’d doted on him when Cole had been courting her simply to win him over to her side and away from Jessica’s, no difficult task. Jessica had always been the golden child, the apple of their father’s eye. Corrosive jealousy and a schoolgirl crush on Cole had fueled her conviction that Jessica was not worthy of him. She didn’t dwell on the memory. It was not something she was proud of.

  Weary of the treatment she’d received around town, she wasn’t expecting anything better from Granny Mae,
and only Deirdre’s sickbed appeal had made Amy come in. Her cold and barking cough had worsened and kept everyone awake last night. She swore by Mae’s sovereign cough remedy. Amy had tried to persuade her to accept something from the druggist’s or even Bright’s Grocery, but the pale, wan soul looked so pathetic that she’d relented, if only to give peace to the rest of the household.

  There were several people in the café, and when they glanced up to see who’d walked in, heads came together and the whispering began. Suppressing a sigh, Amy pretended not to notice and looked around for Mae. Finally the old woman came through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, her apron as worn as her seamed face.

  She looked Amy up and down, with her bony arms crossed. “Well, Mrs. Jacobsen, this is a surprise.”

  Oh, God, if one more person—just one more—said that to her, she’d scream. “I came here because Deirdre Gifford is down with a bad cough and she begged me to buy a batch of your medicine. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have troubled you.”

  If there was one way to sweeten up Mae Rumsteadt, it was to acknowledge or praise her healing skills. Her hard expression softened. “Deirdre is sick?”

  “Yes, but she’s certain she’ll feel better with your help.”

  Granny Mae sighed. “All right. Come on to the back and I’ll mix up something for her.”

  Amy followed her and saw the chaos usually hidden from the customers’ view by the swinging doors. Next to a slab of ribs, a roast she must have been cutting up sat on the worktable like a stabbing victim, the knife still protruding from it. A big cast iron stove crouched against one wall like a black, fire-belching dragon with its eight burners, and each burner bore a simmering pot of something. Bunches of drying herbs and flowers hung from a beam above it all. Amy wasn’t sure if this was all food for the restaurant or other concoctions Granny Mae was brewing. She could easily imagine the old woman standing over a boiling cauldron, cackling like a witch in Macbeth.

  Mae grabbed a white soup bowl from the shelf and mixed together honey, ground black pepper, and some mysterious powder, and finished it off with two hefty splashes of liquid that looked like vanilla. Taking a funnel from a side table, she poured the mess into a brown bottle and topped it with a cork.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to Amy. “In case Deirdre doesn’t remember, tell her to take two teaspoons every two or three hours.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Since it’s for Deirdre, nothing.” The unspoken alternative hung in the air—If it was for you . . .

  “Thank you.” Amy turned to leave.

  “Amy,” Granny Mae said, stopping her. She looked back at the woman she’d know her entire life. She saw judgment in her eyes but also a hint of compassion. “Why did you come back to Powell Springs?”

  She gave her a level look before answering. “Because I had nowhere else to go.” Then she walked out.

  “Duncan!”

  Bax was headed for home when he heard someone call his name. He turned toward the source and saw a rough-looking bum in an alley between two stores that had closed for the day. It was still light out at this time of year, but the street was quiet. The muscles in his gut tightened and he moved his right hand closer to his sidearm. Something about this lowlife seemed familiar but he couldn’t imagine why. He hadn’t seen him around town. He kept his distance and stared at him.

  “You have my attention. Who the hell are you?”

  The man grinned, showing missing front teeth. “You don’t remember me, Sarge? Tsk, tsk, tsk. And after everything we went through in France.”

  Bax frowned and his pulse began to thud in his ears. “No, I don’t.” He started to turn away.

  “Remember that last day of the war? You got yourself into hot water for—”

  Faster than he himself would have imagined, Bax rushed the stranger, grabbed his throat, and pushed him deeper into the alley. He thumped the man’s head, once, against the brick wall. At this close range, he smelled of tobacco and stale sweat. “Let’s try this again. Who the hell are you?”

  A flash of fear crossed the stranger’s face. “Milo Breninger.”

  Fog, mud, rain, deafening bombardments, corpses, disembodied limbs, misery, screaming horses, screaming wounded . . . In the time it took a shooting star to cross the sky, all these images whipped through Bax’s mind—images that would never leave him, not if he lived to be one hundred. Sure, he remembered him now, a scheming, cowardly bastard who cheated at cards, complained about everything, and was always the last one over the top going into battle. He tightened his grip.

  “What are you doing in Powell Springs?”

  “Let—let go of—my throat,” Milo croaked.

