by Gemma Bruce
Cas cracked his neck and opened the door to the back steps just as Reynolds took aim. Cas grabbed the rifle and pushed it upward. It discharged into the sky. A low-flying sparrow hawk dropped to the ground.
Charles Reynolds turned on his son, his face ruddy with martinis and outrage. He was wearing a smoking jacket, though he didn’t smoke, and dress pants, like the fucking lord of the manor. Cas could smell the sweet vermouth on his breath. He eased the rifle from his father’s hands.
“What was your car doing in the Excelsior drive?” Reynolds asked and Cas unconsciously added, “Young man,” without thinking.
His father glared at him. “It’s that girl. We saw Edith Turnbull at the bakery and she told us—”
“There was an attempted robbery.”
“Then why aren’t you in uniform?” Reynolds spit out the word like it was something obscene, and it was to his father, who had angrily told him when he took the job of sheriff that Reynoldses were not, and had never been, civil servants. It never occurred to him to ask why Cas had returned home in the first place. Or why he decided to stay.
“Come inside, Reynolds. Mother’s got a new batch of martinis waiting.” He took his father by the elbow, much as his mother had taken his, and led him down the hall, while Reynolds muttered under his breath. Outside the parlor, Cas leaned the rifle against the wall so he could take it away with him as soon as he deposited his father in front of the fireplace.
Before stepping into the parlor, Reynolds shook off his grasp, straightened up, and said, “That is no way to dress for cocktails.”
“I’m not staying,” said Cas.
Marian greeted them at the door and handed Reynolds a fresh martini. She turned to Cas. “Would you like a martini or would you prefer scotch?”
“Neither, thank you. I can’t stay.”
“Nonsense,” said Reynolds from his seat by the fire. “I want to talk to you.”
“We can talk tomorrow.” At the most dreaded event of Excelsior Falls. Sunday dinner at Reynolds Place. 2:00. Cas, Melanie, Christine, and Ian, sitting in proxy for Bruce who had the good sense to get a job out of commuting distance, posed around the table like dutiful children while Reynolds and Marian sat at head and foot like people out of a thirties movie.
They’d grown up this way, and never thought it odd until they realized that they were the only family in town living in an alternate universe. Now that Cas thought about it, there were a lot of people in town living in another world, only theirs had to be more interesting than the Reynoldses.
“Cas, your father is talking to you,” his mother hinted gently.
“Yes sir?” he said, automatically adding the “sir” because he’d been caught off guard. This evidently pleased Reynolds because he smiled a patriarchal, if not paternal, smile at him and said, “So that’s settled. You can drive over on Monday.”
Cas opened his mouth and his mother said, “You’ll wear a nice gray suit—you have a gray suit, of course. A white shirt, French cuffs. And a blue tie with red stripes; that always looks nice with a gray suit. Thin stripes, you don’t want to appear too forward.”
“Charles can look as forward as he likes. They need him over there. He’ll show them how a Reynolds runs things.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Cas.
His mother blinked at him in surprise. “We ran into George Quincy in Henryville the other day.” She lowered her voice. “We had a little business with the bank.”
Selling off more stocks, thought Cas.
“And Reynolds told him you were back in the area and interested in—”
“No,” said Cas. “I’m not interested. I’m only helping out Hank Jessop. I have a job. I build boats.”
“Well, really,” said his mother.
“Please have the good taste not to mention that folly,” said his father.
Cas felt the blood rush up his neck and into his face. And which of my follies are we talking about now, Dad?
“Now, now,” said Marian. “It’s our place as community leaders to help where we’re needed. And Hank Jessop needed time to recover from his heart attack. But I’m sure he must be well by now, and so there’s no reason not to talk to George Quincy.”
She smiled at Cas. And he thought, I must have been switched at birth. But that meant Christine and Melanie had been, too. Only Bruce was what their father called, “A chip off the old block,” and Bruce had fled to Chicago.
There was no sense in arguing with them. Cas had learned that years ago. He’d just call George Quincy on Monday morning and explain the misunderstanding.
“I have to go.”
“Drinks at one-thirty,” said his mother.
Cas headed for the door. He grabbed the rifle as he left and caught a glimpse of Melanie standing like Queen Mab at the top of the stairs.
He heard her humming Sail Away as he closed the front door.
Chapter 7
Julie folded Cas’s uniform and put it in a paper bag, which she left on the front porch. She had no intention of going through any awkward confrontations again. She spent the rest of the evening studying Wes’s notes and chicken books. And when she heard a car drive up, she didn’t leave her chair, just listened to Cas knock and call her name until he finally gave up and drove away. When she looked later, the bag was gone.
She fell asleep early, exhausted from chickens and emotions, and was surprised when the first rooster crow rent the air on the following morning. She dressed quickly and found Maude waiting for her at the gazebo.
As soon as Julie closed the wire gate, leaving a disgruntled Smitty outside, Maude handed her a flat pan filled with bits of grain and corn and other stuff.
“You just toss out this scratch so they get to know you, while I fill the feeders. Ready?”
Julie nodded. She was ready. How hard could it be?
