Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles]

by Shadow on the Quilt

  “Who was she?”

  The marshal frowned. Tilted his head like a man who was hard of hearing. “Ma’am?”

  “The woman who died with my husband. You must know her name.”

  Aunt Theodora let out a soft grunt of protest.

  Juliana ignored it.

  “Well, ma’am … I … uh …” The marshal fiddled with the brim of the hat he was still holding. “Nell,” he finally said. “Nell Parker.”

  Juliana blinked. Nell Parker? Not “P. L.”? Not the woman in the locket. There was more than one? She closed her eyes. Angry tears gathered. How could you? How dared you?

  Aunt Lydia began to weep softly.

  Juliana gazed at iron-willed Aunt Theodora. She was maintaining her composure but, Juliana thought, just barely.

  You can do this. You can. Think of the aunts. They need you to stay calm. Help them bear it. You can deal with the rest later. You’ll have all the time you need. Later.

  She took a deep breath “Where is he?”

  “At Lindermann’s Funeral Parlor.”

  “Is there anything else we need to know?”

  “Not from me. Of course Mr. Lindermann will be fully prepared to assist you with everything.”

  When Juliana rose from her chair, the marshal sprang to his feet like a trapped animal being set free. He put his hat back on, tugging on the brim as he nodded good-bye, first to Aunt Lydia. “Miss Sutton.” Then to Aunt Theodora. “Miss Sutton.” And finally, to Juliana. “I am so sorry, Mrs. Sutton.”

  With a nod, Juliana opened the door to dismiss the marshal, just as Reverend Burnham’s carriage pulled up to the house.

  “I took the liberty of asking him to come out,” Hastings explained. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “You’re very thoughtful.” Juliana smiled.

  But she did mind.

  CHAPTER 3

  A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

  PROVERBS 17:17

  Dawn had barely tinged the eastern sky when Cass Gregory closed the door to his room and descended to the street. It was too early to expect the hotel dining room to be serving. He didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. Not today. He couldn’t get his mind off the fire and what it would mean for Ma, for Sadie, for Mrs. Sutton, for Mr. Sutton’s elderly aunts … and for him. What would happen to Sutton Builders?

  Goldie’s ruined building stood between his rooming house and work. Instead of walking past, he stopped in front of it to think. The city would be buzzing with the news of the boss’s death, and he shuddered to think what some people would have to say about that. How would the Sutton ladies manage the news? What would the coming weeks mean for the two dozen men working for Sutton Builders? He’d spent half the night bouncing from one thought to the next and run the gamut of emotions from shock, to grief, to disgust, to sadness … to hope.

  Looking at the remains of the place where two people had lost their lives just hours ago, he felt fresh guilt. Hope seemed wrong. So did concern over his own future, but he couldn’t seem to help that, either. He would be in charge of the company, at least until wills were read and questions answered. The crew would have questions, too, likely first thing this morning. They most certainly would have heard about the boss. News like that traveled fast. For all Cass knew, some of them had been at the scene last night. He’d been too worried about Ma and Sadie to notice.

  Ma and Sadie. He thought back to the last fight he’d had with Ma in the kitchen that was little more than a pile of rubble now. He’d been trying to talk her into leaving Goldie’s employ, whether Sadie would or not. She refused.

  “If I’m here,” she’d said, “maybe I can keep her safe.” Tears had sprung to her eyes. “I didn’t keep you safe. I have to try with Sadie.”

  Cass touched her arm. “There’s plenty of guilt over the past on both of us, Ma. I’m just glad I finally found you both.”

  Ma had smiled and swiped at her tears. “I’m very proud of you. Don’t ever forget that.” And then she’d given him all kinds of directives about how and when to visit her. Always by the back door, never in the day. If he saw them on the street, he must never show that he knew them. “You’ve the beginnings of a fine life here in Lincoln,” Ma had said. “Why, who knows but what one day you’ll be asked to be a deacon at that church you’re attending. I won’t have you risking your reputation, and I won’t listen to any arguments. You will do this my way, or I won’t see you at all.”

