The Paradoxical Parent (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 13)

by Frank W. Butterfield

  . . .

  It was almost 10 that evening when we pulled into the driveway of Kenneth and Michelle's house in Lincoln. We'd called from the road, so they were expecting us.

  We all piled out and were met at the front door by Kenneth, who was in a dark blue pull-over sweater and a pair of charcoal trousers. "Come in, everyone."

  Once introductions were made, I said, "We won't stay long."

  Michelle asked, "How are you, Nick?"

  I nodded. "Fine. We now know what happened."

  Kenneth led us into the living room where we all sat. Maria and I explained the whole thing. Once we were done, Michelle said, "I still don't fully understand why she did this, but it makes a little more sense now. That letter must have really thrown her for a loop."

  I nodded. "Yeah. She had no way to know that it was a fake and it must have been pretty crushing."

  Michelle sighed, "But why run away? Again?"

  Maria nodded. "I think she thought she was much closer to dying than she was and she didn't want you to see that."

  "And she was probably right," added Carter. "If she hadn't gone to that naturo-whozit, she would have likely died much sooner."

  Michelle nodded with a slight frown. "Well, maybe I'll understand some day. She was such a treasure. So kind and charitable. But, this running away... I guess you could say she was a bit of a paradox." She looked at me. "I'm sorry, Nick."

  "Don't be," I replied. "Somehow, it's that paradox, which is the right word for it, that makes me feel close to her. I understand that, somehow." I reached into my coat pocket and said, "I think these belong to you." I pulled out the strand of pearls and handed them to Michelle.

  She held them in her hands and softly said, "Your mother's pearls." She rubbed them against her cheek. "Oh my. I just adored them. She let me wear them at my wedding." She looked at me and asked, "How'd you know?"

  "I didn't. It just seemed right, somehow."

  Kenneth said, "It's perfect, Nick. Thank you."

  I nodded. "The other thing I wanted to tell you about in person is her estate trust."

  Kenneth grinned. "Did she leave you something nice?"

  I nodded. "Nearly fifteen million."

  His eyes opened wide. "That much?"

  "Yeah. And I don't need it. But I thought your dad could use it. It won't be the whole amount at once. We'll get it set up so it pays out the interest but not the principal. Lower taxes that way, or so I've heard."

  Michelle clutched her chest with the pearls in her hand. "Oh, Nick. You don't have to do that. Ed's fine. We're doing well. We have plenty."

  Kenneth nodded. "Yeah, Nick. You really don't have to do this."

  I shook my head. "But I want to. I have a feeling that, if my mother were here right now, she'd tell you that your dad was the real love of her life. He's a good man. And I hope you'll let me tell him first. We're driving up there tomorrow."

  Kenneth looked at me for a long moment. "You really are just like her. She'd be so proud of you."

  I looked over at Carter who just nodded and smiled.

  . . .

  Michelle said, "Before you go, your nephew wants to meet you."

  I swallowed hard and nodded.

  She walked towards the back of the house and gently knocked on a door.

  "Have you heard from Bobby and Peggy?" I asked.

  Kenneth grinned. "Yeah. He tried really hard to grumble about you over the phone. But then Peggy grabbed it away from him and told me all about the hotel suite and being right at the beach and that I should give you a big kiss." He leaned over and kissed me quickly on the cheek. As he stepped back, I noticed he was blushing.

  I smiled and said, "I don't know how much longer they'll need to stay there. Will this get Bobby in trouble at work?"

  Kenneth shook his head. "No. He was due for a long vacation and the timing was right, anyway."

  "What does he do?" asked Carter.

  "He's an engineer. He just finished working on a project. So they were happy to let him have the time off. He told them it was a family emergency and they agreed to let him take at least a couple of weeks."

  "Good," I said.

  Carter laughed. "We never talked about it last night, Kenneth, but what do you do?"

  He grinned and said, "I'm a boring banker. I work in Concord and mostly approve home loans all day."

  I said, "Don't forget about coming to San Francisco, whenever you three can."

  He nodded and then said, "I think I hear your sleepyhead nephew coming down the hall."

