Skeletons in the Attic (A Marketville Mystery Book 1)

by Judy Penz Sheluk

  “As long as you’re sure you want to know the truth.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Then why not bring it to the Glass Dolphin along with the locket?”

  We went back and forth, comparing calendars and availability, and finally made arrangements for me to go to the Glass Dolphin the following week. At this point, I didn’t see either the locket or the poster offering me any additional clues into my mother’s disappearance, but it would be nice to see Arabella again. I was overdue to visit her new shop.

  With Misty gone, Chantelle’s possible news about my grandparents, and Arabella’s suspicion over the Calamity Jane poster, my mind was a complete and utter mess. I decided to bake some peanut butter cookies. If they turned out half decent, I would bring half-dozen to Royce and see where it might lead. I already knew he had a sweet tooth, and if I could cultivate that, more the better. I know it probably made no sense, but I was starting to feel ready for a relationship, and I couldn’t get Royce out of my mind. The fact that his father complicated things, well we could work around that, couldn’t we?

  That decided, I wasn’t sure if the recipe I’d found online was the one my mother had used. Even so, ‘Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies’ recipe seemed easy enough, even for someone with my limited baking skills.

  There was something therapeutic about mixing together the simple ingredients of peanut butter, baking powder, baking soda, white and brown sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla—the real stuff, not the imitation kind that tasted like chemicals.

  I’d just set the oven temperature to 350, dropped spoonfuls of cookie dough onto a greased baking sheet, and was about to flatten and put a crisscross pattern on the tops with the tines of a fork, when the doorbell rang. I wiped my hands on a terrycloth tea towel, wondering if Royce had somehow sensed what I was doing and had come to share the experience. The idea of it made me smile and I found myself humming as I went to the door, knowing that I probably had flour on my face, and not caring.

  The hum stuck in the middle of my throat when I saw who was standing there.

  Chapter 61

  I recognized my grandfather from the society newspaper photo Chantelle had shown me. He wasn’t wearing a tux, but his crisply pleated khakis and pale blue button-down shirt reminded me of the sort of business casual attire the bank’s executives used to wear on Fridays. Us call center types didn’t tend to dress that well even on a regular day, but then again, we were tucked inside miniscule cubicles where no one saw us—or cared to.

  I opened the door, wishing I wasn’t covered in peanut butter and flour, and hoped my hair looked reasonably tame tucked inside its ponytail.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Corbin Osgoode. My wife, Yvette, was here earlier. She insisted I pay you a visit. Here I am.” His voice was the gravelly baritone of a longtime smoker.

  I felt my face flush under the layer of flour and wanted to kick myself. “Please, come in. Forgive my appearance. I’ve been baking. Or trying to. Peanut butter cookies. They should be ready in a half hour or so. If you’d like a sample.” I realized I sounded like a blithering idiot but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  Corbin merely nodded and walked stiffly into the living room. I got the coffee going using freshly ground Arabica beans, finished crisscrossing the peanut butter cookies, and put them in the oven, setting the timer for eight minutes. The last thing I needed was a burned batch. I took a few deep breaths until I was ready to face my company.

  I put down a tray with two mugs of coffee, milk, and sugar. “The cookies will take a bit longer. They’re still baking.”

  Corbin nodded, though his face was so tight it looked as if it had been placed in a vice and squeezed. I jumped up when the oven buzzer went off and darted into the kitchen, grateful for the reprieve. All this time I’d wanted to speak to this man. Now that he was here, I had no idea where to start and no idea what to say. I transferred the cookies to a wire rack to cool and tried to steady my nerves.

  Corbin—I couldn’t think of him as my grandfather—was sipping coffee when I came back into the living room.

  “I have to admit you’ve taken me by surprise, coming here,” I said.

  “Yvette can be very persuasive.” He cleared his throat. “Let me start by saying how very sorry I am about your father’s death.”

  “Are you? Very sorry? Because I happen to know that you had no time for either him or me while he was alive. I also know you stopped Gloria Grace Pietrangelo from writing about you. So you can spare me the false sympathy.”

  Corbin frowned. “Who is Gloria Grace Pietrangelo?”

  “She was the reporter from the Marketville Post covering my mother’s disappearance. Wrote under the byline of G.G. Pietrangelo. She found out you and Yvette were my grandparents. When she told the editor about it, she was told to drop it.”

  At least he had the good grace to blush. “I admit I quashed the press. It’s hard enough to run a successful business without having all your dirty laundry aired in public.”

  I stared at him open-mouthed. “You consider a missing daughter dirty laundry?”

  “You misunderstood. What I meant is that reporter would certainly have put in our estrangement with Abigail. I didn’t feel that information was relevant. I still don’t.”

  “But with your money, your connections, surely you could have done more to find out what happened to my mother. Surely you could have gotten past her having a baby and marrying my father.”

  Corbin’s pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Thank you for the coffee and cookies.” He got up and walked out the front door. He was halfway down the driveway when he turned around and spoke again.

  “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Yvette, then, and now. Sometimes the truth can break your heart.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The bastard drove away without answering.