  And so it had been. Ma in the back at Goldie’s, cooking and mending. Sadie upstairs as Simone LaBelle. And Cass, holding on to his faith, working hard for Sterling Sutton, saving every penny, investing with the boss’s help, hoping to lure Sadie away from the life she’d taken on after Cass had run away from home and she and Ma had faced hard times.

  His culpability in it all haunted him. He’d lost track of them after running off, and that was entirely his fault. He hadn’t written home. Not once. He was too afraid of being found out and hauled back to more abuse at the hands of his stepfather.

  He’d told the Union Army he was eighteen and gotten away with it, thanks to his height and the years of hard labor that had roughened his large hands. Then, just weeks after he left, his stepfather had died at the hands of Quantrill’s raiders. Ma took Sadie and moved to Kansas City, and when Cass came home, no one knew where they’d gone.

  Fate brought them together again in Nebraska. At least that’s what he’d called it at first. Now he knew God had a hand in it.

  He glanced toward the Russian Bottoms and thought about Ludwig Meyer’s “little house,” and the way the man looked at Sadie. What did it mean?

  A train whistle broke the quiet. Cass started. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he headed on into the warehouse district, to the sprawling combination office-warehouse-lumberyard that belonged to Sterling Sutton. He tried to pray while he walked. He asked comfort for the Sutton women. He prayed about the girl who’d died in the fire and asked God to give Pastor Taylor and Reverend Burnham wisdom, for they would both likely be called on today to visit the boss’s house. Miss Lydia Sutton attended St. John’s, where she was so beloved that everyone, including Cass, called her Aunt Lydia. The rest of the Suttons were at First Church with Reverend Burnham. As he finished his prayer, Cass asked for help to do a good job for Mrs. Sutton. Starting right now.

  Half-a-dozen men were already waiting outside the office, smoking and talking. At first sight of Cass, they squelched their cigars and began asking questions. He answered what he could as he unlocked the door. Yes, the boss was dead. No, he didn’t know what would happen to the company—whether Mrs. Sutton would keep it or sell it.

  “Does she even own it?” one of the men asked. “Did he have a will?”

  “I have no idea, but until someone with the authority to do it tells us to stop, we’ll keep working.” He led the way through the front office and toward the back lot, pausing to grab the day’s work order off the nail by the door. Once in the lumberyard, he waited for the men to gather around again, calling out who would hitch up the teams while the others loaded materials.

  The assignments given, Cass turned to go, but one of the men asked, “That’s an awful big place we’re building. You think she’ll move into it all by herself? Just her and those two old ladies?”

  It was a fair question. Cass had already wondered about that himself. The new Sutton mansion was the talk of Lincoln—not all of it admiring. The boss had bragged that it would be one of the finest houses west of the Missouri. Cass had thought he might be exaggerating—until he saw the plans. What would a new widow and two maiden aunts do with all those rooms?

  “As I said before, all I know is that we have work to do, and we’ll go about doing it until someone in authority tells us to stop or we run out of materials.”

  Jessup folded his arms across his broad chest. “No disrespect intended, but if I’m to be out of a job in the near future, I’d like to know so I can be looking for something else. I’ve a fam
ily to feed.”

  A chorus of new questions rose in the wake of Jessup’s comment. Cass hesitated only a moment before inspiration struck. He held up his hand for quiet. “I’ll tell you what. You men load the wagons and head out to the job site just like any other day, and I’ll check in with the boss’s banker.” He nodded at Jessup. “Think you can keep things going out there for an entire morning without me looking over your shoulder?”

  “Reckon I can,” Jessup said, then grinned. “Although if I’m to be foreman, I’ll be needing a raise.”

  The others laughed and offered themselves to take over if there was a raise in the works.

  If felt strange to be joking. Cass nodded at the waiting wagons. “Just get to work. Anything comes up, take it to Jessup. I don’t imagine they’ll tell me much over at First Nebraska, but maybe I can at least find out if there’s any problem making payroll in light of last night. Soon as I know anything, you’ll know. Is that fair?”