  Slowly, Bax released his bristled neck. “Well?”

  Milo slid farther along the wall to put some distance between himself and Bax. “I’m just passing through on business.”

  “Yeah? What kind of business goes on in alleys? Purse-snatching?”

  “I just had to take a piss—”

  “Powell Springs isn’t that kind of town. We don’t put up with that stuff. I could arrest you for that alone.”

  Now Milo smiled again through his ratty mustache. “I don’t think so, Duncan. Don’t you need a record as clean as a choirboy’s to get a job with the county sheriff’s office? I’ll bet you didn’t tell them about those good old days in the army.”

  Bax clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. “What are you doing in Powell Springs?” he repeated.

  “I told you I have business here and it’s none of yours.” He nodded at the deputy’s badge pinned to Bax’s shirt. “But I’ll bet the sheriff would like to know about his helper’s past.”

  “He already knows I was in the army.”

  “But does he know the rest of the story?”

  “What’s it to you, Breninger?” Bax said, growing more tense and angry by the moment.

  “It looks like you made a new start here, with a nice job. If you want to keep it, I think we need to strike a bargain, you and me.”

  Bax suspected where this was heading, but he wanted to hear the rest of Breninger’s threat—because he felt certain that’s what this was—so he’d know where he stood. “Bargain. You mean blackmail.”

  “Yeah, call it what you want. For the right price, I keep my mouth shut and you keep your job. Otherwise”—he shrugged—“I’ll sing like a canary for the county.”

  “And get nothing.”

  “Not money. But sometimes satisfaction is good enough.” His voice dropped and his smirking, oily tone turned dark with a lazy contempt. “You thought you were so high and mighty. Sergeant American Hero. In the end, you were just the same as everyone else. Worse, maybe.”

  Bax’s insides were churning like Amy Jacobsen’s washing machine. He’d be damned if he’d pay this scummy son of a bitch a single dime to buy his silence and give Breninger control over him. There would be no end to the harassment if he started paying him. He was willing to take his chances and hope that this was a bluff. After all, the man was no saint, either. But if it wasn’t a bluff, well, he’d been to rock bottom before. “If I were you, I’d leave Powell Springs. It wouldn’t be hard to find information about you that would interest the law. But sing, canary—sing if you want to.” He looked Breninger up and down, from his cheap suit to his greasy sneer. “Who would believe you? I’m not giving you one damned cent.”

  Obviously insulted, and disappointed with the outcome of his brilliant plan, Breninger turned red in the face and actually shook his finger at Bax. “Don’t think I won’t, you piece of shit! This isn’t over!”

  Bax waved him off and turned to walk away, hoping he’d successfully hidden his rattled nerves and shown only strength and fury.

  “And I can go anywhere I want. This is a free country!” Breninger yelled.

  Bax almost laughed at the juvenile absurd
ity of his declaration.

  Amy left Deirdre in her bed with a hot water bottle, Granny Mae’s medicine, a cup of tea, and some toast. She looked miserable and sounded worse, like a honking goose. Amy would handle dinner tonight, but she was up to that. Domesticity had always been her chief talent in her youth. Jessica might have had a scientific mind, but she could barely boil water. Amy knew her way around a kitchen and homemaking very well.

  The first man in the door was Tom, but he dropped by just long enough for Amy to make him three sandwiches from the pork chops she’d cooked. He was working late at the mill. With Tom gone and Deirdre sick, that meant—

  Bax came home, and she heard him on the enclosed back porch, following his usual routine of washing at the sink. She took dinner out of the warmer and put it on a platter. He walked in and nodded at her but wouldn’t look at her. He seemed even angrier than he had been when he’d snapped at her yesterday.

  She refused to acknowledge his rudeness and directed him to a seat at the table. “Tom is working tonight and Deirdre is still sick with her cold, so we’ll be eating in the kitchen,” she announced.

  He sat down and pushed his food around on the plate but didn’t eat much. If he was silly enough to carry a grudge, she wouldn’t indulge him. But the silence stretched out until it was awkward, and she found herself poking at her own food. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of what to say, and he didn’t seem like a man who bothered with small talk. She supposed she owed him an apology, but it came hard to her. It shouldn’t—she’d spent the past four years apologizing every single day for something. It had become an automatic response to apologize to Adam since he found fault with her for the most minor things. Now, though, it wasn’t as easy.

  When Bax wasn’t looking, she studied his profile—his lean jawline, the merest cleft in his chin, the strong brow. He was a very nice-looking man, but with many secrets, she suspected. Maybe even more than she had.