“Grass Valley has Cornish Christmas.” I held my phone and kept my thumb hovering over Tom’s name, just in case.
“Not good enough, that event is limited to choirs and pasties, we want more dignity than that!” Suzanne, abandoned her tour and Ben and instead dropped into a chair. The criminal life can be a hard one.
“I told you she wouldn’t help,” Prue said smugly.
“How about a commemorative bench?” Scott suggested. “I’ll pay … donate the bench and the plaque.”
“You people are impossible.” I reached for Prue intending to hustle her out.
“Where are the quilts?” Scott asked suddenly.
Prue followed Scott’s gaze. “Suzanne, where are the quilts?”
“Summer has three at the theater. Penny has many of course. I have one.” Suzanne ticked off the numbers on her short fingers.
“I have one.” Maria volunteered.
“I have one.” Mary Beth chimed in. Great, Penny would take them all out. The question was, on purpose?
“Get rid of them.” I instructed them tersely.
“We will not, those are works of art.” Suzanne stood and smoothed her skirt. But she wasn’t in a position to complain, what with possible accusations of kidnapping and extortion and all. I may file a police report. I may not. Hadn’t yet made up my mind. And Suzanne knew it.
“Donate them?” Another member suggested.
“No.” Immolate the homeless, Penny had already thought of that, no, let’s keep everybody safe.
“The garbage.” I instructed. “Keep them away from flames, send them to a landfill, any landfill.”
I felt like I was speaking to a pre-school group and just announced the demise of the Tooth Fairy, not that I’d ever be that stupid. The kidnappers all looked at me, eyes round, expressions: suspicious.
“The quilts are filled with flammable material.” I explained patiently.
“How flammable?” Suzanne demanded, determined not to part with her hard won prize.
“A burning cigarette would ignite it in under thirty seconds.” It was cruel but I felt I needed to spell it out.
A collective gasp. They rose and took off as fast as budding octogenarians can move.
Prue limped to me, Ben caught her arm, and she leaned heavily on him.
“Who’s going to get them from Summer?”
“I will.” I volunteered. “Ben will take you to the hospital.”
“But I’m fine,” she immediately protested. “They didn’t hurt me, just held me for a meeting.”
Great, death by committee. Carrie rifled through Prue’s purse and pulled out her phone. “I’m surprised they didn’t have rubber hoses and cattle prods with them.”
“Not for you. Raul is in the hospital and you apparently are as good as next to kin, plus the hospital would very much like to see your Visa to cover his expenses.”
Prue’s eyes were wide. It was a popular look this afternoon. “What happened?”
“He was beat up.” Ben said succinctly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Summer was easy to find. Her theater office overlooked most of Main Street, the church and Lucky’s house. In fact, it seemed to loom over Summer’s space, always there, reminding her of what she owed to the man. I admired my sale sign in front. The single flyer taped inside the otherwise empty flyer box seemed to work well. Apparently flyers were a waste of time up here, only kids and tourists like to take them, but people do want to know information about the house, if only to pass it along at the beauty shop. Worked for me. I had scheduled another open house this Sunday, I may hold a spontaneous open house tomorrow, Saturday, you never know, the tourists might be thawing.
What did Summer owe the man?
Summer’s desk was covered with so many small scraps of paper it looked like a recycling bin had overturned. But she was probably one of those people who knew exactly where every unlikely piece of paper resided and what it said.
I stood in the office door until she noticed me.
“Why were Lucky and Penny such supporters of your theater?” I asked.
“Out of the goodness of his heart?” She offered hopefully.
“No, Lucky did nothing from the goodness of his heart, don’t be naive.” No matter how long a person lives in a small town, the reality of human nature always rears its ugly head and asserts itself.
“Nothing.” She shrugged elaborately. “He just liked to support the arts.” She nervously shuffled the files and papers around the surface of the desk.
“Summer, did you ever sleep with Lucky?”
“If that’s what it would take, then yes I would have, but it never came up. I’m too close in age to Penny. He even commented about it.”
“What about the quilts?” I leaned back and regarded the purple and yellow example hanging over the empty refreshment table. My eyes traveled up to the spotlights hanging dangerously close to the fabric. Did she know? Did she care?
“What about them?”
“Did Penny ever want to take them back?”
“No, I told her the winners of the quilts donated them back to the theater. It was a small fib, but better than telling her Lucky wouldn’t allow the quilts out of the building.”
“And that promise?”
“Was worth 10,000 dollars for the theater.” She admitted.
“And with Lucky gone?”
She made a desperate gesture to the thick piles of paper. “Maybe I’ll just sell them again. Double my money you know?”
“I know. But you may not want to sell them at all.”
“Why?” Summer looked at me warily. So she didn’t know, that was probably better for Summer.
“We are pretty sure the quilts are flammable.”
“Like his houses?” Summer made the leap without much help from me.
I nodded.
She made a quick decision. “They are fine where they are, this is a brick building.”
“You’d take that risk?”
“It won’t be the first.” She said with determination.