  Four men headed for the long, low shelter at the back of the lot, intent on getting the draft horses hitched up, while others loaded lumber and tools.

  Cass had just stepped back into the office when Christopher Finney, the office clerk, arrived for work. “It’s terrible,” he said. “Just terrible.” He hung his hat by the door and made his way to the massive desk where he spent most of every day, handling the business books, writing letters, keeping up with inventory, placing orders, and generally keeping Sutton Builders running. Cass didn’t think the lanky father of five was really aware of how important he was to the operation.

  Cass nodded. “I’m going to have a talk with Mr. Duncan over at First Nebraska. The men are worried about payroll.”

  “This company is beyond solvent,” Finney snapped. “Mr. Sutton was an excellent businessman. An excellent man. No matter what people may be saying.”

  Already? Cass had heard the fire chief’s interpretation of events with his own ears last night. Hastings had wasted no time praising Sutton’s bravery at charging into a burning building and trying to save lives. He’d said it more than once. With conviction. Perhaps that was the problem. Too much conviction.

  His meandering thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Finney cleared his throat pointedly and raised his voice.

  “I said,” he repeated, “Mr. Sutton doesn’t deserve to be the brunt of such outrageous commentary.” He waxed on about the “spurious remarks” and “knowing looks” he’d endured on his way to work. “I wish we could do something to squelch it. What if Mrs. Sutton were to hear?” Finney reached for a pile of correspondence on his desk. “And what am I to do about all this? Most of these are inquiries about building projects.”

  “Put them in order while I talk to the bank,” Cass said. “Most urgent first. We’ll come up with a plan when I get back.”

  “What constitutes urgency?”

  Cass thought for a moment. “Highest potential for profit.”

  Finney nodded. When Cass opened the door, he called after him. “Do you think we should hang a mourning wreath?”

  Cass shrugged. “I suppose. But I’ve no idea where to—”

  “I’ll do it when I go to lunch.” Finney paused. “And armbands. We should wear armbands.”

  “Good thinking. Get enough for all the men. We’ll plan on walking together behind the hearse out to Wyuka.”

  “An honor guard,” Finney said, nodding his approval.

  “I expect that’ll be taken care of by one of his lodges. But we can still walk together and show our respect.”

  Finney said he’d take care of everything. Cass thanked him and headed off to First Nebraska, hoping that bank president George Duncan would give him the reassurance the men needed to keep them working. Hoping that Mrs. Sutton’s personal disaster wouldn’t mean disaster for the crew building her mansion. And wondering how she was coping with the news. Hopefully, she would find comfort in the heroic version of events.

  Hopefully, she would never know the truth.

  Cass stepped into the bank president’s office, hat in hand, surprised when Mr. Duncan stood up to greet him and then suggested they conduct their business over breakfast at the Commercial Hotel. It wasn’t the kind of greeting Cass expected, and instead of making him feel relaxed, it made him wary. Duncan’s conversation as the two walked to the hotel didn’t help. By the time he and Cass were seated at a table in a remote corner of the dining room, Cass felt like he was on the witness stand in a trial.

  “Sterling was impressed with you” had been followed by seemingly innocent questions, but Cass couldn’t shake the impression that Duncan was checking what he heard today against what the boss might have said at another time. Duncan even brought up the war. “Sterling said you were in the thick of it. I was surprised. You don’t seem nearly old enough to have served.”

  The tone was affable, but the unspoken question set Cass’s nerves on edge. Why was a man who hadn’t so much as bothered to talk to him when the boss brought him out to the job site suddenly so interested in Cass Gregory? While the waiter poured coffee, Cass pondered what to say about his war service. He didn’t want to admit to running away from home and lying. Not to a man who would probably wield a significant amount of power over the company, at least until the estate was settled.

