“I hear you have a new editor,” TJ said.
Brenda looked up at the sky and rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, Mr.-New-York-City-I-know-everything guy. We’ll see about that.” She leaned toward Grace and TJ while looking around at the other tables. Then she lowered her voice and said in a tone both arrogant and snide, “I’m working on the biggest exposé ever. Huge secret. Blow the lid right off this town. I know things, and I figure it will win me a Pulitzer.” She traced the headline in the air. “Brenda Norris, Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. I’ll show this town. People won’t laugh behind my back after this story.”
Grace noticed that each time Brenda said something seemingly innocuous, her lips slid over her teeth into a narrow, calculating smile.
Jill stabbed at her salad without looking up. “Hope it all works out for you, Brenda.”
“You’ll see. Everyone will. They’ll look at me with respect when this story breaks. And Deb, I’ll see you at the historical place again this afternoon.” Deb nodded—quick up and down movements—too afraid to say anything as Brenda turned and strode toward the square, grabbing the strap on her camera bag just before it slid down her shoulder.
A collective sigh broke the silence around the table.
Jill scowled. “You mark my words. That woman is trouble and she’s going to find herself in legal hot water one of these days. News writer indeed! More like unsubstantiated-rumors-and-gossip reporter.”
Deb leaned in toward the table and whispered, “She’s been spending days and weeks looking up old articles from the newspapers and journals at the Historical Society. Not sure what she’s researching. I just hate it when I see her coming. It feels like the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.” She shivered for effect.
TJ nodded. “Been to the jail too, going through some cold cases that are so cold they’ll never be solved. She’s pissed off—excuse my French, Grace—an awful lot of people in town.”
Jill pressed her lips together and stared at Brenda’s retreating back. “After the story where she implied Mike Sturgis’s construction company used inferior materials, I thought she’d ease off. But then she went after police officers using their squad cars during off-duty hours to do personal business and everyone is sure it was a total fabrication. Who’s next—the mayor?”
“You know,” Grace began, “quite a few years ago, before she worked at the newspaper, she used to teach with me. English. Brenda was really good but a tough grader. Kids gave her quite a time and so did the parents. I always felt a little sorry for her and tried to help her. But after some poor choices she made with terrible results—including her firing—she changed. It’s as if she’s on a crusade to get back at people she thinks have been responsible for her problems. But I’m afraid this mission she’s on—digging up dirt on various people and their past history in the town—isn’t going to solve those problems and sure isn’t going to win her any friends.”
“I’m not sure she’s after friends,” mumbled Deb. “I don’t know where all this will end.”
Jill took a sip of wine and set her glass decisively on the table. “She’s a woman full of dark secrets and she’s walking a fine line on the edge of disaster.”
“You may be right—both of you,” said Grace. “You know that old saying from Ben Franklin—‘Three may keep a secret—’ ”
“ ‘—if two of them are dead,’ ” whispered Deb.
And then it was quiet.
Within seconds the calm was shattered as Grace’s cell phone played the theme from Jaws.
“Ah, that’s Lettie,” announced Grace, and she touched the “answer” button.
Deb grabbed Jill’s arm and whispered, “Her sister-in-law gets the theme from Jaws?”
Jill raised both hands. “Ours is not to question why—”
“What? Who called?” Grace was silent again. “Sure. I’ll be home soon,” and she broke the connection.
“An emergency?” TJ questioned.
“Oh, that was Lettie. She’s puttering around my kitchen making a pie. She declared it was an emergency because a man called me and wants me to call him back.”
Deb, Jill, and TJ eyed each other.
“And this is a problem because—?”
“When was the last time a man called me?”
“How long have I been alive?” TJ quipped. “Did she get the name by any chance?”
“Of course not. This is Lettie we’re talking about.”
“I’ll have to check back with you later this afternoon,” Deb surmised. “And then I’ll call Jill.”
TJ pointed to Jill. “And then you’ll call me.” She scraped her chair on the cement and dropped a few bills on the table.