  Chapter 62

  After what could only be described as a restless night’s sleep, I woke up to the sweet smell of lilac wafting through my open bedroom window. I pulled my blinds all the way up and admired the deep purple flowers juxtaposed against shiny dark green leaves. Not so pretty, perhaps, most of the year, but when in bloom, lilac bushes were truly spectacular, both in scent and in sight. Next year, if I were still living here, I would take Ella Cole up on her offer, plant a garden or two.

  I grabbed a quick shower, pulled my hair into a messy ponytail, tossed on a pair of khaki shorts and an old race t-shirt. I was just about to go out and cut a few stems of lilac to put in a vase when the phone rang. I checked the caller ID. Shirley.

  “Hey Shirley, it’s been a while. Are you calling to tell me you’ve finally retired?”

  “Not exactly. The library asked if I’d stay on another year. I said yes.”

  “Well, good for you. Nice to know you’re appreciated.”

  “It is, but that isn’t why I’m calling.”

  “Then to what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye out for anything that might help you find out more about your mother’s disappearance. Not just local papers, but across the country. Last night I found something. In a small town Newfoundland newspaper.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. “Newfoundland?”

  “Newfoundland. But what I found, it isn’t from the capitol of St. John’s as you might expect. It was in a place called St. Bernard’s-Jacques Fontaine. A small fishing village. Apparently the locals call it Jack’s Fountain.”

  “Jack’s Fountain.”

  Shirley laughed. “I know, eh? I might have found your father’s parents, or at least a newspaper photo of the two of them. It isn’t much, but who knows where that might lead? I’ll make you a copy of it.”

  My curiosity was sufficiently piqued, and not just because of the Newfoundland connection. “I’ll try to pop by later on.”

  I’d barely hung up with the phone rang again. This time the call display said ‘Private Caller.’ Probably a
telemarketer but…

  “Hello.”

  “Callie, it’s me. Gloria Grace.” Spoken in a rush. “Corbin Osgoode had been sending your father money every month for the past thirty years.”

  That might explain how my dad had managed to save one hundred thousand dollars. “I had no idea. How did you find out?”

  “My source is confidential. The bigger question is, why?”

  What was it Corbin had said? Sometimes the truth can break your heart.

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to try and find out.”

  I was still mulling everything over when the doorbell rang out its sing-songy chime. After a couple of months in Marketville, I was almost getting used to having drop-in visitors. Almost being the operative word. I opened the door.

  Dwayne Shuter was recognizable from his LinkedIn photo, the scar over his eye more prominent without any digital enhancements. The car in the driveway was also a giveaway, a black Mercedes coupe with the license plate DW*SHUTR.

  A slender woman stood next to him. She was twenty or so years older than me. Good skin, shoulder-length straight blonde hair streaked with hints of silver. Clear blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face, the nose just a little too wide.

  “Calamity,” my mother said. “We need to talk.”

  Chapter 63

  So they had all been wrong. My father. Leith Hampton. Ella Cole. Reid and Melanie Ashford. Misty Rivers. Randi Tamarand. I should have suspected. No one had ever found a body. The simplest explanation was that there had been no body to find.

  What I didn’t understand was why a mother—one who supposedly doted on her only child—could disappear without a word for thirty years. How she could let her husband and daughter believe she was dead. It was beyond cruel, even taking into account that the marriage had been in jeopardy.

  My mother reached out to touch me. I flinched and drew back, one hand on the door. How dare she think she could turn up and pretend this was some sort of family reunion?

  “May we come in before the neighbours come out?” Dwayne nodded in the direction of Ella’s house, a silent signal that spoke volumes.

  He had a point. I stepped back.

  We made our way into the living room. I didn’t bother playing hostess. If I had a glass in my hand I was likely to crush it. Or throw it. I certainly wasn’t going to offer them cookies.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, Calamity.”

  “Callie.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Callie.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “It’s not what I want from you. It’s what I want to tell you. Where I’ve been, why I left. I don’t expect forgiveness.”

  What was it Misty had said? Your mother received a phone call one day at the food bank. She said something along the lines of forgiveness coming at a high price. “Why now?”

  “I found out you were looking into the past. It was only a matter of time until you discovered I was alive. I thought that bit of news would be better coming from me.”

  “It’s a bit late for true confessions, don’t you think? Besides, why should I believe anything you have to tell me?

  “Because I no longer have any reason to lie. You see, once Jimmy died, the reason died with him.”

  Chapter 64

  “It was all my fault,” my mother began. “I missed my parents. I wanted them to get to know their grandchild. More than that, I wanted you to have the opportunities they could offer. Jimmy was a hard worker, and a good man, but his vision for our future was limited. He was never going to be able to provide the finer things in life, or get you into the best schools.”

  “I did just fine going through the public school system. I even managed to get a business degree in college. I graduated not owing a dime, thanks to dad and some part-time jobs.” Or was it? How much of Corbin’s money paid for my education?

