Finders Keepers

by Catherine Palmer

  He turned away again, his shoulder against the porch post. Elizabeth watched him, sure she could read his thoughts. He probably had known many women, and no doubt he’d experienced the range of relationships with them. What was the point of spending time with an old-fashioned prude who threw biblical admonitions at him? How boring.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “A few months ago, I was an award-winning architect with a pretty active social life. Now I’m supposed to throw in the towel on my dreams for a new office building. And I’m supposed to sit on a porch swing with the mosquitoes.”

  “A few months ago, I was a businesswoman and mother,” Elizabeth said. “Now I’m supposed to give up my quiet security, my stability, my risk-free life. And I’m supposed to sit on a porch swing with the mosquitoes.”

  “No, you’d be sitting on the porch swing with me.”

  “And you’d be sitting with me.” She crossed her arms. “That’s what it all comes down to, you know. Is each of us willing to accept who the other one really is? I’m a porch-swing woman.”

  “Well, I’m an inside-the-house man.”

  They stared at each other.

  Elizabeth knew it was the end. Zachary had made a lot of changes in his life. But he wasn’t going to go this far. This went beyond surrendering dreams and goals. This meant surrendering himself, right down to the core. And she could see in his eyes, he wouldn’t do it.

  “Boy howdy, ya’ll better come quick!” Ben the policeman flew around the corner of the house and leaped onto the porch, his black boots sending up a puff of dust. “We got trouble. Big trouble now.”

  “Trouble?” Jolted back into focus, Elizabeth stood up. “What’s going on, Ben?”

  “Lord have mercy, it’s them kids.”

  “The teenagers? What have they done?”

  “Not them kids. Ya’ll’s kids. Nick and that little red-haired Easton gal.”

  “What’s happened to Nick?” She grabbed the man’s arm. “Where’s my son?”

  “Mick’s got the both of them over at the police station.”

  “Are they hurt?”

  “No, ma’am. But they’re in trouble. Big trouble. And that boy of yours is hollering like a lonesome coyote. The way he howls sends shivers right down my spine. The little gal is crying her eyes out, too. I felt bad we had to take the both of them over to the station. But what else could we do? Mick said it was protocol. I thought I’d run fetch the redhead’s dad, but then I remembered about her mama dying and all. So I came straight over here to get you.”

  “What did they do, Ben?”

  He shook his head. “You ain’t gonna believe it. I sure didn’t.”

  “Ben!”

  “They went over to Phil Fox’s house to look at his puppies, and they up and stole his ’64 World Series baseball. Then they took a big ol’ rock and threw it right through the plate-glass window of his barbershop. ’Course Mr. Fox realized his baseball was missin’ right away, and he figured out who took it. He called us about the time them kids was throwin’ that rock through his window. When Mick and I got over to the barber shop, sure enough, they was standin’ right there at the scene of the crime lookin’ just as guilty as you please. There’s glass everywhere, I’m tellin’ you. Once I take you over to the station, I got to run back and sweep it up.”

  Horror and disbelief coursed down Elizabeth’s spine. “Why?” she managed. “Why did they do it?”

  “Well, that’s what we asked ’em, but we couldn’t make heads or tails out of what they told us. The little gal took to cryin’ so hard she couldn’t talk. Your boy just blabbered pure nonsense. I tried to write it down. Lemme see.” He pulled his notebook from his back pocket. “Here we go. He said there were some bad guys at Grace’s house and they looked like nachos, whatever that means. And then he started talking about foxes, and he was tellin’ me how foxes are just like nachos. Now does that make any sense to you?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “Then he told me that him and the little gal wanted to make you feel better, Miss Hayes, so they took the baseball for ransom. Ransom—that was his exact word.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I wrote down everything your boy said as best as I could, but it didn’t make one lick of sense to me.”

  Elizabeth folded her hands together and pressed them to her lips. Oh, God, please help me. I’m so scared for Nick. I don’t know how to help him—

  “Come on,” Zachary said, his warm hand covering hers. “Sounds like our little crusaders are about due for a rescue.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, Zachary, you don’t have to—”

  “Lead the way, Ben.” Zachary cut her off and gave a nod in the direction of the police station. “And while we walk, I’ll explain to you about the nachos.”