Grace was quick to reply. “This sounds like that old telephone game. And with Lettie in the lead, the whole message will get so garbled that by the time it gets to TJ, I’ll be starring in a Jane Austen novel and eloping by night to Gretna Green.”
CHAPTER TWO
* * *
Grace took ten minutes to drive home instead of the usual five because she ended up behind Nub Swensen—license plate “Nub”—on the small-town streets doing fifteen mph. She considered how comforting it was to live in a small town where you knew people’s license plates and even the identity of joggers by their running styles. But what gain she measured in familiarity was lost in miles per hour. “Can you drive any slower, Nub?” she bellowed at his flashing brake lights.
As she moved at a snail’s pace and passed Endurance High School, her mind wandered to the empty school windows. Usually summer break was an opportunity to recharge her ambition so she could once again teach ninety high school students in the sweat-drenched, late summer days of August. She sighed and slid a little lower in the car seat. This fall would be different. She pulled into her driveway and sat in her car, pensively staring at the house.
1036 Sweetbriar Court. She and Roger had bought the house right after they married, and although it had undergone various alterations over the years, it still reflected moments of their lives together. Roger’s practice was thriving, their three children were born healthy, and Grace was into the nurturing phase of her life.
A Victorian house, it had white wooden siding and dark red brick masonry. Grace had planted Siberian iris and black-eyed Susans on the south end of the lot near a small, decorative corner of white wooden fencing. She could still picture her daughter Katherine in her sunbonnet and tiny shoe—one missing as usual—diligently helping her pat down the dirt with her tiny toddler hands.
She and Roger had both loved the wraparound porch, protected from the rain by overhanging eaves. Beneath the bay window, Grace could see her red and pink rose bushes as they reached toward the morning sun on the east side of the house. Evenings, they had often sat on the floral cushioned chairs and discussed his day at the law office and their children.
Grace reached for the door handle of her car but was stopped by a more somber memory. A heavy sigh escaped her lips. That idyllic, small-town life was suddenly shattered when Roger died at age thirty-five—too young—of a heart attack. She was lost for months after that. She walked around in a daze, her friends helping with the children and whispering in quiet tones. She remembered the day her sister-in-law, Lettie, gave her a verbal slap, telling Grace that the children needed her and she would have to decide whether to live her life or allow others to raise her family. So a year after her husband’s death, Grace began teaching and the job healed her. It took her out of herself, and helping others learn gave her a life again.
She spent evenings sitting on this side porch alone, grading papers and occasionally drinking a glass of good wine. The cozy porch boasted a long wooden swing, several deep containers of geraniums, hanging pots with petunias clinging over the edges, and a tall basket that used to hold baseball bats and other sports equipment. From this spot—even now—she could see the children’s tree house still sitting on the fork of an oak tree in the backyard. A rope swing had hung down from one of the wides
pread branches of a maple tree, but only a few shreds of rope still clung stubbornly from the branch. This yard had witnessed hundreds of croquet matches, T-ball games, kick-the-can sessions, and hide-and-seek contests. Sometimes Grace believed she could hear the familiar and loved voices of her children calling “All in free!” if she listened hard enough. That was a long time ago, she thought.
Squaring her shoulders, she unlocked her front door and passed through the rooms to her favorite, the library, where she had made thoughtful changes to the masculine milieu several years after Roger’s death. Gone was the leather sofa, replaced by a soft blue and white plaid couch and matching chairs. She had pulled out the old carpet and replaced it with hardwood floors covered with a navy area rug. The bookshelves housed Hawthorne, Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Fitzgerald, and other books of authors she had loved, marked up, and used over the years in her classroom. The rows of law books she gave to a young attorney who had just opened his practice in Endurance. She glanced around her space, a perfect refuge for a bibliophile. Single. Alone.
