“Beau, whose handwriting is this? Is it Henry’s?”
“Yeah. Those are his notes.”
“Is he here yet?”
“Should be—down at the stables. Everything all right?”
“Yeah, I just need to ask him something before I head out.” She rose from the table, then paused, and looked at him. “Take care of yourself, okay? Try to get some rest today.”
“Thanks, kiddo.”
60
Dead Letters
Gray clouds roved over equally gray skies as Harley stepped outside Briarcliffe’s doors. With a rise in the temperature, the snow had turned to rain, and it pelted against the brim of her hat and dampened her rain jacket. Her boots sloshed through puddles on the veranda, then swished through wet grass on her way across the grounds to the stables.
The stables lay in a shallow valley beneath the house—just before the lawn met the woods.
In olden days, the Sutcliffes were known for their love of horses, equally matched by their equestrian skills. They were the best horseback riders in the region, and this depth of love and talent was evident in their stables, equipped to hold more than twenty-five horses.
The horses, however, had been gone for decades, and the stables empty for just as long. What horses were for his ancestors, guitars and music were for Beau Arson. He would replace them with his vintage guitar collection, as well as space for recording music in his commercial studio.
Harley approached the ten-thousand-square-foot wooden structure, cream-colored to match Briarcliffe’s limestone.
A black umbrella shown before the front doors. Henry Trainor stood beneath the umbrella, propping the handle against his shoulder as he held a pen and graphing notebook. He wore a waxed cotton field coat and green Wellingtons, with his signature tweed hat perched on his head.
He feverishly scribbled notes on the pad, his body jerking, his hand intermittently wiping tears from his eyes. He seemed to be trying his hardest to concentrate on the task at hand, but the pain he felt was getting the best of him.
“Henry …”
He stopped writing. With his pen still pressed to the pad, he turned and looked at Harley over his shoulder.
“Harley?”
His amber eyes were reddened by tears, and his face swollen from unsuccessful attempts to stop them.
“Oh, Harley, I apologize—I …”
He turned his face from her in embarrassment, then dragged the back of his hand across his eyes, wiping away the tears.
“Henry, it’s okay.” She took careful steps toward him. “I know about you and Jennifer.”
His eyes met hers again, and widened with astonishment. “What?” His eyelids blinked rapidly, and he sputtered, “You do?”
Harley swallowed. “I, um, found the remains of a love letter in her apartment—one you’d written her.” She closed her lips, then parted them again. “I recognized your handwriting.”
He removed his tweed hat and tugged at his thick gray hair, staring at the muddy ground beneath his boots. The rain had stopped, and little droplets glided down the sides of his umbrella, and hit the ground.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love again,” he said. “Caroline—my wife—she was the most amazing woman I’d ever seen, ever known. The most beautiful, the kindest, the smartest. I fell in love with her the—the very first time I ever saw her. That’s all there was. And I knew—I knew that if I were lucky enough to get her, that I’d love her with my whole body and soul for the rest of my life. And I have. I still do. And after she passed … I—I didn’t think I’d ever love anybody again. Not like that. But then Jennifer came along, and she’d just lost the love of her life, too, and she understood what it felt like, understood what I was going through—that awful feeling of emptiness, loss. We found comfort in each other. We even wanted to get married when the timing was right.”
“Why didn’t you all tell anyone?”
“We planned to—eventually … just not yet. People …” He shook his head. “People were saying all these bad things about Jennifer behind her back. Awful things. About her being a gold digger, a black widow. None of it was true, but Jennifer—well, she didn’t want it to affect our relationship—get me muddled into the mix. So we saw each other in secret.” He gave half a smile. “She said she’d always had a crush on me—I couldn’t believe it—she said I was the only man in town she’d ever consider seeing after her husband died.”
Harley remembered Jennifer had told Samantha the same thing.
“It started out just as a friendship—an innocent friendship. We’d talk when we met up while working, and … she was … Jennifer was a different kind of person—a special person. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, she was—she was intelligent and kind and affectionate. And before I knew it, I found myself … well, I found myself falling in love with her. I couldn’t help it. I wrote her that letter, telling her how I felt … and she said she felt the same way. I even asked her if she was bothered by the age difference. I mean, I was twenty years older than her. But she liked my age, she said. Liked mature men. Always had. Her husband—I think—was my age.”
This was true.
Harley said, “Henry, when I found the letter you’d written Jennifer, it’d been burned.”
He cocked his head. “Burned?”
“Do you know of anybody who would’ve done that?”
He dropped his gaze to the ground again, considering the question. “I’m not sure—I, uh …”
“What is it, Henry?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say.”
“Who?”
He hesitated. “Well, I … don’t think her friend, Samantha—I don’t think she liked our relationship very much.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, Jennifer was afraid to tell her about us. Thought she’d be jealous if she found out.”
“Why would she be jealous? Did she say?”
He drew in a breath and released it. “Samantha … she was … very protective of Jennifer. Seemed like she wanted her all to herself. Jennifer thought so, too. Samantha was divorced and alone and poor. Jennifer was all she had. And I think she kind of looked at Jennifer like some kind of savior. She was very dependent on her—for everything.”
