“Yes. She said you had a camera—a digital one, wasn’t it? They almost always are these days.”
“Ah …yes it was.”
“Then could you email the pictures to me? And I’d be very grateful if you could do it right away. Tonight.”
“I’m sorry, but they’re all gone.”
“Gone? All of them? Oh no. Are you absolutely sure?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And they can’t be recovered somehow? It would mean so much to Mary Beth to at least have some photographs if she doesn’t get the clock back.”
Sanders made a few silent taps on his keyboard and opened the first of the pictures he had taken, a detail of the clock face. Just what did they want with pictures? And why did they want them right now?
“No, I’m sorry. I would have liked to keep them. It was a beautiful piece, and I wanted to find out more about whoever made it. But my camera had a meltdown. It wasn’t much of a camera anyway. It’s in some landfill by now, I suppose.”
For a very long moment, there was only silence from the other end of the line.
“Mrs. Dawson?”
“I’m sorry. I just—I really was hoping Mary Beth would at least have those pictures.”
“I wish I could help.” No, he thought, I wish I knew what you were up to. Why the rush all of a sudden?
“Thank you anyway, Mr. Sanders. And, again, I’m sorry about the trouble I caused you. I’ll try to remember my husband’s advice in the future.”
He made his voice cheerful and pleasant. “You do that, Mrs. Dawson. Good night.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, Sanders sat down at his desk and leaned close to his computer screen, clicking through the pictures he had taken of the clock—the face, the carvings, the works. What was it? And what had that woman suddenly figured out?
****
Once she had closed up A Stitch in Time for the day, Mary Beth hurried home. She had had another exasperating discussion with that pushy McMillan woman about agreeing to let them go ahead and buy the building.
Not quite yet, Ms. Burly Boy, she thought. My time’s not up until the end of next month, and I’m going to hold on until the last second.
Mary Beth pulled into her garage and sat there for a moment, eyes closed. She was running out of time, and she knew it. Something had to happen quickly, something that would either make it possible for her to buy the building or make it clear what she ought to do instead. She needed a miracle of some kind, but so far she’d seen no answers to her prayers.
She didn’t see any way she would ever be able to afford to buy the shop, especially if she had to buy the theater too. Yet every time she looked at other properties she might move to once it was sold, every time she even thought about going to look, she didn’t feel right about it.
Wait, something inside her said. Exercise some patience.
When she went inside, she flipped through the bills and ads that had come in the mail and found a card from Amy in with them. It was just a sweet “thinking of you” card, and she immediately dialed Amy’s number. Talking to her niece would be a bright spot in an otherwise difficult day.
“Auntie Beth! How great to hear from you. How are you?”
“I’m fine, sweetie. I just had a minute and thought I’d call you up. What have you been doing today?”
“You called to talk about Mother, didn’t you?”
“Um … no, actually. I called to say thank you for your sweet card and to see how you are. What’s going on with your mother?”
“She just got through lecturing me about you.”
“I’m sorry, honey. What did she say?”
“Just that you’re old enough to solve your own problems, and that I should let you.”
Mary Beth chuckled. “She’s right, you know. I’ve been on my own, and I’ve been running a business by myself for quite a while now. I’ll be all right.”
“I know, and I’m not saying you’re not capable or anything like that, but everybody needs a little help from time to time—especially these days. What’s a family for?”
“The best help you can give me is to keep me in your prayers—OK?”
“I do that anyway.” Amy sighed. “But what good does it do to pray about something if you’re not willing to do something to help too?”
“Well, sometimes it’s hard to know what to do or how much to do and when to do it. Sometimes it’s best for a person to work her own way out of her troubles, as much as you hate seeing her struggle. We never know how much we can do if we don’t get the chance to try.”
“I know. But sometimes just a little help will get somebody through a bad time so she doesn’t lose everything she’s worked for her whole life.”
Mary Beth wanted to hug her. “You’re the sweetest person in the whole world, Amy,” she said, a catch in her voice. “I love you more than anything for being the kind of person who would want to help.”
“I wanted to use some of Grandma’s trust money to help you, but I know Mother wouldn’t agree, and she’s the trustee until I’m forty.”
“Oh dear, don’t do that. I would never want you to do that in the first place, and your mother would have a fit if you even mentioned it.”
“I know.”
“And sweetie, you’ve got to stop asking her to help me too. It only makes things worse between us.”
“But she ought to help you. She can afford it.”
“But that’s her money, not mine. It doesn’t matter if she can afford it. She works hard for what she earns, and she should do what she wants with it. Besides, do you really know what she can and can’t afford?”
“Well, she spends enough, I know that.”
Again Mary Beth chuckled. “She does like the good life, I’ll admit it, but it’s still her money. If you don’t give because you want to, you might as well not give. The scripture says that God loves a cheerful giver, not one who is badgered into doing it. And really, honey, I don’t expect her to bail me out. I’ve made my own decisions, even the ones that were mistakes. I like what I do, and where I live. I wouldn’t like having all the pressure she has in the kind of business she’s in. She has to always be worrying about the next new thing and making sure she’s in with all the right people and that she’s seen at all the right places. I would hate that. You know I would.”