  “I wasn’t old enough,” he admitted. “But I’ve always been big for my age, and I grew up fast. I was working long days on the farm by the time I was ten. I’ve always acted older than my age.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m thirty-four.” Not that it’s any of your business.

  Duncan frowned. “It’s a pity you have so little schooling.”

  Was the man going down a mental list? War record. Pass. Education. Fail. Cass shrugged. “My stepfather thought school a luxury for the rich. He didn’t see a need for anything beyond the basics.”

  Duncan’s bushy eyebrows rose with surprise. “And you haven’t wished for more?”

  “I have,” Cass said, “and I’ve found ways to get it over the years. Lincoln has a good library, and I’ve attended more than my share of lectures and lyceums.” He paused. “What I do suits me. There’s great satisfaction in being able to say, ‘I built that.’”

  The waiter came to take their order. Cass asked for a stack of flapjacks and a refill on the coffee. Duncan wanted poached eggs and dry toast. Cass wondered if the man had a nervous stomach—and if that was the case, what was making him nervous.

  After Duncan had asked a few more pointed questions, including if Cass had family, Cass said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I wasn’t expecting to be interviewed this morning. I came on behalf of the crew. We just need to know if payroll will be on schedule—or if there’s to be a delay while lawyers divide the spoils.” He leaned forward a bit to emphasize his point. “They’re good men, and the boss always did right by them. I’d appreciate your letting me know if you think the company’s in danger of folding—or if the house isn’t going to be finished. The men deserve fair warning.”

  Duncan made a show of spreading his napkin on his lap while the waiter settled their food before them. Once the waiter was out of earshot, he said, “Surely Mr. Finney knows that the company can make payroll.”

  “Mr. Finney doesn’t sign the checks.”

  Duncan poked at one of his eggs with a fork and muttered, “I said soft poached.” With a sigh of displeasure, he laid his fork down. “I can sign the bank drafts. In fact, I am mandated to act on Sterling’s behalf in the matter of day-to-day business, should the unforeseen occur. Which it has. That is why I thought it might be good for you and me to become better acquainted.”

  So, Cass thought, this doesn’t just feel like an interview. It is an interview. Duncan’s in charge now.

  Cass thought of Mrs. Sutton. Did a woman have property rights in Nebraska? He hoped so. He might not know her well, but he associated her name with elegance and style. And he’d never felt like she was looking down her nose at him. He hoped the boss had provided for his wife. Duncan clear
ed his throat. Loudly. Cass started and looked across the table at him.

  “Am I boring you, Mr. Gregory?”

  “No, sir. I was just—” Cass took a gulp of coffee and forced his attention back to the conversation at hand.

  “I was talking about the house,” Duncan said. “Of course people’s foremost concern when they hear of last night’s tragedy will be for Juliana and Sterling’s aunts.” He set his fork down and, picking up a knife, cut his toast in half. “That is as it should be. But people being what they are, their second thought will be of what’s to happen to the business—and that house. Everyone knows a ship without a captain is destined to wander off course.”

  Cass frowned. He doesn’t think I’m up to the task without the boss to oversee things. “I realize there’s no reason you would know my professional qualifications, but finishing that house on schedule won’t be a problem. If you need references, I can get them. I worked for Mr. Eads on the bridge at St. Louis and Mr. Wilson on the one connecting Council Bluffs and Omaha before Mr. Sutton hired me.” He sat back. “I can handle building a house.”

  Duncan took a bite of toast and washed it down with coffee. “You misunderstand me. Your qualifications are not in question.” He set the piece of toast down and leaned back in his chair. “I shall get to the point. Mrs. Duncan is on more than one board with Mrs. Sutton. It has been her impression all along that the mansion was Sterling’s dream—not his wife’s. In fact, Mrs. Duncan has heard Juliana refer to the house as ‘that monstrosity.’”

  He cleared his throat. “Only a handful of people in Lincoln have the means to sustain the opulence represented by that new house.” He paused. “Slowing things down a bit would keep the price down so that, when Juliana decides to sell it—which I fully expect she will—a buyer can be found quickly.”