“If you think this is bad you should have seen the mess in the kitchen by midmorning. I wasn’t sure I was going to survive the cleanup process.” Celadon stood surveying the disaster. From the look of her hair, her halfway-untucked shirt, and the fact that she was wearing only one shoe, I was inclined to believe her.
I am not the world’s pickiest housekeeper but I am particular about making my bed every morning and putting my clothes in the dresser drawers. I believe life is more enjoyable if living spaces don’t smell like cups of soured milk and if every flat surface is not sticky with unidentifiable substances.
“If you’re smart, you’ll dig around until you find your pillow and a blanket and you’ll move down onto the couch in the living room.”
“Does it seem fair that I should have to move out of my own space because Jade is such a slob?”
“It may not be fair but it looks like the only safe thing to do. You’re too short to be in there if the piles get any taller. I’d hate for you to smother in a sea of designer yoga pants.”
“You don’t suppose there’s a dog under here somewhere, too, do you?” I asked. Celadon’s face flushed and she started breathing loudly.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Just something Mom said.” I don’t share Mom’s visions with Celadon unless it is absolutely necessary. Celadon has had a psychiatrist on speed dial ever since she learned there was such a thing. When she describes our mother’s mental health she uses words like precarious. I never like to make Celadon wonder if Mom is standing at the top of an icy cliff with a stiff wind at her back. I also don’t really want her wondering if the same can be said about me.
I may not believe all of what Mom tells me but I am considerably more open-minded to the idea of life after corporeal death. I think Celadon never recovered from Mom telling her an elderly and recently deceased aunt had said hello to Celadon as she was having a bath as a small child. I’m not prepared to swear Celadon showers in a bathing suit. I will say her bikini is hanging in the bathroom to dry on a daily basis, winter and summer, and we don’t have access to a pool.
“All we need is for Mom to start having one of her visions. You don’t suppose she’s going to try to rid Hazel of dark spirits again do you? The house smells like burning grass for weeks every time she does that.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say what her intentions are.” Which strictly speaking was the truth. It was never a good idea to think you knew what Mom’s intentions were. Besides, it had been a few minutes since I’d last seen her and they were likely to have changed since she relieved me of the incense burner.
“She had better not be out buying a dog.”
“Why don’t I go check?” I left Celadon standing in the doorway to my bedroom, peering suspiciously inside like something with a tail and a collection of fleas was about to wriggle out from under all the piles.
Grandma had moved on to vacuuming the couch when I slipped past the living room. From the way she was attacking it with the upholstery attachment I had no confidence there would be a sofa for me to bed down on even if I could have managed to locate my pillow and blanket. Maybe Clarke had been the one with the best idea when he suggested moving into the sugarhouse. I was thinking about checking the attic for an old camping cot when my cell phone rang.
“Have you figured out who really took that money yet?” Tansey’s voice was so loud I could hear it over Grandma’s vacuuming. “Or are you on some sort of housecleaning bender?” I grabbed a jacket off a peg in the hall and headed out the door. The sun glinted off the snow and the smell of wood smoke drifted on the air. Out here, there was no sign of Hazel or Jade.
“You only just asked me to poke around.”
“So?”
“So, the money’s been missing for thirty years. It may take more than two days to get to the bottom of this.”
“A smart girl like you ought to have no problems finding the truth about Spooner.” I wasn’t sure even if I did get to the bottom of the whole mess that Tansey was going to be happy with the results. I had no idea if she knew about Spooner’s reputation with the ladies. She was a proud person and it might still sting after all these years. For now, I was going to choose my words carefully.
“I’ve been asking questions all over the place.”
“Who’ve you been to see?”
“I talked to Doc MacIntyre, Lowell, Karen Brewer, and Preston. I’ve even spoken with Cliff Thompson and Sarah Gifford.”
“And?”
“And, they all had things to contribute but nothing that could say for sure what really happened.”
“That doesn’t sound too promising. What do you have planned next?”
“I thought I’d talk to Jim Parnell since he was the one to put the bank bag in Karen’s desk.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? The festival is only a month away and if you don’t want to be directing traffic, stapling signs to all the telephone poles, and ordering the extra Porta-Johns all by your lonesome you’d better get hopping.”
“I have been hopping. You know I’m still boiling sap, too, don’t you?”
“Get cracking, missy. Jim’s bound to be around somewhere. Tell him you and Knowlton are thinking of buying a house together and that you want to see some listings. I can have Knowlton meet you there to give the story some credence.” The years it would take to convince Knowlton the house hunting story had all been an act did not bear considering. This needed to be shut down and shut down fast.
“If you want me to do this, I do it my way. I would rather work on my own. Besides, I thought you wanted Knowlton kept in the dark about the whole thing until we cleared Spooner’s name.”
“See, that’s why I know you’re the one for the job. Always thinking things through and putting the pieces together. With Knowlton’s looks and your brains I am going to be a happy grandmother one day.”
