The Daughters of Julian Dane

by Lucile McCluskey

  “Yep.”

  The big desk sat within a foot and a half of the big window. Addie started around it thinking it would be in the drawers that faced the wall.

  “No. Stay on that side, and get down on you knees.”

  Addie obeyed him, but wondering. Then he told her to look under the overhang of the desk top on the right side for a small break in the wood at the top, then she was to push it ‘til it clicked. Then do the same on the left side of the desk.

  “This was my desk, but how Willy knew about the secret compartment, I don’t know. I didn’t tell her.” After the second click, “Now, the desk top will slide forward about ten inches toward the window.”

  Addie stood up and pushed the desktop. Easily, it slip forward just as grandpa had said. She stared in disbelief. There were compartments across the back of the desk filled with bundles of money. It looked like all one hundred-dollar bills. She just stood there - her mouth open – not breathing.

  “I watched Willy playing with it. She loved new money. They are wrapped in one thousand, then ten thousand- dollar bundles. Take what you need, then push the desk top back in place. It doesn’t go back as easily as it went forward.”

  Hesitant to even touch the money, Addie finally did put hands in and picked up a bundle. She examined it. Grandpa was right. There was ten thousand dollars in each bundle. She took out five bundles. All this money! Did she really have a right to it? Then she heard Grant Cutler’s words again. She owned everything inside Stonegate. This money was inside Stonegate. So, it was hers! All this money – seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars was hers! She reached in and took another bundle. “I may need some extra,” she said.

  “It’s your money. Everything in Stonegate is yours. That’s what Cutler told Mattie.”

  She barely heard him. She had to be dreaming, she told herself as she replaced the desktop. Then she placed the bundles in her shoulder bag. It filled it to the brim. She placed the sixth bundle in an outside pocket and snapped it shut.

  “Don’t turn the money over to the men until you have all the papers of ownership properly signed, and a bill of sale for each trolley. Since you’re paying cash, you get the signatures of each man, his address and phone number.” When she just stood there like she was in a trance, he asked, “Well, are you going to buy the trolleys or not?”

  “I’m really going to buy four trolley cars!” she exclaimed. Then she turned to work her way back to the elevator. She was still in something of a daze when she reached the second floor and opened the elevator doors.

  Della and Miss Mattie were standing there waiting for her. “Addie, where have you been?” her mother demanded.

  “I, uh, I’ve been on the fourth floor. You can see everything from there.”

  “Addie, dear, have you been going out the front door and leaving it unlocked?” Miss Mattie wanted to know.

  “Why, uh, yes, ma’am I have.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, dear. That Ryker could show up again anytime. I really don’t like that man. I don’t trust him. What Miss Willy saw in him, I’ll never know. I’ll go get you a key to the back door, and if you don’t mind, drive the car around to the back parking space in front of the garages.”

  “Addie!” Della exclaimed. “Have you been driving that car?”

  “Oh, uh, yes, ma’am, but just to the shopping center. And I was real careful.”

  “Addie Martin! I’m surprised at you! No! I’m shocked! You have never deliberately disobeyed me before.” The hurt look on her mother’s face made Addie ashamed of herself. She wouldn’t hurt her mother for anything in the world.

  “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry. But you said in an emergency ...”

  “Oh dear! Addie! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Mama,” Addie hastily added. “Not with me, but with some men at the shopping center. Some truck drivers needed to park their trucks on the parking lot of the shopping center, but the police didn’t want them to. They were forcing them to leave, and the men, well, they have a lot of troubles.” It sounded like such a lame excuse for disobeying her mother. “Mama, it was an emergency for the four men.”

  “Addie! That is not an emergency,” Della said angrily.

  “Mama, I really need to go. Could I use the car for just one more trip to the shopping center, please?”

  “For what?” Della demanded, just as Mattie joined them again.

  “Here, Addie. This key is to the kitchen door. The summer kitchen stays unlocked. You have to come through it to the kitchen door. Lock the door back by the bolt on the inside when you come in, please.”

