A Firm Foundation

by Anne Marie Rodgers

  Gerald Foxfield. As Kate parked in front of the historical society, she decided that if what she was beginning to suspect was true, it was even more important to track down Gerald Foxfield and introduce herself.

  The Harrington County Historical Society in Pine Ridge was housed in an old brick schoolhouse with the Harrington County Museum. As Kate entered, a woman said, “Hello, Kate. Welcome to the museum and historical society.”

  “Hello,” Kate said.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, she recognized Miriam McLaughlin, the wife of the hospital’s emergency-room doctor. She was a pleasant woman in her late thirties with dark hair and wide blue eyes. “How are you, Miriam?”

  “Just fine, thanks,” Miriam said, smiling. “Can I help you with something today?”

  “I hope so. I’m trying to find out who owned the Copper Mill Public Library when it was a private home, and I need to confirm that it was donated to the town. I’ve heard that the original owners may have moved to McMinnville, but I have no other details.”

  “Let’s see what we can do about that.” Miriam came out from behind the counter. She motioned for Kate to follow her upstairs and then gestured to a door on the left. “Over here is the room with the records, old papers, journals, and other stuff.”

  “Do you have any thoughts on where I should look?” As they entered the room, Kate saw there was an enormous amount of material compiled.

  “This section here is specific to Copper Mill,” the woman told her. “The census records might be the fastest way to find out who lived there. Then you could check to see if that person was the owner. The census records are on computer now, so you could check by the address rather than by the name.”

  Kate immediately perked up. “Really? That would save a lot of time.”

  Miriam showed her to the lone computer in the room. “It’s not new, fast, or fancy, but it’s adequate for this kind of work. And it was free.” She chuckled.

  “That’s the best kind,” Kate said. She sat down and clicked on the program Miriam had indicated. It was created specifically for census searches and had a search field with several kinds of searches available. Kate typed in the address of the library and changed the parameter for the address.

  The computer hummed steadily, and slo-o-o-wly the bar near the bottom of the screen indicated that information was being compiled. Minutes later, the screen changed, and Kate saw a list before her.

  Eagerly, she perused the information. There were three names listed at that address, the first in the 1900 census. Then a new family was named in the 1910 census, followed by yet a third in the census of 1920.

  Kate wanted to shout “Yes!” in triumph when she read the third name: the Charles W. Foxfield family. According to the 1920 census, Foxfield had a wife and six children. The Foxfields still lived at the address during the next census, completed a decade later.

  Looking over her shoulder, Miriam pointed to the line for the next one, the 1940 census. “There’s no one listed there. It became the Copper Mill Public Library sometime between 1930 and 1940.”

  WHILE KATE WAS IN PINE RIDGE, she wanted to make one more stop at the demolition company. It would have been nice to have gotten there earlier, but Monday and Tuesday both had evaporated in the heat of the many leads she was trying to pursue all at once.

  The parking lot was loose gravel, and small puffs of dust squirted out from beneath her sandals as she walked to the door. We need a day of steady, soaking rain, she thought.

  The company’s office was a modular home that had been altered. What had once been the kitchen area was a small reception area with a desk. The counters held office equipment rather than appliances.

  “Hi. Can I help you?” A young woman looked up from a computer monitor as Kate entered. She sported spiky deep burgundy hair gleaming with purple highlights.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said.

  The young woman lifted one eyebrow, and Kate saw a small silver stud at its far corner. A row of silver hoops marched down the outer edge of her left ear. Her fingernails were painted black, and she was dressed in black cargo-style pants with a black T-shirt. Still, the smile she flashed Kate was friendly and open.

  “Wanna give it a shot?”

  Kate had to chuckle. “I was wondering if I could see the paperwork on the Copper Mill library demolition, please.”

  The girl looked skeptical. “You’ll have to leave your name, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because those kinds of records are private unless the company president authorizes it. If you’re the owner, of course, it’s no big deal.”

  No big deal, Kate surmised. She shook her head. “I’m not. I don’t even know who the owner is, which is why I had hoped to look at the demolition order.”

  The redhead looked regretful. “Sorry. I really can’t let you see that. Dad would kill me.”

  Kate smiled. “That’s all right. May I ask you another question?” At the girl’s nod, Kate went on. “Are there federal, state, or local regulations for demolitions?”

  “Oh yeah. Major. All three.” She grinned. “It wouldn’t be good to blow up a neighbor’s place while knocking down the one beside it, you know?”

  “It sure wouldn’t,” Kate said. “Do you think I could get a copy of those regulations?”

  “Sure.” The girl looked pleased that Kate’s request was one she could fulfill. As she took down a binder and removed several sheets of paper, she said, “Dad’s out of the office, but he’ll be in tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to stop by.” She ran the pages through the copier and extended them to Kate. “This is the condensed version. We have a whole notebook full of bureaucratic language from the government, but this is what we usually give clients.”

  “Thank you.” Kate accepted the papers and the information. “Perhaps I will. Have a good day.”

  As she walked back to her car, one strap of her handbag suddenly gave way. The bag fell to the gravel before Kate could catch it, and several items fell out.

