Hideaway Home

by Hannah Alexander

  He grimaced. “A young woman like you shouldn’t have that kind of burden.” His wife tugged on his arm, and he shrugged good-naturedly at Bertie. “We’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral.”

  As Gerald and Arielle walked into the crowd, Louise leaned close to Bertie. “I wouldn’t let anybody talk me into selling yet, honey. Wait a while. Talk to your neighbors.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t make any decisions without talking to my brother first.”

  “That’s good. And if you do sell, be sure to come to us first. Honey, I don’t know what to say about your father. I feel so awful, after talking your ear off Sunday night when your dad didn’t answer your call. I should’ve known something was wrong, but he’s always been such a strong man, so sure of himself, a body doesn’t expect something to happen to him.” Louise paused for a breath.

  “I don’t blame you, Louise,” Bertie said quickly. “You and Herbert have always been good neighbors.” She hesitated. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Dad and Herbert Morrow had argued often about the fence that connected their properties at the back forty.

  Dad had never been one to mince words, and he’d thought Herbert was just plain lazy about upkeep. Few people, however, were as diligent about keeping their fences, barns, cattle and homes in as good a condition as Joseph Moennig.

  The other farmers who lived and worked on the five-hundred acre section of land closest to Hideaway—the Jarvises, Morrows, Kruegers and Fishers—were hard workers. But they never quite matched Dad’s meticulousness when it came to caring for the land. He’d always seen his work as a calling from God—the real oldest profession and the most blessed. He took that calling seriously, which was one reason Bertie had so much trouble accepting his death as a careless accident.

  But it was even harder to hold any of their neighbors in suspicion. Sure there had been times in the past when her father’s gung ho attitude had rubbed some folks the wrong way, but no one she knew would have resorted to attacking him.

  “Louise,” she said softly, “did Dad ever mention any problems he might have been having with someone? Another neighbor, maybe? Or someone from town? Have there been any newcomers in Hideaway recently besides tourists?” No one Bertie knew would have paid as much attention to the comings and goings of strangers as Louise Morrow.

  Louise leaned back on the sofa, looking as if she intended to settle in for a nice, long conversation. “He hadn’t said much recently. You know how he kept so busy. There wasn’t always time to sit and chat, besides which, Joseph was never much of one to visit of an evening. I’d heard about the cattle that went missing from his place. He’d asked Herbert about those cows.” She paused, leaned closer to Bertie, lowered her voice. “You know I don’t mean any disrespect, but I had the feeling Joseph might’ve thought my own Herbert took the cattle, which of course is ridiculous.”

  “He never said anything to me about that,” Bertie assured her.

  “I know the Kruegers said they lost some cattle, as well.”

  Bertie frowned at her. “You didn’t believe them?”

  Louise spread her hands to her sides. “It isn’t for me to say. Herbert went out and checked on our stock when he learned there might be cattle thieves in the area, but we didn’t lose any.” She leaned close again. “Herbert did tell me about something he overheard at the Exchange the other day. Somebody thought the Kruegers might’ve—”

  She stopped suddenly, as if realizing who she was talking to. “Oh, Bertie, listen to me jabber on. You don’t need to be burdened with all this, what with your father’s funeral—”

  “Louise, what did Herbert hear about the Kruegers?”

  “Oh, you know how those men down at the Exchange like to tell their tales.”

  Bertie nodded, waiting.

  “Well, okay, but you need to take this with a grain of salt, and it’s probably not even worth that much.” Louise glanced around them hesitantly, then scooted closer to Bertie. “I’m not going to mention names, mind you, but some folks have actually come right out and suggested maybe Krueger was the one who took those cattle in the first place. Half the town knew he was struggling to make his farm payments, what with all the money he had to send back home to his parents in Germany.”

  “What else did they say?” Bertie asked, hearing the quaver in her voice.

