by JoAnna Carl
Ace gave a wry smile. “The boys tried to tell me she snooped, but it was so handy having her as a cleaning woman that I ignored it.”
He turned to Hogan. “I’m willing to bet that she told Chip she knew the gun was there.”
“Colonel Smith,” I said, “did you once own a blue Volkswagen, an older one?”
“I still own it,” he said. “It’s in the big storage shed.”
“Oh,” I said. “I think Helen told Chip she knew he’d used that car to drive over here the day he killed Buzz. I think she had been blackmailing him.”
Nobody denied that.
Ace looked sadder than I’d ever seen anyone look. “Whatever happened with Helen,” he said, “Chip could have broken her neck on the spot. He was an expert in hand-to-hand combat.”
“It may not have been premeditated,” Sissy said.
But Ace shook his head. “Killing her might not have been premeditated. But he used Helen’s phone to text you. He made a deliberate attempt to frame you. That was unforgivable.”
Sissy shuddered. “I’ll never forgive him for standing out on the beach, in the dark, and watching me as I found her body. I saw him against the reflection on the water. He nearly scared me to death.”
Hogan nodded. “We’ll never know exactly what happened unless Chip decides to tell us. But why didn’t you and Sissy share this knowledge about Chip this afternoon?”
Sissy sighed. “Mainly I couldn’t believe it. Chip and Buzz were such close friends. And I was still thinking that Chip had been abroad when Buzz died. And when I began to doubt that—well, I trusted Ace to check it out.”
“Yes,” Ace said. “And I called you, Hogan, as soon as I talked to Chip’s boss. But the fact that Chip was on leave when Buzz died didn’t prove he’d flown halfway around the world to kill his best friend.”
Hogan left then, and after a few more minutes, Joe and I got up to leave. “Sissy,” I said, “take tomorrow off. TenHuis won’t go under if you and I sleep all day.”
“You can tell you don’t have a fourteen-month-old,” Sissy said. “Sleeping all day is not an option for me.”
After we’d all laughed, Wildflower spoke. “Actually, I’m hoping you and Joe will come back for dinner tomorrow. And Ace, I’d like you to come, too.”
We must have looked puzzled, because she went on. “There are a few things all of you should know.”
How could we resist an invitation like that?
Chapter 24
The next day we all showed up at Moose Lodge around six o’clock. Johnny was in his high chair, wearing footie pajamas and a large bib. Sissy was poking his dinner into his mouth. He’d eat a bite of beets, then pick up a few Cheerios from his tray.
Ace came in just after us. He went over to speak to his grandson, talking to him quite as if the baby were an adult. When Johnny sprayed a combination of beets and spit on him, Ace just laughed.
“Sissy, I hope you’ll let me see Johnny now and then,” he said. No one mentioned the custody suit.
“I’m sure we can work something out.” Sissy shook a finger at him. “But don’t plan on military school. I still hold to my grandmother’s nonviolent principles.”
Ace looked at Wildflower and made a swinging motion, a lot like the one she’d used to fell Chip. “Your grandmother knows how to ignore theory when she needs to get practical results,” he said. “A mighty tough lady. And I mean that as a compliment.”
Wildflower looked a bit flustered. She handed Ace a wet washcloth, which he used to get the beets off his face. Then she served all of us a glass of Michigan wine. We sat in her comfortable living room on her rustic furniture. The evening was cool enough for a small fire in the fireplace.
As soon as his dinner was over, Johnny was placed in the middle of the floor and given a set of blocks to play with. Of course, he found all these new people much more interesting than blocks, so he cruised around, looking each of us over, holding on to our knees, and giving each of us a big friendly smile.
I didn’t know if I should make polite conversation or leave it to our hostess. I didn’t have to wait long.
Ace turned to Sissy. “I know Buzz didn’t leave you anything, Sissy. He hadn’t even worked enough quarters to leave Social Security benefits. I wish I could say I’ll make up the deficit, but I’m going to have to admit something that embarrasses me. As you probably all know, I inherited quite a bit of money from my mother. But my legal bills over the Dobermann-Smith scandal have wiped me out. That’s why I sold the Chicago house and moved to Warner Pier. I’ll try to help with Johnny’s upbringing and education, but my main income is my military retirement. And I’m in debt, including a big mortgage on the lakeshore house. I can help you a little, month to month, but there won’t be much when I’m gone.”
“Oh, Ace,” Sissy said. “I don’t expect help! Gran raised me to stand on my own.” She grinned. “And now she tells me I’m going to Michigan State, whether I want to or not.”
