“Ty Frazer thinks my husband was murdered. Perhaps that brings everything into the present?” I suggested.
For a moment, Justyn looked disconcerted. “Ty’s a crazy old coot, unbalanced and dangerous to himself and others. He should have been committed long ago. Both my parents put on a good show most of the time, but they’re more fragile than you might think. I want to see them left alone.”
“Even if they don’t want to be left alone?” I said. “Your father invited me to dinner at the Esmeralda Inn tonight and I’ve accepted.”
He looked so worried that I felt a little sorry for him. “I don’t think you should be concerned about this. I’ll probably go back to California soon and nothing will come of this documentary. I never did think I was the right person to carry this on.”
“And Jim’s death?” Natalie asked softly.
Justyn threw her a guarded look but said nothing.
“Unless I get some sort of lead besides Ty Frazer’s suspicions, I don’t see what I can do about that,” I continued. Neither of us dared mention Jim’s unsettling letter. Gordon had cautioned us not to let anyone else know about its contents.
“What happened when you visited Betsey?” Justyn asked.
He still seemed too intense, but I gave him part of the story. “She seems devoted to the memory of Victoria Frazer. She showed me a dress Victoria had worn in the film with your father. When I watched the movie just now, it was strange to see her wearing that very dress and the turban Betsey probably made for her. How sad that clothes outlast the people who wear them.”
“What did you think of the movie?” Natalie asked.
A larger boat than ours went past and wide ripples spread, rocking us gently.
“I was more interested in the actors than the story,” I said, and then ventured further, watching these two—father and daughter. “It seemed to me that Roger Brandt and Victoria Frazer were very much in love in those scenes they played together. They seemed too absorbed in each other to be acting.”
Justyn snorted rudely, but before he could say anything, his daughter answered me.
“That was a passing thing. It happens sometimes when actors are thrown together, playing love scenes day after day. But when the moviemaking is over, so is the affair, if there really was one. I don’t think my grandfather has ever truly loved anyone but his Camilla.”
“And does she love him?” The question came from me unbidden, and Natalie looked away—off toward Rumbling Bald.
“What happened with Victoria must have hurt deeply,” she said.
“Of course it did!” Justyn sounded angry again. “As it would any woman whose husband had an affair.”
“I expect it upset Victoria, too,” I pointed out, ignoring this last comment but noticing the embarrassment it caused Natalie. “Especially since she was carrying his child.”
“What if that mysterious baby is just part of the legend, too?” Natalie speculated aloud. “After all, who knows by this time what’s fiction and what’s fact—since neither my grandfather or grandmother is willing to talk.”
I was proof that the baby, at least, wasn’t fiction. “I’ve talked to Gretchen Frazer and I know about the baby. She wanted to keep it. And years later, when Victoria and Roger’s child was a grown woman, she came here to see Gretchen.”
Both Justyn and Natalie looked surprised, but Natalie shook her head at me. “Let it go, Lauren. Gretchen would say anything to hurt my grandfather. It’s only a story to you, and dredging it up is hardly worth the hurt to those concerned. I’ll take you back to the lodge now.”
We were silenced by the motor, and I could sense the hostility that I seemed to have roused in both Justyn and his daughter. Yet, at the same time, I had a feeling that they were not wholly in sympathy with each other.
The little boat moved at a slow, steady pace down shining, land-enclosed waters. I could see the lodge set among tall trees high on the bank as we approached. When we turned in toward the boathouse near Gretchen’s house, I saw that she was out on the dock, busy with her own pontoon boat and with Siggy, who was waiting eagerly, snout in air, to get aboard.
Gretchen was hardly pleased to see us and I was able to observe how strongly the old feud held. She completely ignored us as Natalie steered around to the opposite side of the boathouse, out of Gretchen’s sight. There Justyn helped me, none too graciously, onto the narrow walk. Natalie said a hasty good-bye and they chugged away across the lake, apparently no more anxious to see Gretchen that she was to see them.
