I squeezed my eyes tight. “Don’t say that.”
“I was married a long time, Ivy. I loved my wife and daughter. When I realized that I had stopped missing them, that days passed by when I hardly even thought about them, only you, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I even told myself no one could want someone like me, used up, old, and scarred. I’m ten years older than you, Ivy. I’d like to have more children, but then I think of being the oldest dad around. When my mother needed to move to assisted living, I used cleaning out and selling her house as an excuse to stay away. I missed you so much. I waited to see if the feeling would go away. And when I did come back….”
Which feeling? Missing me or loving me? It hadn’t occurred to me that Adam would have doubts about himself. Children? We never discussed the subject after he’d first mentioned it so long ago. I had pictured him the perfect father after watching him with Jenny. Wait a minute! “Did you say you came back? When?”
“A month ago, to see you and meet with the others about the store.”
“You came, but didn’t bother telling me?”
He got up and folded his arms. “I couldn’t sleep or concentrate. Then Marion told me about that—guy. I came to see for myself. And there he was, car parked in your driveway. I saw him through the living room window. Looked as if he was going to church with you.”
I twitched my lips. “You were jealous.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I was pretty beat up about it, thinking you’d moved on.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me, or Apple Grove anymore. I never dreamed you felt like that. What made you change your mind?”
“My sister told me anyone who didn’t want me for a husband would be insane.”
I laughed. He didn’t. How I’d missed him.
“Then your mom called.”
That’s all it took. I went to him and locked my arms around his waist.
I could hardly hear him say, “I thought, maybe. I hoped.” He nuzzled his nose in my hair and hugged me tight.
I’d forgiven Mom already. I wanted so badly to stay wrapped in his arms forever. I planned to never move on. “Isis didn’t like Stanley.”
Adam perked up. “Really?”
“He never could keep Isis and Memnet straight.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” I pulled back to study his features. “What were you doing under my tree?”
Adam flushed scarlet as Santa’s suit. “Oh, turning on the lights. Leaving presents.”
“Presents?”
“Yep. Just like Saint Nick.”
“Show me!”
He guided me over to the tree where he put his hand between branches. The hinged glass ornament with the diamond ring inside he plucked out and put in my hands was beautiful. But not as lovely as the look on his face when he asked me to marry him.
28
I got my wish to stay wrapped in his arms. I held my hand out, admiring the beautiful double diamond setting. Of course I’d agreed to marry him without even torturing him a second by pretending to stall.
“Why two?” I asked when he put it on my finger and we stopped kissing long enough to gasp for air.
“Oh, second chances. Pairs.” He brushed the hair along my ear with the back of his hand. Smiling. “For me and you. For Isis and Memnet. It just seemed like us.”
“Thank you.”
Mom reappeared when we went into the kitchen later and started making cooking noises. I made French toast for breakfast.
Adam and Mom sat at the table, discussing the wedding, pretty much ignoring me. I loved to see them bonding like that. We hadn’t decided on a date, yet, although Mom shared her opinion that Memorial Day weekend would be perfect. New Year’s Day, or even Valentine’s couldn’t be soon enough for me, but Mom wanted to be free from her teaching responsibilities so she could throw us a big party. Since I was her only daughter, she wanted all of her friends and our relatives to see what a good match I had made.
Every once in a while, Adam winked at me.
I felt so free to slip my arms around his shoulders from behind and let my cheek rest against his.
Neither of us minded Mom’s company. Mea Cuppa was closed on Christmas Day. The three of us lazed after church. We created a small stir at New Horizons with our news, and the Greens, among others, were overjoyed for us.
In the afternoon, Mom went to read and nap in her room “for a few hours. I’ll give you two some time alone.”
“Mom, wait.” With a backward glance at Adam, I walked her to her room. “Thank you. This was the best present ever.”
“I hoped you would forgive me,” she said.
“Forgive you?”
“For interfering in your life.”
I started to smile before I realized I should be sober. “Well, you took a gamble. What if I hadn’t liked Mr. Thompson anymore?”
“He would have talked you out of it,” she said complacently. I hugged her for a long moment, then returned to Adam.
He stared at the tree, stroking Isis.
Memnet huddled in the spot I had vacated. I lifted him onto my lap. “Margaret’s trial is set for March.”
“I heard. Are you nervous about testifying?”
“No. Adam, nobody seems to care about Tut or Ronald Grimm.”
“The police have search warrants out. And by now I’m afraid we have to consider that Tut’s probably dead.”
I looked squarely at my fiancé. “I want to search the tunnels.”
He regarded me as though he’d been in this position before—having to deal with a woman whose mind was made up. “I thought the police already did that.”
I stared back. “Not like we can. From the store.”
“Ivy, if a grown man was in there, don’t you think I would have heard him moving around?”
“Maybe you did, but you didn’t recognize the sounds. And what about Tut?”
He gave in, but I knew he just wanted to please me. “Tut would have come to me. But, OK. We should notify the police.”
“Why? It’s your store. And I know what Ripple will say. That it’s too dangerous.”
“Ivy!”
I got up and showed him my survival kit I never put away from the time Jenny was lost. “We probably won’t get far, anyway.”