  I looked and saw a brown-haired boy in a pair of blue pajamas. He was blinking and yawning. I leaned over and said, "Hey kid, I'm your Uncle Nick."

  He looked at me, confused for a moment, and then smiled. "Oh, right! Uncle Nick. From Sam Manisco."

  We all laughed.

  Michelle pointed and said, "And that's your Uncle Carter."

  Jimmy looked up and said, "Gosh, you're tall!"

  Carter grinned. "Wanna go for a plane ride?"

  "Sure!"

  He swooped down, grabbed Jimmy by the waist, and flew him into the living room, all the while making airplane sounds while the kid squealed with delight.

  Michelle smiled. "He's great with kids."

  I nodded. "And dogs. And cats. And pigs."

  Everyone laughed at that.

  Michelle crossed her arms and sighed. "Seems such a shame that he won't ever have any of his own."

  I shrugged. "That just means he gets to be Uncle Carter to every kid he meets."

  Michelle sounded doubtful. "I guess so."

  I nodded. "He's like the Jolly Green Giant to them, only blond."

  Everyone laughed as Jimmy squealed with delight in the living room.

  Chapter 11

  Sheriff's Office

  Grafton, Vt.

  Friday, March 11, 1955

  Around 1 in the afternoon

  Carter parked the Cadillac in front of the sheriff's office in Grafton. The county car was nowhere to be seen. I stepped out of the passenger seat and made my way into the post office.

  Josiah was chatting with an older woman as I walked in. Her hair was wrapped in a thick scarf. She was wearing what appeared to be a very old but very thick coat. Her feet were covered in big boots.

  They both stopped talking to look at me as I opened the door.

  Josiah nodded. "Mr. Williams."

  I smiled. "Good afternoon."

  "Be with you in a moment."

  I nodded and looked at the items posted on the notice board. As I read about the importance of wrapping packages in brown paper and tying parcels securely with string, something caught my attention. I looked over at the "Most Wanted List" from the F.B.I. and was surprised to see an old photograph of Ricky staring at me. He was listed in the fifth position. And he was wanted for multiple counts of murder and extortion.

  I took a deep breath and realized that the old woman had left and that I was alone in the post office. I wondered where Josiah had disappeared to. After a moment, he returned with the carton of my mother's unclaimed mail. Putting it on the counter, he said, "I'm told you're the heir to your mother's estate."

  I nodded. "Yes, sir."

  He pushed the carton forward. "This'll be yours, then."

  I looked at him for a long moment. "Do you want to see a copy of the will?"

  "No need. I have the sheriff's word. He completed the affidavit and that's all I need."

  I nodded. "What about future mail?"

  He shrugged. "Well, now, I can have you fill out this request to forward. To San Francisco, I suppose."

  "Yeah."

  He reached for a form from under the counter, pushed it toward me, and offered me a pencil.

  . . .

  As I was putting the carton of mail in the trunk of the car, the sheriff pulled up in the county car.

  "Afternoon, Nick. How are you today?"

  I smiled. "Good. How are you?"

  "Fine, fine." He smiled in reply. "Nice bit
of sunshine we have going on. Maybe we'll get some of this snow to melt before the next bunch."

  Carter leaned over and said through the passenger door window. "Ed?"

  The sheriff leaned over and said, "Afternoon, Carter. How are you?"

  Grinning in reply, my husband said, "Good. Have you had lunch yet?"

  The sheriff shook his head. "Not yet."

  "Maria's offered to heat up some canned soup and make grilled cheese sandwiches, if you wanna join us at the house in a bit."

  The sheriff nodded. "Sounds good, son. I'll drive on down in about twenty minutes. Have to make a call, first."

  . . .

  Carter and Frankie got the fire going in the living room while Maria and I got lunch together.

  By the time the sheriff knocked on the door, we were just about ready to eat. Carter answered the door and said, "Come on in, Sheriff, and have a seat."

  "Wish you'd call me Ed or, if you like, Dad."