  Louise patted Bertie’s hand. “Now, honey, don’t you worry yourself about such gossip. Like I said—”

  “They’re saying Krueger was the one who killed Dad?”

  Louise blanched, eyes startled. “All guesswork. Nobody knows for sure.”

  “But it would be an easy conclusion to draw,” Bertie said, though she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. “People are probably wondering why else Krueger would take his family and disappear in the middle of the night.”

  Louise hesitated, then nodded.

  “Can anyone remember seeing any of the Kruegers after Dad was found Monday?” Bertie asked.

  “Well, you know, I thought I saw somebody out in their garden that morning, but with that eighty acres between our house and theirs, it’s kind of hard to know for sure.”

  Bertie nodded. She would have felt badly for pressing Louise, but she had the distinct impression that Louise didn’t mind at all. In fact, she seemed to want to be pressed for more details.

  Bertie got up, taking her plate with her. “Thanks for telling me this, Louise. I know it’s just hearsay, but at least I’ll know what people might be thinking when they talk to me, and what they’re saying when I’m not around.”

  Louise patted her arm. “You let me know if you ever need to talk about anything. You know where I am.”

  Bertie carried the half-empty plate into the kitchen, which was unoccupied for the moment.

  Louise was a kindhearted soul, but Bertie couldn’t see herself confiding in her…unless, of course, she wanted to spread news to everyone in Hideaway and half the folks in Hollister.

  At one time, Arielle Potts had decided to start a Hideaway newspaper. With Gerald’s help, she’d compiled six pages of up-to-date news and information, using the efforts of several high-school students. She’d used a printing company in Hollister, and had, of course, included some of her own son’s poetry, which had embarrassed Ivan half to death.

  Most townsfolk bought the first couple of weekly editions for the novelty of it. But it soon became apparent that they couldn’t find much in the paper that they didn’t already know by word-of-mouth. They did, after all, have radio now, and relatives who kept them informed with phone calls and letters.

  Bertie had been sorry to see Arielle’s efforts get off to a rough beginning. That paper had been skillfully edited by Arielle, herself, and every word could be trusted as truth.

  On the other hand, Louise Morrow never bothered to edit the words that came out of her mouth, and she didn’t always bother to check her facts with people who might actually know the truth.

  Bertie placed her plate in the sink, ran some warm water and washed the dishes that had already been brought in from the other room. She had managed to speak with everyone who had come to see her. Soon, she would put on sturdier shoes and take a walk.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Red stepped out of the barbershop, reeking of aftershave and itching around the collar of his shirt. He’d never liked going to the barber, so he always let his hair grow a little too long before getting it cut. In the Army, that hadn’t been much of a problem.

  As he walked from the barbershop to the MFA Exchange for some grain for Seymour, short hairs continued to poke at his neck. Time to take a bath as soon as he got home—if he could get past all the visitors without being drawn into some conversation or other.

  As usual, when he reached the MFA Exchange, he saw a handful of farmers loafing around the large dock where the farmers unloaded their excess crops and loaded up with things they didn’t have. Some would’ve brought grain in to sell, others, like Red, were there to buy it.

  The MFA Exchange, the barber
shop and the diner down the street were the three favorite places for the men to catch up on local news, find out the going price for grain and let off some steam every once in a while.

  A telltale haze of pipe smoke greeted Red before he caught sight of Gramercy Short sitting on a hay bale, jawing at anybody who’d listen.

  Not many ever did. Gramercy’s word was about as dependable as a cow pie in a hailstorm. But Red did eavesdrop on several conversations as he limped along the aisles of farm supplies, sniffing the sweet grain laced with molasses, the sun-baked hay, the smoke from various cigarettes and pipe tobacco.

  “…sure keepin’ to himself since he got back…”

  “…thought they were sweet on each other before he left. Think they’ll get married now that he’s home for good?”

  “…going to try to run that farm all by herself?”