When I walked around the end of the boathouse, however, Gretchen was waiting for me. She spoke cheerfully enough, with no reference to the Brandts.
“Hello, Lauren. You’re just in time to come with me, if you’d care to. I’m going to visit a patient across the lake.”
My preference just then would have been to go straight to my room, but this woman was my great-aunt. She would know the details of what I’d begun to call the legend better than anyone else.
I got into the boat safely, in spite of Siggy’s enthusiastic effort to assist me. Gretchen rapped him lightly on the snout and he quieted like a child whose feelings had been hurt. She heaved his hundred pounds into the boat and he settled down happily, poking his nose into the rushing air like a dog as we moved away from the dock.
These little pontoon boats with their noisy outboard motors seemed to be used by homeowners around the lake, both for fishing and as a means of getting about on the water.
We moved diagonally toward the opposite shore at the gorge end of the lake. When a long white building showed among the trees, Gretchen pointed and shouted, “Dirty Dancing.” As we went past, I recognized the setting where part of that film had been made.
The farther shore of the lake was more sparsely settled than the side we’d left. Gretchen turned into a small inlet and headed toward a dilapidated dock that seemed about to fall into the water. When she’d cast a looped rope skillfully over a post and pulled us in, I looked up at the house above. Like the dock, it seemed ready to fall to pieces.
Siggy began to wriggle and make squealing sounds. With his short legs, he needed help again. Once he was happily ashore, grunting his pleasure, Gretchen spoke to me.
“Want to come in?”
“Does anyone live here?”
“My brother, Tyronne, is here now because he’s had an accident. He got word to me—so I’ve come across to tend to him.”
My quest to find Ty was to be solved more easily than I’d expected. I followed Gretchen onto the dock, watching as she tapped Siggy with her sturdy walking stick and he managed the rickety steps on his own.
“Your brother lives here?” I asked.
She snorted. “Tyronne doesn’t tell anyone where he lives. This place is deserted and due to be taken down, so he takes shelter here sometimes when it’s necessary to find a roof of sorts.”
The front door hung open on broken hinges. Weather had done a good bit of damage inside, but the far reaches of the big room were mostly intact. It was furnished—if that was the word—with a three-legged kitchen table, a stool, and a broken-down couch with sagging springs. On one end of this couch, Ty Frazer sat, nursing his shoulder and obviously in pain. Siggy snorted with joy and rushed over to his friend.
Ty pushed him away with one foot. “Hold off, boy—this isn’t the time to play.”
The pig sat back on his haunches, sticking out the tip of his tongue.
“That’s a smile,” Gretchen explained to me as she set down the bag she’d brought and went to examine Ty’s shoulder. He gave me an uneasy look that indicated no welcome and then paid attention only to his sister.
“Ouch! That hurts.”
“Of course it hurts. It’s lucky you could get a message to me. Hold still now—this will hurt even more.”
I sat down on the stool and watched as she gave her brother’s shoulder a quick wrench. Ty yelped and then put up a wondering hand.
“You did it! It’s back in place.”
“No big deal,” Gretchen said. “I’ll fix you a kudzu poultice you can renew yourself. But you can’t do much for a few days—that shoulder needs time to heal.”
He grinned at her, offering no argument, and she went to the back of a room where there’d once been a working kitchen.
I took the silver bracelet from my purse and spoke to Ty. “I received the package you sent by the small boy. This belonged to Victoria Frazer, didn’t it? Why did you want me to have it?”
“Who else would I give it to? Jim Castle told me about you.” For once, the eyes that looked out of his whiskery face met mine directly. “He told me all about you. We already had a secret between us, so he felt he could trust me. I don’t talk to nobody about what I know. Of course the bracelet had to go to you.”
Gretchen returned to her brother with the kudzu poultice. As she placed it on his shoulder, he grunted again, sounding like Siggy. “This will help, so I’ll tape it in place. Hold still now.”
