by Jessica Beck
Grace said, “As far as I can tell he’s kept a really low profile on the Web, so I haven’t gotten much. I need more time to keep digging.”
As she drove on toward the town of Pinerush, I had a sudden thought. “Grace, should we have told Chief Martin about all of this? He might get upset when he finds out what we’re doing.”
“We’ve never let that stop us before,” Grace said with a smile.
“I know, but things have changed. With Momma getting so serious with him, I’m trying not to rock the boat at home any more than I have to. Would you mind if I called him?”
She said lightly, “Be my guest. I’ll pull off at the next exit and we can turn around.”
“Do you think he’ll order us to stop?” I asked.
“How could he have any other choice?”
I was sorely tempted to just forget it, but I could see Momma’s frown if I did that, so I bit my lip and dialed the chief’s cell number.
“Martin,” he said quickly as he answered his phone.
“This is Suzanne Hart,” I said. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Suzanne, I don’t have time right now.” Off to one side, he shouted, “Put that down.” A second later, he got back on with me. “Sorry, but I have to go,” he said, and then hung up on me.
“What did he say?”
“He blew me off,” I said as I closed up my phone.
“Does that mean we’re going to Pinerush after all?” Grace asked with a smile.
“Hey, we’ve done our civic duty,” I said. “I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen to me. My conscience is clear.”
“Really? I don’t know the last time I could have said that and actually meant it.”
I had to laugh at that. “Yeah, now that I think about it, the same goes for me, too.”
* * *
It looked like a mansion straight off a movie set as we drove up to the estate where James had grown up. The structure was massive, towering waves of stone after stone, beautifully sculpted grounds, and the beginnings of this spring’s garden out front. I half expected a movie star to greet us at the front door, but I wasn’t a bit surprised when a man in a suit answered.
“We’re here to offer our condolences to the family for their loss,” Grace said.
The man barely batted an eye. There was no invitation to enter forthcoming, and I wondered if he planned to leave us out on the front stoop all day. “And you are?” he said with just the right amount of chill in his voice.
“We were both friends of James,” I said before Grace could formally introduce us. I didn’t like the way the man looked down on us, and I wasn’t about to give him any more than I had to. “You have heard the news about him, haven’t you?” I had a sudden realization that they might not know what had happened yet. Was I there so soon that I would have to deliver the bad news about James’s demise? I surely hoped not.
“We were informed by the police. Please follow me,” he said. To my surprise, he led us to the side of the house instead of inside. “If you’ll follow me, the gardens are this way.”
“Thanks, but we really need to see James’s family.”
“Mrs. Pinerush is there, collecting her thoughts,” he explained.
Okay, I was fine with that. I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “Lead on, then.”
Grace looked at me oddly for a second, no doubt wondering where that had come from, but since I didn’t know myself, I just smiled softly.
We were led around the side of the house, and then I saw where the real garden was. It was a massive and formal affair that seemed to go on forever, and as we followed the still unidentified man, I had to wonder what the maintenance on the garden alone would cost over the course of a year. Finally, on a bench nestled off to one side, was an older woman who had clearly been crying for some time.
She looked up as we approached, and then told the man in a calm voice, “Stephen, I told you that I was not to be disturbed.” Her words had been spoken gently enough, but they’d carried a real bite to them.
“Excuse me, madam, but they say that they were friends of James,” he offered in quiet explanation.
She looked startled by the statement, and then turned immediately to us. “Is what Stephen says true?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’m Suzanne Hart, and this is Grace Gauge. We’re both sorry for your loss. Are you James’s mother, by any chance?”
“Am I to understand that he didn’t speak of me to you? I was his aunt, but since his parents died when he was young, I did my best to raise him. He was always a spirited child, and he did his utmost to frazzle me, but I treated him as one of my very own. Did he never talk about his life here at the manor?”
“Not a word, and I knew him pretty well,” I said. It wasn’t the nicest thing I could have said, but it was true, and this woman appeared to appreciate frankness in people.
“Why am I not surprised?” She seemed to realize for the first time that we were still standing. Patting the long bench beside her, she said, “Please join me.”
Grace and I took seats on either side of her, and once we were settled, she asked, “May I offer you anything? Something to drink, perhaps?”
“Thank you, but no. We’re fine.”
Once she was assured of that, she turned to the man waiting nearby and said, “Stephen, that will be all. You may go.”
He nodded curtly and then walked toward the house.
The second he was out of sight, she said, “Now, we must talk quickly, since we don’t have long before Forrest joins us.”
“Forrest?” I asked. “Is he your husband?” I thought this woman was in charge, but clearly whoever Forrest was, he was not someone to take lightly.
“In fact, he is my son, but he can be meddlesome and troubling, and I don’t want to deal with him at the moment. Now tell me, how exactly did the two of you know James?”
Grace said, “To be honest with you, we just chatted now and then, but Suzanne and he were close friends.”
That turned her attention to me. “So, go on, Suzanne. Tell me.”