  Kate bent to gather everything up, examining the frayed ends of the strap with resignation. The bag was old, but it was one of her favorites, and she’d been trying to keep it as long as possible. The encounter with Eva Mountjoy in the library must have been the last straw.

  Suddenly she froze when she saw what was in her hand. She held a white piece of copy paper folded into a small square. On one side, her first and last names were printed in blocky capital letters.

  Slowly she unfolded the sheet of paper. It looked like the two Livvy had received, and Kate braced herself for the threat she was certain she was going to receive.

  I know about the library. I don’t want to see it get torn down. Look at Malcolm Dekker. Investigate the owner of the antique shop. Good luck.

  Kate reread the note. Was it a joke? What about Malcolm Dekker? Was there something she had missed or could it be a bid to focus her attention on someone other than the real culprit? She hadn’t thought that the funeral-home director was involved with Tosten after observing him at the council meeting. In fact, she hadn’t thought Malcolm even liked Tosten very much. Malcolm was a very unique individual, but she couldn’t imagine him plotting to tear down the library.

  And what was this about the owner of the antique shop? Was the author of the note suggesting Eli Weston was involved in the plot to tear down the library? It sure sounded like it, although Kate couldn’t imagine that could be true. Again, she wondered if it was just a ploy to distract her. Eli may have had his problems in the past, but he had suffered a terrible loss, recovered from it, and was now a dependable member of the church and the community. Wasn’t he?

  Kate got back into the Honda and headed toward home. As she drove, she thought about the note she had just found.

  Who could have put it in her purse? She’d had her handbag with her all morning. Except...except for the incident when Eva had nearly knocked her down with the box, and it had hit the floor and scattered items every
where.

  Eva Mountjoy? Could it be? Not unless she already knew about the demolition. Kate had thought Eva’s reaction had been honest when she’d told the woman why she suspected the building might be demolished. The note specifically mentioned the library being “torn down,” so how could Eva have authored it?

  Perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she had only been the messenger, instructed by someone else to deliver the note in some inconspicuous fashion.

  Kate was so intent on her thoughts that she was unaware of the weather until a fat drop of rain splashed onto the windshield. She looked around.

  To the west, in her rearview mirror, the sky was a deep purple. A flash of lightning split the sky. Kate couldn’t prevent an involuntary squeak, and her breath came faster as panic began to rise.

  Where could she go? She had to get off the road, and clearly, she didn’t have a lot of time. Coming up on her right was a small empty building that once had been a branch bank on a wide-open paved lot. Quickly she pulled into the lot, then realized that the drive-through lane would provide a little cover, with the sturdy brick building on one side and a roof over her head.

  It was already raining hard by the time she parked beside the drive-up window. She strained to see beyond the sheets of rain gusting sideways across the parking lot. Lightning flashed, and the whole world went white. Kate flinched.

  To distract herself, she closed her eyes, leaned back against the headrest, and thought about all the things she wanted to do.

  Number one: go back to the demo company and speak with the boss. In an ideal world, she’d learn who hired them. Who was the person behind the plot to tear down the library? She was beginning to suspect that Tosten Glass wasn’t the lead character in this drama, but he still had to be involved somehow. He had known the building was going to be demolished. But what could his motive be?

  Number two: find a copy of As I Lay Dying. She wasn’t sure what the book could tell her, but it must have caused a significant flap at the time. No pun intended, she thought to herself, chuckling.

  Number three: meet with Danny the following afternoon to go over the town’s unbelievably convoluted budget. Did everything add up? Was there a huge shortfall that might have necessitated selling the library? But if that were true, wouldn’t the other board members have mentioned it? Or wouldn’t Jennifer McCarthy have reported it in the paper?

  Number four: get the deed information from Louisa. She needed to know exactly who owned the library after 1930, when it had clearly belonged to the Foxfields, and who held the deed now. The census had been able to tell her an approximate decade during which it passed from the Foxfields’ hands, but it didn’t show any new owners or occupants of the building. And subsequent census records only listed it as the Copper Mill Public Library, without specifying any owner, not even the town.

  She paused, feeling a little overwhelmed as she reviewed all she had learned about the library closing since returning home. There was so much to do! Then she recalled that she’d promised to try to photograph the squirrels for Elspeth Getty. And finally, there was the note she had found. Even if Eva had put it in her handbag, she didn’t think the woman had authored it. But Kate was at a loss as to who had.

  Suddenly she realized that the storm had passed. It was still sprinkling lightly, but the sun was coming out. She mentally patted herself on the back for being able to successfully distract herself from her recently acquired wariness of storms.

  Upward and onward, she thought as she turned the key in the ignition. Operation Save the Library was moving ahead at top speed.

  A COUPLE HOURS after the brief storm that had done nothing to alleviate the steamy humidity, Paul felt about as hot, grimy, and tired as he could remember feeling in a very long time. He and several other men had been working on the roof under Drew Mears’ supervision.

