A Thousand Generations

by Traci DePree

  “I’ll start making some house calls,” Paul said. “Maybe if I can talk to members one-on-one, they might be willing to put this all aside.”

  “And in the meantime?” Kate asked.

  Paul tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled into her eyes. “You keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll believe God for the outcome. That hasn’t changed.”

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE REASON the man with a limp—W.M., Kate assumed—would search out Lucas Wilcox before Kate talked to him. Somehow he had already known about the money’s roots, how it could be traced back to the bank robbery, before the newspaper article came out. How else could he have known about the old man’s ties to the story?

  Which meant that Phillip’s hunch was right: unlocking the past of that Wooden Lady would lead them to the thief.

  Kate and Phillip agreed that delving into who Roy Simmonds was and his connection to Jack Leonetti was their next step. Phillip insisted on continuing to help her with the investigation.

  “This person tried to set me up!” he’d said. “I want to see him brought to justice. And besides, with everything that’s going on with Paul at the church, it’s the least I can do.”

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY as soon as it opened the next day. A yellow school bus was parked in the gravel lot, and the sounds of young voices in excited talk bounced across the corridor when she and Phillip made their way up the stairs.

  Lila Paisley was surrounded by eager faces just inside the entrance to the museum. She held up a faded blue dress that looked to be from the early part of the century. “How do you think this dress was made?” she was asking the children.

  One girl with blonde pigtails raised her hand, and Lila acknowledged her.

  “Was it sewn on a sewing machine?”

  “No.” Lila shook her head. “This dress was all hand stitched with a needle and thread. Can you imagine how much work that took?” She scrunched up her face for effect.

  The children oohed.

  “Nowadays,” she went on, “we buy our clothes at the mall, but back then they made their clothes for themselves.”

  Kate caught her eye, and Lila paused to acknowledge the two of them with a quick wave.

  “Is it okay if we use the other room?” Kate said in a stage whisper.

  “Of course,” Lila said. “I’ll be in as soon as we finish our tour.” She turned back to the children, the crinkles in the corners of her eyes revealing her affection for the youngsters.

  “What do you think happened if someone wasn’t very good at sewing?” she went on as Kate and Phillip moved into the research room.

  “She’s quite a lady, isn’t she?” Phillip said as Kate closed the door.

  Kate turned to him. “Oh?” she said.

  “We had a nice talk the other day when she drove me home.”

  He didn’t elaborate; he simply walked ahead into the archive room where the boxes of files were kept. Kate smiled to herself.

  Once she’d set her handbag on the long table, Kate retrieved Simmonds’ book about Leonetti. She flipped through it while Phillip brought out a box of articles from the 1930s that they hadn’t yet searched through. But she didn’t discover any new information in the book, so she soon joined Phillip, who was looking through newspapers. She scanned several articles, and finally one popped out at her. Dated several years after the robbery, it read as follows:

  LOCAL BANKER INDICTED ON TAX EVASION CHARGES

  Former banker Roy Simmonds from Merchants National was indicted on three charges of tax evasion this past week. Allegations go on to state that the man used ill-gotten funds, money allegedly from the Merchants National Bank robbery in 1930, to purchase properties abroad.

  Simmonds denies all wrongdoing in the matter and asserts his innocence. He is out of jail on bond awaiting his July trial.

  “Lucas was right,” Kate whispered to herself.

  Phillip lifted his head. “What did you find?”

  She showed him the article, and he lowered his head to read it. He whistled lowly as he handed it back to her. “So do you think he stole the mannequin from Horace?” Phillip asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Kate admitted. “But I think we’re on the right trail.”

  AFTER ABOUT AN HOUR, Lila came in. She had a grin on her face.

  “Do you give tours to grade-school children often?” Kate asked, stretching her back from sitting so long on the hard wooden chair.

  “Several every month, actually,” Lila said. “The homeschoolers like to bring in their kids regularly and, of course, with my connections at the public school, I try to get each grade in for a tour at least once a year.”