“Well, we got off to a rocky start. We first met having an argument over some old train tracks, and the last time we spoke we were squabbling about the smoke from his fire pit getting into my donut shop, but during all of the time in between, I’m proud to say that we were friends. As a matter of fact, he made me a few things out of iron as presents over the time I knew him.”
“What exactly did he make you?” she asked.
“Let’s see. I have a beautiful set of bookends he made from railroad tracks, some twisted railroad spikes I use as paperweights, and some skewers he made by hand as well.”
She shook her head and said sadly, “What an absolute waste of the man’s natural talents. He had such great potential, and in the end he threw it all away to become nothing but a common laborer.”
I knew that she was in pain, but I was not about to let that stand. My friend deserved to be defended. “I’m sorry for your loss, but you’re wrong there. There was nothing common about James or his work. He was an artist with his anvil and forge. You should see the magnificent things he produced.”
“But he most likely had dirt under his fingernails and calluses on his hands when he died.” She acted as though it were a great betrayal.
“I’m sure that he did, but he came by them honestly enough. He was a good man,” I said. “That was all that counted to me and all of his other friends in April Springs. James made a place for himself among us, and we’re going to miss him terribly now that he’s gone.”
“Then he at least had that much in life,” she said with some resignation.
“In my book that’s all that really counts,” I said. I hadn’t come to engage in combat with the grande dame, but I wasn’t going to just roll over, either, and let her denigrate what James had accomplished.
She grew pensive as she stared off into the garden for a few moments. “Do the police have any idea who might have
killed him, and why? Do either of you?”
I never got the chance to answer her as an overweight man dressed in an elegant suit that had been tailored to fit his bulk came huffing toward us. “Excuse me,” he said, nearly out of breath as he approached. “I’m sorry, but my mother is not to be disturbed. We are in mourning.”
“We were just offering her our sympathies,” I said.
“Thank you for the gesture, but I must ask you to go.” He turned to her and offered his hand. “Mother, you’ll catch a chill out here. Come inside and warm up.”
I was surprised to see this strong woman yield to her son’s insistence. As she allowed herself to be led inside, she turned back to us for a moment and said, “Thank you both for coming.”
“Yes,” Forrest answered. “We all appreciate it. Now, if you’ll leave us, we’d be even more thankful.”
As the man ushered his mother inside, a movement off to one side of the garden caught my eye. Someone had been spying on us from the other side of the hedge that lined the space! I made a little small talk with Grace as I approached the spot I’d seen the movement, and when I got to it, I ordered, “Come out right now or I’ll call Forrest!”
There was no action for a few moments, and I began to wonder if it had all been in my imagination when a brawny man dressed in green pants and a matching work shirt stepped out. “No need for that,” he said. “The name’s Harry Parsons. I saw you approach Mrs. Pinerush following her lapdog Stephen, and I wanted to find out what you two were up to. Is it true what you told her just then?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Were you really both friends with James?” he asked again, his voice nearly breaking.
“I was,” I admitted. “As much as he aggravated me at times, he was a valuable friend to me, and I already miss him.”
“Then you deserve the truth,” he said as he looked around the grounds. He took another second and glanced at his watch, and then Harry said, “If you want to know anything about James’s life at the manor, meet me in town in twenty minutes at the Bell and Whistle café on Oak Street.”
Before I could agree or decline, Harry was gone, and when I looked back at the house, I saw that Forrest was watching us closely from the window.
“Let’s go,” I told Grace. “I don’t think we’re all that welcome here.”
“We’re going to meet Harry, though, right?”
“You couldn’t stop me if you tried,” I said.
* * *
When we got to the café in Pinerush, we were early. The diner was well-worn, as though it had seen its brightest lights in the fifties, but it was still comfortable, even though the vinyl in the booths and the linoleum floor were scuffed and faded. A waitress—tall and frail looking, with pale skin and blonde hair—met us at the door and told us to sit anywhere we pleased. We took a booth by the window, and “Lynette,” as her name tag read, slid the menus in front of us.
“Start you both off with some sweet tea?” she asked.
“That would be great,” I said. “We’ll wait to order, though, if that’s okay with you. We’re waiting for someone.”
“Aren’t we all, sister?” Lynette asked with a smile as she left to get our tea.
“Are we actually going to eat here?” Grace asked.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but lunch didn’t hold me, and I’m starving. What’s the matter, don’t you trust the food?”
She looked around at the other diners, who all appeared to be healthy enough. “Well, none of them are falling over, so we should be okay.”
We’d had our teas less than a minute when the door opened and Harry walked through. He scanned the place quickly, offered a few nods of recognition to some of the other patrons, and then joined us at our table.
“Ladies,” he said. “Thanks for meeting me.” Harry caught Lynette’s eye and held up a single finger. She must have known what he wanted, because she nodded in return, a huge smile blooming on her face the instant she saw him.
“Is this your home base?” Grace asked as she’d watched the exchange between them as well.
“It’s a matter of habit as much as anything else,” he admitted. “Dad brought me here when I was a kid, and I’ve kept coming back all these years.” As he looked around, he added, “As a matter of fact, Jim tagged along most of the time, too.”
