“No, no reason for that,” Sarah said. “But she and I need to have a good long chat about Grandma Mary Mac, so she knows the history.”
Brooke’s face lit up. “That would be wonderful. Let’s grab our seats.”
A prickling sensation kept Sarah from moving. But when she turned to see who was watching her, she saw no one. Strange …
“Sarah?” Brooke’s words pierced her fog. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Or a ghost saw me. “Sorry. I’m fine.” She took her sister-in-law’s arm. “Let’s go root for your kids.”
Aidan’s team played first, losing to the visitors from Whitefish three to one. In the second game, Olivia shone, running up and down the field with ease, defending, scoring, cheering on her teammates. She had her father’s height and that same easy stride as Abby. Kids at play, on a bright spring day. Life went on, and life was good. As the game wound down, the home team well in command, she glanced at her beaming brother. She clapped her hands and turned back to the field, her irritation with her husband and her brother over their secret business deal a thing of the past.
Minutes later, the game was over, the Deer Park kids jumping up and down in victory. Olivia had scored the winning goal and had the ball in her arms when a boy from the other team ran up and tried to jerk it loose. She tightened her grip and pulled the ball closer. The boy kicked her in the shin. She yelped and dropped one hand to her leg, while he grabbed the ball and dashed away. Connor sprinted onto the field, along with one of the coaches, while other kids and adults corralled the offender.
Brooke clapped one hand over her mouth and Sarah slipped an arm around her.
“She’ll be fine,” she said. “They’re taking care of her. She’s a brave girl.”
Olivia refused to sit or to lean on an adult, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her leg to ease the pain. A minute later, she took to the sidelines, clearly trying not to limp. Then the kids dispersed and the next pair of teams, the oldest kids, took the field.
“What was that all about?” Sarah asked Brooke.
“Luke Erickson,” Brooke said. “I’d like to say he’s behaving badly because he’s upset about his father’s murder. But he was in Olivia’s class until Misty moved the kids to Whitefish last year, and he’s always been a bully. Can’t stand a girl being better than him.”
Just like his father. She started to chide herself, then stopped. You weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead. But there was no reason you couldn’t think it.
32
“Someone better give that boy a good talking to,” Peggy said as they left the playfields. Olivia claimed her leg didn’t hurt, though she would have a nasty bruise, even with the ice pack a coach had given her. She’d wanted to stay and cheer for the last game of the day, and her parents agreed. They’d join the rest of the family later at the Spruce.
“Not sure it would do any good,” Holly replied. “Bullying is in his genes.”
They crossed the street in front of the law office and Sarah saw a light on. “You two go ahead. I’ll meet you there.”
To her surprise, the door was unlocked.
“Hello? Renee?”
No answer. She stepped inside, careful to avoid the spot where Lucas had died. The smell had dissipated, but the place still held a mood. If she owned this building, she’d probably be eager to unload it, too. Years ago, in their first house in Seattle, there had been a murder-suicide in the next block, and the house had been torn down, the lot sitting empty for a few years before a duplex went in.
“Renee? Are you here?” she called again, and again got no reply.
She peered into the conference room. Empty. Across the hall stood Lucas’s office, looking no different than earlier in the week. Her eyes locked on the black-framed photo on the credenza, and she picked it up. Were there clues to Lucas’s state of mind in the way the three young men stood beside Jeremy’s red car? She didn’t know if she wanted this picture, or if Vonda Brown Garrett might want to see it. Maybe she should burn it, put the past firmly in the past.
Ha. Like a McCaskill would do such a thing.
“What are you doing in here?” Renee Harper’s voice broke into her melancholy.
“Sorry. I called your name and didn’t hear you, so …” Sarah held up the photograph. “Mind if I take this? Lucas with my husband and a friend. Though I suppose I ought to be asking Leo. Sheriff McCaskill.”
“Your cousin.”
“My cousin,” Sarah agreed, and glanced around the office. “It’s a nice space. Close to the courthouse. I imagine another lawyer would be happy to snap it up. Especially if it came with an experienced legal secretary.”
