Carried to the Grave and Other Stories

by Leslie Budewitz

  Worry creased her normally smooth brow and darkened her normally bright brown eyes. She has great genes and I pray every night that I’ve inherited a fraction of them.

  “Did you hear what happened to Lynette Barnes?” she said, skipping hello and the usual hugs and kisses.

  “Lynette the cleaning woman? No. What happened?” I asked.

  “You know she rents that little house by the entrance to the Nature Trail, with the hideously steep driveway?” The Nature Trail, a.k.a. the River Road, runs past the village high above the Jewel River, and it’s popular in all seasons.

  “She goes to work at some ungodly hour,” my mother continued. “Five o’clock in the morning, cleaning the bank before they open. Her car hit a patch of ice and missed the turn at exactly the wrong spot. It’s a miracle she wasn’t killed. A dog walker found her.”

  “Ohmygod. Will she be okay?”

  “Broken wrist, broken ribs, cuts and bruises, a touch of hypothermia. Who knows when she’ll be able to work again.”

  Demanding, physical work. I doubted she’d been able to tuck away much savings. Sounded like she’d been lucky, though. Her car could easily have tumbled all the way down to the icy water, where it could have been hours, even days, before she was spotted.

  An accident like that could happen to anybody. I rubbed the three lucky stars tattooed inside my wrist.

  “I ought to go see her,” my mother continued, but Lou Mary gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. My mother always listens to Lou Mary.

  I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to go see this stamp dealer. I had plenty to do right here at the Merc, selling pickles and popcorn and pork chops from pigs who’d been raised not five miles from our front door. But it was the season for the unexpected.

  “Give me that stamp,” I told Lou Mary, then looked at my mother. “I’ll swing by the hospital to see Lynette.”

  After promising to be extra careful on the roads, especially driving home in the dark, I headed out.

  I drove through downtown Pondera and up the hill toward the independent living community where the aptly named Mr. Silver had moved after retiring and closing his coin and stamp shop. The tangle of winding streets and new-to-me buildings was confusing, but I finally found the address Lou Mary had given me.

  The lobby was tastefully decorated with garland and red and gold accents, a well-dressed noble fir next to the reception desk. I signed the registry and told the woman on duty that I was meeting Sam Silver.

  “He’s waiting for you in the library,” she said and pointed the way.

  A pair of French doors stood open, each festooned with a holiday wreath. Two tall arched windows, a grandfather clock between them, let in the soft gray light of mid-December. Bookcases lined the other walls, the rows of colorful spines neatly organized and dusted. At one of the classic library tables sat an elderly man who rose when I walked in.

  “Miss Murphy,” he said, extending a hand. The word for Sam Silver was “rotund.” He wasn’t much taller than I, his dark suit pants belted around his very full waist, his white shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, his hand fleshy but his grip firm. “Come in, come in.”

  “Thank you for seeing me.” At his gesture, I slid into a chair and he resumed his seat.

  “Any friend of Mrs. Vogel is a friend of mine.”

  I never think of Lou Mary as “Mrs. Vogel.” I hadn’t known her late husband, but knew she missed him deeply.

  “And besides,” he added, clear blue eyes shining, “I hear you have a mystery to solve.”

  I fished a small box meant to hold a trio of truffles out of my bag. Lou Mary had refused to let me slip the stamp back into my wallet, instead lining the box with a bed of tissue and nestling the stamp inside. I slid it across the table.

  The old man adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat, and lifted the lid. “Oh, my. Yes. Quite right, quite right.” Using a pair of metal tongs, he raised the stamp to the light. Brought it toward him for a closer look, then turned his wrist to inspect the back.

  Then he laid the stamp on a piece of thick white paper and slipped a magnifying device onto his head. Lowered the lenses into place and focused on the front of the stamp for several long moments. Raised the lenses and without a word, pulled a fat paperback out of the stack of books at his elbow. He found the page he was looking for and ran a finger down a long column. Muttered something I couldn’t hear. Removed the headset and sat back, arms folded across his belly. For the first time since he’d lifted the lid of the truffle box, he looked directly at me.