  “We’re not here to debate your upbringing,” Dwayne said. “Your father did a fine job of raising you. He loved you above and beyond anything or anyone. But if you want to hear the story, you have to be willing to listen.”

  Did I want to hear the story? I did, if only to get closure. “I won’t interrupt again.”

  My mother twisted her hands in her lap. “I desperately wanted to reconnect with my parents. Jimmy couldn’t understand it. He had no desire to see his own parents, and he couldn’t forgive mine for turning me out when I became pregnant. I kept telling him it was time to let go of the past, to at least try to make amends. It caused a serious rift in our relationship. We fought about it day and night.”

  The affair with Reid probably didn’t help, either. “Go on.”

  “Things came to a head on my twenty-fifth birthday. I shared the date with Ella next door, and her husband, Eddie, threw us both a party. Just before going over there, my mother called. It was the first time I’d heard her voice in six years. I’ll have to admit it rattled me. All those years of waiting for absolution. I thought I was prepared for it. I wasn’t.”

  I could relate. “What did you do?”

  “Before I could say or do anything, Jimmy grabbed the phone and demanded to speak to Corbin. My mother hung up. I never heard from her again.”

  That explained why my mother was so twitchy on the night of her birthday party. It also went a long way in explaining the strengthening rift in my parents’ marriage. My mother’s next statement confirmed it.

  “After that day, I could never love or look at Jimmy in the same way. There’s being proud, and then there’s being obstinate at the cost of everything else. Even so, I thought given enough time he would come to his senses. I suggested a trial separation. That’s when he finally agreed to pay a visit to your grandfather. I wanted to go with him, but he insisted on going alone.” My mother’s voice broke. “Not a day has gone by when I haven’t regretted that decision.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” Dwayne said, reaching for my mother’s hand.

  I was getting tired of the drama. “Can we cut to the chase, Mother? Dad went to see Corbin. Something happened that made you decide to leave. What I want to know is who, what, and why.”

  My mother nodded. “It was early February when Jimmy went to see my father. He waited down the street until my mother went out.” She shook her head. “I’ll never know what truly happened that day, but I do know that your grandfather has a temper. Years ago, he almost strangled Jimmy outside of Ben’s Convenience. That time, Jimmy didn’t fight back.”

  “But this time, he did?”

  Another nod. “All those years of hurt and betrayal had festered inside of him like a poison. He went crazy, nearly beat my father to death. If Dwayne hadn’t walked in on them, maybe he would have.”

  Dwayne picked up the narrative. “I worked for Osgoode Construction at the time, and I had some paperwork to deliver. I heard someone fighting when I got to the door. What I saw when I opened it…let’s just say that a few more punches and Corbin might not have made it. I managed to pull Jimmy off of him and convinced him to get out of there while he still had a chance. The last time I saw him, he was driving his pickup down Moore Gate Manor.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Corbin picked up the phone. I thought he was calling the police. Instead, he called Abby.”

  “He told me to get over there if I wanted to save Jimmy’s life,” my mother said. “I asked Ella Cole to look after you and drove to Lakeside as fast as our old station wagon would take me. When I got there, he gave me an ultimatum. If I didn’t leave Jimmy and his bastard child—his term, not mine—he would press charges for attempted murder.”

  “Surely it wouldn’t have come to that?”

  My mother gave a thin-lipped smile. “Corbin Osgoode is a very powerful man. Back then, he all but owned Lakeside. He was very generous when it came to local initiatives, especially when it came to the police. The thought of leaving you behind broke my heart, but I couldn’t let you grow up with your father in jail.”

  “So your
solution was to give in to your father’s blackmail and disappear?”

  “Not at first. I thought with some time and distance, my father would come to his senses. Instead, the delay only served to enrage him all the more. One day, he called me at the food bank where I’d been volunteering. This time he threatened to call the police on Jimmy and report us to Children’s Aid. He convinced me that they would take you away and put you in foster care.”

  Dwayne picked up the narrative. “I’d been planning to move to Vancouver. I was trying to escape a rather destructive relationship and Vancouver seemed as good a place as any. I approached Corbin and told him that I would take care of Abby if he gave us enough money to start over. He laughed in my face and said he wouldn’t give her a dime. Then he said that time was running out for Jimmy Barnstable.”

  “We left the next day,” my mother said. “Valentine’s Day. The only thing I took were the clothes on my back. I buried my wedding ring under the lilac tree. I’m sure it’s still there.”

  “You make it all sound so simple,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

  “Simple? Is that what you think it was? Callie, leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I did it because I loved you with every fiber of my being. I thought we’d be back after a few months, but by then, you’d moved to Toronto.”

  Corbin told me that he was sending your father money every month to make sure you were well looked after,” Dwayne said. “He said he’d keep sending it only if Abby stayed away. If she came back…”

  “The threat of sending your dad to jail continued to loom large, even as time went by,” my mother said. “Was there a statute of limitation on attempted murder? Would my father make good on his promise to call Children’s Aid? I didn’t know. I only know that I truly believed I was doing the right thing. Your father was a free man, and you were being well looked after.”