  “Your connections?” Phillip said.

  “I was a third-grade teacher for many years, and my father set up a trust before he died. It gives scholarships to young people who want to study history. Now I manage that as well as his other endowments.”

  “So that’s why you have time to study pirates?” Phillip asked.

  Lila laughed. “Pretty much,” she said. “I love teaching kids about history. Too often people treat the past like it doesn’t matter, you know. Yet it’s the very thing that roots us, makes us who we are. If we don’t look back and see where we’ve succeeded and where we’ve failed, how can we expect to make the world a better place?”

  She was clearly passionate about the subject, and when Kate glanced at Phillip, she saw the interest on his face, but just as quickly he straightened and bent to study the papers before him.

  “Well,” Lila glanced at Phillip, then said to Kate, “don’t let me keep you.” She moved into the next room. Kate could hear the scrape of a ladder and Lila climbing to get something down from the tall shelves.

  Kate returned to scanning the newspapers.

  They were just about to break for lunch when Kate came across an advertisement for Hanlon’s Boutique. It read, “Big sale this Saturday. You won’t want to miss it!” Underneath was a drawing of a woman in 1930s apparel and the street address for the store. Kate studied it for a moment. She’d known the store was on Smith Street, but she hadn’t known the number. Staring at it now, she realized it was familiar. Then it dawned on her. Hanlon’s Boutique was at the same address as the current Smith Street Gifts, just down the street from Loving’s Antiques.

  AFTER DROPPING PHILLIP OFF at the antiques store that afternoon, Kate parked in front of Smith Street Gifts. When she came through the front door of the brick Victorian, Steve, the proprietor, was talking to a customer. He was a nice single man in his mid-thirties. Kate sometimes wondered why some lovely woman hadn’t snatched him up yet.

  The place was crammed with tchotchkes and souvenirs for tourists, as well as gifts for the locals. Kate made her way to the back, past the wide selection of greeting cards and shelves of locally made ceramics, and looked around, waiting for Steve.

  When he’d finished with his customer, he made his way back to Kate. He was neatly dressed in slacks and a white shirt with a tie. His hazel eyes crinkled into a smile.

  “Kate, how are you?”

  “I’m well,” Kate said.

  “Is there anything I can help you find?”

  Kate paused and met his eyes. “I have a request, actually.”

  Steve straightened a bit, and his brow raised in curiosity. “Whatever you like.”

  “I’ve been doing a bit of research into our family history...Paul’s family. I discovered that in the 1930s, this store was his grandfather’s boutique.”

  He pointed at the floor. “You mean my store? Oh wow. So my grandparents must’ve bought the building from them when they opened in the late 1930s. That’s exciting! So what is it you’re looking for?”

  “That’s the tricky part. It’s nothing specific; I’m just looking for any clues I can find to what might’ve happened here in 1930...Does that make sense?”

  “It has to do with that mannequin I read about in the Chronicle?” Steve asked and Kate nodded.

  Interest lit his
eyes. “Feel free to snoop.” He waved around the store.

  The rooms upstairs held overstock items and an apartment, all of which had been remodeled within the past five years, so Kate opted for the basement first.

  A lone bulb lit the wooden stairs that led into the darkness below. The floor was dirt, and the foundation walls stone. She glanced back toward the opened doorway, grateful for the shaft of light it added, feeble though it might be. Steve had given her a flashlight that she turned on now and pointed into the corners of the basement. The room was filled with boxes, some newer and some that appeared to be quite old, the paraphernalia of the former Smith generations who’d run the gift shop above. Kate glanced into several of the boxes, but nothing struck her as significant. She turned to the area near the back where the utilities were, in a smaller room.

  Another bare bulb lit the space where a hot-water heater and furnace were housed. A coating of dust lined every horizontal surface. Kate poked her flashlight behind these but saw nothing unusual there either.

