Maple Sundaes & CIder Donuts

by Olivia Gaines

  “Tom, Ellie Morrison was never right in the head after it either,” Magda said, “and no one really knows what happened to that poor girl.”

  Tom had an idea. He had lots of ideas about Rick Goodson and not nary a one of them were any good. The man was just a bad seed wearing the cloak of the ministry. Rick had never fooled Evan and Evan never let his guard down around the man.

  “Lord, I pray that Leta is alright,” Tom said, wringing his hands and going back to his office. It was time to retire. It was time to move out of the way and let Evan take the lead. He’d served his time and progress was required. A position of power would be required to fight the Ricks of the world and the benignity of being simply the Town Clerk wasn’t going to cut it.

  EVAN ARRIVED AT THE scene, his heart in his mouth, the blood pounding in his ears and fear almost paralyzing him as he stood looking into the rear of the ambulance and seeing his wife. A bandage covered her forehead and her left arm hung at an odd angle. She was alive and looking directly at him. When she offered a smile, he was able to breathe again.

  “I’m alright, Evan,” she said, offering him an assurance he didn’t believe. Forcing his feet to move forward, he stepped into the back door of the ambulance, gathering her thin frame in his arms.

  “Leta, baby, what happened?” he asked as Virgil walked up on them.

  “Evan, she’s a lucky woman,” Virgil said. “I’m heading back to the office to run a couple of things through the database. One is a Chevy pickup, light blue, older model, almost an antique. I don’t recall seeing it in town. You know anyone who drives that kind of truck who would want to hurt your wife?”

  Leta saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes and remained quiet as her husband opened his mouth and lied to the police.

  “No, and I do all the vehicle registrations and don’t recall that vehicle being registered. There is a special registration for antique vehicles which is why I know. There are only six antique cars in Meredith that are registered,” he told Virgil.

  “Should I have Sandra come by the house and lend a hand?” Virgil asked, feeling concerned that an attempted murder had occurred in the small town.

  “That’s not necessary, but the company would be nice,” Leta said. “My house is a mess right now with the guys working. Is it okay if maybe I come to your house instead?”

  “Sure. Evan, I’m on top of the hill by the park,” Virgil said. “I’ll call Sandra and let her know to expect you.”

  “Thanks, Virgil, but I’m taking my wife home. Until we can figure out what the hell is happening here, the last thing I want is to put Sandra in harm’s way,” Evan said. He pulled Leta from the ambulance into his arms and carried his wife to the waiting vehicle.

  She said nothing as her husband strapped her in like a small child, her purse still hanging crossbody over her frame. She watched as he rounded the front end of the car and slid inside the seat. They’d barely driven up the hill when she looked at him.

  “You know who did this and I think I do as well. Your cousin Rick,” she said.

  “Yeah, that fucker wants the land,” Evan said, “and he will try anything to get it, including hurting you.”

  “What are we going to do, Evan? If he tried it once, he’d try it again,” Leta said, feeling scared.

  “It’s not hard to outsmart that fox,” Evan said. “We’ll fix this easily.”

  Chapter Sixteen – Courtesy

  Evan was surprised at the huge hole in the wall when he returned home. He was also slightly amused to find the water had been turned back on and the pipes were all connected to the city water supply. Leta wanted to talk, but he didn’t right now. At this moment, he wanted to speak with Rick and have a heart to heart.

  “You’re going to run off and leave me here without talking to me about what is happening between you and Rick?” she asked. “Evan he mentioned Claudia. I never told anyone about Claudia or mentioned her name. He also mentioned oil on this land. I didn’t know anything about that either.”

  “Yea, there’s oil on the land. There is ten thousand acres and I could easily sell the three with the largest deposits and be rich, but the problem is the lake and wildlife,” Evan said. “Fracking does horrible things to the environment, especially releasing pockets of methane that people just can’t get around or away from. It is detrimental to the environment. I don’t want that for our lake.”