  Drew was a stern taskmaster. Before a single man had been allowed on the roof their first day on the job, they all had learned safety techniques to reduce the risk that anyone on the roof would fall off, or that anyone on the ground could be injured by something sliding off the roof, like a hammer. They had learned to carry water and drink it liberally and to wear heavy work gloves to protect hands and fingers from hammers, utility knives, and sharp edges of metal.

  They had spent a good part of the week prepping the roof for the actual shingling process, tearing off old shingles and rotting wood and attaching a whole new layer of plywood to the rafters. Several of the rafters had also needed to be replaced after the tornado damage was assessed.

  They had nailed flashing, as the sheet metal was called in the roofing process, into place around the chimney and installed a drip edge, bending the metal down at the lower edge of the roofline.

  Then Drew had taught them how to score shingles with a utility knife and bend them back and forth to break them in certain spots. He had overseen the laying of a starter course of shingles over a strip of felt, and then he had shown the teams how to lay row after row of shingles.

  “Hey, Paul?” It was Jerry Cox, the newcomer to the project.

  Paul turned, wiping sweat from his brow. “Yes?”

  “Do you know how that whole library closing thing is going? I heard your wife might be looking into it.”

  Paul chuckled. “You could say that.”

  “What do you mean?” Jerry asked.

  “She’s been trying to check out every angle she can,” Paul said, hammering in a nail and pulling another from the work apron he wore. Then he remembered Kate’s concern for Livvy. Perhaps he shouldn’t be broadcasting Kate’s activities. So he added, “You know women, always making mountains out of molehills,” with a silent apology to his astute wife.

  “I see.” Jerry returned to his own hammering.

  The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, and the men knocked off work shortly before five.

  “See you tomorrow, Paul,” called Joe Tucker as he headed toward his own vehicle.

  “See you then.”

  Paul headed homeward. When he found himself parked in his own driveway, he was vaguely surprised. He must have been on autopilot because he didn’t remember a single moment of the drive.

  The garage door was still up, and Kate was climbing out of the Honda inside the garage. She came to greet him, giving him a light kiss on the cheek.

  “Sheesh. You look like I feel. Long day?”

  Paul laughed. “And then some. Yours was the same?”

  His wife nodded, and he realized her pretty brown eyes were deeply shadowed with fatigue. He knew she’d been working hard to try to keep the library from closing, but he hadn’t realized just how hard. He supposed he’d been too preoccupied with his own project.

  “Let’s grab some dinner and tell each other war stories about our days,” Kate suggested. “I have some gazpacho chilled in the fridge, and someone gave Millie a pan of corn bread today. She didn’t want all of it, so she left some at our door with a note, since she hadn’t seen you.”

  “Cold soup and corn bread,” Paul said dreamily. “Already made. Sounds terrific.”

  Kate chuckled. “It does, doesn’t it? Why don’t we get cleaned up first? Dinner in ten minutes.”

  “I have to shower,” Paul said, “or you won’t let me near the food. Better make it fifteen.”

  A cool shower felt wonderful and did a lot to refresh him. By the time he joined Kate in the kitchen, she had the meal assembled on the table and had sliced a quarter of a seedless watermelon to go with the soup and corn bread.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll clean up the dishes.”

  Kate smiled. “You’ve done your share of taking care of me this week. We don’t have to keep score.”

  After a brief prayer, he told her how the roofing project was proceeding.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Kate had a pleasant Bible-study time and made blueberry pancakes for Paul. After dressing in a pair of pale blue-striped crop pants and a white sleeveless top, she added pretty blue glass earrings.

  Kate tucke
d her small camera into her handbag. She hopped into the Honda and stopped by the old Bixby house next door, where the Faith Freezer Program was located. She dropped off the pies she had made the previous day before she turned the car toward Pine Ridge. She needed to visit the demolition company again and speak with the owner. Finding out for sure whether the library was to be demolished—and the name of the person who wanted it torn down—was her first priority.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Kate stepped into the front office at the demo company, her young friend with the purple hair was standing at the counter, manning a copier with one hand while she slurped a McDonald’s drink with the other.

  “Oh, hey!” she said. “I told my dad about you yesterday. He’s here now if you want to see him.”

  The young woman smiled, the same open, friendly smile from earlier. Kate thought it looked a bit incongruous coming from the tough-looking Goth girl. It just went to show, she thought, how deceiving first impressions could be.

  “Yes, I’d like to talk to him,” Kate told her, smiling.

  “I’ll go tell him.” The young woman started off down a hallway, then turned around. “I’m Lissa, by the way.”

  “Kate Hanlon. Nice to meet you, Lissa.”

  Lissa was back in a moment, followed by a tall, slender man in chinos and a light blue dress shirt. He came toward Kate with a smile that told her immediately he was Lissa’s father. They looked quite a bit alike.

  “Hi. I’m Adam Crawford.” He made a circling motion with his index finger, indicating the building around them. “Crawford Demolitions, you know?”

  Kate introduced herself and extended a hand. “Thank you for speaking to me.”

  “Why don’t you come back to my office?” he suggested.

  He gestured for Kate to precede him to an office down the hall and then showed her to a comfortable chair across the desk from his own.