Well, not completely alone. She could hear Lettie in the kitchen at the back of the house, humming to herself as she polished this and washed that. Lettie moved in with Grace after Roger died, but once the children reached high school age, she bought a small brick bungalow a couple of blocks away. That move was good since Grace loved her sister-in-law but needed her space. Lettie could be mildly irritating—scratch “mildly” and think “often”—but she still came over to help, fussing over Grace, and considering Grace’s home within her purview. The two women tolerated each other’s foibles, but agreed on their most valuable connection—the children.
“I’m home, Lettie,” Grace called out, sitting at a huge antique desk and caressing the smooth walnut surface. She had kept this favorite piece of Roger’s. “Had a nice lunch with the girls.”
A lean, spare Lettisha Kimball sauntered into the office with a dishcloth in one hand and a slightly wet frying pan in the other. Lettie had the energy of a thirty-year-old and was constantly on the move, even though she was twelve years older than Grace. A few brown spots on her cheeks and arms revealed the only evidence of her real age, freckles earned during years of sunshine while she worked in her massive garden. She sniffed a couple of times and glanced at an end table looking for dust.
Grace fired the opening volley. “Let me have it. I can tell your curiosity is eating away at you.”
Lettie reached into an apron pocket and handed Grace a piece of notepaper.
She checked out the paper, saying, “It’s just a number. Did you get a name?”
“Nope. He was gone before I could sneeze. It’s a local number.”
“Thanks, Lettie.”
“So. Aren’t you going to call and see who it is?”
“In due time. I have bills to pay first.”
“Gracie, I really think this is a good sign. It reflects your horoscope for today. Wait, I’ll go get it.” She turned and walked briskly to the kitchen, setting the towel and pan down on a counter and grabbing yesterday’s newspaper. Returning, she opened several pages with great relish and folded them back. “See, here it is.” She pointed at the crinkled paper. “ ‘Scorpio: A promising endeavor is likely to be put together through a chain of unique circumstances involving someone from a distant place. This opportunity won’t linger long, so take it!’ ”
“A distant place, huh. This is a local number, Lettie.”
“I know, I know, but I’m sure this is a sign.”
“Oh, please, Lettie. Remember when you told me a tall, dark stranger would come into my life? Funny how the horoscope left out the part about him being a plumber who came to fix the clogged toilet. Or the time we had that argument, and the horoscope you took great pleasure in reading to me said I had done someone a terrible injustice and should apologize? Honestly, I think you make these up.”
“You mark my words, Gracie Kimball. The stars don’t lie.” And Lettie turned and stalked out of the room to her kitchen domain.
Grace scowled a moment at the name “Gracie.” She hated Lettie’s habit of changing her name. She began organizing the bills on her desk and pushed the power button on her laptop, but before she could send a single payment, she stopped, looked out the bay window and thought about the heap of sheets and tangled bedspread upstairs. Her nightmare began shortly after Roger’s death. She recalled the fog of those days, planning his funeral, arranging for the cemetery plot, walking around in an incomprehensible blur. And their three children—eight, seven, and five—couldn’t understand that their father wasn’t coming home. Ever.
She shook herself back to the present.
Lettie shouted from the kitchen, “I’m leaving. You can call me when you find out who that man is.”
Grace chuckled. Of course I will. You’ll be my first call—not. “Sure, Lettie.”
She pushed herself up, crossed the room, and perused the CDs on her bookshelf. Grabbing several, she loaded them in the player, and adjusted the volume. Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” came on and Grace settled back at the desk. She picked up a pen and then laid it down again. Somehow she just couldn’t concentrate today.
Probably that nightmare. She hadn’t mentioned it at lunch. Why would it suddenly show up now? She glanced down at the jagged, pale scar on the back of her right hand. Mostly her fire dream had receded to the Siberian closets of her memory, only to return during times when she lost her nerve or couldn’t seem to trust her instincts. She shivered despite the June warmth and was reluctant to even think about going to bed tonight.