  “I will, Miss Mattie, I promise.” Then to her mother, “Mama, please trust me. I really need to use the car one more time. I’ll be real careful. I’ll drive real slow,” she pleaded.

  “This seem awfully important to you. What are you doing?”

  “It is important, Mama. And I’ll tell you all about it, but right now, I need to go. I’ll be back real soon. I promise.”

  “I know you’re a good driver, but we have no insurance for you,” Della reminded her, then took a deep breath. “All right, Addie, but this had better be important, and come Monday morning, I’ll call the insurance agent and add your name to our insurance policy.”

  Addie knew her mother meant with the money Mr. Cutler had put into a bank account for her. If she knew about all the money in the desk upstairs! She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Mama,” she said kissing her mother on the cheek. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be real careful and be back shortly.” Then she was rushing to the front door, Miss Mattie right behind her to lock it after her.

  When Addie returned to the men she found them still in a huddle. The older man was saying, “If I could just get some money to tide us over ...”

  The youngest said almost in anger, “Dad, you’ve always told us a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush ... Oh. Here she is. Now, what’s it to be?”

  Had they changed their minds? Did they think she wasn’t coming back? “Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”

  “Frankly, yes,” the older man answered, and he didn’t seem particularly glad to see her.

  Now what? She wondered. “Well, I’m here, and I have the money if you still want to sell the trolley cars?”

  “We seem to have no choice,” he answered, and she noticed that the two youngest ones were smiling.

  “All right then. I want all the documents that go with my buying the trolleys properly filled out and signed, and a bill of sale for each one. And I want a receipt signed by all of you, your addresses and phone numbers, because I’m paying you in cash.”

  “Cash!” all of them exclaimed in unison.

  “Okay,” the older man said. “You’ll get the title to each car and a bill of sale. When we picked them up, the final payment of ten thousand a piece was to have been wired to the manufacturer ahead of us. But my friend, Mayor Harvey Lang, who had ordered the trolleys had had a heart attack. When I talked to him in the hospital, he was doing fine he said, and expected to be out in a few days. He asked us to put up the forty thousand, and he’d give us a two thousand bonus as interest on our money. We did, but he had another heart attack and died. You know the rest. So come to my cab, little lady, and we’ll transact this deal,” he said in a friendlier manner. “And my sons and I are grateful to you for taking the cars off our hands.”

  At his truck, he turned and said, “Oh, by-the-way, I’m Ernest Caldwell, and these are my three sons.” The other three men were right behind Addie. The man pointed to the oldest, “Brian, Joey, and Mitch.” Then he pointed to the white cab of his truck lettered ‘Caldwell and Sons’.

  “I’m Addie Martin, and I’m very happy to meet each of you,” she said offering her hand to Brian, then Joey, the middle one and Mitch, the youngest. Then Ernest Caldwell took her by the arm and helped her into the cab of his truck.

  It took a good thirty minutes for the papers to be readied, organized, and placed in a brown folder with a string tie.
Everything had been done according to Addie’s satisfaction, then Brian asked, “Where do you want us to unload them?”

  Unload them? She had no idea. She hadn’t thought of what she was going to do with them. The question dumfounded her.

  When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Do you want them unloaded on the parking lot here?”

  “Oh, no! That would never do.” But where? The grounds of Stonegate? She didn’t think so. Again, she pointed to the mansion. “Could you wait until I go back there and find out where they are to be put? I won’t be long.”

  “Sure. We have nothing to do until suppertime, then a place to bunk down for the night. We’ll head home early in the morning, but right now, I’m bushed,” Ernest said, and the other three agreed. “We’ll just rest here ‘til you get back.”

  What was she going to do? Her mother would never let her have the car again. She couldn’t walk back, and she didn’t have her bike. Could she ask her mother to drive her? Would she feel like it? “It may take a little time, but I’ll be back just as soon as I can.”

  “Take your time. You’ll find us in our cabs,” Brian said.