  FOURTEEN

  Zachary stood to one side as Elizabeth rushed across the front lobby of the police station and scooped her son into her arms. She was crying, and Nick’s wails blended with Montgomery’s spasmic sobs. Zachary knew he ought to get out of there as fast as he could run. This wasn’t his business. All this weeping and turmoil had nothing to do with him. Experience had taught him to detach himself from situations rife with emotion.

  Once he had watched his own father and mother shrug and walk away from him. Screaming, crying, he had been gripped by the state social worker assigned to place him in foster care. He could remember the despair that overwhelmed him. Strength and rage poured through his young body, and he had broken free and run to his parents. But his father had turned to him and pushed him away.

  No, Zachary. We can’t take care of everybody. Be a man.

  Zachary, the man, studied the scene unfolding before him. Elizabeth was explaining her son’s behavior to the policemen while Mick took notes. Ben had begun dialing Montgomery’s father. No longer howling, Nick stood white and trembling at his mother’s side. Montgomery had curled into a tiny ball of despair and scooted herself under a desk.

  Don’t care, Zachary. Walk out. You’re not a porch-swing man. You don’t need these people and their troubles. You can’t take care of everybody.

  He slipped his hands into his pockets and turned toward the door. They’d work it out. He would go back to his cool apartment, where he could put on some soothing music and read this week’s issue of Time. He’d probably plug into the Net and check his stocks. And then maybe he’d dip himself a big bowl of Central Dairy’s mint chocolate chip ice cream. The best. He would prop up his feet and—

  As he started to push open the glass door, he caught a reflection of Elizabeth’s long brown hair. You’ve done your part, Zachary. Go home. Pausing, he glanced over his shoulder at the little ball of whimpering misery under the desk.

  “Hey, Montgomery,” he said, wheeling around. “What’s your favorite kind of ice cream? You like mint chocolate chip?”

  Kneeling, he peered under the desk. The child’s tear-stained, grimy face emerged from the shadows. She sniffled.

  “I bet you’re a rocky-road gal, aren’t you?” he said.

  She ran a fist under her wet nose. “Banilla.”

  “Banana?”

  A reluctant smile lifted her trembling lips. She sucked down a shaky breath. “Banilla. It’s white.”

  “Plain ol’ white? Listen, have you ever tried mint chocolate chip? I’ve got a whole box of it in the freezer over at my place. When we get done here, we could all go over there and eat some.”

  Her face crumpled again. “But we broke the window.”

  “I know you did, and that was a wrong thing to do.” He reached out and took her damp hand. “Guess what. I’ve done some wrong things, too.”

  “My daddy’s going to be mad.”

  “Maybe so.” He considered the situation. “I reckon it’s a daddy’s job to help his daughter learn to do the right things. He’ll probably be disappointed, but I suspect he’ll understand that you and Nick thought you were helping out.”

  “I want my mommy!” She covered her face wit
h her hands and began to sob again.

  Zachary reached under the desk, slipped his hands around the little girl, and eased her out into the open. Then he picked her up and held her against his chest. Mick was filling out papers. Ben had left to begin sweeping up broken glass. Nick and Elizabeth were pressed into a single chair as she tried to explain her son’s behavior for the police report. When the door burst open, Zachary turned to see Luke Easton barreling into the station like a locomotive.

  “Montgomery?” Spotting her in Zachary’s arms, he crossed the room in two paces and lifted her into his embrace. “Oh, baby, come here, sweet pea. Don’t cry now. Daddy’s got you. It’s OK, honey, it’ll be all right.”

  As Luke and his daughter joined Elizabeth and her son at Mick’s desk, Zachary headed for the door. He would go to his apartment now. The music and magazine and stock market would be there waiting for him. So would his single bowl of ice cream. He’d eat it alone … and wish he didn’t have to.