  I was putting the bowls of soup out when he said that and I stopped. There was a feeling that washed over me of something I couldn't quite describe or understand. It was as though something old was gone and something new had taken its place. I looked over at the sheriff, my dad, and could see what my mother had seen in him. That wasn't a stretch. He was kind and a hard worker and generous of spirit. And he was handsome, in a way. But it was more than that. There was love in him that didn't have to be coaxed out like with my father. It was just there and on offer for those who were willing to have it.

  I looked over at Carter who had also stopped what he was doing. He caught me watching him and he blushed. We looked at each other for a long moment. It was like when we'd first met, but it was more than that. There was love there. And, like the gal at the lawyer's office had said, "Gee. You're real, then."

  . . .

  While we ate, Maria and I brought Ed up to speed on what we'd learned. His reaction was similar to Michelle's.

  "I just don't understand all of this. I don't mean that it's confusing, I just don't know why she left us like she left San Francisco."

  I nodded. "The more I think about it, the more I agree with what Maria said last night. She didn't want you to see her dying."

  He sighed loudly and shook his head. "I guess she didn't trust that I would have held her close and let her go when she was ready."

  That hit it right on the nail. "You're right, Dad." I paused. That word felt strange and wonderful at the same time. I'd never had a dad, only a father. There was a world of difference. But I wasn't sure I would be able to say it again. "She didn't trust that. You knew her better than me." I stopped as soon as I heard myself say that. It was true. I didn't really know my mother at all. All the people we'd met in our chase to find out what happened to her had been the ones who'd introduced me to my mother. I had a moment of regret that my father hadn't been with us. He probably knew her the least of all of us. I had no idea if that was true, but it rang true.

  Ed looked up. "That's true, son. I probably did. But you have a point. Alexandra wanted to shield people from pain if she could. It was something that made her a wonderful human being. And, it sometimes set her apart from everyone else. I knew..." He looked down at his half-eaten sandwich. "I knew that there was a place in her that I could never get to. And, that was fine." He wiped his mouth with a plain cloth napkin. He stopped and looked at the fabric. "Your mother had this made by a convent somewhere in Europe, right after the war was over. She never liked to just give money to people. She was afraid it would insult them."

  I looked over at Carter, who was watching me carefully.

  "So, she read about a bombed-out convent and through the Red Cross, or maybe the Army, she got in touch with the mother superior and had the napkins made. And, it was from fabric that she sent over. They didn't have anything to use there. And it's not like it was easy to get here at that time. I don't know where she got it, in fact. But she found lots of it, wherever it came from."

  Carter said, "And I'd bet she sent them two or three or four times the amount of fabric than what they needed to make the napkins for her."

  Ed nodded with a slight grin. "And she paid them about twice what they'd asked. That's how she did that sort of thing."

  Carter said, "Nick has a thing that he and Marnie, his secretary—"

  "And stepsister," I added.

  Carter smiled and nodded. "They came up with something they call care packages. When they find out about someone who needs money, they've got a whole system where some cash gets sent to the person in question in a way that makes sure they don't know who's sending it."

  Maria added, "I really love delivering them."

  I looked over in surprise. "You've delivered them?"

  She nodded with a smile. "Probably ten or so. Marnie doesn't like to send them in the mail. I always find creative ways to disguise myself and then leave the box with a neighbor or just hand it to the person."

  "What do you say?" asked Ed.

  "I just tell them it's a special delivery. For some reason, that seemed to work the best. No one ever asks whether I work for the post office. Or why a female is delivering the package." She laughed. "It really is one of my favorite things to do."

  Carter cleared his throat and looked at Ed. "Nick has something he wants to give you. And, Ed, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that if you refuse it, I'm gonna take you outside and kick your ass."

  That made Ed laugh. "I may be gettin' old, son, but I can still hold my own, now." He looked over at me with a question on his face.

  I looked down at the table. "When we got to the will, we were all a little taken aback by how much is in the estate trust."

  He looked at me but didn't say anything.

  I continued, "It's almost fifteen million."

  He looked thoughtful, but not really surprised.

  "You knew?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "No, I didn't. But I wouldn't have been surprised if there were thirty million. Your mother was good at making money, son."

  Frankie grinned and said, "Really good."

  We all laughed at that.