  When she drove over the bridge and onto River Road, a telephone truck and a City of Riverbend electric truck were coming out of Bakers Landing. She could hear electric saws buzzing away as she turned into Stone Drive.

  She drove the Lincoln around behind the mansion as Miss Mattie had asked her to, and parked in front of one of the three garage doors. She entered the summer kitchen and used her key to the back door. The delicious aroma of Miss Mattie’s rolls filled the air, and she wished she had time to join her mother and Miss Mattie, who were seated at the tall, round, pedestal table enjoying a cup of hot fruit tea and a hot buttered roll.

  “I’m glad you’re back, honey,” Della said. “Now tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  “I can’t right now, Mama, but soon,” she answered as she rushed through the kitchen to the elevator. She had to talk to grandpa.

  When she got off the elevator, she made sure the inside door did not click. She didn’t want her mother or Miss Mattie using the elevator to come see what she was doing.

  As soon as she could get sight of Eli, which was much easier now that she had pushed so many things out of her way, she said, “They want to know where to put the trolleys? Do you have any idea?”

  “Yep. I thought of that as soon as you left. One possibility is the old fire hall on North Third Street. You own it, you know. It should hold at least two of them, possibly more, depends on how big it is and if it’s fit to store them in. It could be falling down or something.”

  “Fire hall!” Addie exclaimed. “F.H. - N 3. That’s what that means.”

  “Huh.”

  “I have a box of keys to vacant properties, and they’re tagged. One tag has three keys and that’s what the tag reads.”

  “Bound to be. Go see.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have the keys.”

  “Well, where are they?” Eli asked a bit irritated.

  “In my mother’s old car.”

  “The one that’s crushed on Bakers Landing. I eavesdrop, remember?” he added when Addie looked at him in surprise.

  Then she brightened. “I have an idea. Is there a phone on this floor?”

  “No, but there’s one just outside the elevator on the third floor.”

  “See you later,” she said and rushed to the elevator. On the third floor, she found the phone book in the drawer of the hall table, on which the phone sat, and looked up Mooneyhand. There was only one. She dialed the number and a familiar voice said, after the second ring, “It’s your dime.”

  “Mooney, it’s Addie Martin, and I need a favor. And I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Pretty gal, that’s the best off I’ve had lately – sex or money? I’m in need of both.”

  Della had come up the stairs and was walking down the hall toward her. “The latter,” she giggled. “Can you meet me at the graveled area beside River Road before you curve around to go over the bridge? And how soon?”

  “Be there in fifteen minutes.” Addie thanked him and replaced the phone.

  “Are you going out again, Addie, and just what is it you’re involved in?” Della asked almost as a demand.

  “Yes, Mama. I need to go out again, but I won’t use your car. I know that worries you, and I don’t want to do anything to make you worry. And I’ll tell you what I’m doing just as soon as I can fully explain. Please trust me a little longer. I really have to go now. Mooney is meeting me in fifteen minutes.” She hugged and kissed Della on the cheek, then rushed down the big marble stairway to the second floor.

  When she saw Miss Mattie at the library door, something Ernest Caldwell had said about dinner and a place to sleep for the night played in her mind. “Miss Mattie, would it be too much trouble, or too much of an imposition, to ask if you could fix an early dinner for four men in an hour or so? And it wouldn’t have to be anything special.”

  “Well, I love to cook, but men? What men, Addie?”

  “Just some friends of mine who are doing something for me. They’re truck drivers. When we’re through, they’ll be going to the hotel, I suppose.”

  “No need of that. What’s wrong with them spending the night here? There’s two bedrooms with twin beds upstairs.”

  “Oh, Miss Mattie, I couldn’t ... Could I really?”

  “Remember, dear, it’s your mansion. You can do what you please,” the woman said with a big smile.

  “Oh, Miss Mattie, thank you,” and she hugged her.

  “I have the tomato bisque, and some twelve ounce T bones. We’ll have a salad and baked potatoes, and of course, my rolls ...”

