The Major's Wife (Jubilant Falls series Book 2)

by Debra Gaskill

  "Yes. Tell me what you have been doing with yourself."

  "Working mostly. Until everything in Paul's estate gets settled, things are kind of tight."

  "Are you in any financial difficulty, my dear?"

  "Not really. I mean, we're not starving," I took a bite of a salmon sandwich. "There's plenty of food, and the kids’ shoes still fit, but there's nothing for extras right now."

  Mother was silent for a few moments. "Darling, may I make a suggestion?"

  "Before you do, I want to say something." I raised both hands. "I do not need any suggestions on how to run my life. I'm an adult. I would appreciate it if you would keep your comments about how I choose to live my life to yourself. Would you tell Lovey what to do?"

  "But Kay, you don't know about Lovey…" She bit her lip and was silent a moment. "If that's what you like. I just have one little idea—please, hear me out." Without waiting for my reply, Mother plowed on. "This is something I've been planning to do for quite a while, since you and Paul were first married. In fact, I was going to give it to you for your tenth wedding anniversary, but since you and he would have obviously split up long before that."

  "Mother!"

  "I'm sorry." She moved to the desk and pulled a folder from the bottom drawer. "I am prepared to offer you half of my stock in a little venture Lovey and I have had going for years. We call it Marlov Enterprises. That would give you twenty-five percent ownership in the company and even partial ownership in the house you live in. It's a sure thing, Kay. There aren't many of these in life. You’d be a fool to let it pass."

  "I don't know…" If I took this from her, I would be right back where I started, under her thumb. But, then, I also have more than my paycheck, Paul's Air Force survivor benefits, and the Social Security check I get for the kids.

  "Please Kay, take it as a gift." Mother handed me the folder.

  "Let me show this to Marcus."

  "No! Absolutely not!" she cried out in sudden terror, snatching the papers from my lap. "This is none of his business!"

  "Mother, it's not that big a deal! What could it hurt to show it to him?" I stood to take the folder from her hands, but Mother clutched it tighter and backed into the corner, her eyes wild with fear.

  "No! No! This is a personal gift, Kay, and I really don't want you to share it! How would you feel, if neighbors were to read your journal or see your tax returns? Some things are meant to be private! Promise me, Kay, promise me!"

  "Okay, okay, I won't show it to him, if it will make you feel better." Carefully, I took the folder from her once more. If she’d been on the window ledge, I don't doubt she’d have jumped. "I think I should talk to someone about it, though, for my own peace of mind."

  "Talk to Mr. Rathke." Mother smoothed her hair and sat back down to pour herself some tea; the spout chimed unsteadily against her cup. "Mr. Rathke has always handled all of the family's legal affairs. Your father trusted him implicitly. He's honest, he's respected."

  "Okay, okay, I'll go to Rathke, and I won't show it to Marcus."

  "Thank you. Now, if you don't mind, I’d like to see my grandchildren." Mother, still ashen, went to the door and rang the dainty bell she kept on the table in the foyer. "Novella, if you would bring Andrew and Lillian into the study please?"

  Jeez, she sure lost it there for a minute, I thought, helping myself to another cucumber sandwich. I suppose, if it kept the peace between us, I could keep it under my hat.

  Lillian and Andrew came running to embrace their grandmother. Behind them, Novella beamed at me. At the very least, I had made peace with my mother and, after all, wasn't that my whole reason for coming?

  During the drive home, I began to rethink my promise. Why should I keep anything at all from Marcus, even if she asked me to? Didn't keeping secrets destroy my relationship with Paul? What frightened her so much that one sentence made her freeze like a deer facing oncoming headlights?

  Marcus could give me a different slant on this than Rathke could. Rathke, the old slime ball, would only give me Mother's sales pitch all over again: what a good thing it was, why I should take it, think about the children, blah, blah, blah. With all the stuff about Aurora Development and Elizabeth Kingston going on, I'm not sure I trusted old Marty Rathke any more.

