Aspen Allegations - A Sutton Massachusetts Mystery

by Kasi Blake

  * * *

  The sky was soft grey with dense, rolling clouds; the air had a definite snap to it. Winter was on its way, although so far we’d been lucky to have only had the one snowfall. In another month Sutton would be blanketed, and if we were lucky the white carpet would remain through mid-February at least. I adored the snow. I loved the crispness of its crunch, the way it frosted the trees with white sparkles, and the way it turned our town into a Currier and Ives painting.

  As if to highlight my romantic daydreams, one of the houses we drove past on Central Turnpike had two ponies out in the front yard grazing the winter grass. I laughed in delight to Jason, pointing them out. “Other towns have a surly boy pushing a lawnmower around to keep their grass short,” I commented with a grin. “Here in Sutton we take a more ecologically sound route to lawn maintenance.”

  “And the grass gets free fertilizer as well, fully organic,” added Jason with a chuckle. “The best of all possible worlds.”

  We pulled into the parking lot of the store. I headed over to the calf pen first, gazing at the doleful eyes of the young animal. Jason waved a hand to the two horses in their ring, and one came over at a slow amble, content to nuzzle Jason’s hand for a few minutes.

  At last I sighed. “All right, then, down to business,” I noted, and we turned to enter the building proper. Jason moved to the shelves at the back to sort through the various local honey options, and a young, lithe woman came out to greet us, her blonde pony-tail swinging with her step.

  “Is Sam in today?” I asked with a smile.

  “Sure thing, he’s out back,” she offered. She headed briskly through the rear door, and it was only a minute or so before she returned with Sam in tow. He half-checked his step when he saw who was waiting, and the look on his face held resignation and acceptance in it. “So, back again,” he began without preamble. “I imagine you have some more digging to do in a past which would be better left buried.”

  I pitched my voice to remain gentle. “Jeff just wants to know what happened to his father,” I pointed out.

  Sam’s shoulders eased. “Of course the boy does,” he agreed, his tone softening. “He’s a good kid. I see him around, and he’s respectful - a rare trait in our smartphone-obsessed modern times.”

  He nodded his head toward the front door and we walked together over to the side of the horse ring. The darker horse came over to nuzzle him. He put a hand in one pocket of his long coat, drawing out a carrot. The horse’s ears perked up with delight; in a moment his large, rubbery lips had closed around it.

  Sam gave the horse a fond rub on the forehead. He spoke without rancor. “So, what have Charles and Richard been telling you? It has to be one of them that has set you back on me again.”

  I had the impression that Sam was a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-was man, and I decided that a straightforward approach might work best. “Before Eileen had her accident, she had been planning to go to Hollywood. She withdrew all her savings - $2,000 – from her bank account.”

  Sam glanced up in surprise. “She did? Who told you that?” He gave his head a shake. “Never mind, I remember she banked at OmniBank. Undoubtedly it was Charles who knew about it. He had his fingers in every pie that bank possessed, and many others as well. I’m surprised he didn’t have himself as co-signer on her account, to help her manage her funds.” He gave a snort.

  “So you didn’t know about that?”

  “That she was going to Hollywood? Well, sure, we all knew she was going someday, but it seemed a distant dream. I sort of figured she’d hang around town for a while, do that waitressing that she was so good at, and plan for it at a slow clip. I had no idea that she was going to leave right after graduation.”

  I strove to keep my voice neutral. “And the money?”

  He ran his hand down the horse’s mane. “Well, two thousand dollars. That is quite a lot. I had no idea she could make that much money being a waitress. Heck, that could have bought a new car back then, and not just a cheap one, either. It would have paid for a good quality vehicle.”

  I kept my eyes on him. “Maybe even a new tractor.”

  He gave a low laugh, and then stilled, turning to look at us both. His gaze hardened and he slowly shook his head. Finally he ground out, “That weasel. Is that what he’s been telling you?”

  “You did get a new tractor, right after the tragedy?”

  He turned his head and spit into the horse ring. “My family got that for me as my graduation present,” he snapped, a shadow falling over his face. “It was their bribe to keep me here. They knew how jealous I was of Charles’s going off to Kenyon University, and Richard heading down to Georgetown. Everyone was going somewhere and I was stuck at this farm, stuck just as surely as if my boots had sunk deep in a mire and I couldn’t pull them out.”

  His hand twined into the horse’s mane. “I remember how empty I felt that night I came home and found it waiting for me, a red bow sitting on top. My family was so proud, so thrilled at what they had done. To them it was a dream present, something none of them could imagine having. But to me it was an enormous ball and chain. That was what that tractor was to me. It was trapping me, holding me down, and I could never get free.”