Harley had drawn a similar conclusion.
“Now none of us will ever have her,” he said, the hurt returning to his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry you lost her.”
She directed her gaze above the stables, and to the foothills as they rolled past woods, sweeping upward toward the mountains. The rain had turned to mist, which rose like an army of ghosts to the peaks, then disappeared into the morning sky.
“Henry,” she said, turning back to him, “I need to ask you something, and I—I hate to ask it because I know you’re upset and I know you’re going to think it’s crazy, but …”
“What is it, Harley?”
“Do you know if there are … Do you know if Briarcliffe has any secret passages?”
“Secret passages?” He stared at her with raised brows, then shook his head. “Sounds like something out of a book.”
“I know it does,” Harley said in resignation. “But I thought I’d ask just in case you might …”
“Well, I certainly never heard anything about any. And there wasn’t anything even close to indicating that on the blueprints Beau and I looked at.” He shook his head again. “Even James never mentioned anything. And of anybody, he would’ve known. I think he would’ve told me. I mean, I was one of his best friends.” He reflected on this point and added, “But then again, maybe he didn’t want anybody to know.”
“So, there’s a possibility, then?”
He looked at her in earnest. “Of course. But it’s probably a small one.”
She gave a nod of agreement. It was as she had assumed. A fool’s guess. “Thank you.” She turned to leave, then stopped and asked, “Is everything going okay with the plans?”
“
Just fine. Just fine. I’m going to keep at it—for Beau’s sake. He’s had enough hurt in his life.”
And it would be good for Henry to keep working, too, Harley thought. Keep his mind focused on something other than Jennifer.
“I’ll let you get back to work then.”
He forced a smile, then turned away before the redness in his eyes returned, along with the tears.
Harley hiked her way back across the grounds toward her truck. She felt sorry for Henry, her heart aching right along with his. He had true, undeniable sadness in his eyes. It was a look she knew and understood well.
She got into her truck, and started the engine. Before she opened Smoky Mountain Spirits for the day, she needed to get Matilda from her house, then pick up the new inventory from the distillery.
She headed that way.
61
Purdy in Holiday Pink
“What happened to you?” Aunt Wilma asked when Harley and Matilda entered the distillery an hour later.
“Late night.” Harley closed the doors behind her, and Matilda plopped down in her bed beside Wilma’s desk. In her state of fatigue, Harley lacked the energy to protest when Wilma unwrapped a Little Debbie holiday cake and fed it to Matilda.
“That pig keepin’ you up with them Dirty Harry movies again?” Wilma asked.
“Nothing like that.”
She trudged through the office, past Wilma’s desk, then propped her weight against the counter. She poured a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar.
“Beau doin’ alright?” Wilma asked. “I heard they was protestin’ outside Briarcliffe last night.”
“He’s okay.”
“And how about poor ol’ Jennifer Williams? Police found out anything?”
“Jed’s been working on it. That’s about as much as I know.”
She did not mention her own investigation. It was best to keep a gossiping Aunt Wilma in the dark.
In the background, The Home Shopping Network blared from the flat screen TV, featuring a new line of muumuu negligee.
“Now, I might just have to get me one of them,” Wilma said. “Might make for a merry Christmas for your Uncle Buck. A happy new year, too.”
“Where’s Opha Mae?” Harley asked, surprised not to see her at work that morning.
“Oh, she’s at the pedi … pedia … pediatricianist havin’ a couple of corns removed. Said she needed to take a sick day.”
Harley imagined Opha Mae at home in her recliner with her foot propped up, binge watching Days of Our Lives with a Virginia Slims cigarette dangling from her lips. She held a piña colada wine cooler in her hand and a bowl of popcorn in her lap.
“Which podiatrist?”
“Dr. Gout. I reckon he’s the only in town that’s any count.”
Notchey Creek was the only town Harley knew of with a podiatrist named Dr. Gout. She wondered if, on a subconscious or even conscious level, the name had led to his decision to enter the field. Regardless of the cause, he was good at what he did.
The front doors blew open and Tina appeared, wearing a red-and-white striped sweater, red leather skirt, and stilettos, with white pompoms on the toes. A Santa hat covered her peroxide blond curls but did not disguise the peppermint earrings dangling from her ears.
“Mornin’, yinz!”
“You come for Petie’s outfit?” Wilma asked.
“Oh, gosh, yes.” Tina looked at Harley to explain. “Grandma ordered it. Wanted an elf costume to match Matilda’s.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Wilma said, “that Matilda’s startin’ a trend. And I reckon Opha Mae done dropped it off for you here, too, this mornin’.”
She removed a little green elf costume from a plastic grocery bag and placed it on the desk.
Tina examined the miniature elf costume, and after raising a brow, she said, “I swear that’s gonna be the most foul-mouthed elf anybody’s ever seen.”
Wilma nodded in agreement, then focused her attention on Harley. “Opha Mae brung somethin’ by for you, too,” she said. “But I reckon you ain’t gonna like it none.”
She reached into a second bag, this time revealing a polka-dot pink dress with puffed sleeves and a lace V-neck bodice.
“What is it?” Harley asked, peering at the dress over her coffee mug.