  I pulled the Porsche into the gravel driveway behind the house and helped Lillian unbuckle her seat belt.

  Mother's reaction was extreme, even disturbed. But without knowing any more about her how could I say that for sure? She cut me off like she had something to hide, when I asked her about her childhood. What was this God-awful secret? I had to talk to somebody about it, and Marcus was all I had right now.

  "So, how did it go with Maid Marian this afternoon?" Marcus was at the dining room table, surrounded by papers, having let himself in with his own key. Andrew eyed him suspiciously, and Lillian stopped to kiss him briefly on the cheek as they moved past him and upstairs to their rooms.

  "Well enough. She promised to keep out of my life. I promised to stay in hers. What's all this?"

  "I’m just going through some of this old Aurora stuff. The trial starts next week."

  "Anything happen today?" I asked, as I laid my coat and Mother's folder across the kitchen table.

  "Nothing worth a story. Tenants are paying rent into an escrow account, that’s about it.”

  "Go for the pocketbook, and their hearts and minds will follow?" I sat down on his lap and kissed him.

  "Something like that."

  "Wonderful! Maybe we'll have this all settled soon! Something happened this afternoon I need to talk to you about."

  "Your mother?"

  "Well, suppose someone told you something, or, say, was going to give you something, but wanted it to be kept secret. What would you do? I mean, if there was something strange about it, something you didn't feel good about?"

  "As a reporter, I could consider it off the record, if it were perfectly clear beforehand that it was not to be used in a story. As a friend, I’d take it to my grave. Why?"

  I hedged. "If the giver became totally irrational? Totally loony?"

  "Kay, unless I know the whole story, I don't know what I do."

  "Mother gave me something tonight, something she didn't want me to share with you at all, something she became absolutely paranoid about when I suggested that I show it to you." I slipped into the chair beside him and held his hand across the table.

  "That’s no surprise that she wouldn’t want me to have a part in it. She hates my guts. What did she give you?"

  "Well, that's the thing. I promised I wouldn't tell." I laughed nervously. "She wanted to give it to me as a gift. She got all bent out of shape, when I mentioned that things were a little tight until Paul's estate gets settled."

  "So it's money. Why would she not want you to tell me she gave you money?"

  "Well, sort of. But she didn't want you to know about it at all, like you would sell it to the Russians or something."

  "Then don't tell me."

  "But it was her goofiness when I mentioned your name! She really hates you, you know? She backed into the corner, like you were going to attack her or something. I'm really worried about her now, Marcus."

  He sighed in exasperation. "You're gonna have to tell me now. You have no choice."

  Quickly I went into the kitchen and grabbed the folder. "It's stock, twenty-five percent ownership in this company Mother and Lovey own." I sat back down at the dining room table. "She grabbed it away from me, when I told her I wanted you to look at it before I accepted it. I'm not in a position where I can turn down a great deal of money, even if it comes from my mother." I slid it across the table to him. "I would just feel better if you look at it."

  Marcus read down the first page, knitting his eyebrows together studiously. He turned the page and whistled softly and quietly.

  "What is it?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

  "Oh my God." His voice was a whisper. "Seven months I've b
een looking, and here it is, right under my nose."

  "What? What's right under your nose?"

  Marcus slapped the folder closed. "You cannot accept this stock."

  "Why not?"

  "Just trust me. It's evil, and it's wrong."

  "So is sleeping with a married woman, but that didn't stop you."

  "This is not the same thing."

  "Sure it is. Tell me what's so bad about Mother's company."

  "Marlov Enterprises isn't just two little old ladies getting together to manage some properties for extra bridge money. It’s the parent of another company whose business practices are less than honorable."

  "So are thousands of other businesses all over this country! But if you were offered a quarter ownership in a moneymaking venture outright, wouldn't you take it? This is supposed to be a good thing, Marcus!"

  "This ain't AT&T, honey."