“Ripple said no one should go there.”
“He didn’t say you couldn’t go in your own basement.”
“All right! All right! What do we do if we find him?”
“Ask him for Christmas dinner. And find out if he knows where Tut is.”
We left a note for Mom. The streets were deserted. Adam parked in the alley at the back of the store. Toad smoked a cigar out on his fire escape balcony. I couldn’t believe he would do that, but when we wished him Merry Christmas he waved and said he treated himself once a year only and was extra careful this season.
Adam propped the door to the basement open with a handy brick. We treaded cautiously down the staircase. “Well, at least one other person knows we’re here,” he said when we approached the little door to the tunnel, which remained ajar. Hunched under the low ceiling, Adam shone his light along the smooth walls. We reached the blocked area quickly. I stood there staring at the stones. He would prefer to turn around, but he let me make the decision. The wall appeared solid. Adam lit the boards and medium-sized boulders. Shoving them aside did not seem terribly safe, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I stood back, staring until I realized there was a pattern on the right side. An abnormal symmetry revealed that someone had carefully stacked the boards and stones so that they could be easily removed. I turned off my light.
“What are you doing, Ivy?”
“Shh! Just, turn off yours for a sec too. Humor me?”
I heard the click. I reached back to put my hand on his arm. “Feel that?” I whispered.
“Your hand?”
“No! Wait.”
“Ah, yes. The air is moving.”
We both heard the scrape.
Adam immediately put his light back on and tried to draw me away.
“Wait.”
“Ivy!”
“Ronald? Is that you? We can hear you.”
“Shh!”
“No, wait. Ronald? It’s me, Ivy Preston. You talked to me the night of the fire. And Adam Thompson, from the store. We won’t bother you, or…or anything. We just want to talk. Margaret and Letty have been arrested. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
Silence.
“Ivy, come on.”
This time I followed Adam out of the little room. We nearly reached the steps when we heard the sounds, the scrape and plunk of boards being moved. Adam pushed me behind him and aimed the light directly into the tunnel room. “Who’s there?” he called.
A gnome of a man, dark with grime, held a hand in front of his eyes. He brushed at stringy gray hair.
I rushed from behind Adam. “Tut? Where’s Tut?”
“Ivy, no.” Adam grabbed me just in time. The man held his hand up shield his eyes. Adam lowered the light. “Mr. Grimm?”
“Yeah.” Ronald cleared his throat several times before he could make his weak voice heard. “I didn’t do nothing. Really. Letty talked me into it. Said she’d pay me to pretend I was the mayor a coupla times, but I never saw a cent. I came back here to the tunnels. I can tell everyone what I seen. They did it all, both of them. I’ll make a deal. I’m ready to make a deal. I’m tired and hungry. What day is it?”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Grimm,” I said, and helped him climb the steps into the light of the store. I looked back until I knew Tut wasn’t coming. At least, not yet.
~*~
“I’m sorry to make you come out on Christmas Day, sir,” I told Chief Hackman, who answered our call to the police station.
Once Ronald Grimm found his voice, he did not stop talking, even when Hackman read him his rights and told him to be quiet.
“All for the money. Scheming, they were. Did it all, too. Letters, phone calls. I saw ’em. ’Cept for the smoke grenade to the newspaper. Hired a boy for that. Ran fast to collect the back issues. Neither o’ them ladies could run fast. I stopped ’em from torching your shop, Mr. Thompson. Wanted to smoke me out of hiding. Ruin your business. And for Donny. Just brung him home from Chicago in the truck. Nasty, that. Not proper. Donny shudda had beddar than being dumped on the can like that. That’s when I told ’em I was leaving. I don’t hold with murder.”
Hackman shook his head at me, muttering. “Got anything else up your sleeve young lady? Just when I thought I’d seen it all….”
Yolanda wasn’t far behind, having the police scanner to alert her to calls. She burst through the front door of Mea Cuppa, notebook, camera, and recorder ready. She had to have been the fastest interviewer in Apple Grove, clamoring for a statement all the way through the reading of the rights and the walk outside. We all followed in Hackman’s wake while Grimm sputtered the whole time.
“Mr. Grimm, you should wait to say anything else until you have a lawyer,” I said.
Yolanda was still waving her pen. “What proof do you have—”
“That’s enough, ladies,” Hackman said.
As Ronald was being shown into the police car, I yelled out a last question. “Mr. Grimm, do you know where your cousin’s cat is? Did they hurt him?”
He shook his head. “Can’t be around animals. I got an allergy. Alls I know is I sneezed and sneezed in the tunnels. Didn’t do that as a kid. No, no cat I could see. Till that liddle gurl came. Said she hadda cat she followed into the culvert. Liked to die sneezing, I did.”
We waved the police car off, spent exactly two more minutes telling Yolanda what happened and that we did not want to keep her any longer from Christmas with her family. Her quick gaze noted the ring on my finger, but she merely congratulated us with a hug.
After the others left and Adam locked up the front door again, I lingered.
“What are you thinking about now?” He asked, pulling me back against his chest.
“I guess I’m pretty transparent.”