“I would too,” Amy admitted.
“She does it because she likes it, but it’s still not an easy life. I don’t begrudge her what she has. I just want us all to get along. We’re family.”
“Why can’t we, Auntie Beth?” There was pain in Amy’s voice. “Why can’t we all just do things together and have some fun? I can’t even mention that I talked to you without her getting mad at me. I love you both. Why should I have to choose?”
“You shouldn’t have to, honey. We shouldn’t put you in the position where you feel like you have to. We’re supposed to be the grown-ups here.”
“I’m supposed to be a grown-up too, remember?”
“I don’t care if you’re thirty-nine or sixty-nine, sweetie. You’ll always be my little girl. Anyway, we’re all supposed to be mature, even if we don’t act like it.”
“Mom doesn’t act like it, you mean.”
“Don’t blame her for everything, honey. I don’t always try to be a peacemaker either.”
Amy sniffed. “I don’t know why she has to be mean to you, just because you’re nice to me.”
“She doesn’t like sharing you, I expect.”
“Yeah, right. It’s not like she spends time with me or anything.”
“But you’re her daughter, not mine.”
“But you’re the one who really cares about me.” Amy’s voice broke. “You would never do things to hurt me just so you wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of your friends.”
“Sometimes, honey, what people try to do to make things better only makes them worse.” Mary Beth’s tears welled up at the sound of her niece’s pain. “Your mother always means to d
o the best she can for you.”
“Instead, I have to live my whole life wondering why my mother never understood how much I loved Cagney,” Amy said. “And I wonder what my life would have been like if he had lived. She acted as if it was no big deal that I watched him be murdered.”
Mary Beth’s tears spilled down her cheeks, her heart breaking all over again to think of the horror of what Amy went through at the tender age of sixteen. Even though that was more than half her lifetime ago, Amy still lived with the pain. So did Mary Beth. Melanie’s callous attitude toward Amy’s situation had left her daughter with a never-healing wound and the two of them with a broken relationship.
“You ought to talk to your mother about it, honey.”
“I can’t talk to her about it.” Amy’s voice trembled. “She’ll only tell me not to make a big deal about it. I can’t take that from her again.”
“I’m so sorry it’s been like that between you, but you know it won’t get better if you stop trying. You need to forgive her, and you need to forgive yourself. You’ll never be close to your mother with all that hurt standing between you.”
Amy drew a trembling breath, and then she laughed faintly. “I don’t know how we got on that subject again. It’s old news, and I know that’s not what you called about.”
“Amy, sweetie—”
“Anyway, I won’t tell Mother any more of my big ideas, if that’s what you want. I still think she ought to help you. I would do it myself if there was anything I could do. The money Grandma left me—”
“Is yours, honey. That’s why Grandma left it to you. She left me some things too—things that I love. More than I need. Now I want you to stop worrying about me. I promise you I’ll be fine. Now you tell me how your day went. How’s that Everett of yours?”
“Oh, he’s fine. We went to see Les Miserables, off-Broadway, and it was really good, even though we’ve both seen it several times before. Then he took me to this little Italian place for dinner. The tiramisu was divine.”
“Ooh, and was this a special occasion?”
Amy giggled. “No. He said it was just because.”
“Ah, you’d better hold on to a guy like that. And how’s his little boy?”
“Peter’s a sweetheart. We took him to the zoo a couple of weeks ago. He especially loves the tigers. Everett is thinking about getting him a kitten—tiger-striped, of course.”
Mary Beth laughed. “Of course. Oh Amy, your mother is missing so much. All the little everyday things. Do you ever talk to her like this?”
“Not really. She doesn’t have time for trivia.”
“When was the last time you tried?”
Amy was quiet for a moment. “Years, I guess. Ever since I realized she wasn’t really listening.”
“Will you do something for me?”
“I know. You want me to call her up and talk.”
“Could you, Amy? Just give it a try? Nothing serious. Nothing hard. Put all the difficult issues aside for a while and just have a nice talk.”
“But … what would we talk about? I mean, I don’t have any particular news for her. I don’t need anything. Life’s just been going on as usual. What would I say?”
“I don’t know, honey. Ask her about her trip to Milan, or what new lines she’s working on, or how she’s feeling. It doesn’t matter. Just let her know you want to connect with her again. Tell her about Everett taking you to Les Miserables, and about going to the zoo. Let her know you want things to be better than they have been.” Mary Beth paused. Maybe she’d stepped too far now. “You do want things to be better, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Amy’s voice was just a little more than a whisper. “Yes, I do.”
“Maybe we both can take some little steps that will improve things. And if she’s not interested, at least we don’t have to feel bad for not trying, right?”
“Right.”
“Don’t do it if you don’t feel like you’re ready, honey. It’s just something to think about.” Mary Beth put a smile into her voice. “Now, tell me all about Les Miz.”