“Oh, Sissy!” Wildflower shook her head.
Then she spoke to all of us. “It wasn’t until we were in the middle of all this mess that I understood I’d misled the whole community, and even my own family, by the way I live. When I discovered that Sissy had consulted a poverty law firm—well, I was so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to do.”
She turned to Joe. “Your agency does wonderful work. I’ve supported it for years.”
Joe gaped slightly. “You have?”
“Right. Through the Fox Foundation.”
“You’re part of the Fox Foundation?”
“I’m afraid so. Before I married Andrew Hill and changed my name to Wildflower Hill, I was Celestia Fox.”
This brought laughter from Joe and an amazed gasp from me. “Oh my gosh!” I said. “We’ve wondered and wondered who the Fox heiress was. The gossip is that she lives abroad.”
“If you know anything about the history of the Fox family,” Wildflower said, “then you know why I turned my back on money as a life value way back in my youth. I’ve just always preferred to live simply. By filtering my affairs through the foundation, I’ve managed to avoid begging letters and social obligations. I’d appreciate it if you would all help me continue to keep it quiet.”
“Sure,” Joe said. “But I might blackmail you to keep helping the foundation. You’re our biggest private supporter.”
“As long as you keep to your present policies, the foundation will support you,” Wildflower said. She reached over and patted Sissy’s shoulder. “And Sissy’s right. I wanted her to become an independent person, not one who was always worried about money, about who wants a cut, about trying to buy happiness.”
Sissy spoke sardonically. “So she didn’t tell me we were filthy rich.”
“I hope we’re responsibly rich!” Wildflower said. “But I had never realized that the reason Sissy wouldn’t let me send her away to college, for example, was that she thought I couldn’t afford it. I shouldn’t have misled her.”
She shook a finger at her granddaughter. “But now that she knows, she’d better not go wild financially, or I’ll cut her allowance to the bone.”
Sissy grinned. “No designer jeans for me. Levi’s are good enough.”
Wildflower took a deep breath and turned to Ace. “I guess I’d better finish my speech. Chip was convinced Sissy and I were lying about the hiding places around here. Of course, he was right. When I lived out here with a group of friends, forty-plus years ago, there were things we wanted to hide…well, from strangers.”
For “strangers,” read “the law.” None of us said that out loud. We all stared at Wildflower innocently.
“I left that way of life long ago. We don’t have any reason to use these hidey-holes these days. But Sissy and I had shown some of them to Buzz, and there was one particular place he thought was funny. We’ve never looked in it since he died, but we both think it’s the most likely place he would have hidden something.”
She gestured. “Sissy, you do the ho
nors.”
Sissy stood up from her rustic twig rocking chair and went over to the massive hearth.
Then she walked up the chimney.
That sounds ridiculous, but that’s what she did. The stones of the wide fireplace and its broad chimney were placed at different depths. A person who knew which stone to step on could walk right up it. It was a little like a climbing wall, or maybe like vertical stepping-stones.
So as we all gasped—and Joe jumped to his feet, afraid Sissy was going to fall—she climbed up the face of the fireplace until she could easily reach the huge moose head that hung near the ceiling.
Sissy pulled on its jaw, and the darn thing opened just like a trapdoor. She took out a metal box, maybe eight inches long and four inches tall.
She handed it down to Joe, then backed down the rocks. Once she was on the floor, she took the box again.
“Okay,” she said. “Who gets to open it? It may be empty.”
“You’re Buzz’s heir,” Joe said. “You could open it. And your grandmother owns the house, so she certainly has the right to look at anything stored in it.”
“Open it, Sissy.” Wildflower’s voice was firm.
I leaned forward eagerly, but I couldn’t help noticing that Ace looked grim.
Sissy sat down in her twiggy rocker and opened the box. She reached into it and pulled out a thumb drive. “I’m willing to bet this is the backup copy of Buzz’s novel,” she said. “I’ll keep it safe.”
None of us argued with her. She put the thumb drive in her pocket, then pulled out a packet of letters held together by a rubber band. She thumbed through the return addresses. “All from Chip,” she said.
“May I see?” Wildflower was at her most dignified. Sissy handed the letters over.
Wildflower looked through them. “Yes,” she said, “all from Chip.”
She stood up and took two steps to the fireplace. She moved the fire screen aside, leaned over, and placed the letters in the flames.
Ace jumped to his feet. “No! No! Wildflower! You can’t destroy those. They may contain evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“I’m afraid they contain embarrassing information about me.”