“Hmm. Pretty.” Adam rubbed his chin in my hair.
“But, do you think if Ronald said he sneezed in the tunnels, maybe, just maybe there was a reason?”
He groaned. “We’re not going back down there.”
“What if we brought our cats here?”
“For them to get lost, too, trying to find Tut?”
“Aha! So, you think it’s possible.”
“I didn’t say that. And you can’t move Isis now, you know.”
“I know. But sometime. Do you think sometime we could try?”
“Let’s just get through one crisis at a time. Your mom’s probably wondering where we are.”
~*~
Addy Bailey’s van was in the driveway when we got back to my house. “I can’t believe I didn’t take my cell phone!” I said.
Adam did not comment as he parked on the street, but both of us hurried into the house.
Colleen and Mom sat at the table, talking. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Thompson, Ivy. It’s so exciting! What a cool Christmas present! Congratulations.”
“I just thought you’d rather be safe than sorry,” Mom said. “So, I called Doctor Bailey. I’m sure Isis knew what to do, but this is her first litter.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I told her, caressing her shoulder.
Addy sat on the floor in the open arch between the living room and kitchen where she had access to the spot behind the sofa. Isis had made a nest for herself there the last couple of weeks, dragging in a couple of my socks that missed the laundry basket and a scarf hanging out of my coat pocket. I didn’t begrudged her the theft once I realized why she wanted them. Addy wore a white coat and currently held a tiny creature in her gloved hands. “I didn’t mind at all,” she said.
“We were just sitting around,” Colleen contributed.
Adam went to squat next to Addy, who quietly reported on Isis’s litter and condition.
Memnet sat on the sofa, tail twitching, regarding me with smug pride. I gently pulled on his ears and played with him.
“Two boys, two girls,” Adam told me.
“Isis is just fine,” Addy crooned.
“Not bad, old man,” I told Mem, tickling his ear.
“You’ll want to keep Memnet away for the first few weeks,” Addy said. “Sometimes the father shows aggressive tendencies and stresses the mother. Either of them could harm the kittens.”
I hated to think of that, but she was right.
“When can Isis be moved?” Adam asked. “I can take her back to my apartment.”
“Give her a few days,” Addy advised.
I tugged Adam’s sleeve. “Why don’t you take Memnet with you?”
He had my number. His eyes twinkled. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“So, you two have been to the store?” Mom asked. “Any excitement?”
29
Two days later I got the phone call I’d been waiting for.
“Hello, Ivy, could you please come on down to the store? I’ve got something to show you.”
“Hi, Adam…let me guess. It chortles, has big ears and spots, and answers to the name of Tut.”
“Not much gets by you, does it?”
I’d almost let him get away, but I refrained from that chorus. “He’s all right? I’ll come now.”
When I got to Mea Cuppa, the usual crowd had come: Ripple, Hackman, Yolanda, and Addy, who was in the midst of examining a very thin and ruffled-looking Tut. She removed his loose collar, which had made sores around his neck, and handed it over to Hackman.
I stood next to Adam. We watched together as Hackman twisted the collar in his hands, found the slit on the inside and removed the incriminating printed e-mail between Margaret and someone named Thurston at MerriFood that Donald must have managed to stuff inside before his death. If Ripple hadn’t been able to use our captured bacteria or even all of Ronald’s strange testimony, t
his piece of paper dead-bolted Margaret’s jail cell.
~*~
On a Friday evening late in the middle of January, Adam made supper for us in his apartment after Mea Cuppa closed for the day.
We still needed to decide where we were going to live after the wedding. I loved my cottage, but knew its limitations. Hopefully someday we’d need a bigger house, but I appreciated that he did not expect me to give up my deed automatically. We kept his Chicago condominium for convenience as we planned to travel often to visit family and check on the urban shops.
With his sister so capably in charge, Adam didn’t have much to worry about. I could not imagine what he would do with his time once his mother no longer needed him.
I cuddled Memnet, who’d stayed on batching it with Tut and with Adam, while I perused a copy of the newspaper. Tut had recovered well but tended to be a little wary. Basil and oregano scents wafted from the kitchen. Heaven could not have come much closer.
~*~
APPLE GROVE GAZETTE
Apple Grove, Illinois
Friday
Trial Ends for Bader-Conklin
by Yolanda Toynsbee, Editor
As of this past Thursday the defense rested in the murder trial of former citizen Margaret Bader-Conklin after three days of testimony. The jury deliberated only two hours before returning a guilty verdict.
Bader-Conklin and her assistant, Leticia Grimm, whose trial was already held, were convicted of several conspiracy charges as outlined in the January 3 edition of the Gazette. Extra copies are available for those who missed that issue.
The trial took place in the state capital.
The defense team has already filed an appeal, we’re told. Further news will be forthcoming in the Apple Grove Gazette, your source for all local news.
Monument for Mayor to Be Dedicated
by James R. Toynsbee, Editor
Feli-Mix corporate officials have graciously agreed to the placement of a monument for former mayor Donald Conklin who was murdered last summer in Chicago.
Feli-Mix was the last corporation which took advantage of Conklin’s invitation to set up business in our fair community.
Meow Mayhem Page 27