  Just as she was about to exit the smaller room, she noted what appeared to be a door frame buried in the wall to the far right. Kate ran the beam of light along the wood. The interior where a door would have been was filled in with a newer section of stone wall. It was smaller than a normal door, only four feet tall and slightly narrower as well. She ran her hand along the edge of it, unsure exactly what she was looking for.

  Finally she gave up and returned upstairs, where Steve was reading the paper behind the checkout counter.

  “You find anything?” he asked, lifting his head.

  “I don’t know. What’s the section of wall that looks like a stone door with a wooden door frame?”

  “That’s been there forever. I have no idea what it is.”

  Kate studied his face. He had deep dimples in his cheeks whether he was smiling or not, and his brow furrowed in thought.

  “Do you think there could be something behind that wall?” she asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Steve replied. He lifted an eyebrow as if he were taking a bet. “Let’s take a look.” He rose from his chair and led the way back down the stairs to the strange-looking section of wall.

  “You see what I mean?” Kate said as she moved the flashlight’s beam along the perimeter.

  “It had to have been something,” Steve agreed. He banged his flashlight against the stone, then stood back to think. “It looks like we might need to do a little digging, Kate,” he said with a mischievous grin.

  KATE WAS JUST CLIMBING into her car to head home and work on her stained-glass window when her phone buzzed to life.

  She glanced at the display and didn’t recognize the number. She hit Talk and said, “Hello?”

  “Kate, this is Lila. I hope it’s okay that I’m calling you. I got your number from Miriam McLaughlin.”

  “Of course it’s okay. Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” Lila said. “I was hoping to talk to you about something...personal.”

  Kate’s interest was piqued. “Personal, how?” she said.

  “Are you free now? Could I meet you?”

  “Of course. I’ve got about an hour before I need to get supper going at home. I’d be happy to meet with you.”

  They decided on the Country Diner.

  Since it wasn’t quite the dinner hour when Kate and Lila arrived, the restaurant was still quiet. Only one table had a patron, a man in a corner booth who sat staring at the comings and goings outside through the plate-glass windows that spanned the front of the eatery.

  LuAnne Matthews showed Kate and Lila to a blue vinyl booth two down from the man and placed menus on the Formica tabletop.

  “Did y’all want tea today? And maybe a nice hunk of apple pie with a scoop of our homemade vanilla ice cream?” LuAnne said with a wink behind her horn-rimmed glasses. She set two glasses of ice water on the table.

  Kate smiled at her friend. “Actually, I think I’ll stick with some afternoon tea, LuAnne. I need to save my appetite for dinner,” she said with a smile. “But make sure you tell Loretta that the smell of her apple pie is an enormous temptation.”

  “You got it, girl,” said LuAnne. “Anything for you, miss?”

  Lila smiled and ordered coffee.

  “They make the coffee pretty strong here,” Kate warned.

  Lila grinned and said, “I like it that way.”

  LuAnne scooted off to fill their order. Kate studied Lila for a moment, wondering what she wanted to talk about.

  Lila took a long sip of her water. When she put the glass down, she said, “You’re probably wondering why I wanted to talk with you.”

  “I figured you’d get around to that,” Kate said.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Phillip.”

  “Oh?” Kate sat back, surprised. Though she’d noticed that the woman seemed attracted to Phillip. “What about him?”

  “Well, the thing is...I mean, I’m interested in learning more about him.”

  The fortysomething woman looked more like a teenager with a crush than a seasoned third-grade teacher. It endeared Kate to her.

  “And I think I’ve sensed a mutual attraction,” Lila went on. “But when I gave him a ride home the other day...when you went to the courthouse...” She paused. “Well, we talked a little, but he seemed closed off. He told me that his wife died a few years ago, and he still seemed broken up about it. I guess I’m getting mixed signals.”