  If I’d thought his eyes were shining before, now they positively glowed.

  “Young lady, you have quite a treasure.”

  I waited, the only sounds in the room the ticking of the clock and the pounding of my heart.

  “I believe,” Mr. Silver said solemnly, “that you have been given a 1917 three-center. Stamps had cost two cents, but late that year, rates were increased temporarily to help fund the war effort. A special Christmas stamp was issued, in a limited edition, as a morale booster. I’ve seen three, none in nearly mint condition, like yours. Stamps are meant to be used, after all, not saved. I want to call a friend to be sure, a reputable dealer and a member of the American Philatelic Society, who pays close attention to current prices. But I suspect that a knowledgeable collector would pay you upwards of seventeen hundred dollars.”

  He was pulling my leg. He had to be.

  “You’re a skeptic.” He dropped his arms and reached for a handheld magnifier. Held it so I could look through the thick, warbly glass. “See the perforations? Perfectly crisp. The gum is undisturbed.” He used the tongs to show me the back, then returned the stamp to the blotter. “No cancellation marks, no wrinkles from moisture. This stamp has not only never been used, it’s been well-preserved. Light can damage the colors on stamps this old, and it is slightly faded, enough to tell us that it’s an original. Though while it’s worth some money, it’s not valuable enough to tempt a forger.”

  My head was spinning. I had to find the man who gave me the stamp. He couldn’t have known its value—he’d given a perfect stranger a seemingly ordinary object in fact worth a small fortune in exchange for almost nothing. Forty cents’ worth of copies. Twenty cents to me, with my prepaid discount.

  “Mrs. Vogel told you how I got this stamp, didn’t she?” I asked, and he nodded. I described the man who’d given it to me. “Do you recognize him at all?”

  “I’m sorry, my dear. I have no idea who your benefactor might have been.”

  Why hadn’t I paid more attention? Because it had been a brief interaction, and I’d been preoccupied with the holiday rush. There had been nothing truly memorable about the man or the moment. But I had to find him. Because I didn’t just have a Christmas stamp.

  I had a Christmas problem.

  ∞

  “It was the strangest thing,” Lynette said. She was a small woman, made smaller by the white sheets, the white bandages covering her arms and one side of her head, and the tubes and monitors. The room had that mix of hospital odors—antiseptic tinged with the smell of the uneaten food on the lunch tray that hadn’t been cleared yet and the scent of chrysanthemums in a get-well bouquet. “I felt like there was a hand protecting me, keeping me from going over the cliff. Don’t tell the doctors. They’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I’ve heard similar stories,” the woman in the bedside chair said. I wasn’t surprised to see the Reverend Anne Christopherson here, despite the shocking fact that my sister’s childhood friend had become a Methodist minister. She’s a full-figured woman who favors loose, flowing tunics, but today, she wore a dark gray ministerial shirt and clerical collar. I supposed the collar helped open doors in places like this, saving her from constantly explaining her presence. “It’s quite common, actually.”

  Though Anne’s tone was calm and matter-of-fact, her words gave me the chills. Had my dad felt an unseen hand, an unseen force, when the speeding car side
swiped him on that icy night so long ago? The sheriff had always said it was a miracle that his car hadn’t plunged over the side of the bridge into the bay. I found myself torn between gratitude that he’d been spared that fate and fury that he’d been killed anyway. Why hadn’t the hand protected him?

  “I’ve been in touch with the volunteers guild,” Anne was saying. “You’ll have plenty of help when you get home. The bank president told me they’ll keep paying you, even though you won’t be able to work for a while, and I’m sure your other clients will do the same.”

  “The Merchants’ Association can probably chip in,” I said.

  Anne raised a finger and gave me a look. “I have another project for you and the association. We’ll talk outside.”