Maude opened the door to the gazebo and chickens raced past her down the ramp heading for Julie.
“Talk to them,” said Maude. “Use a soothing voice.”
Right, Julie thought. “Here, chickens. Nice chickens.”
“Broadcast the scratch.”
“Huh?” Julie looked at Maude and half the contents of the pan fell to the ground. A swarm of chickens crowded around her, taking as many pecks at her boots as they did at the grain. “Stop pushing,” said Julie and tried to move her foot away. A little brown and red hen rose in the air and landed in the thick of the crowd. “Christ, I kayoed it,” she said, her eyes wide.
Maude bounced down the ramp and took the tin from Julie. “Poor Ernestine,” she cooed as she tossed handfuls of grain into the air with the wrist action of a Frisbee player.
“Broadcast, right,” said Julie. “I forgot.”
“Just got to get the hang of it. And try not to make any sudden movements.”
Like drop-kicking Ernestine, thought Julie, truly repentant.
“Well, you’re on your own,” said Maude, a few minutes later as she climbed into her truck.
Julie smiled and took a deep breath. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be fine.” I hope.
“See you Thursday.” And Maude drove away.
When she was gone, Julie turned and took a look around, her mind moving from chickens to riddles. Twenty acres on which to hide a clue or two. She’d check their old hiding places first; there were several in the woods and a few in the old apple orchard.
It could take days to find the next clue. A drop of moisture fell on her face, followed by another. She looked up to see a fat, gray cloud swallow up the sun.
“So maybe, I’ll start the search inside.” She ran toward the house as rain began to fall.
Cas woke up to raindrops pelting his window. He stretched contentedly; grew hard, thinking about Julie. Then he remembered how he’d left without saying goodbye. And how she wouldn’t answer the door when he went back to explain.
He rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. Boy, he had really lived up to her expectation of him. Because h
e knew she must be comparing yesterday to that day on the river so long ago. And he’d blown it again.
He’d been a kid then, but he was a man now. Right. A real man would have returned and finished the job, both jobs, the sink and sex with Julie. Hell, a real man wouldn’t have panicked and run off to his mother. Except for the rifle, that was a pretty big extenuating circumstance. But Julie didn’t know that. And that was his fault, too. What was the matter with him? He became a blithering idiot every time he was near her.
He threw off the pillow and sat up. Fuck it. He’d work on his boat, endure another Sunday dinner, and go back and make her listen to him.
He’d fix the damn sink, and the door, and tell her about Reynolds’s penchant for shooting at the gazebo. And if she forgave him for being such an oaf, there was still the Jacuzzi.
Feeling better, he got out of bed, dressed in jeans and sweat shirt and went outside to the boatyard. It was really just a corrugated machine shop, but it was the main reason Cas had rented the cottage. It was long enough to accommodate a sixteen footer, was heated, had plenty of neon lighting and enough electrical outlets to run all his power tools at once.
He was soon lost in the rhythm of sanding the hull. Felt the simple lines of the white cedar slats come to life under his hands. This is what he was meant to do, what he had always wanted to do. Unrealistic, his father told him. The Reynolds are bankers. They don’t work with their hands, they use their brains.
Cas pushed the thought aside. He had good hands, useful hands. Using them made him happy. Gave him a sense of pride when he watched a finished boat launch for its first test run. And using them to follow the contours of Julie’s body made him long for more.
His work was the only thing that had kept him sane after hours spent with Wes, watching him slowly drift away. He’d meant to leave after the funeral. Go back to his job at the building yard in Rhode Island. But today he was relishing the old dream of opening his own shop.
He wondered if Julie would like living by the ocean.
But first he had to figure out the damn riddle and make sure his family could survive the answer. He wanted to send Melanie to college, but that would leave him few resources for opening a business. He had to give Christine a chance to make a go of the hotel and her marriage. Ian was a good man, and she deserved to be happy. God knows, there had been little enough of that emotion in the Reynolds household.
And he still had to convince Julie that they had a future together. And he would. Somehow.
He leaned into the boat, concentrated on the feel of the wood beneath his fingers, and immediately remembered the feel of Julie the day before. He gave the same attention to the boat that he would give her, if only she’d give him another chance.
And finally managed to lose himself in his work.
Julie paced back and forth across the parlor carpet, marking off the salient points of her investigation like she was presenting them to a team of detectives. She thought better on her feet.
“First point. Wes leaves me a riddle in his will.”
She paused.
“So now I’m here, looking for treasure. The second riddle was easy enough to find, but it makes no sense. We don’t have any marble halls.” She glanced past Smitty, who was stretched out on the hearth rug before the unlit fire. “Hell, even the mantel is mahogany. The pond is spring fed but that hardly qualifies as a crystal fountain. And when the orchard bothers to produce an apple, they’re Romes, not Goldens.”
She leaned against the windowsill and looked out at the rain. “It doesn’t even sound like a whole riddle. Da-duh-da-duh,” she intoned in iambic pentameter. “There must be some lines missing.” She looked down at the yellow paper in her hand.
“Eureka,” she said. “It isn’t a whole riddle. It’s half a riddle. What use is half—damn it, Wes.” She slapped her thigh in frustration.