  I focused on keeping my voice gentle. “I thought your family was quite poor …?”

  He grumbled deep in his throat. “Oh yes, I’m sure the others were delightedly enthusiastic about making that clear. My clothes never fit right. My socks always had holes in them. I barely had half a lunch to eat. But we did all right. We raised chickens and pigs and we kept the farm running. It wasn’t always easy. The world was changing to large farms and heavy machinery, modernizing. We were struggling to get by on a small scale, with hand-cared-for animals.”

  He looked across the horse ring, to the fields stretching out beyond. “Yes, we were poor, but we had equity here in this land. Acres and acres of it. So my father went to the Bank of Massachusetts and took out a mortgage so I could have my tractor. He trusted in me to improve things enough to offset the loan amount.” His shoulders tightened. “Yet another burden laid on me without my permission or desire.”

  “That would be why Charles didn’t know about it.”

  “You bet that’s right,” he agreed heatedly. “Charles didn’t understand the meaning of privacy. He would dig through any records he wanted and make snide comments to people after he had discovered their most personal secrets. Half the time I don’t even think he did it to be cruel. He had just been that way for so long that it had become second nature. He had become used to knowing everything and assumed it was there to be talked about.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then looked up at me in surprise. “Wait, so you’re saying that her family didn’t find this $2,000 in her room after she died? Surely she would have kept it there.” He leaned against the railing, thinking for a moment. “Even if she did have it on her when we got into those canoes, which seems quite unlikely, there was never a time that anyone could have gotten it from her. We were all right there.” His eyes drew somber. “And then, of course, she went into the water only a short time afterwards. I know they didn’t find anything odd on her when they pulled her up. Just the clothes on her body and that gold cross she always wore.”

  “If the money was missing, and you didn’t take it, how about the other three? Did any of them suddenly seem to come into wealth?”

  Sam gave that some thought. “Well, Richard got a shiny new Lincoln Continental when he graduated, but his family breathed money. I imagine they could peel off the bills for that without even noticing they were gone. And Charles, despite that trouble he got into at the bank, never seemed to be in want of cash. I think his missteps were more due to absent-mindedness and a lack of concern, not a desire to have more money in his own account.”

  “Still, one would think that the money would have to go somewhere,” I pointed out.

  He looked up. “And you’re sure the family didn’t find it?”

  I shook my head. “Ch
arles’s family was close with Eileen’s parents, and they went over all the finances together after the tragedy. There was never any mention of a sum like that.”

  He ran a hand along the rough wood fence, pondering. “Her parents are both dead now, of course, so we can’t ask them.” He sighed. “But I suppose that younger sister of hers is still around somewhere.”

  “She had a sister?” I asked, surprised. “Nobody has mentioned her until now.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Nobody ever gave her much thought,” he agreed. “Eileen was blonde, gentle, with large eyes like a resting doe. You could imagine her standing in a forest, Snow White like, with bluebirds fluttering down to keep her company.” He glanced down. “But Cheryl was something else altogether. Short, dumpy, with mousy brown hair that was barely brushed. Eileen had to keep her bedroom door locked to keep Cheryl from rifling through her things, and half the time that didn’t work. The girl had an ingrained nasty streak – every other word out of her mouth was a swear, and her favorite pastime was to gossip about others.”

  “So not someone you encouraged to hang around with your group, then,” I commented neutrally.

  He gave a low chuckle at that. “No, definitely not,” he agreed. “There was no love lost between those two. I’d have to say, I would imagine Cheryl was almost happy when her sister met her untimely end. She was no longer being compared with the glowing Golden Child of her family. No longer dreading the day that Eileen went off to Hollywood and became a famous celebrity.”

  I glanced over at Jason. “Maybe we should go have a talk with Cheryl, then,” I suggested. I looked back to Sam. “Does she work somewhere nearby?”

  He shook his head. “Last I heard, she worked in Sturbridge, at the Publick House. It’s a restaurant, dating back to the mid-1700s. A lot of history there. I know because one of my staff went to a wedding there a few months ago, and Cheryl served them.”

  “Well, then, luck is with me,” I offered. “My father adores the Publick House, and I arranged for him and his girlfriend to meet me and Jason there for Thanksgiving dinner. They do the full turkey with all the fixings, and it’s his favorite dish when we go the rest of the year. So it seemed only appropriate to let him enjoy it on that special day.”

  “You’ll probably see her then,” he agreed. “That’s definitely a day they rake in the highest tips. Everyone is feeling generous and thankful that they didn’t have to do three days of cooking to pull off the meal. She’ll be there.”

  “Well then,” I mused, turning to smile up at Jason. “I guess we’ll see if we can’t talk with her, and learn some more about what might have happened, all those years ago.”