The other woman looked surprised, then appeared to realize Sarah meant her. “Not sure I can wait that long. Better talk to your cousin if you want those client files.”
“No. No.” Sarah held up the framed photo. “This is all I wanted.” A minute later, standing outside the front door, she paused to slip the photo into her bag, and heard the dead bolt snick shut behind her.
* * *
Sarah slid into the booth at the Blue Spruce, the same booth where she and Janine had sat that first day back in town.
Monday. That had been Monday. Today was Saturday. Life had seemed so out of order since Jeremy’s death, but the days of the week had a comforting rhythm. If you could remember them.
Holly and Peggy were deep in conversation about Becca’s suggestions for staging the lodge, if they decided to sell, for updating if they didn’t, and the pros and cons of the historic listing. Deb set coffee and a slice of pie in front of her. She smiled at the waitress. Huckleberry-peach. Thank God for pie and bossy women who knew what you needed even when you didn’t.
Sarah took a sip. Not bad, but Holly was right. The Spruce wasn’t everyone’s cuppa. Could they convince Janine to let them help her open her own place in town? A worry for another day. She picked up her fork.
Two bites in, she set it down. “Mom, what do you know about Renee Harper?” And why the woman eyed her with such distrust. Though it wasn’t good to read too much into a short encounter.
“Oh, right—she was Lucas Erickson’s secretary. Is that who you stopped to see?” Peggy reached for her coffee. “Renee Taunton. She was a few years ahead of you. One of those kids with all kinds of potential but without much chance of fulfilling it.”
“I saw her in the grocery store when I ran into Pam Holtz, and Pam mentioned a problem over a scholarship?”
“I remember. She got a perfect score in math on the college entrance exam and was offered a full scholarship to the University. Judith, her mother, wouldn’t let her take it. Thought she should be practical and become a secretary. Your cousin Leo got it instead.”
“That’s horrible,” Holly said. “Not that a good secretary isn’t worth her weight in peach pie.”
“You remember Judith Taunton, Sarah—she worked at Deer Park Floral for ages. You used to love going in there with me or your grandmother.”
Sarah did remember. Her love of the shop and the flowers had been strong enough to overcome her fear of the sour-faced woman who sold them.
“They live in that little gray cottage on Second East, across from where we lived when you kids were born,” Peggy continued. “They’ve had that house forever. Beautiful flower beds in the backyard. You have to drive down the alley to see them.”
The image of an envelope flashed into mind, bearing the name Mrs. B.F. Taunton. And the image of Renee up by the horse barn earlier in the week, claiming to be looking for wildflowers for her mother, on a dusty, dry trail, her hands empty, her shoes clean. As if the flowers were an excuse. Why had she really been there?
“Renee couldn’t wait to get away,” Peggy was saying. “Then her mother’s dementia got worse and she came home to take care of her. After the last incident—”
The door opened and Peggy broke off at the sight of the two older women who entered. After the ritual “Where do you want to sit?” negotiatio
n, they set their bags on chairs at a nearby table before coming over to greet the McCaskills.
“Girls, you remember Grace Smalley and Cheryl Kolsrud.” Peggy touched Holly’s arm, then nodded across the table. “Holly, and Sarah.”
Matt and Becca’s mothers, out for pie and coffee. Did this sort of thing happen in Seattle, where everyone was too busy for their own good? Or had that just been her?
“So sorry to hear about your husband,” Grace Smalley said. “Too young. Such a shame.”
“Good for you, though, getting out and about,” Cheryl said. “When I lost my husband two years ago, the last thing I wanted was to leave the house. Your mother insisted, and I’ve never forgotten that.”
“Step aside, ladies,” Deb called, a heavy tray balanced on one hand as she shook out a folding rack with the other. Burgers and fries for the family crammed in the next booth, the kids in their soccer uniforms. Grace and Cheryl waved and retreated to their own table.
“I hate that phrase,” Peggy said, dropping her voice. “‘Lost my husband.’ It always reminds me of when we were in that shopping center in downtown Spokane—you remember the place.”