I arrived home just as the Marsh Avenue entourage brought Raul through the front door. The hospital had cheerfully released him in light of his lack of insurance and assurances that his wounds, for the most part, were superficial. Prue tucked him into a cozy bed on Carrie’s floor and warmed him with a pile of relatively inflamable blankets. Brick followed every move she made until she couldn’t stand it anymore and shooed him downstairs.
I found Brick pacing the floor examining the fragile chairs and rearranging every pillow as he passed.
“Who makes these things? Look at the workmanship. Honestly. Is this a real antique?” He flipped the chair over and studied the underside. “I thought not. How could Prue allow this in her house?”
I approached Brick cautiously.
“It seems like Raul will recover. Do you know why those men would beat him up?”
Brick glowered, as if I just flunked the rope climb in gym, which I would have, had they had made girls do such a thing.
“It’s like Laramie, Wyoming up here. I kept telling him we should move to the Castro but he likes it here. He loves your grandmother.”
“Every gay man loves Prue.” I replied.
Brick’s expression changed as if it just dawned on him what he said. I didn’t need to say much else. I just stood in the cold parlor. Wait for it.
Brick regarded me, his mouth opened in a good imitation of The Scream.
“What did I just say?” He demanded.
“You didn’t say all that much and I’m not an expert, we established that last summer. But I think you just came out.”
“It’s about time.” Prue bustled into the parlor. “He’s awake and asking for you. You should move him to the city or LA where he can make films. He’s wasted here.”
“You can visit us anytime.” I reassured Brick.
Prue nodded. “And you can stay in the main house. I’m toying with the idea of getting paying tenants in the g
uest house.”
“You aren’t zoned …” I started, and then shut up. What real difference did it make?
It did not take long for Tom to ferret out the Neanderthals who hurt Raul. He stopped by to personally update us.
“They were two subcontractors, regulars of the Mine Shaft. Last night they were bragging out loud about how they were paid to beat up a fag.”
Tom shuddered in disgust and I liked him even better for it.
“It was a hate crime, can you arrest them for that?”
“Sure. And I did. They couldn’t make bail because they spent it all on drinks for every patron at the Mine Shaft who was not a fag.”
“Everyone.”
“Every single one.” He confirmed. “Since I am not interested in feeding those clowns on my dime, I sent them down to Sacramento. Besides, once word got out, a few people called the office and made it very clear that there are enough Mine Shaft regulars who are unhappy about last night’s event to make it rather unsafe for those boys. Had to transfer them for their own good.”
“Glad to hear it.” I said.
“I thought you’d like that detail.” he finally smiled.
“This last month has been pretty awful for you.”
“My wife says I’m having nightmares again, although I don’t remember them in the morning. The cleanup after that last fire wasn’t pretty. I was the one who found Danny and Jimmy.”
I groaned on his behalf.
He shook his head as if to clear the memory.
“Who did you marry anyway?” I asked apropos of nothing.
“Becky Fitzpatrick.”
“Don’t know her. She must not have hung out at the river.”
“She did not.” He confirmed with a smile. He scratched his head and started down the hall to leave. “Who knew that working in this town would be so crazy?”
“It wasn’t crazy when I came up here as a teenager. Nothing happened here when I was young.”
“Maybe we just weren’t paying attention.” He was right. There must have been controversy during Lucky’s building: traffic concerns; city council member bribes; missing council meeting minutes. But we had been young.
“Do you think it has anything to do with what’s going on now?”
“Everything has everything to do with something but I just don’t know what.”
There were no answers for that. We simply said good-bye and expressed our fervent wish to not have to speak again in the near future. I was tired of police, beatings, explosions, fire. My stay was supposed to be restful!
Speaking of aggravting, I encounted Ben in the front hall. “So, are you attracted to Police Chief Tom Marten?” He asked.
“Are you are attracted to Penny Masters?” Since we had estinguished our burning bed, the heat between us had correspondingly dampened. I suppose that was normal, but it still worried me. Was he ready to drop me because I wasn’t moving on the house?
“I’m not tired of you, but this has been distracting.” He admitted. “And all this Claim Jump activity is far more stressful than I anticipated.”
“That is part of the charm, always delivering more than you expect.”
“So I’m learning.” hhe said dryly.
I looked at him. “Tom Marten and I have history. But that’s all, just history. I am only in love with you.”
He regarded me thoughtfully. “You aren’t looking for houses in Rivers Bend are you?”
“How can you tell?”
“Are you kidding? I use to get a barrage of suggestions, links, pages, web sites, then they dwindled, understandably enough, and now, nothing.”
I took a breath; my heart started beating double time, as if I had one too many hazel nut cappuccinos with (now) skim milk.
“Al-I-Son!” Raul’s voice floated down from the second floor. In another book, it would be creepy, but I knew him and that he could call me was a good sign. I dashed up the stairs to see him.
Raul’s face was swollen. His nose looked like it had been moved to the left, just a bit. He suffered from cracked ribs and was bruised all over. I turned down the opportunity to admire his bruises and stitches.
“You know Allison, I make lots of money keeping things off the Internet.” I stopped from pointing out that none it his earnings helped with rent; this was not the time.