When the poultice was arranged to her satisfaction, she turned to me and saw the bracelet in my hand. Her eyes widened and she looked completely shocked.
“Where did you get that?”
“Ty sent it to me. I understand that it belonged to Victoria.”
She almost snapped at her brother. “Why? Why would you give it to her?”
Clearly, this wasn’t something he wanted to discuss. “Maybe this isn’t a good time to talk.”
“It’s as good a time as any—while I’ve got you under my thumb. So explain.”
He shot me a look from beneath shaggy brows and scowled at his sister. “Who else should it go to? Maybe it’s time you woke up. This here’s Victoria’s granddaughter. That’s who she is—not just Jim Castle’s wife.”
Gretchen stared at me, and whatever she saw in my face appeared to confirm Ty’s words. “I don’t like being deceived,” she told me, and held out her hand for the bracelet. “Give me that!”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I want to keep it for now. There’s someone I want to show it to.”
She understood at once. “Him? Roger Brandt? Much good it will do you.”
So I was to be accepted by Gretchen with no more pleasure than I’d been shown by Ty. Though at least he had claimed me as family.
She admonished him again about caring for his shoulder, asked whether there was anything she could bring him, and gathered up her medical equipment.
“Go on home,” he said grumpily, “and take her with you.”
Gretchen spoke over her shoulder to the pig, not looking at me. “Come along, Siggy. We’re going now.”
Siggy stopped rooting in a cobwebby corner and trotted after her as she went through the door.
I’d returned the bracelet to my purse, but I wanted to know a lot more about where it had come from. My questions, however, had to be postponed and I left my stool to follow Gretchen. She, however, was off and down the steps to the dock, while I was still telling Ty I hoped he’d feel better.
To my astonishment, I heard the boat start up, and when I looked out the door, it was heading for the entrance to the little cove.
“She’s left me behind!” I cried. “How could she do that?”
He grunted again and put a hand to his shoulder. “I reckon you gave her a shock.”
“How will I get back to the lodge?”
“Walk, I suppose. That’s what I do. You know how, don’t you?” His eyes noted my flimsy sandals and he shook his head in disgust. “You better get started. There’s a sort of path not far from the water. The next house is only a couple of miles around this end of the lake. If they didn’t leave at summer’s end, they’ll take you back. If nobody’s there, just keep going. Walk far enough and you’ll get around to the other side on your own.”
I began to wonder whether I would reach the lodge in time to be ready when Roger Brandt came for me tonight, and I grew angrier with Gretchen Frazer by the moment. Nevertheless, before I left, I had to ask Ty the question to which I needed an answer.
I opened my handbag, took out the patch of luminous green “leather,” and held it out to him. “Do you know what this is?”
He didn’t touch it—he clearly didn’t want to touch it. When he said nothing, I spoke again.
“Jim left this for me in a letter he gave to Natalie shortly before his death. Do you know where Jim got it?”
He seemed to rouse himself and his voice grew stronger. “I gave that to Jim.”
“Why? What is it?”
“Never mind. Just throw it away and forget about it. Maybe if I hadn’t taken him there, Jim Castle would be alive now.”
“Ty, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who would have wanted to hurt Jim? Everybody liked him.”
“Not everybody. There was more than one person he scared. So you better go home now before somebody gets scared of you. There’s some pretty powerful people around here—people who don’t want to be interfered with.”
“What about the bracelet you sent me?”
He closed his eyes. “She gave me that. She wanted you to have it. She knows you’re here—she’s watching.”
“Victoria? A dead woman?” I said.
“You’re stupid,” he said. “Nobody really dies. She’s still around, just the way Jim Castle is. They didn’t want to stop living—neither of ’em.”
“Ghosts don’t hand out silver bracelets, Ty.”
“You know a lot for somebody so young, don’t ya?”
“What do you know about what happened to Victoria?”
“Everybody says she drowned,” he muttered, turning his head to check the poultice on his shoulder.
“I don’t think so. Not of her own accord. I think there’s something else you know. Maybe something you never even told Gretchen.”