“Pish-tosh,” Wildflower said. “Joe just said I’m responsible for anything found in my house. And I can burn old letters whenever I want to.”
She brushed her hands together in that traditional gesture that shows a job has been completed. “Come on, everyone. Let’s eat dinner.”
I wouldn’t say we had a festive meal. We were all too aware that Ace had lost not one, but two sons. One of the things he told us was that Hogan had searched Chip’s belongings that day, and he’d found a pair of tennis shoes with a pattern on the sole similar to the one I’d sketched. And in the clothes dryer, he found pants and a shirt in a hunter’s camouflage print. These were just two more links in the chain of evidence against Chip.
But Ace told us he was hiring a lawyer for Chip—“With my legal bills, I’ll barely notice the increase”—and the attorney was confident that Chip, with four witnesses to his admission that he’d killed Buzz, would avoid a trial by accepting some sort of plea bargain. It wasn’t a good solution, for Chip or for Sissy either. But probably it was the one that would avoid further scandal and heartbreak.
“Chip was always troubled,” Ace said. “I sent him to school after his parents split. His mother had a drinking problem, and his father just gave up and deserted the two of them. Chip was too aggressive, and Buzz was too passive, at least to my way of thinking. I thought they might even each other out. I was wrong.”
He turned to Sissy. “Please try to get Buzz’s novel published. I know it’s going to describe a lot of stuff I’d rather people didn’t know about. But it’s Buzz’s take on what happened. It shouldn’t be suppressed.”
Sissy said she now planned to enroll as a business major at Michigan State. “Someone in the English department may be able to help me decide what to do with Buzz’s book,” she said. “I won’t rush into anything.”
Toward the end of the meal, Ace called for attention. “Now,” he said, “we have a serious matter to discuss. It’s about my grandson. He doesn’t have a nickname yet. Every boy in the Smith family has to have a nickname.”
“Why is that?” Joe said.
“Because our name is Smith! A Smith has to have an unusual first name if he’s going to stand out. Now, John is a perfectly fine name, but this boy is obviously going to be an outstanding person. He needs an outstanding name.”
“His middle name,” Sissy said, “is Fox.”
“Well, that’s okay,” Ace said. “I guess we could call him Foxy.”
“Actually,” Sissy said, “Buzz had a nickname for him.”
“What was it?”
“Well, Johnny was born on Friday the thirteenth, you know.”
“Not Jason!” I was appalled. Joe and Sissy laughed, but Ace and Wildflower looked puzzled. Sissy explained to them that Jason was a character in a series of horror movies with Friday the 13th in their titles.
“No, not Jason,” she said. “Buzz called him Lucky.”
We all agreed it was a great nickname. “We’ll call him Lucky John until he gets used to it,” Wildflower said. “Then plain old Lucky.”
“It’s the perfect nickname,” I said. “He’s definitely a lucky kid. Of course, I’m not so lucky. If Sissy goes to Michigan State, I have to hire another bookkeeper.”
Chocolate Chat
Our grown son was home for the holidays, and, in an after-dinner discussion, he mentioned that chocolate caused him to get sores on his tongue. Then he reached for a piece of Gran’s Fudge, a particularly creamy and luscious candy we make at Christmas.
“Hey!” Mom cried.
But our son shrugged. “It’s already sore,” he said.
Well, he’s an adult. If he’s willing to suffer so he can eat fudge once a year, that’s his choice.
But many people have problems with chocolate. It can cause heartburn or migraines or worsen arthritis. Some people are out-and-out allergic to it, just as they may be allergic to any substance.
I’m sorry about that.
For everyone else, here’s the recipe:
Gran’s Fudge
4 1⁄2 c. sugar
1 large can (10-12 oz) evaporated milk
1 jar (7 oz) marshmallow cream
18 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tbs margarine
1 tsp vanilla
Dash salt
2 c. chopped pecans
Mix sugar and milk. Cook at medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture reaches soft-ball stage, about ten minutes. Add marshmallow cream, chocolate chips, margarine, vanilla, salt, and pecans. Mix until smooth. Pour into nine-by-thirteen-inch buttered dish. Let set twenty-four hours.
Note: Everyone in my family uses a pressure cooker pan to make this. No, we don’t use pressure. We just use the pan because it’s heavy and suitable for extra-hot ingredients that shouldn’t be burned or scorched. I’m lucky enough to have fallen heir to the actual pressure cooker my grandmother used, and I prize it as a special link to my family heritage.