Fifteen
I drove all the way to the real estate office with the image of Tansey patting me on my bulging belly searing into my brain. I had to ask myself if it would be such a bad thing if Tansey sold up and headed out of town. After all, Knowlton was sure to follow her and my troubles, at least on that front, would be solved.
My uncomfortable chat with Tansey had given me a good idea of how to approach Jim though. I parked the minivan in Jim’s carefully plowed parking lot and headed up the salted and sanded walkway. There was no doubt about it; Jim wanted potential buyers to feel at home.
The office was small and Jim had only one agent working for him. Sugar Grove wasn’t big enough to support a large real estate market even with all the lakefront properties. He had a phone clamped to his ear when I walked in but he looked up and waved me into a seat across the desk from where he sat.
I plunked myself into the visitor chair and glanced around at the computer printouts of listings hung prominently on the walls. Big red banners proclaiming SOLD were outnumbered by listings stating EAGER SELLER or PRICE REDUCED. As idyllic as Sugar Grove felt to me, it shared the nation’s real estate downturn. I hoped maybe that would make Jim all the more eager to talk about the old days.
He finished up his call and turned the full force of his salesman smile on me. “What a delightful surprise. Please make my day and tell me you’ve finally decided you need a place to call your own.” He leaned across the desk, both hands planted flat on the gleaming wood surface. “I’ve got just the thing.”
“I hate to disappoint you but I’m not looking to buy. I’m not even sure what it is that I’m looking for.” I watched as his face stiffened into something I think he hoped looked neutral in the face of despair. “You do some business in rentals don’t you?”
“I do when the opportunity arises. It’s rare though. Are you looking for a house?”
“I was hoping there might be a small apartment somewhere in town. Right now I am sharing a room at Greener Pastures with m
y cousin Jade. The space is proving too small for the two of us.” That perked him up a bit.
“Usually I wouldn’t have any apartments in town but it just so happens Priscilla Martin’s long-term tenant, Frances Doucette, recently needed to move into Dappled Oaks assisted living facility.”
“You mean the apartment above Stems and Hems?” Stems and Hems opened its doors before I was born and Priscilla has faithfully provided Sugar Grove with corsets and corsages year in and year out ever since. I couldn’t remember a time when Frances had not lived in the apartment on the second floor of the shop.
I’d been in the apartment a few times as a child trick-or-treating and soliciting money for school fund-raisers. I had loved the place so much Frances had a hard time getting rid of me whenever I showed up clutching a plastic pumpkin bucket or an order form. Unless something had changed drastically, it was exactly the sort of place I needed to convince myself to leave Greener Pastures and strike out on my own.
“That’s the one. It isn’t large but it’s centrally located and it comes fully furnished.” Jim tapped a few keys on his computer keyboard then spun the monitor to face me. “Here are some photos I was planning to use for the listing but if you think either you or Jade would like the apartment I can hold off posting it for a few hours.”
“Could you show it to me right now?” I was looking for an apartment and I needed to stall for enough time to ask Jim the questions I came in for.
“Certainly. We could head over right now.” He hopped to his feet and grabbed his winter jacket off the hook on the wall. “Just let me grab my car keys.” I needed more time and I wasn’t sure how much information he would be willing to share with Priscilla joining in the conversation.
“It’s such a nice day. Why don’t we walk?”
“Anything for a potential customer.” He held the door for me and we were off.
“Were you the one to rent for Priscilla the last time it was empty?”
“As a matter of fact I was. I had just started out in the business. It had to have been more than thirty years ago now.”
“Was the housing market good then?”
“You can always make a living if you are willing to hustle.”
“Since you’re still in business after all this time I guess that means you were willing to do just that.”
“Boy was I ever. But you run a small business. You know what it’s like.”
“I do. My family has always helped with the maple festival but since I opened the sugaring business I’ve tried to use some of that volunteer time to get information about our products out there.”
“I did the same thing. The festival is a great way to create visibility and to network. Why do you think after all these years I still do it?”
“Is it worth it? Some years everything just seems to go wrong,” I said.
“You can say that again. When you are dealing with something so dependent on the weather sometimes there can be very little return on the investment of time.”
“Like the year the blizzard blew in for the entire weekend and left thirty-six inches of snow in town.”
“Or how about that time about ten years ago when we had almost no snow to speak of and the temperatures that weekend reached into the upper sixties. We had to cancel about half the events because of a lack of snow.”
“And now with Spooner Duffy’s body showing up a lot of people are talking about how that was the very worst year of them all.”
“Fifty years we’ve been holding this festival and that was the only time anything like that ever happened.”
“Didn’t anyone ever think it might be dangerous to leave all that cash in the town hall instead of dropping it at the bank? Lowell said it was twelve thousand dollars.”
“It wasn’t all cash. A goodly portion of what was raised was in the form of a check. We’d never had a theft like that before in Sugar Grove. I’m happy to say we’ve never had one since.”
“That might also be because the festival committee probably never waited until the next day to get around to depositing the money again.”