  “I understand, but what are you going to do?” she asked, touching his arm to bring him back to the moment of where they sat versus him running off and potentially into a trap. “Rick is going to expect you to come for him. He’s going to be ready and maybe set a trap for you as well. We haven’t been married long enough for me to claim any real ties to this land or the home. I need you alive and able to give me more children. You can’t do that if you run over to Rick’s half-cocked and you come back shot with half a cock. Think about what Coraline said.”

  “I’ve thought about a great deal, Leta. I’ve thought about Claudia not bothering to call and say she wasn’t coming,” Evan answered, looking out the window. “She also knew exactly the right things to say to me, which concerned me as well. I never allowed myself to become enamored of her by letting the conversation become sexualized, which threw her off.”

  Leta watched his face. The anger simmered on the surface and he was ready to explode, but violence never solved anything other than a moment of comfort in vengeance. She planned to tell her husband such when Jake came to the door.

  “Leta, you doing alright in there?” he asked.

  “Doing great, Jake. Everything going well on your end?”

  “Yep, ‘bout to head home for a quick bite. I’ll be back in an hour, and we should be pretty much done by the end of the day,” Jake said, pleased. “Evan, if you can have that check ready for me then, I would appreciate it.”

  “Will do. Enjoy your lunch,” Evan answered, looking at Leta who had a smile on her face. The moment Jake cleared the porch, he asked, “What?”

  She was smiling. “If you’re going to fight a snake, you need the right tools,” she told him, pulling her cell out of her purse. She punched in a number and a soft, Southern voice answered on the other end.

  “Sandra, get out your camera. I need your photographic eye and zoom lens. Jean’s husband is coming home for a lunchtime rendezvous. We know who he’s with, so can you snap a photo and send it to me?”

  Sandra groaned a bit. “Leta, I don’t know if I should do that...”

  “Sandra, the man Jake is meeting just tried to run me off the road and down Cressway Hill,” she said to the inhaling and gasp on the other end. “We can slow his roll if we have some dirt on him, and on top of that, it’s my husband’s cousin who wants the land our house is on.”

  “Shut the front door and call me Missy. I’m on it, girlfriend. Ooh, I just saw Jake pull up. Wait, there is another man in the car with the guy coming to see Jean’s husband,” she said, “and wait a minute, what do we have here?”

  Sandra described the three men going inside the house. She said one looked younger than the other two. The more she described them, the more uncomfortable Evan became, snatching the phone, “Sandra, hang up and call Virgil. Tell him to get over there right now. As soon as possible. Get a few photos, but don’t take pics of the third person’s face.”

  “Okay, Evan,” she said, hanging up the phone.

  “He’s sick, Leta. Always have been. Something is wrong with Rick,” he said. “I’ve always known, but I thought, maybe him becoming a pastor that God had touched him, but no, he’s still sick.”

  “The younger person, you think it’s a teenager?”

  “With Rick, I wouldn’t be shocked at any of it,” Evan said, taking a seat. “I’m going to stay home with you the rest of the day. It’s safer for you.”

  “If Jake doesn’t come back after lunch because he’s been arrested for unlawful acts with a minor, what happens then?”

  “The guys will finish the work. Jake is simply a supe
rvisor with a lot of experience,” he said, looking at the hole in the wall. His voice cracked when he spoke again. “I could have lost you today.”

  “Yes, and you could have told me they were cutting the water, and there was oil on the land, and that you had 10,000 acres. It would have also helped to know your cousin the preacher was a psychopath,” she said, touching the bruise on her forehead.

  “Well, there’s that,” he said, pacing.

  In the next half hour, Evan replaced the plastic zipper bag loaded with ice, finally settling on a bag of frozen peas to nurse the knot trying to form on Leta’s head. He started lunch, trying to think of other topics to discuss, bringing up the business of the puzzles when Leta’s phone rang.

  Leta saw the image of Sandra on the screen and answered it. “Hello. Did Virgil make it on time?”