“Jim?” I asked. “In all the time I knew James, I never heard him referred to as anything else but his formal name.”
“Yeah, well, they used to call me Slick when I was a kid, but I’ve been Harry for the last ten years, and not many slip up and use my old nickname these days.”
“Then you two were close growing up,” I said.
Harry looked a little wistful, taking a few moments before answering. “We used to say that we were brothers from different mothers. My father was the landscaper at the manor before me, and we had a place where I still live next to the gardening shed on the grounds.”
I must have grimaced slightly at the medieval allusion of serfs working the land for their lords and ladies.
Harry apparently caught it, and he laughed soundly. “I’m not sure what image your imagination just conjured up, but it was a great way to grow up. I had a wonderful little apartment, and all those acres to explore when I wasn’t in school. It was just about ideal. For me, anyway,” he added as Lynette brought our teas to us.
“Give us a minute before we order anything else, would you?” Harry asked her, and she slipped quietly away. Before she left, though, I caught a glimpse of the way she looked at him when he wasn’t aware of it. The woman was clearly in love, but it looked as though Harry didn’t have a clue. I wasn’t going to bring it up now, but maybe later, if the opportunity presented itself. Jake and Momma both thought that I meddled too much in the lives around me, but how could I just stand idly by while people made mistakes they weren’t even aware of?
“Are you implying that James had a rough childhood?” I asked.
Harry took a deep drink of his tea, killing nearly half of it, and the ever vigilant Lynette brought us two cute little plastic pitchers for our refills. Harry smiled at her as she did, and I thought she was going to explode, but she managed to contain it and went back to her station.
After he’d taken another drink, he said, “When we were kids, we both loved living there, but about the time we hit high school, Jim changed.”
“What happened?” Grace asked him.
“He wrote a report for our English class about his family history. We all wrote our own, but some of the things Jim found out were not good. He discovered the source of his family’s money and power, and he was never the same after that.”
“He took it that hard?” I asked.
Harry nodded solemnly. “By the time we graduated, he’d made up his mind that he never wanted to have anything to do with any of it again, and there was no convincing him otherwise. I talked to him until I was blue in the face, but he wouldn’t change his mind. He was going to give his fortune away and move to the mountains. Heck, I was just about ready to follow him, but Dad was determined that I go away for two years to study horticulture after high school, so that was out as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t bring myself to go against him, especially since I’ve always loved the gardens.”
“Did James actually leave then?” I asked.
“He did after he got tired of fighting them all. Evidently the money he’d inherited on his eighteenth birthday wasn’t really his to give away. It was all tied up in some kind of trust or something like that, and he could get the interest, but not the main chunk of it. The funny thing was he used the money he did get from the trust to hire a lawyer to help him do what he wanted to legally.”
“What happened?”
Harry shrugged. “It was tied up as tight as he’d feared.”
“What did he do when he found out he couldn’t touch it?” I asked.
“He got out of here as fast as he could go. He’d been accepted at Stanfor
d on a full academic scholarship, so he left for California and never looked back. At least not right away.” He refilled his tea glass with one of the pitchers, and then asked, “Would you two mind if I eat while we talk? I only have so much time before I have to get back.”
“That sounds good,” I said. “If you let it be our treat. After all, we’re the ones benefiting from this.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Harry said with a reckless smile.
“Anything you’d recommend? We’re hungry, too.”
Harry stared at us for a few seconds, and then he asked, “Do you like meat loaf and mashed potatoes? If you do, don’t order it here. It’s the worst thing on the menu. I don’t know why Kenny even insists on serving it.”
I had to laugh. “Okay, we’ll cross that one off our list. What are you going to have?”
“I always get the hamburger steak with grilled peppers and onions, green beans, and fries. You can believe me when I say that it’s much better than it sounds.”
“I don’t know; it sounds good to me,” I said, and he motioned to Lynette. Grace agreed to try it, and Lynette took our orders. Before we could return to our conversation, she came back with three heaping plates of food.
“That was fast,” Grace said.
“It’s today’s special, so Kenny keeps a lot of it back there,” Harry said.
As promised, it was indeed delicious. The hamburger steak was cooked to a perfect medium-well, and the onions and peppers were wonderful. The beans were clearly homegrown and canned, and the fries didn’t even need catsup they were so good. As hard as it was to ignore the food and focus on our guest, I did my best, sneaking bites as I asked Harry more about James.
Finishing a French fry, I asked, “When did he come back for the last time?”
Harry thought about it a second, and then told us. It was right before he’d first showed up in April Springs asking about the old railroad tracks near Donut Hearts. Had he come straight from the manor to join our little community?
“That’s about when he moved to our town,” I said.
Harry nodded. “Something bad happened here, and he wasn’t about to stay. Besides, he never was cut out for life around here. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that he ended up there.” With a wistful tone in his voice, Harry said, “He called me a few times after he left, but he was actually afraid that the phones were bugged on the estate. I told him my cell phone was clean, but he wouldn’t risk it. We were planning on going fishing next summer, but that’s not going to happen now.”