“River Park Square,” Holly said.
“That’s it. I came out of Nordstrom’s and your father wasn’t where we were supposed to meet. I waited, and searched, called his cell. No answer. Finally went to the help desk and had them put out a page. And there he was, sitting not ten feet away. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or kill him.”
It was a funny story, even if they had heard it before. JP had fallen asleep in a high-backed chair and in her panic, Peggy hadn’t seen him. Though he was already ill, they’d decided to make the once-a-year Christmas shopping trip anyway. A month later, he was gone.
Gone. Another phrase not to like.
But what struck her was that these older women—the other two had to be past eighty, nearly a decade older than Peggy—were not afraid to acknowledge that Sarah’s husband had died. Unlike the women her own age, all perfectly polite, but on edge. Afraid of the future she represented.
The door burst open and her niece and nephew rushed in, their parents behind them. The women slid over to make room, while Connor grabbed a chair from the nearest table. Olivia appeared no worse for the encounter with the Erickson boy, but Sarah wondered what Connor would have to say about it.
Deb delivered more coffee and postgame ice cream floats, and Sarah felt herself surrounded by a bubble of life going on, happy to drift to the edge and watch. Connor did look more relaxed. Because of the deal Lucas had worked out, using Jeremy’s money, or because he’d told her? How would it change her relationship to McCaskill Land and Lumber, now that she was both family and the largest creditor? She’d happily ignored the business for years. No longer.
When the pie plates and ice cream glasses were empty and the young bottoms were growing restless, they headed for the door, Sarah and Connor at the rear of the clan. She heard her brother swear under his breath and looked up to see a girl and an old man. George Hoyt and his great-granddaughter, in her team uniform.
It’s only George, she told herself. The neighbor she’d known all her life. Who just this week had stopped by to check on the lodge after the storm.
The man staring into her brother’s face with a look that sent a shiver down her spine.
* * *
In the upstairs studio, the McCaskill women stared at the paintings. Since Sarah had first seen them, Peggy had set all three on easels, and laid her sketches and studies out on the work table.
“When this is over,” Holly said, “you have to show them and tell the story.”
“Isn’t it over?” Peggy said. “You two found the notebook and letters and the link to the past. But if I show these pieces, everyone in town will think I’m nuts.”
“I think,” Sarah said slowly, “that the dreams asked each of us to do something only we could do. For Ellen and for me, twenty-five years ago, they were warnings that women, not much more than girls, were in danger. I’m not sure whether Caro’s dream was telling her that Sarah Beth was really sick, or whether it was a call to take action to protect women in trouble in the community. Or both. For you,” she said to her mother, “they were a request. Anja wanted you to tell her story, in the way only you could.”
And what about now? Anja had come back after they’d found the papers in the trunk, but before they’d put the story together. Why frighten her? Was danger still lurking? Where and from whom? To whom? She suppressed a shudder.
“So the paintings are kinda weird,” Holly was saying. “So some people will think you’re nuts. Screw ’em.”
Sarah left the room, phone in hand, to try Abby again. Their spat had rattled her, and the specter of more danger looming terrified her.
Turned out her sweet princess of a daughter had beat her to it, texting an apology. I miss him. I miss you. I’m so sad, her note ended.
Abby picked up on the first ring. “I just want everything to be the way it was, but it’s not, is it?”
“No, honey. It’s not. We have to make a new normal and stick together. It’s what your dad wanted.”
A long silence. “Mom, you’re not going to stay there, are you? You are coming back to Seattle, right? To our house?”
“Yes, of course. I just don’t know when,” Sarah replied. “Right now, I need to be here. And I want the two of you to come help me scatter Dad’s ashes on the lake.” And listen to the family stories, so they’d be safe for another generation.
Oh, God. Would she be putting her daughter in danger by bringing her here?
Or was the danger Anja was warning her about to her daughter’s heart, and to her own?
“I’m listening, Anja,” she told the long-dead Swedish housemaid after the call ended. “I’m not sure I understand, but I’m listening.”