Smitty lumbered to his feet and padded over to her.
“Sorry, Smitty, that was an exclamation, not a command.”
Smitty gave her a look and went back to the hearth to sleep.
Julie began pacing again. When Cas and she got too good at treasure hunting, Wes would jumble up the riddles and they’d have to share their clues, then try to unscramble them before the other one did.
She paused mid-step. “And isn’t it interesting that Cas just happens to be here when I come back. I bet he has the other half. He might even know about mine. Might have even seen my half.”
She threw herself into the wing chair and stared at the empty fireplace. “Wes would never give him a head start. That wouldn’t be fair. The will said ‘all my worldly possessions,’ so even if Cas found it first, it would still be mine, right?”
Smitty twitched in his sleep.
“You’re no help.” Julie stood up and walked back toward the window. Hell, if Wes wanted to leave Cas something, he should have just said so. She wouldn’t have begrudged it. She didn’t think. Well, not much.
“Hmmm,” she said, getting a not-so-pleasant idea. What if that seduction scene yesterday was just a ploy to get to her half of the riddle? She shook her head. She could have sworn Cas was just as overwhelmed as she was. Surely he hadn’t planned it—not Cas. There must be something else going on here.
Well, enough second-guessing. She’d do a methodical search. Might as well use all that police training for something.
She started with the book shelves, opening books, shaking them and replacing them again. Occasionally, she opened a familiar title and a smile curved her lips.
When she was eleven, she’d had to stand on a chair and a pile of dictionaries to reach the top shelve that held the erotica, with Cas holding her ankles and telling her not to fall. Now she could look right onto the shelf by standing on tip toe. The Story of O, The Pearl. They were still here. Dusty. Unread. Their pages crumbling. There would be no more clandestine trips to the gazebo for the forbidden touches that heated their blood and invariably ended in embarrassment and laughter. The gazebo was a chicken coop, Wes was gone, and Cas was someone she didn’t know.
But that you just fucked, she reminded herself, and pushed My Secret Life back onto the shelf.
She went upstairs and searched the two guest rooms, found nothing close to another clue. At last she opened the door to Wes’s room. It was the first time she had actually entered it since she’d returned, merely peeked in that first night to make sure there were no surprises, like the local ax murderer, and closed the door again.
She stood on the threshold, looking in at the shadowed room. Wes’s bed seemed smaller than before, though it was still covered by the patchwork quilt that they used for a table cloth for their rainy day turret picnics.
She moved silently across the room, past the curved bureau with its white lace runner and beveled mirror until she reached the far corner where the room ended in a three-walled turret.
It wasn’t a real turret, just one of those Victorian additions that held no purpose but was Cas and Julie’s crow’s nest as they sailed the high seas of their imagination. In those days, the windows were made of amber glass with a row of fruits, flowers and green leaves that ran across the top. They cast a golden glow on everything they saw: the woods, the orchard, and the distant mountains. Sometimes the fog would roll in and they’d sway together and Cas would call, “Batten down the hatches, matey.”
On rainy days, Wes would come with lemonade and pickled pig’s feet and soda crackers. They would spread out the patchwork quilt on the turret carpet and pretend it was salt pork and hard tack while the rain slashed at the windows. Those were magical days. And then they ended.
One day after Cas was sent away, she and Wes were watching a storm roll in when lightning hit the finial on the turret roof. Two of the beautiful stained glass windows were blown out and they were pelted by shards of glass. Wes carried her out of the room while rain pounded through the opening and flooded the floor. He made her stay outside while he boarded up the windows. When he came downstairs hours later, he was ca
rrying the sodden carpet. He was bloody and soaked and frowning. He threw the carpet out, moved to the guest room, and they never went into his room again.
A few weeks later, Julie was on her way to Yonkers to live with her mother’s sister. “Forget Ex Falls,” Wes told her through the open window of her father’s ’87 Chevy. “But don’t forget who loves you.” And that was the last time she’d seen Wes or her father.
Julie turned from the windows and saw a pair of slippers placed neatly by the bed as if ready to be stepped into.
Wes had loved her. And she hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Cas was only a few minutes late when, dressed in suit and tie and the one pair of good shoes he’d kept, he arrived at the family homestead.
Larue answered the door, his short white jacket and black bow tie making him look more like a waiter at the White House than the sole servant of an eccentric family in a dying town.
“Mister Charles,” he said gravely and stepped aside to let him enter.
Mister Charles. Jesus. Cas was thirty-one years old, but every time he stepped into this house he became twelve again. And he had to fight the impulse to turn around and run. But he had done that once and where did it get him? Right back here with his life on hold. Except now Julie was here. God, Wes, I hope you know what you’re doing.
“Charles, you’re late,” said his father when Larue showed him into the parlor.
“Good afternoon to you, too,” said Cas and watched his father’s ruddy cheeks deepen a shade. Stupid. Being belligerent wouldn’t help what ailed them. He glanced toward Melanie who slouched in a chair, her black spiked hair and makeup an absurd contrast to the yellow twin set and skirt she was wearing.