  Sandra was clapping her hands, “Girl, my husband is a beast. Turn on Channel 12 news right now.”

  “Evan, turn on the news,” Leta said, as Evan reached for the television and turned on the news, bringing up news crews and cameras in the front yard of Jake and Jean Foley. Rick was in the background being handcuffed along with Jake and shoved into police cars.

  “Breaking News in the sleepy community of Bedford as Pastor Rick Goodson and Jake Foley are arrested while conducting a midday,” the woman paused, swallowing hard, “sexual orgy with a group of local older teenage boys. A tip was called into the Meredith Police Department about the alleged activity in the home of the owner of J & J Prefab Homes. Neighbors say this is truly a dark day.”

  Leta’s eyes were wide watching the screen as the action unfolded. Evan’s mouth hung open as well, watching his cousin fighting Virgil as he tried to get the man in the squad car. “Sandra, what did you do?”

  “I told Virgil that the man in the house with Jean’s husband was Evan’s cousin and the one who ran you off the road,” Sandra said, “and when I told him what I was witnessing, he did the rest. He arrived with the news crew, so I didn’t have to take photos after all.”

  “How can I ever thank you?”

  “I like my steak medium rare,” Sandra said then paused. “I couldn’t take the pictures. Watching what they were doing...Virgil called and said the boys were 18 and of legal consenting age or not, it just turned my stomach. Grown men, well to each his own, but teenagers, is kind of a no for me.”

  “Same here,” Leta said, watching Evan watch the screen. “See you Friday, Sandra.”

  “See you then, but if you need any help, let me know,” Sandra said.

  “I will hold you to that because I have a business idea I want to run by you,” Leta said, ending the call. “Evan, what now?”

  “We get the house finished, contact the rental car company to let them know what happened, and check on the shipment of household goods,” he said, looking at the hole in the wall. “Your brother arrives tomorrow.”

  He took a seat. It had been less than a week and his entire world was topsy turvy. Rick had tried to kill his wife. The one other thing he needed to do was make a phone call to Virgil. He took out his cell and punched in Virgil’s number and he answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” Virgil said.

  “Two thirty-five, East Bellington Road. In the back is a garage,” Evan said.

  “On it,” Virgil replied, ending the call.

  “Is that where he keeps the truck?”

  “Yes, it was Uncle Taylor’s special place where he kept all kinds of things,” Evan said. “Maybe I was too quiet for too long. I said nothing, just minding my own business while he more than likely ruined so many lives. Sometimes you feel you’re avoiding the sin by not acknowledging it exists.”

  “Evan, in the same breath, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” Leta offered. “This past week has changed my opinions on a whole lot of shit, witches, devils, married men on the down-low, and so much more. I also escaped from an upside-down car a few hours ago. How in the hell am I still conscious?”

  “I can’t even start to break any of this down. Let’s get you in bed to rest while I figure out. Hell, I have no idea where to start,” he told her. “The one thing I keep going over in my head is Coraline. Did she know he was going to try something and that you would get hurt?”

  “If I had gone off the side of that hill, most of my body would have been broken up, so making a baby or anything else would have been improbable for the timeline,” she told him.

  “So close. I came close to losing you,” Evan said, reaching for her and pulling her into an embrace. “I thought for a moment that I was wrong for you, that I could let this go, send you back to Atlanta before we consummated the marriage and walk away from it all. I can’t walk away from you Leta. I’m in love. Flat out. Plastered to the wall, in love.”

  “You keep this up, mister, and we will end up in that bed doing more than just preparing for the weekend,” she said, clinging to him.

  “Leta, I love you. I’m grateful for you in my life, and I didn’t know how much I could love anyone until I saw you in that ambulance. My heart nearly stopped beating,” he said.

  “The idea of dying and not letting you see the face of Jacketfacingetta worried me so much,” she said, laughing.

  “Jacketta. Get our baby’s name right,” Evan corrected, planting a kiss on the side of her face. “Oh, did I mention my parents will be here Saturday?”