“This time someone was not willing to pay.” I concluded.
“Her father paid.” Raul closed his eyes; deep purple bruises made him look vulnerable and fragile. “That poor girl, the ex-wife of that Danny, the boy who was calling you all the time last summer?”
“Mattie?”
“Ah, she has a name! She looks like a cowgirl?”
“That’s the ex-wife.”
“She was coming out of Penny’s house as I as going in. Very mad that girl. I stayed off the path and out of her way.”
“And you walked in with your extortion demands hot on the heels of Mattie’s demands. That’s great, it’s a wonder the woman didn’t shoot you right there.”
He nodded. “But she’s not a good shot, she didn’t practice with Lucky at the gun range, hated it. Brick wants to move, I think that would be good. Maybe this is enough Claim Jump for us.”
But I would miss the funny man with the indescribable accent.
“Allison!” Pat stood in the hall and bellowed my name. “You have to come now!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I barreled down the stairs. Pat was red faced and goggled eyed. “You have to see this.”
“You found Raul’s video.”
He just waved me to the kitchen.
This was another video, not posted on You Tube but from Raul’s copious and badly labeled archives, it took this long for Pat, Mike and Brick to recover it. I immediately saw why Lucky would want this particular video repressed.
Lucky and Summer stood in the theater Lobby. Lucky leaned on his cane. Summer’s hair color glowed red under the ceiling lights. There was no sound, but they both gestured to the quilts on the walls. Summer pleaded, Lucky was adamant.
“Selfish son of a bitch.” Ben muttered. “Preventing his daughter’s success, not letting her make her own living her own way.”
“Can you play it again?” Pay punched the play button and ran the short video over again. Why was this suppressed? I scrutinized the video again.
“Preventing his daughter’s success? Or keeping her buyers from self immolation?” I asked. “What if Lucky didn’t want anyone hurt? What if he knew what Penny sewed into her quilts?”
“What if he knows it would be eventually traced back to him?” Ben countered.
We all huddled around Raul in the bedroom balancing plates of pasta.
“Did Penny tell you anything? Did she let anything slip?” I asked Ben.
Carrie patted Raul’s hand absently.
“She talked about how all her life she had to hear about how great Lucky Masters was. How he built houses for the people, made the houses affordable. How wonderful. But you know, Penny thought her dad cared less about the finished houses and more about being able to mow down trees, clear away brush and forest. He liked the destruction of it all. She insisted on walking me through the house again. She loved the study the best, she showed me how the railing was low enough so the view wasn’t obstructed, even when she sat at the desk.”
“All 380 degrees.”
Carrie and Brick smiled.
“Yes.” Ben confirmed. “All 380 degrees. And Penny told me this was her dad’s greatest achievement because he fought the council on the tree line restrictions and won. So he clear-cut the forest as far as he could and as fast as he could in order to build as large a home as he could get away with. It was all about killing the trees. He even cut down the trees that interfered with the view.”
“Some people would consider the trees the view.”
“Poor thing, that kitten story.” Carrie automatically wiped her eyes, but there were no real tears. “She’s so lost. I think Prue should invite her to the
next Brotherhood meeting. I mean really, what does it matter now?”
“I’ll tell Suzanne to get right on that.” Prue grinned.
I carefully twirled my angel hair pasta. Prue was safe. Raul would heal. Ben loved me. My little world was quite fine right now. Tom would find out who killed Lucky and who killed Mattie, that was his job. He would also need to ask Penny about the quilts, that too was his job. I would send him Raul’s video of the quilt burning, that should at least help whomever would prosecute. I was out of the whole affair, it was none of my business. My work here was done.
I woke the next morning with two nagging thoughts. Carrie hadn’t mentioned Patrick in the last 24 hours nor had she mentioned her parents. That was not good. And the Pest One inspection report for Penny’s house had to be signed.
“Now it’s my turn to visit the mysterious and misunderstood Penny Masters.” I announced at breakfast.
“And what is your excuse?” Ben asked.
I tapped the thick folder of paper. “Paper work, anything I should look for?”
“Nothing.” Carrie said.
“Everything.” Ben said.
Prue rolled her eyes. “I am not inviting that woman to a Brotherhood meeting.”
Carrie’s phone rang and she snatched it up and disappeared down the hall, nice try, but we could still hear her.
“Are you sure?” Her voice kicked up a couple of tones, as if she were a Valley Girl instead of a Sonoma County native.
“Could I have more coffee please?” Prue seemed too complacent. What had she done? What had she told Patrick or worse, Carrie’s parents?
Carrie returned after a very short phone call, but her expression was one of complete delight.
“He offered them jobs.”
“He offered them jobs?” We all repeated like well rehearsed Greek Chorus.
Carrie nodded happily. “They accepted. They signed up, signed the paperwork, you know Cooper offers good benefits and salary and all that, and turned it all in. All in place, very proper. They were scheduled to start today.”
I took another sip of coffee, and then another hoping it would help me understand what she was saying.
Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 05 - A 380 Degree View Page 25