  Just then LuAnne arrived at the table and dropped off the drinks before moving off to seat a couple on the other side of the restaurant. Lila took a sip of her coffee, winced, then said, “You weren’t kidding!”

  Kate gave her a teasing “I told you so” look and blew into her teacup.

  “I can understand why you’d be feeling confused,” Kate finally said. “It’s obvious that Phillip’s intrigued by you, but I’m not sure he’s ready for a relationship yet.” She saw how Lila’s shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry,” Kate went on. “Phillip adored Ginny. He was devastated when she died.”

  “I understand,” Lila said.

  Kate could see the disappointment on her face, and her heart went out to the woman. Yet there wasn’t a thing she could do. Some things were best left in the hands of God.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kate decided to stop in at Phillip’s shop before heading home that evening. She found him in the utility room bent over some task in back of the hot-water heater. She cleared her throat, and he lifted his head.

  “I didn’t expect to see you again today,” he said.

  She thought of her conversation with Lila and waited for him to finish up whatever he was doing. Finally he pulled himself out from the cramped space and straightened.

  “So what did you find out at Smith’s?” he asked, glancing at her.

  “I’m not completely sure,” Kate said.

  “Huh?” he said as he gathered up his tools and placed them back into the toolbox he kept in his office.

  She told him about the door frame built into the wall and Steve’s agreement to look into it, to see if something more was there.

  Phillip headed to his office with Kate following behind. Ellie was closing out the till. Kate could hear the register’s hum as it printed off the long sheet from that day’s transactions.

  Phillip took a deep breath and sat in his office chair. Kate took the seat opposite him. He closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head. “It was a good day,” he said.

  “Can I ask you something?” Kate said.

  Phillip raised his eyebrows. “Sure, I guess,” he said.

  Kate waited for a moment. “Do you ever think about dating again?”

  “Wow,” he said, then added, “not really.” He shook his head. “I like being single.”

  “You liked being a husband too, no?”

  “To Ginny. She was the only one for me. I’d be asking too much of God to expect him to do that twice in one lifetime.”

  “I can unde
rstand that,” Kate said. “I’d feel the same way about Paul.”

  THAT WEEKEND KATE MANAGED to get a little work done on Phillip’s stained-glass window. She’d drawn up the template earlier, and now she chose the glass in varied textures and shades of orange. She began to cut out the design in exacting lines, fitting the pieces of glass together perfectly so they wouldn’t shift with the addition of new pieces.

  Once she’d cut the whole window out, she began to tape the edges with copper foil, then smoothing the foil down with her smoothing tool. This was the metal edge that the solder stuck to so the individual glass pieces would hold together to form a window.

  It had taken much of Sunday afternoon, but by five o’clock, the window was ready to be soldered.

  Kate stretched her back, which ached from being bent over her worktable for so long. The phone rang, and Kate remembered that Paul had gone out for an afternoon run, so she went to answer it in the kitchen.

  Rebecca was on the other end. “Oh, Mom!”

  Immediately Kate knew something was wrong.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “It’s Melody. I don’t know what to do,” Rebecca said, a sound of fear in her voice.

  “Take a deep breath,” Kate said. She could hear her daughter inhale. “Now start at the beginning.”

  “Okay...,” she said. “I’d waited like you said, gave her time before trying to connect with her. And she finally called me and admitted that she knew I was right about Todd. We talked on the phone for a long time. She sounded better, more confident.”

  Rebecca was talking so fast that Kate struggled to keep up with her.

  “Melody said,” she went on, “that she was going to confront him this morning about his cheating and break up with him. I was nervous about it. Who knew how the guy would react?” She blew out a heavy breath. “Then she didn’t call me like she said she would afterward to tell me how it went...”

  A sense of dread grew in Kate as Rebecca continued. “So I went to her place, but she wasn’t there. I talked to her neighbor, and, Mom”—she paused as if trying to compose herself—“he told me that there had been a fight, and Melody was taken away in an ambulance!”