  What did she have in mind? The merchants get hit up for every fundraiser imaginable, especially this time of year. But if the season was a good one, as it looked to be, they’d be in the giving spirit.

  “If it weren’t for that dog walker,” Lynette said, “I could have laid there for hours.”

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Rings no bells for me, either,” Anne said. She lives in a tiny cottage near the church, not far from the trailhead. “That’s about the time I start my morning prayers. Unusual to see anyone out walking a dog that early, especially when it’s so cold and dark. Truly a miracle.”

  Lynette’s eyelids were drooping and she was sinking lower into the pillows, so we said our goodbyes. As we wound through the hospital’s corridors to the front door, Muzaked Christmas carols following us, I told Anne about the mysterious man in the copy shop. I did not mention the stamp or my visit to Mr. Silver.

  But she didn’t know the stranger.

  “I wish I’d paid more attention, but I was too busy,” I said. Too busy waiting in a slow-moving line, updating our Instagram feed from my phone, replying to texts and emails that had meant more to me than the stranger had, once his copies were made.

  “What matters,” Anne counseled, “is that you had an opportunity to do a kindness for a stranger, and you did it.”

  I wasn’t convinced. My kindness had been dwarfed by his generosity. Besides, he’d known my father, and I hadn’t even asked how, or asked his name.

  “Now, here’s what I need you to do,” she said. “You know about the refugee family the church is sponsoring.”

  “Sure.” Everyone in town knew the Syrian couple with the two darling little girls. He’d been hired as a school janitor and she worked in the school cafeteria.

  “They came here with nothing. We helped them with jobs, housing, furniture. They work hard. They’re good members of the community. But their travel loan, for the airfare to get to the U.S., is due in January, and they don’t have the money.” She raised a hand. “I know, everyone thinks the clergy can make a call and get a donation, but it isn’t always that easy.”

  “How much do you need?”

  “Seventeen hundred,” she said. And a shiver as cold and swift as the Jewel River shot through me.

  ∞

  Back in Jewel Bay, I stopped at the grocery store on the highway. When it opened forty years ago, it all but closed the doors of Murphy’s Mercantile. The same thing happened to the hardware store, and over time, downtown businesses found the highway offered room for expansion and customer convenience, a.k.a. parking. The village nearly emptied out, but gradually developed a new identity. Restaurants, galleries, a children’s clothing and toy shop, a bookshop, antique store, and liquor store all thrived in the tiny triangle bordered by the Nature Trail, the river, and the bay.

  It took my family years to find a business model that worked, but now, the Merc was thriving again. I aimed to take us from a boutique offering specialty items to a place where people shopped for everyday food and drink, but despite our mission, town would always need a full-service grocery.

  On my way out, bags in both hands, I heard the telltale chime of the Christmas bell. In Jewel Bay, holiday bell ringers raise money for community projects, like Christmas decorations and the annual parade honoring the new high school graduates. I fished in my pocket for spare change.

  “Hey, Polly. Merry Christmas!” I plunked my coins in the kettle, then leaned in to air-kiss my old friend’s cheek.

  “Merry Christmas, Erin! Isn’t this just the best time of year?”

  Polly Paulson was one half of the Easter twins, and like her sister, Bunny, had never felt the need to leave Jewel Bay. Both are perpetual volunteers, as quick to get involved as they were to prank a new teacher in our school days.

  “Pol,” I said, as an idea took shape in my brain, “I won’t bother you with the details, but something odd happened that makes me wonder. You’ve been ringing bells for years, right?”

  “Oh, for ages. Starting in high school. Bunny and I shared a shift, ringing as a duet.” She stomped her feet, in black boots trimmed with faux fur, to keep warm.

  “You hear stories sometimes about an anonymous person dropping a gold coin in the kettle. Anything like that ever happen here?”

  “Gosh, no, not that I’ve ever heard. Why?”

  “It’s nothing. Hey, if I don’t see you before the big day, have a great holiday.”

  “Ho, ho, ho,” she called, then greeted another customer making a deposit.