33
“You wanta drive?” Holly held up the keys. “It is your car.”
“What? No,” Sarah said. Wherever her mind was at the moment, it would not be on the road.
They drove through town in silence. As they crossed the old steel bridge, Sarah reflexively glanced downriver to the mill that had dominated both town and her family for so long. High above the river’s edge, in a tall cottonwood, a bald eagle surveyed his kingdom.
Good day for fishing, she silently told the bird. He turned his big white head and she swore he was looking right at them. At her.
Her mother wasn’t the only wacky McCaskill.
At the roadside memorial, Holly pulled over. “You know, I don’t think I ever stopped at one of these in my whole life, and this week, I’ve lost count.”
A few minutes later, Sarah suggested they detour down to the old homestead and ice house. It was time to tell Holly one more thing, one last reason she’d felt guilty all these years over what Lucas had done to Janine. Back then, hearing that she and Jeremy had been hooking up in the rickety shack instead of keeping an eye on Lucas would have devastated Janine, and she still wasn’t sure how to tell her. But she was tired of keeping secrets from her sister.
In the last few days, the birch and maple had gotten leafier, the tiny green triangles on the snowberry unfolding into actual leaves, the wild roses bursting with promise.
“I hope George doesn’t mind us coming down here,” she said as they passed the small clapboard house where Mrs. Hoyt had lived when they were kids. The house George lived in now. No sign of his truck. Still in town, no doubt.
“Oh, he won’t mind. He likes us,” Holly replied.
That was then, this is now. They owned his property, and he didn’t know. Though it was clear from the look on his face in the Spruce that he had suspicions.
As she climbed out of the SUV, Sarah spotted a stone chimney, the top visible through the gaps in the woods created by the blowdown. “Look. You can almost see the lodge from here.”
They were standing between the ice house and the pond, the homestead shack a few hundred feet away. “Holly. I need to tell you—” She brok
e off, listening. George returning? No. His truck had an unmistakable sound. She was hearing nothing more than the noise of traffic filtering down from the North Shore Road.
Holly craned her neck, gazing up at the weathered, two-story building, louvers on the cupola serving as a vent. “This place is fascinating. I’ve been thinking, Sis.” The wooden door creaked as she it pushed open and walked inside, leaving Sarah to follow.
For a long moment, she couldn’t see a thing. Light filtered down from the cupola and streamed in through broken boards on the side of the building, where ice had been loaded onto waiting carts through a sliding door. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out metal tools hanging along one wall.
“You said”—Holly’s words came from the shadows, and Sarah could just see her, standing in the middle of the main storage room, hands on her hips. “You said Becca needs someone to do property management. To handle rentals and work with the snowbirds. I could do that.”
She could. Much of her museum work had been on the operations side. She knew how to maintain and upgrade buildings, many of them historic, and raise the money to keep them running.
“But”—Holly continued—“I’m also loving diving into the history. Not just of our place and family, through the letters and scrapbooks, but the whole valley. The Ladies’ Aid Society, the immigrants. Did you know Pam Holtz’s grandfather was the last steamboat captain on Bitterroot Lake? Anyway, I could combine the two somehow, helping owners piece together the histories of their homes and land. Not sure how, but I could figure it out.”
“That sounds seriously perfect,” Sarah replied. A raven flew overhead, letting out a single caw, and left through the opening made by the missing planks. What she needed to tell her sister could wait.
It would have to. Her sister was nowhere in sight.
From the rear, or outside, she heard a loud crack. A floorboard, or a branch? But Holly didn’t shout for help, so she turned her attention back to the wall where tools hung on nails pounded into two-by-four crosspieces. She’d seen similar tools in the carriage house. Ice saws, tongs, a pointed bar her dad had called an ice hook. Leather cords and ropes. Splitting bars and forks, long poles with a flat blade or pointed prongs, used to break the slabs of ice apart after they’d been cut. Holly had talked about preserving history. This place was ripe with it.
Bitterroot Lake Page 25