“It’s your dress for the New Year’s Eve ball, dum-dum. But, you see,” she said holding it up with pride, “this ain’t just any old dress. It’s a special dress.”
Harley crinkled her nose. “But it looks kind of dated, don’t you think?” Even with her lack of fashion sense, she placed the style to at least the mid-1980s.
“Purdy in Pink,” Wilma said.
“Huh?”
Tina squealed. “It is! Oh, my gosh, it like really is!”
“Purdy in Pink,” Wilma said again.
“But I don’t get it,” Harley said.
“You never do.” Tina groaned, rolling her eyes. “Oh, for the love of Pete, Harley! It’s Molly Ringwald’s dress from Pretty in Pink—duh—only like the most romantic movie of all time!”
Harley searched her memory for the movie’s title, a vague recollection registering. “But wasn’t that made sometime back in the ’80s?”
“1985,” Tina said.
Wilma clarified. “But Opha Mae just seen it for the first time the other day. Fell in love with it at first sight. Thought it’d be perfect for you.”
Harley frowned. “But it looks more like a prom dress, not a dress for a holiday party.”
“Oh, stop bein’ so technical all the time, young’un.”
Then a second and much worse thought occurred to Harley. “Does Matilda have one, too?”
“Of course she does.”
Aunt Wilma and Opha Mae had a history of creating unbearable outfits for Harley and her pig. Already she was imagining what the three-hundred-pound pig would look like in a pink polka-dot satin dress with puffed sleeves.
“Except Matilda’s got a tiara to wear, too.”
Tina cupped her hands together and rested them to her chest, gazing past them with nostalgia. “Just picture it, yinz! Molly Ringwald is a poor, but super smart girl named Andie. She lives with her dad on the wrong side of town, and she’s a little bit of an outcast—kinda like you, Harley—kind of nerdy and does her own thing. Anyway, then there’s the super dreamy Blane, played by Andrew McCarthy—of Mannequin fame, of course—and he’s this rich, popular kid who’s got a secret crush on Andie.” She looked at Harley after she said this, and added, “Givin’ hope to unpopular weirdo girls everywhere.”
“Watch it,” Harley said, then smiled.
Tina winked at her and continued, telling them how Andie and Blane, because of their socioeconomic differences, break up, only to be reunited at the high school prom when Blane sees Andie in her homemade dress.
She motioned to the polka-dot pink dress draped across Wilma’s desk. “That dress. And then Blane sees her, and he realizes that he like totally screwed up, and that they’re like totally meant to be, and then, oh, my gosh …” She squealed again. “Then the band starts playin’ ‘If You Leave’!”
“What’s that?” Harley said.
“By Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark!”
“Sounds like some kind of Kama Sutra position,” Wilma said.
“No, Aunt Wilma! Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was a band in the ’80s. And they wrote like the best love song of all time—‘If You Leave.’ And then Andie and Blane start dancin’ and you just know they’re gonna live happily ever after, leavin’ a forever place in the hearts of teenage girls everywhere.”
“But I’m twenty-six,” Harley said.
“What’d I say about gettin’ so technical?” Wilma said.
“You see, that’s what you need,” Tina said. “Your very own Blane. That’s the key to findin’ your happiness.”
Harley gave the two women a wry grin. “Oh, I don’t know. Not to complain, but I might be too plain for the likes of Blane.”
Tina rolled
her eyes. “Do you like have to make a joke out of everything?” Another huff. “And you wouldn’t be plain at all if you’d just dress right, make an effort every once in a while. I mean, who knows what’s even underneath all that man repeller you wear all the time.”
“Amen, sister,” Wilma said. “And I can tell you somethin’ else too, Tina. I ain’t never gonna get me no great-grandnieces or nephews. Not with how she carries on.”
Harley sighed. “Oh, you know I’ll wear the dress.”
She was not sure if she was kindhearted or stupid or both.
“And you can kindly thank Opha Mae for making it for me.”
Wilma handed her the dress bag, and said, “And I’ve got you a hair and makeup appointment set up at the beauty parlor for the day of the party. So don’t you be late, you hear?”
Tina laughed. “It’ll be like touchin’ the bust of Nefertiti for those technicians.”
Harley gave Tina a look, then tucked the dress bag under her arm.
Just then, Floyd burst through the front doors in his Dickies and construction hat. “We’re about ready, y’all!”
“Ready for what?” Wilma said.
“The surprise,” he said. “Our big surprise.”
“Am I gonna need my broom?” Wilma asked.
“Now, Wilmer,” Floyd said. “It ain’t like that—not this time. It’s a nice surprise.”
“All right, we’re comin’,” Wilma said, hoisting herself up from the chair. She readjusted her Little Richard wig. “Don’t be makin’ me mess up my hair though. This is a new style, and it’s windy out.”
“Won’t take long,” Floyd said, then disappeared back outside.
“Y’all comin’?” Wilma asked Harley and Tina. “To see this big surprise?”
“Oh, we wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Harley answered.
62
The Gingershed
Uncle Tater stood before the work shed’s double doors, his hands resting on the handles.
The Ghosts of Notchey Creek Page 20