  “They thought they could defeat Mr. Fox, the barber,” Boompah said as he arranged a plate of his day-old muffins on the tea table at Finders Keepers. “It is my fault.”

  “Your fault, Boompah?” Elizabeth punched a hole in the price tag she had written up for an antique trunk. “I don’t see how you can say that. Nick and Montgomery cooked up their little stone-throwing escapade all by themselves.”

  “But I had told Nikolai the story of how the Jews fought secretly against the Germans in the ghettos of Poland. He believed he could drive away your enemy in the same way.”

  Elizabeth tied the price tag to the trunk with a narrow white ribbon. “The Polish Jews did not do things like steal a man’s prized baseball and try to hold it for ransom.”

  “Ransom?”

  “Montgomery wrote the note. ‘Mr. Fox: If you ever want to see your baseball again, you better stay away from Grace’s house.’”

  “Oh dear.”

  “And it was some TV show that inspired them to tie the note around a rock and try to throw it through the barbershop door. Of course they missed, and the rock cracked the huge plate-glass window.”

  “Mmm.” Boompah shook his head in dismay.

  “Nick and Montgomery both know they are to respect the property of others. I’ve told Nick a hundred times to use his words and not his hands to solve his problems.”

  “A very good teaching.”

  “Well, he forgot all about it, and now he’s suffering the consequences.”

  “What consequences are those?”

  “He and Montgomery are performing community service. Luke Easton and I are paying to install a new glass window in the barbershop.”

  “Community service? But they are only small children.”

  “There are a lot of things those two small children can do, Boompah. Each afternoon they sweep sidewalks for Pearlene and me. They slide library cards into books for Ruby McCann. They fill napkin holders and saltshakers at Dandy Donuts. And they sort brochures for Phil Fox at the bus station. They start right after Nick gets home from summer school, and they’re done by dusk.”

  “Ach. That Phil Fox, you know, I think he’s happy to have all the attention from the stealing of his baseball and the breaking of his window. I hear him at Dandy Donuts this morning talking about the next meeting of the city council. That man can talk and talk until you think you are going to have to throw a jelly donut at him to make him quiet.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t throw anything at Phil Fox for a while, Boompah. Please! I can’t take another episode at the police station.”

  “OK, OK.” Chuckling, the old man bent over and began rearranging the muffins for the umpteenth time. “I tell you what, Elizabeth. I think that Phil Fox is going to try to take Grace’s house away from Zachary. This, I believe, is his plan.”

  “I know he’s up to something sneaky. Zachary and I—” She thought of the man who seemed to have vanished from her life almost as quickly as he had appeared. It had been a week and a half since the eventful night at the police station. “It’s really none of my business.”

  “Not your business? And when is the future of Ambleside not the business of everybody who lives here?”

  “The mansion belongs to Zachary. He’ll have to iron things out with Phil himself.”

  Boompah was silent as she arranged a collection of fine old crocheted linen pieces in the trunk. She wasn’t going to insert herself back into Zachary’s life. Clearly they were incompatible. Clearly they had few values in common. Clearly he couldn’t be bothered with a woman so rigid … so moralistic … so “porch swing.”

  “You better tell Zachary about the city council meeting next week, Elizabeth,” Boompah said. “He needs to go there and see what Phil Fox will do.”

  “You can tell him, Boompah.” She smoothed out a set of monogrammed napkins.

  “What, you don’t talk to Zachary now?”

  “Not for a while, really. He’s busy and so am I.”

  “Busy.”

  “Boompah, Zachary needs a more interesting, more modern sort of woman in his life. I’m just too … boring.”

  “You?” The old man crumpled the paper bag in which he’d brought the stale muffins. “You are not boring! You are smart, beautiful, clever, kind—ach, if I am not such an old man, I try to marry you myself. I better talk to that boy. He can’t make a big mistake and be unlucky in love like I was. Certainly not!”

  “Boompah, wait.” Elizabeth caught his arm as he shuffled toward the door. “Please don’t say anything to Zachary about me. He and I have talked things over already. We’re very different from each other, OK?”