  “…oughtn’t to be buryin’a Nazi in a Christian graveyard…”

  He stopped and looked sharply toward the sorry soul who’d made that last remark. Of course. Gramercy Short was still hunched down low on the hay bale, muttering to his wife, Drusilla, who stood beside him. Far be it from ol’ man Short to let his wife have the only available seat.

  True to form, Dru didn’t seem to be listening to a word her husband said, but stood thumbing through last year’s copy of the Farmer’s Almanac.

  Red’s hands clenched at his sides. Gramercy Short, that old hog-nosed bully, had always been a few rows short of a plowed field. What right did he have to call anybody a Nazi? Or complain about who was buried in the church cemetery? He never went to church, or even funerals, unless the dead person was close family, and no Shorts had died around here in a coon’s age.

  Not that Red wanted harm to come to any of them, but they sure did cause a heap of trouble for the rest of the town with their constant bickering and their troublemaking ways. Dru was the one that had upset Ma so badly, accusing Red of being AWOL on his last leave from the war.

  Red caught Gramercy’s eye and held a staring contest with him until the scoundrel looked away. As he walked past the man, he checked Gramercy’s shoes. Old work boots, about the right size, cracked at the edges. The shoes looked almost as old as Moses, and probably didn’t give much protection to the scoundrel’s feet.

  Resisting the urge to ask Gramercy to pick up his foot, Red passed by him with a nod.

  After buying the grain—Seymour was going to be a happy horse, because Red was the only one who knew what kind he liked—Red greeted most of the other farmers by name, and stood and jawed awhile. Homer Jarvis, another of the Moennigs’ neighbors, wasn’t as talkative as he used to be. Red having been gone to war for the past three years, could be he’d missed a gradual change in the man. But Jarvis had never been an overly friendly sort.

  It was well-known in town that the Jarvises needed more land to grow what they needed to raise their flock of kids. Homer had approached the subject with Joseph a few times, hinting that Joseph might consider selling his land to a neighbor he could trust.

  Red couldn’t see anyone killing off a trusted and respected farmer for a few measly acres of farmland.

  He left the way he came in.

  He happened to walk past Gramercy’s old Model T Ford, parked across the street from the Exchange. No telltale shoe prints around the driver’s side, but he did see one print near the passenger side. A large print, like that of a work boot. There was a ridge on the dirt that could’ve been made from a cracked sole, but it didn’t tell him much.

  Red glanced toward the sheriff’s car, parked now in front of the barbershop, and strolled back in that direction. He studied the damp earth around the parking area across the street from the shop. Right there in mud he saw another footprint with that telltale crack in the heel, like the one outside the guesthouse, and the one outside Joseph’s house. But footprints in the dirt wouldn’t be enough to convince the sheriff to open this case again.

  Red would have to do more than that. But what?

  He limped back to his horse, tied the feed bag on the back of the saddle, fighting off Seymour’s curious, snuffling nose and thick, seeking lips.

  Red wasn’t finished yet.

  Bertie wanted to check the farm for herself. Sure, she trusted Red to go over it with a fine-tooth comb and scare up any evidence of foul play that might be there. But she would know if something was wrong, perhaps, simply by walking through the house on her own, seeing if something was out of place, or if Dad might’ve been worried about something he hadn’t mentioned to anyone. She’d been in too big a rush to check any of the rooms while everyone waited for her in the car earlier.

  She also wanted to check and make sure the hunting rifle was still in the place where Dad had always kept it, or if, for some reason, he might’ve moved it from the pump house and taken it into the house with him for protection.

  Another thing she wanted to do was hike to the spring above the cliffs over the James River and see if the comfrey still grew there as thickly as it once did. Even if Red resisted her attempts to treat him, she wanted to be prepared.

  Right now, Red was making her feel useless, treating her like a brainless little woman who didn’t know how to think for herself. She didn’t need rescuing. She did need to be kept in the loop about what Red might’ve found out about Dad’s death. Was it simply a tragic accident? Or had someone actually attacked him out of vengeance, or had they made an error of some kind? Did someone really think Dad was aligned with the enemies in Germany?