  "This is just a land-owning venture, Mother said. If I took this stock, I’d have something to call my own. I’ll own part of my house! What can be so dishonest about owning a little rental property?"

  "Nothing, but you just don't want a part of this."

  "And if I do?"

  "Then you become eligible for a free, contempt of court citation for your failure to repair seventy-five houses on the south side of Jubilant Falls."

  "What?" I felt like I had been punched in the chest. "You can't be serious, can you?"

  "I can't believe it myself. Marlov Enterprises is the parent company behind Land Management Limited, which owns Aurora Development. This is what we've been searching for, Kay! Your mother and Lovey McNair, of all people, are the biggest slumlords in Jubilant Falls."

  "There is no way my mother could have known about all this!"

  "She had to. Now you know why you weren't supposed to show this to me."

  "Marcus wait." I flipped through the papers. "See here? It says here that Mother was signed on as a ‘limited’ partner. She just provided the working capital and let Lovey run it herself."

  "That's fine. She is still an owner, and according to the prosecuting attorney she's in as deep as it gets, regardless."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing from him. My mother? A slumlord? A member of my family is the reason why Elizabeth Kingston and who knows how many other people are living in squalor? "I don't believe you Marcus," was all I could say.

  "Are you going to accept the stock?"

  "Are you going to keep what I told you in confidence?"

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "What you decide to do. Whatever that decision is, it's still a story. It's just a matter now of who writes it. If you accept the stock, the paper has to do something. Because of our relationship, I can't write the story."

  "Well, isn't that moralistic? But either way, running my mother down as the biggest slumlord in town is still a story, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't hand me any more of your sanctimonious crap, Marcus Henning. I don't need it. I showed you something in confidence, as a friend, Marcus, as a friend! ‘I'll take it to my grave,’ you said." I minced. "Yeah, right. "

  "C'mon Kay, grow up. How would it look, if I suddenly backed off? I’d be committing professional suicide, and I know who the owners are now. I know where to find them. I know these documents exist. This isn't against you, Kay."

  "Get out of here, right now."

  "If that's what you want."

  I stomped into the kitchen to search for a wineglass. The front door closed with a soft click.

  Thank God he's out of here, I thought. Who does he think he is? Woodward and Bernstein all rolled into one? This wasn't Watergate, for Christ’s sake. This was a little old lady trying to make a little money for her retirement. There was no way she could have known about Lovey McNair—no way! That old battle-axe was about as evil as they come—snotty, convinced of her own superiority, and intent on making sure others knew it. She conned my mother. I knew it.

  I found a bottle of chardonnay in the fridge and poured myself a glass.

  No, Marcus was right, I admitted to myself. It was more than that. Aurora Development had enormous holdings throughout the city, and I knew full well what they had left undone in Elizabeth's apartment. But it was such a massive organization! There had to be people up and down the chain of command who were responsible for this kind of thing. What about that awful man who gave Marcus that awful black eye and busted lip? Mother certainly didn't know anything about that, did she? Of course not—she was too wrapped up in her bridge and her hospital charity board functions to know how some monkey in the organizational tree behaved. She couldn't have. I just know it.

  The thought of that brick sailing through my window so many months ago circled at the edges of my memory. Was that event and the assault on Marcus connected? It couldn't be.

  I swirled the wine in my glass and looked back into the dining room.

  That son of a bitch.

  The folder was gone.

  Chapter 8 Marcus

  My heart was pounding in my ears as I ran up the granite steps to the front door of the newspaper. The Land Management Limited documents were rolled tightly in my fist. The old yellowed walls of the Journal-Gazette building looked eerie at night, the naked light bulbs suspended from the hallway ceiling like corpses at a hanging.

  I found myself praying for a security guard, although the only person I really had to fear was Kay. The newspaper's management liked the idea of having their editorial staff on display at street level, as if we were some discount dog-and-pony show for passing pedestrians. Jess had often requested that we either move upstairs, where classified advertising was, or get a guard, but no dice.