He shifted his weight on the sagging couch. “Ask your grandfather if you want to know. He’s the one to ask. Go away now—start walking.”
I still hesitated, wishing there was some way to get him to open up to me. “You’ll be all right alone?”
“I’m always alone. That’s the way I like it.” Then he added something he must have been turning over in his head. “Gordon said you saw Betsey today. I saw her once a few years ago. She’s an old woman now.”
I bristled. “As you are an old man. I thought she was beautiful. I expect we all carry the maps of our lives on our faces when we get older. Hers is an interesting one. Of course I can’t tell anything about yours because you’ve buried it in whiskers.”
I slung my bag over my shoulders and went through the door.
“Don’t step on a copperhead!” he called after me. Hardly reassured, I went down toward the water to look for the “sort of path” that I must follow in my flimsy shoes. I could only pray there’d be someone home at the next house.
9
Somehow I got through that long, stumbling walk, hating Gretchen every inch of the way. A blister started on my heel, but at least no snakes appeared. Most the time, I felt buried in thick woods. Only glimpses of the lake appeared now and then, and treetops hid the mountains. The path was totally overgrown in places, but I managed at last to reach the house Ty had mentioned.
Fortunately, I was in time. The retired couple who summered there weren’t leaving until the next week. They offered sympathy for my predicament and the man drove me back to the lodge in his station wagon. By the time I reached the lobby, there was just time to go up to my room to shower and change my clothes before Roger came for me.
As I reached the stairs, Gretchen came from behind the desk to hurry after me. She was the last person I wanted to see. I started up, turning my back on her.
“I need to talk to you,” she told me.
“I don’t think we have anything to say,” I said curtly.
“Wait, Lauren.” We’d reached the upper corridor and I didn’t wait. She hurried on. “That was no way for me to act, going off and leaving you like that. I thought about driving back for you, but a car can’t get through to w
here Ty’s holed up, and I didn’t think you’d stay put.”
“I’m in a hurry now,” I told her. “I don’t understand why you left me, but I haven’t time to talk about it. There’s no point. I need to shower and dress before dinner, and there’s a blister on my heel I need to fix.”
“Please.” She sounded surprisingly meek. “It’s about Victoria that we need to talk.”
This hooked me. If she wanted to talk about her sister, Roger would have to wait.
“All right,” I said. “Just for a moment.”
I opened the door of my room and she followed me in, taking over in her own way. “Let me see your foot, Lauren.”
I didn’t want her ministrations. “I’ll do fine with a Band-Aid.”
She motioned me toward the bed. “Take off your shoes and lie down.”
When she spoke in that tone, one obeyed. Unwillingly, I slipped out of my sandals and lay down. She sat at the foot of the bed, where she could reach my foot.
“Just relax. Let everything go.”
That wasn’t easy, but I closed my eyes. Her hands were gentle as she touched me. I turned on my side so she could reach my heel and I showed her the place. When her hands hovered above my foot, I could feel a subtle current of warmth play over my leg. Tension fell away and I relaxed, though I opened my eyes so I could watch her.
She was quiet now, with her eyes closed—as though she’d gone away to some inner space. Her face seemed to glow with a light that came from within. I lay very still, and after a few moments she sat back and smiled at me—a smile that reminded me of one I’d seen only that morning—on Victoria Frazer’s young face. Gretchen spoke to me in what was now a restrained manner, and I was compelled to listen.
“What Tyronne said was a shock to me, Lauren. I rejected it at first and only wanted to get away from you because I was terribly angry that the two of you would play such a mean trick on me. But when I had time to think, I realized that it must be true. I don’t understand why I didn’t sense who you were from the first. Your eyes are like Victoria’s, but I refused to make the connection. Now I can feel who you are with my entire being. You are the child of my dear sister’s baby. Oh, how I wanted to raise her. If Margaret had stayed with me, I would have fought the Brandts, if necessary, just to keep her.”
Star Flight Page 14