  Ordinarily, Louise’s inquisitive nature repelled Bertie, but this time she wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to learn a little more about the goings-on in the neighborhood recently.

  But first, it was time to do some investigating for herself—if only she could manage to slip away for a little while.

  The coast was clear. The kitchen was empty for the time being. Bertie had slid on her best walking shoes and come back downstairs, and had actually made it to the back of the house without being stopped by any of the guests, who continued to chat in the living room.

  She had stepped out the back door and turned to pull it shut when she heard a loud male voice behind her on the porch. “There you are! Bertie Moennig, it’s hard to catch you without a whole roomful of people surrounding you.” It was John Martin. She recognized the deep sound of his voice before she even turned around and saw him, dark brown hair combed back and held into place with enough VO5 hairdressing to pave the road in front of this house.

  “Why, John, I wondered where you’d gotten off to.” She hugged him with a little more enthusiasm than she ordinarily would. “I figured you’d be working on the farm, with school being out.”

  She couldn’t tell if his flush was from her exuberant greeting, or from a little too much sun recently.

  “I’ve been working some extra in town when they can spare me from the farm. The school’s growing with the rest of the town, and we’re building some new classrooms during summer break.” He raised his hands. “When I’m not kept busy picking blackberries and gooseberries for my mother.”

  She saw his hands were scratched, the left sleeve of his denim work shirt ripped and stained black. “Those vines can be hard on skin and clothes.” He glanced down at her walking shoes. “Headed out somewhere?”

  “Just needed to get some fresh air. If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food inside.”

  He nodded. “Knew everybody’d come to see you.” He hung his head. “Bertie, I sure am sorry about your dad. He was always so good to us kids. We’ll all miss him.”

  “Thank you, John. That’s a comfort to hear.” She gestured toward the back door. “Why don’t you go on in and get some of Lilly’s German chocolate cake before it’s all gone.” Her own mother had made that cake for years, using black walnuts in the filling.

  John grinned. “No kidding? I guess I’ll have to go have a taste before Ivan eats it all. Bertie, you be careful out here.” He glanced around the backyard, nodding toward the back fence. “Someone nea
rly brained me last week with a brick through the back window.” He pointed to the largest window at the back of the house, where there was a small sitting room for those who preferred privacy from the rest of the guests.

  Bertie gasped. What else had they all decided not to tell her about? “Did it hurt you?”

  He pointed to a partially healed wound on his forehead. “Got some glass, but at least the brick missed me. We swept on that floor for what seemed like hours to get all the glass up.”

  “It didn’t hurt anyone else?”

  He shook his head. “I was up late, and everyone else was in bed. Your father came over the next morning and helped us patch up the window until Lilly could get a new pane. That came in on Wednesday.”

  “It looks as good as new. Did Red repair it?”

  John nodded. “I helped.”

  Bertie nodded toward the house. “You’d better go ahead and get some of that cake. I’ll talk to you a little later.”

  He nodded to her and walked through the kitchen door.

  With relief, Bertie turned away, wondering again how many other things had happened in this town that Red and others were “protecting” her from.

  The guesthouse was nearly twice the size it had been before Lilly had started taking in boarders. It had been an ongoing project for the family to build on an extra room any time they could afford the material. The sitting room at the back of the house had been Red’s sister’s bedroom until she went off to college.

  Bertie walked over to examine the large picture window that John told her had been broken. He and Red had done a good installation job.

  She walked through the garden and inspected the back fence, which was made of hog wire to keep stray dogs out of the yard. Anyone could have gotten into the backyard either through the horse stable, or by climbing the apple tree, the trunk of which was being used as a fence post.

  Bertie had climbed this tree many a time. She’d also helped mend the fence when she or Red or one of their friends had come down on the wire and torn it loose from its moorings.