  At the top of the stairs, I slipped my key into the front door lock and pushed it open with my shoulder, quickly snapping the lock closed behind me. Exhausted, I dropped everything onto the top of the city desk's computer terminal and flopped into Jess's chair.

  My God, I thought, pulling the papers down in front of me and flipping through the pages, I can't believe its Marian James and that pouter pigeon McNair who are behind all this. What am I going to do now? Call Jess. Jess has got to know about this.

  I picked up the receiver and punched the auto dialer for Jess's home number.

  Jess picked up after the first ring.

  "It's me, Marcus. Can you come down here to the newsroom? Right away?"

  "Can it wait until tomorrow? Rebecca's got another earache, and we're waiting for the pediatrician to call us back." Jess sounded peeved; I heard his little daughter crying in the background.

  "How ‘bout this. I just found out who’s behind Aurora Development."

  Jess whistled long and low. "No shit?"

  "Such command of the language. You ought to be an editor."

  "And you ought to be a reporter. I'll be right down." Jess hung up sharply.

  The phone rang again.

  "Yeah, Jess?"

  "You son of a bitch!" It was Kay. "You lying, dirty thief! If you don't bring those papers right back here, I'm coming down there and getting them myself!"

  "You'll get them back, I promise."

  "After you've slapped it all over the front page!"

  "What do you want me to do? Apologize? This is what we've been working toward for almost a year now, Kay! This is the story that will expose all the wrongdoing for all those people living in those firetraps all over Jubilant's south side."

  "This is also my mother! You can't do this, Marcus."

  "And you can't deny that you don't want this settled for Elizabeth's sake and for everybody else who has come forward on this. This is wrong, Kay, whether your mother knew it or not doesn't matter. Her name is on the papers, along with Lovey McNair's. She had the responsibility to know what was going on, to know how her tenants were living."

  "I want those papers back."

  "You'll get them first thing in the morning."

  "Now, Marcus."
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  "Then come and get them." I slammed the phone down and ran to the Xerox machine in the morgue, a room a little larger than a closet, but smaller than the men’s room down the hall, where past issues of the Journal-Gazette—and therefore ‘dead’ in journalistic terms—were stored in tall, black-bound books. There was enough time for me to copy everything, before she arrived.

  The phone rang again. I set the copier on automatic feed and dashed back into the newsroom.

  It was Jess.

  "I'm ready to walk out the door. Give me ten minutes. But tell me who it is."

  "Kay's mother. Marian James."

  Jess was silent for a moment. "Okay. Be right there." The phone clicked again in my ear. Kay would be here any minute. I ran back into the morgue.

  Damn it! Who set the copier on letter size and not legal size paper? Every page was too short, cutting off Marian's and McNair's signatures. I pushed another button and began feeding the documents through again. Come on, come on, COME ON! Why can't this thing work any faster?

  I heard footsteps on the stairs, and the doorknob to the newspaper rattled.

  "Marcus Henning, you dirty bastard! You let me in!" Kay's voice, ragged and hoarse, echoed through Jubilant’s empty streets.

  The last copy slid out into the receiving tray, and quickly I shoved the originals back into their file folder.

  "Let me in, damn it!" Kay had moved to the sidewalk and was pounding on the frosted glass. "Open this damn door!"

  I turned the deadbolt. As she burst through the door, I grabbed her by the arm with one hand.

  "Kay, stop it. You're turning you back on every one of those poor slobs who walk through your literacy center door every day. You can't protect your mother from what she's done. She and Lovey McNair are responsible for this, and they need to be called into account."

  "Let go of me! I can't believe you would say that to me!" Kay snatched the folder from my hand and flipped through the file. "These aren't in the same order-you've made copies. Copies that you'll use to slander her all over the front page!"

  "Articles of incorporation are hardly slander, Kay."

  "Why, Marcus, why?" Tears began to roll down her cheeks. "I don't know what you have planned, but you can't involve my mother!" With a jerk, she twisted herself free and ran toward the copy machine.