“Looking back, it does seem foolish. As soon as it happened I was pretty sure it was going to hurt my business when word got out about the theft.”
“What did it have to do with you? Obviously, you haven’t run off.”
“No, but I was one of the few people who knew the money would be locked in the town clerk’s desk drawer. I was worried no one would want to do business with the guy who was suspected of stealing from the library. Especially since it needed so much work.”
“Cliff mentioned the library was supposed to receive the funds that year.”
“That’s right. The library was small and outdated. The town was divided just about in half over renovating the existing space or building something new.”
“So feelings must have been running high.”
“You should ask Priscilla about it. She was on the library board of trustees the year it all happened.”
Sixteen
Priscilla looked up from the mannequin she was swaddling in enough tulle to hide a minivan. Priscilla’s shop was filled to bursting with everything from galvanized floral pails to beaded evening bags to well-cared-for antiques. I couldn’t help but run my hand over the dull sheen of the cast-iron antique sewing machine she’d displayed right in the center of the shop.
Priscilla had placed a basket filled with daisies and lilies on the treadle below the wooden cabinet. A length of pale pink silk draped under the needle as if the seamstress had been called away mid-project.
“Dani! Have you decided to come in for that dress fitting you’ve been promising me?” I had promised no such thing but Priscilla had been trying to get me to order a wedding gown from her for the past ten years. I was barely old enough to get married even with a parent’s permission the first time she brought up my lack of a dress order. She hasn’t failed to mention it every time she’s seen me since.
“Actually, Priscilla, I brought Dani by about the apartment you have for rent,” Jim said.
“I see.” Priscilla paused. My guess was she was hoping I would fill in some details as to why I was interested in the apartment. Priscilla wasn’t a gossip. I never heard her talking about anyone else but she certainly did listen and was always happy to tell you what she had heard about you. In my opinion it felt a bit like harassment and I wasn’t sure I liked it any better than Myra’s form of gossip.
“I told her it was still available.” Jim seemed unsettled by Priscilla’s lack of enthusiasm at my interest in the apartment.
“That would depend entirely on who was looking for an apartment. I don’t rent to unmarried couples. In my business there is no profit in encouraging that sort of thing. No profit at all.” Priscilla’s face scrunched up as she gave her tongue a good clucking. Priscilla was all about the bottom line and I was betting that would get me the apartment, especially if I offered to pay a couple of extra months up front.
“Nothing like that. I’m actually looking because Jade has moved to town permanently. We are getting pretty cramped up now with the two of us sharing one small bedroom. Jim mentioned you had an apartment to rent so I wanted to come see it.”
“Darling Jade. I heard she was in town. Do you think she’ll be in to choose some more dresses for your niece for the pageant this year?” My mind’s eye flashed on the image of Celadon pounding on the bathroom door, promising Spring a pony if she would just come out. I doubted very much there would be a repeat performance of last year’s shenanigans.
“I’m sure she’ll be eager to chat with you about it just as soon as she gets her feet under her at the shop.” In truth, it wouldn’t matter what Jade talked with Priscilla about or even what she went ahead and bought. “Although I’m sure Celadon will want to take a look first and have the final say.”
“I expect the Little Miss Maple pagea
nt will have come and gone before Celadon deigns to visit the shop for a look.” I heard Priscilla sniff. “Well, you aren’t here to talk about your sister. Jim, you mind the store for me while I show Dani the space.” If Jim was surprised by Priscilla ordering him around, he didn’t let on. He simply nodded and took up a position behind the checkout counter.
I followed Priscilla to a warped wooden door in the back room of the shop. It was all she could do to tug it open even with the way heating systems tend to make doors fit more loosely in their casings in the winter.
Priscilla managed to heave the door open then motioned for me to follow her up a narrow stairway with a pitch that was more like a ladder than a stairwell. I had a hard time believing Frances had lasted as long as she had with such a climb ahead of her every time she arrived home.
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for but it is furnished and heat is included. Speaking frankly, I’ll be glad of the rent money. With the economic downturn people just aren’t spending like they used to on flowers. Or on wedding dresses for that matter.” Priscilla gave me a pointed look. “I’ve heard you’ve been spending a lot of time with that game warden from out of town lately. You aren’t thinking of tying the knot soon, are you?”
“They’re called conservation officers now and since he hasn’t proposed I think it’ll be a while before I need a wedding dress.” Not that I’d be buying one anywhere. My mother was an enthusiastic and accomplished seamstress. She had made both of Celadon’s wedding dresses and would be heartbroken if she didn’t make one for me, too, if the time ever came.
“I suppose it’s just as well. With your size we’d have to look for something from the flower girl collection anyway. Not nearly as profitable.” I had to wonder if Priscilla ever listened to herself. The drop-off in her business might have had more to do with her propensity to offend customers than the state of the economy. “Well, here it is. Take a look for yourself.” She pushed open another door at the top of the stairs.
A Sticky Situation Page 11