  Sounded like my surprise stamp had been a one-off gesture, not the sign of a serial philanthropist. Which made it harder to find the man and return his too-generous gift.

  This late, I had no trouble finding a parking spot behind the shop. Inside, I helped Tracy and Lou Mary tidy up and readied the till for the next day. Sales had been good, and that brightened my holiday spirit. I turned off the lights and we headed out, Lou Mary through the front door to walk to her condo across the one-lane bridge, Tracy and I out the back.

  “Hey, Erin!” Kim Caldwell, my BFF since the sixth grade, called as she crossed the alley, hand in hand with my big brother, Nick, aiming for Red’s Bar. “Grab a beer with us.”

  “Great,” I answered, and glanced at Tracy, who shook her head and said she’d see me tomorrow.

  Nick held the back gate, then the three of us hustled through Red’s beer garden into the warmth of the bar. I love sitting outside with a burger and a brew when the weather permits, but right now, it definitely did not permit.

  Kim is a sheriff’s detective, and even when she isn’t in uniform, people often stop her with a question or a complaint. She’d taken a break for a few months earlier in the year and joked that one reason she came back to the job was that no one could remember she’d left. Nick and I had already ordered for the three of us and nabbed our favorite high-top table when she joined us.

  “Questions about the accident,” she said as she slid onto her stool and picked up her beer. “I was first on the scene, because I live so close. I even beat the ambulance.”

  “I stopped to see Lynette when I was in Pondera today,” I said. “She’s pretty banged up, but it’s obvious what happened, isn’t it?”

  “We still need to do a full investigation,” Kim replied. “Any time anyone’s injured or there’s serious property damage. There’s all kinds of statistical information to report, including that she had no insurance—”

  “You don’t ticket someone for that, do you?” Nick asked. “Under the circumstances.”

  “Sheriff’s policy is no ticket if the driver is alone and injured, but he does make them get insurance and prove they’ve kept it for a year. We also give the road department the info, so they can decide whether to make any changes, like put up a guardrail.” She took a long sip of her Moose Drool. “Mmm. This hits the spot.”

  “So who was this dog walker who found her and called for help?” I asked. “Did you see him, or get his name?”

  “No. No idea. He was gone before I got there. I’d like to know—he’s a witness, and I hate leaving a blank on my report.”

  Could it have been the little m
an I’d met at the shipping depot? He’d seemed spry enough.

  Now I was the one talking crazy.

  Nick and Kim decided to order burgers, maybe shoot some pool, but I wanted to go home and put my feet up. Retail is hard work.

  First, though, I took a quick detour. I drove up Hill Street toward the trailhead. Stopped the car and grabbed the flashlight from my console. Finding the spot where Lynette had skidded across the road and hit the embankment was easy. The tire tracks were plainly visible, but there were too many scuffed footprints to make out any individual prints. No doubt they belonged to Kim, the EMTs, and all the walkers who’d passed this way since morning. But what I did not see was a single set of footprints coming from the direction of the houses, a set of paw prints beside them.

  That didn’t mean anything, did it?

  ∞

  The next day was as busy as the last two and I barely left the shop. Fortunately, that gave me plenty of chances to ask about the mysterious man. No one knew him. In summer, that wouldn’t have surprised me—our population quadruples in July and August. But midwinter? Town hadn’t grown that much, had it?

  I am a creature of good habits and most mornings, I stop at Le Panier, the French bakery next to the Merc, for a latte and croissant. But a high school friend was in town visiting her parents, and we’d agreed to meet for breakfast Thursday at the Jewel Inn. Just down the hill from the scene of Lynette’s accident, the chalet-like building anchors the north end of the village. When I was a kid, the racks mounted on the walls creeped me out—how could I possibly eat my huckleberry pancakes with a moose, an elk, and a Rocky Mountain goat all staring at me? Now I find the taxidermy part of the charm. Nothing says Christmas spirit quite like a stuffed bobcat wearing a Santa hat.