  “No, is not OK.” His face darkened. “I don’t believe that. To keep away from true love for the reason of being ‘different’ is stupid! Sometimes different can be very good. Interesting, you know. But you and Zachary are not so different. You are both good people, Christian people, nice people. And you love each other.”

  “No, Boompah, we don’t love each other.”

  “Don’t try to fool this old Gypsy, Elizabeth.” He tapped his temple with a fingertip. “I see how you look at Zachary. I watch how he looks at you. I listen to you talk about each other. I know the truth of this thing, and it is called love.” He turned to the door. “I go now.”

  Great. Just great, Elizabeth thought. How could she explain to Boompah all the intricacies of her relationship with Zachary? They held such different moral standards. She had a son he didn’t want to bother with. He designed modern churches she could hardly bear to look at. He wanted to tear down antiquities. She wanted to preserve them. They were too different.

  “And you better come to that city council meeting, too, Elizabeth,” Boompah said over the jingle of brass bells as he stuck his head back through the door. “Zachary needs you.”

  “Can Nick come over for supper, Miss Hayes?” Montgomery asked. “Daddy’s grilling hot dogs tonight.”

  “Hot dogs?” Nick poked his head between his mother’s hip and the door frame. “I love hot dogs! Can I have two? Or maybe three? I like them with mustard and ketchup.”

  Elizabeth regarded her son and his bright, eager eyes. “Nick, you know you’re still grounded.”

  “Oh, bother.” He thought for a moment. “But I have not played with Magunnery for a long time, Mommy. All we do every day is eat donuts with Miss Viola and read books with Mrs. McCann. We never get to play together.”

  “Eat donuts and read books?” She looked back and forth between the two children. “You’re supposed to be working at the donut shop and the library.”

  “After we work, we eat the donuts.”

  Elizabeth sighed. Whatever had made her believe the citizens of Ambleside would be firm with the two wayward children? She should have guessed that Nick and Montgomery would be taken into their wardens’ hearts, quickly forgiven their trespasses, and then coddled like a pair of hothouse flowers.

  “I have never eaten hot dogs in all my life,” Nick said solemnly.

  “We eat hot do
gs at least once a week, Nikolai Hayes, you little con artist.”

  “But not with Magunnery. Not hot dogs from the barbecue grill at Magunnery’s house.”

  Elizabeth considered for a moment. Nearly a month had passed since Ellie Easton’s death. According to local observation, Luke had been doing better lately. Pearlene had told Elizabeth that Luke was working hard on his construction project at the new McCann subdivision on the outskirts of town. And Ruby had mentioned that Luke and his daughter were seen attending a movie together and walking in the park. Maybe this hot-dog dinner would be a good step toward normalcy for everyone concerned.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll let you eat supper with Montgomery just this time. But I’ll come by to pick you up at eight.”

  “Yesss!”

  Montgomery did a little twirl across the porch, her red braids flying out to the sides. Hand in hand, the two children skipped down the steps and headed across the backyard pathway that had been worn between their houses.

  Elizabeth sat down on the porch swing and lifted her hair from the back of her neck. Another hot day. To tell the truth, she was grateful to Luke for offering her a break from the constant care of her son. Nick was always a handful, but his confinement following the window-breaking incident had made him more restless than usual.

  She shut her eyes and pictured the sleepy little town around her as it basked in the humid heat of midsummer. The aroma of barbecue grills drifted through the air to mingle with the scent of new-mown grass. In the distance, Elizabeth could hear the low buzz of a weed cutter, the murmur of someone’s radio tuned to a country music station, and the metallic thump of car doors shutting. People were parking around the square for the city council meeting.

  She wouldn’t go, of course.

  Turning her thoughts to her latest project, Elizabeth drifted in a sweltery daze. An old walnut sideboard would have to be stripped of its offending 1970s harvest-gold paint. She would remove the hardware … check the joints … pull on her rubber gloves … spread the refinisher … wipe and wipe … steel wool …