  “No, you didn’t! Is there anything else you forgot to tell me, husband?”

  “Let’s see, I mentioned I loved you, the oil on the land,” Evan said, “ah, the part of my having to give the land back to the city of Meredith if I don’t have a child by the end of the year, but you knew that right?”

  “Yes, I knew that part, but what you don’t know is that I love you too,” she told him.

  “I can go to bed with a smile on my face, but I will need to check on Aunt Evelyn, or I can leave it up to my Dad when he gets here on Saturday,” Evan said, “I rarely see her as is. Showing up after this, well, she may think I had something to do with it.”

  “Or the media can make you guilty by association.”

  “True, so true,” he said, looking back at the television. By eight tonight, the major news outlets would have picked up the story, and it would be everywhere. Rick would never recover from the scandal of it all. Evan was glad. He shouldn’t be, but he was. He’d pray about it later, but at the moment, he was gearing up for the return of his parents, a POD full of household items, and meeting his brother-in-law tomorrow. He had too much to worry about to focus on Rick.

  THE NIGHT HAD BARELY settled around the house when Leta walked through the new addition. The bedroom was a perfect size and the spare room would be ideal for the nursery, yet in her heart, there was one other discussion she needed to have with her husband.

  “Evan, I need some help understanding the parts you are refusing to discuss about you and Rick. When we first met him at Hazel’s, you referenced, I think, 1998. I’m sorry, but I need to know what happened between you then,” she told him.

  “Honestly, I don’t remember all of it,” he explained and tried dodging the conversation.

  “You don’t harbor a grudge against your cousin for 22 years and honestly can’t remember what happened. All of it is going to come out, so at least allow your wife first-hand knowledge so I can understand,” she pleaded.

  “Leta, I can’t make you understand it because I don’t! We were in our early twenties working a summer job at the lake as camp counselors,” Evan said. “Rick disappeared and I went looking for him. When I found him, he was in the water with this girl, Ellie. Ellie Morrison. They were struggling, and I ran over to help. Ellie had nearly drowned, so I performed CPR and brought her back.”

  “Did Rick try to drown this Ellie?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what happened,” he said, looking her in the face. “When you do a water rescue, you save people from the back, wrapping your arm around them because head on, if the
y are panicking, they will drown you and them both. So, I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure Ellie had something to say about what happened,” Leta said.

  “She couldn’t talk. Ellie was a mute,” Evan replied, lowering his head. “She knew sign language but I didn’t. There was fear in her eyes when she looked at Rick, and after that, all the girls in the Summer Camp program stopped coming to camp. I tried asking Rick but he never answered.”

  “And the old blue Chevy truck; you called Virgil and told him where to find it. How did you know about the truck?”

  “The truck belonged to Rick’s father, Taylor. Uncle Taylor was the worst. He was that trashy white guy every Mom said to stay away from, but Aunt Evelyn couldn’t get enough of him. My dad fought tooth and nail with her over everything, eventually selling five thousand acres to the city of Meredith out Evelyn’s share of this land and selling my soul to the city,” Evan said, pressing his lips together.

  This was the part of his life he never spoke about because he didn’t want people feeling sorrier for him than he felt for himself. It wasn’t a bad life, and he loved the lake. The trade-off wasn’t so bad in the end. He could live with it.

  “Evan?” she asked, wanting the whole truth.

  “My father, in order to buy out Aunt Evelyn, used municipal bonds against the land,” Evan said. “Truth of the matter, the City of Meredith paid for me to go to college to come back and become the Town Clerk. As soon as Tom retires, I become the town manager. The land stays in the family as long as I was married by the end of this year and have an Eaton.”

  “Rick? The Oil, none of that makes any sense,” Leta said.

  “The land has always had oil on it. In the early years of the settlers, the oil was used to fortify the forts and provide heat, so we know it’s there, but mining it causes seepage in the lake and the damage takes years to reverse,” Evan told her.