  After a moment, I looked down at the table again. "Thing is, Ed, I don't need any of it. And I'd like to make you the beneficiary of the trust. We'd set it up so that you'd get something like quarterly payments from the interest. And then, of course, it would pass to Kenneth and Robert."

  I looked up. He was smiling and said, "That sounds fine."

  And that was that.

  Chapter 12

  Aboard T.W.A. Flight 49

  Saturday, March 12, 1955

  Very early in the morning

  After making a couple of phone calls from Ed's office, we'd bought four tickets for the red-eye on T.W.A. flight 49 from New York Idlewild direct to San Francisco International. The brand-new Super "G" Constellation plane was scheduled to leave at just before midnight that night and arrive in San Francisco at just past 5 in the morning. Pacific time.

  Carter drove us down to New York and, thanks to Ed's expert directions, he easily found his way via the parkways and bridges that criss-crossed the city to Idlewild.

  We turned in the car at the Hertz desk and endured a very long tongue-lashing by the older woman behind the counter who wanted to make sure we understood that failing to notify them of not only our change in return location but also our change in date of return could have resulted in their notifying the police of possible grand larceny. She finally got off her high-horse when I pulled out one of my magic checks from Bank of America and asked for a pen and the sales price of the car. She'd grabbed the check and saw whatever it was that made it magic and then presented me with a final bill. It was less than a hundred dollars.

  Usually, I had no trouble sleeping in a car or on a plane, but I was wide awake, reading Rebecca, when Carter stirred in the seat next to me and mumbled, "Why aren't you asleep?"

  "I slept on the way to the airport."

  "How's the book?"

  "Good. I can't believe I never read this wh
en it was published. This is just the thing that Mike would've loved."

  Carter, whose seat was in a recline position, grinned. "What's the housekeeper's name, again?"

  "Mrs. Danvers."

  "Is she just like Mrs. Tutwiler?" We'd rented a house from her outside of Sydney a few weeks earlier. She'd lived in the back and was the housekeeper and cook, as well. She'd been very standoffish when we had first moved in. A friend of ours had mentioned how much she was like Mrs. Danvers in the movie of Rebecca. Neither Carter nor I had ever seen it. That's why I'd picked up the book just as we were leaving Australia. I'd started it on our flight to Lebanon and was almost all the way through it.

  "Not as much as I would've thought. But, then again, I know why Mrs. Tutwiler was acting like she was. She was hiding her husband down in the garage. The man she'd thought was dead and who showed up at the same time we did. She was obviously under a lot of stress. Mrs. Danvers is just plain nuts."

  Carter yawned and then asked, "Speaking of people who are nuts, what about Ricky?"

  I closed the book, handed it to him, and stood. "Dunno. Lemme see what Frankie and Maria are up to."

  Our seats were in the smaller front section of the plane. I walked back through the middle section. Only about a third of the seats were occupied. As I passed through the berth section, I noticed that all four were made up and that three of the four curtains had been drawn closed. There were two on either side of the plane. One upper and one lower. The empty one, the lower berth on the port side, didn't look like it had been slept in. The pillow was still fluffed up and the blanket and sheet were still tucked in with hospital-like efficiency. When we'd booked the flight, we'd tried to reserve the entire section. We were told that only one was available, so we took that one in Maria's name. Hers was probably the empty one.

  The lounge was just past a curtain behind the berths. And, in fact, Maria was sitting there, right next to Frankie. They were its only occupants and were seated in two chairs facing forward so they could see everyone coming and going on the plane. I kept on walking, nodding slightly at Frankie's wink, past the two stewardesses who were working in the galley, and towards the toilets in the rear, I stopped at the rear cabin door and, looking through the window in that door, gazed down at the clouds below. They were faintly glowing, which made me think we were passing over or near a large city. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter until 4 in the morning, San Francisco time. That meant we were a little over an hour away from landing. The only large city I could think of was Denver, but we had to be over Nevada by that point. Then, remembering Tuesday's full moon over Grafton, I realized the clouds were reflecting moonlight. I looked up into the sky and could see the moon off in the west, definitely waning, but still bright.