  “Sounds wonderful, and I’ve gotta run,” she said heading for the front door. “Cook enough for two more,” she added remembering Mooney and herself.

  “I always cook plenty,” she heard Miss Mattie saying as she closed the door.

  She ran down the Stonegate drive hoping Mooney hadn’t gotten there yet. She had reached the graveled area, and was still breathing hard when the Junkyard Dog drove up beside her and stopped.

  From the open window, he leaned out and asked, “Now just what is it I’m going to do for you that’s worth money? Are you sure you’d rather pay off in money? I could really go for you. And what are you doing here?”

  She leaned down. “Thanks for coming, Mooney,” she said chuckling at his remarks. “I need your help for a couple of things, and I’ll pay you fifty dollars.”

  “Wow! Where did you get that kind of money? Who do I have to kill?”

  “I want you to drive down that old road there,” she said pointing to the Baker’s Landing road, “but be careful.” He had gotten out of the Dog and was looking down the torn up road.

  “There’s a car down there with a tree on it. My mother’s old Plymouth.”

  “The storm?”

  “Yeah. But, Mooney, there’s a cigar box on the front seat. It has keys in it. I need that box real bad, and just as soon as I can get it.”

  “You got it,” he said getting back into the Dog.

  “Be careful, don’t pick up any glass,” she called after him. Then she stood there and watched him drive cautiously over the ruts and rocks of what was once a black top road. He drove farther down than she wanted him to. She didn’t need him to have a flat tire. She needed him and his crazy car. She could still see him as he got out of the car and hurried toward the men cutting up the tree that lay on her mother’s old car. She could see him lean carefully into the window, but she couldn’t tell if he had the box. Surely, no one had taken it. The keys were of no use to anyone else. He was turning the Dog around slowly, cautiously, and she was anxiously awaiting his return.

  “Did you get it?” she asked by the time he had come to a stop.

  “You bet. Glass and all.”

  She took the box from him through the open window, took it to the grass and separated the keys from the glass. “Now I need you to take me to
the old fire hall on North Third Street,” she explained as she got into the passenger seat of his little car. “You know where I mean?”

  “Sure.” And they took off in a spurt of gravel. “You didn’t tell me where you got the fifty dollars you’re willing to part with.”

  “I can’t tell you that right now.” Her mother wouldn’t want her to.

  “Okay, but I’m going to have to tell my mom where I got it, and she knows your folks from church. She’ll wonder.”

  “Which reminds me, why don’t you come to church anymore with your mother and sisters?” she asked as she searched through the keys.

  “Aw, it wouldn’t do me any good. I have too much hatred in me for my old man.”

  Addie waited, but he didn’t explain, so she asked why.

  “Well, when the clock factory closed three years ago, my old man became an alcoholic instead of looking for another job. He was offered two that I know of, but since he’d been a foreman at the clock factory, he said those jobs weren’t good enough for him. Sure, they didn’t pay what he’d been making, nor have the benefits, but we could have gotten by with the smaller salary. Instead, my mom had to go to work and leave my two little sisters at home by themselves. Oh, he was supposed to be taking care of them, but he was either laying around half drunk, or never there. Then he’d take mom’s paycheck to buy liquor when it really wasn’t enough for us to keep body and soul together. And when she’d hide her money so we could eat, he’d rough her up until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she’d give him our food money.

  “A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t take him mistreating her anymore. I came in one day, and she had the print of his hand on her face, and he was twisting her arm. She was crying and begging him to stop, so, I decked him. I wasn’t sure I could, but I didn’t even think about it. I just hit him with all my strength. It sent him clear across the kitchen floor. It surprised him and me both. He’s a big man, but I guess liquor instead of food, takes the strength out of a man. Then I told him to get out and not to come back.

  “The next day, while mom was at work and us kids were at school, he came in and took everything of any value that he could sell – even my new jacket mom had given me for my eighteenth birthday. It’s not even paid for yet. I saw Pete Wilder wearing it a few days ago. Then he had a ‘For Sale’ sign put in the yard.”