15
Frank Sanders heard the shop’s front door open and shut, and the telltale chatter of two young women. Customers. He let them look around for a minute and then came around to their side of the display shelves. They were just girls really. The younger of the two, the one with the long blond ponytail, was giggling and texting furiously on her hot-pink cellphone. The other girl was looking around the shop as if she were hunting for something in particular.
“Good afternoon, ladies. Is there something I can help you with?” He paused, thinking for a moment. He’d seen the older girl before. He couldn’t place her for a minute, and then it came to him. “You were in here two weeks ago with Mrs. Dawson, weren’t you?”
“That’s right. We came in so I could look for something for my mom’s birthday.”
His smile hardened. “You mean, so she could grill me about that clock that was stolen from her friend.”
The girl smirked. “Yeah, I guess that was the main reason. I do still need to get something for my mother though, and we didn’t stay long enough for me to really have a chance to look around. You have some pretty awesome stuff here. My name is Jennifer, by the way.”
He gave her the most suave of his smiles. “You don’t think I took that clock, do you, Jennifer?”
“No, though it’s funny you should ask, because I work at the repair shop it was taken from,” Jennifer said. “Mr. Malcolm’s in Brunswick. Have you ever been there?”
“No.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “No, I don’t believe I ever have.”
“Well, Mrs. Dawson brought me here to see if you were the one who picked the clock up. I never even saw her before that day. And of course, I had to tell her you weren’t the guy, because you weren’t.”
He chuckled. “True enough. I’m glad you were able to help clear my name about that. Now how about this present for your mother. Just what kind—”
“Was Mrs. Dawson the lady who was asking you about the trees, Jennifer?” the blond-haired girl asked, overhearing the conversation. “I didn’t understand why she’d call Mr. Malcolm asking about trees.”
“Trees?” Sanders looked at the dark-haired girl. “Mrs. Dawson was asking about trees?”
Jennifer nodded. “It was the funniest thing. I don’t mean funny like a joke, but funny strange, you know? Anyway, she called the shop asking if we ever took pictures of the clocks we fix. I thought it was a weird thing to ask.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did she say why she wanted to know? And what did that have to do with trees?”
“Yeah, it was really strange. I don’t know what it was about the pictures. She thought the clock had some kind of code or something on it, and she said something about some trees that are going to be cut down in Virginia somewhere.”
He forced a bemused laugh. “Trees in Virginia?”
“And a path,” the blonde added, her ponytail bobbing as she nodded her head.
The other girl shrugged. “I didn’t get it. She said she had to find the path before ‘Angeline’s trees’ were gone. Sounded like she was in a big hurry too.”
Again he forced a laugh, forced himself to sound only mildly interested despite his churning thoughts. “Did she say why?”
“I don’t know. Just that they were about to start breaking ground for a mall or something out by some old white place. I didn’t know if it was some people or some building or maybe the ground that was white.”
The old Whyte place. What had that Dawson woman found out? Frank kept his expression pleasant, his tone conversational, impersonal. “Very odd. So do you take pictures of the clocks people bring in?”
“No. What for?” The girl looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “We wouldn’t use them for anything. She said it probably wouldn’t help anyway, because she really needed the real thing to take out there. Something about turning it to face north or something, and then knowing the path from that.”
&n
bsp; “Did she say anything else about the clock? Anything at all?”
Again the girl stared at him. “No. I don’t know why she would ask us in the first place. Does any of that make any sense to you?”
“No, not at all.” Sanders laughed, hoping he hadn’t been too intense before. No need to make the girl suspicious. “I just think people are very interesting. I always like to try to figure out what makes them tick. Don’t you?”
“Not really. I just—”
“You wouldn’t mind figuring out what makes Robbie Harris tick, would you?” The blonde flashed her phone at the dark-haired one, giving her a glimpse of a text message. “Stacy says he asked about you.”
“No way! What did he say?”
The dark girl tried to snatch the phone while the blonde shrieked with laughter and held it away from her.
Sanders felt his eyes glaze over, but he kept an indulgent smile plastered to his face until, after the giggles had turned to whispers and the whispers had finally stopped, Jennifer finally turned back to him.
“Sorry,” she murmured.
“Not a problem.”
“Anyway, I don’t know what Mrs. Dawson was so urgent about. I mean, it was a very nice clock, and it was a family heirloom, but the shop’s insurance will pay her friend back for it. It wasn’t worth all that much.”
“People are funny. Now, you wanted something for your mother’s birthday, right?”
Neither of the girls bought anything, and as soon as they left the shop, Sanders hurried back to his desk. He rummaged through a glass bowl full of business cards until he found the one he wanted and dialed the number it displayed.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered after four rings, and finally there was a click.
“Permits. This is Avery.”
“Dave. How’s it going? This is Frank Sanders.”
“Hey, Frank. What’s up?” Dave’s tone changed from businesslike to laid back. “You gonna let me fleece you again at poker on Saturday? Heh heh.”
“Listen, do me a little favor, and I’ll double that for you.”
“Oh yeah?” Dave lowered his voice. “What’s going on?”
The Key in the Attic Page 12