Restlessly she got up and walked to her bookshelves where she had an entire shelf of old photos. She picked up one of her favorites, a photograph of her, Deb, Jill, and TJ having lunch on a day trip to Springfield. Jill’s Andrea was in fourth grade and Grace’s Katherine was in third when they first met and struck up a friendship over their PTA work and their concerns for their children. Next to Jill was Deb, her arm tentatively on Jill’s shoulder. She was the secretarial presence at the junior high when Grace stopped in with her children’s forgotten lunches or gym clothes. Retired, Deb volunteered for various good causes and kept an eye on her husband, John, now that their two daughters were grown up and gone. TJ came last, much younger than the rest of them, her beautiful olive skin a result of her biracial mix. In the photo she was holding a glass of wine at a jaunty angle.
Back in the present, Grace considered the history of “the four.” They had shared shopping trips, plays in Woodbury, disasters with children and husbands, worries about aging parents, recipes, and plans to lose weight or keep it off. After Roger died, Grace had found herself alone in a world of couples. But these friends had pulled her into their lives and didn’t seem to mind that she was a “single.” Now they found themselves—with the exception of TJ—comparing their children’s problems and considering how to tactfully make suggestions about discipline, toilet training, and child care when it came to their grandchildren.
The CD player switched discs, bringing her back to the present, and Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away.” Grace listened to the lyrics for a few minutes. Lately she found herself thinking often about Roger. Perhaps it was because she always assumed they would grow old together. Now she was alone.
She weighed her decision to retire. After all, she was only fifty-six. It was simple. She had grown tired of marking the same commas on the same papers, day in and day out. Two weeks earlier she had cleared out her file cabinets, erased the whiteboards for the last time, piled up the textbooks in neat rows, emptied her desk drawers, and carted home only a few precious mementoes from a lifetime of teaching. That hadn’t been so hard. She glanced out the window. The bad part was turning in her room keys, keys that had jingled in her pockets for twenty-five years. That was when she realized she was done. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
She sat down at her desk and looked at the pile of bills again. Retired. The nagging thought of writing a novel kept tugging at her but she wasn’t sure she could do it. Oh,
well. She would think about it later, like Scarlett, at Tara.
A man called. Grace glanced at the number on the slip of paper. It looked familiar. Should she call? She felt apprehensive and then said out loud, “This is silly. Call the number.”
She stood up, cell phone in hand, and glanced in the mirror on the office wall, the one with the beveled glass edging. She fingered the collar of her light blue blouse thoughtfully. Her face was remarkably unlined for the life she’d lived, and her brown eyes still sparkled. She took an inventory. Shoulders back. Slightly crooked smile. Good skin. No plastic surgery. Grace grinned and then touched her hair. “Maybe I should do something about that gray,” she mouthed to no one in particular.
She pulled up the number pad on her phone, glanced at the paper, and took a deep breath. Tapping the numbers, she heard it ring twice, three times, and, well, maybe she should hang up.
Then a deep male voice answered.
CHAPTER THREE
* * *
Grace walked through the darkly tinted doors of Tully’s around 6:45 that evening. She hadn’t been here since Bill Tully had extensively renovated his interior. She remembered when Tully had first come to Endurance in the early nineties. Over the next twenty-some years he had steadily built up a business that drew from the town and the area.
She checked out the new décor. Flat-screen televisions occupied every corner, and the middle of every wall, and each was tuned to different games or a sports center show. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dim lighting, she saw seven or eight booths built along the edge of the interior and a dozen tables scattered throughout the middle. On the north wall were two sets of photos. One grouping of framed photos had local sports teams from the high school and she walked over and perused the pictures that probably came from the local newspaper, the Endurance Register. Some were photos of old buildings that had since been destroyed or reused as needed for new businesses. There was the Historical Society where Deb worked, retrieved from its debilitated state as a failed grocery store. Other photos were from events where the mayor was cutting a ribbon, and other pictures were of the Pork Festival Five-K run. Grace noticed historical photos of parades and the college and buildings destroyed by fires and old trolley tracks downtown. Tully had created quite a display.
Three May Keep a Secret (An Endurance Mystery) Page 2
